Making a Baby

I particularly like step 2. Mostly how real the baby sounds. Or the part were he says "no breaks" lol



Wouldn't it be wonderful though if you could pass someone these 7 steps and miraculously they'd get a baby out of it. I have a few friends I wish I could do that for. I think the title of the video should be "How life will be with a baby" not "how to make one". I still enjoyed it though and hope you do too.

Morning Smile

Wednesday morning is our garbage pick up day, and I usually don't get around to getting the garbage and recycling placed in the alley until the morning of. One good reason I suppose that the kids wake up at 7. If they woke at 8, I wouldn't get the garbage out on time.

This morning as I turned around to head back into the house, I saw these:

And I had to stop and smile. Poppies will forever remind me of my grandparents.

When Nate and I were first married we lived in a Bungalow we rented from my parents. In an attempt to have a semblance of a flower bed, my Dad brought us in a whole bunch of plants. Some were transplanted poppies from my grandparents home in Devon. The following spring as I was trying to decipher between weeds and flowers, I accidentally deemed the poppies to be weeds and dug almost all of them up. I was devastated when I learned they had come from my grandparents home (and I think my Dad was too).

I can no longer now not recognize a poppy, nor pass one by without smiling.

Hope they bring a smile to your face this morning too :)

More on Moths

First, no, I don't have moths. But my yarn isn't cheap, and I don't want to tempt fate. Given I have no idea about moths & knitting, I did some Googling this morning. Here is what I found:

• Moths aren't fans of wool blends (yes!) ... but that doesn't mean they still won't infiltrate (boo!)
• They like dark places.
• Best to keep the room your stash is in well vacuumed and dusted.

To prevent these little beasties:

• Store stash in plastic bags
• Store in a Cedar Chest (now this sounds like a very lovely idea)
• Don't use mothballs

There was no mention of storing your stash in a freezer (I have read this to be done as it kills any larvae).

This is also a topic that makes me rather squirmish. I'm not a fan of bugs. You know what else Google returned on the subject?

Ron the Stash Moth

Now that just gives me the creeps. I am NOT knitting a Moth. Even if he is stuffed with lavendar and all things moth detracting. Eeewww!

I'll just stick with my plastic bags, thank you very much.

Too much of a good thing!

This past Christmas Nate gifted me with a desk calendar by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. I've been enjoying tearing off a new page everyday and getting a bit of humour, wisdom or insight into knitting, from someone I deem wiser than me on the subject. We are now almost halfway through the year and I have noticed a trend. She talks a fair bit about moths infiltrating her stash of yarn. Now I don't know much about moths, but when Nate asked if I needed anything at the grocery store today, I told him he best pick me up some Ziploc bags - the bigger the better.

He came home with a box that contained 5 bags. Until I opened the box, I thought there was no way 5 bags would hold all of my yarn. (Stephanie has a believe moths can't get through plastic - I'll follow her lead on that one).

I headed upstairs with the box of bags, and to my amazement, they were indeed HUGE. One bag covers my lap. Now the scary part, I used four bags to fit my stash. FOUR. Did I actually just admit that?

I think I might have a yarn problem. Specifically a fingering weight (sock weight) yarn problem. Two of those bags have enough yarn (hold your breath).... to knit TWENTY pairs of socks. Yes, twenty. That is almost two years worth of sock knitting if I attempted to knit a pair each month. GULP.

I think I need to stop buying yarn - no matter how gorgeous it is. I think I have just proven it IS possible to have too much of a good thing :

Cookie Love

Alot of love posts lately. I know. Other than this weekend, the past couple of weeks have been fairly grey and rainy. Things full of love help brighten up our days.

Today I opened up the first package of Cinnamon Chips sent to me by Elizabeth. These are SERIOUSLY tasty.


I'm not a big fan of raisins in cookies, but the cinnamon chips just call for them. These are delicious. I recommend you go track yourself down a bag of these chips and make some for yourselves. Tasty tasty.

Handknit Love

If there is one thing that I love more than making handknits,

it is finding just the right buttons to go with that knit.

Pattern: Pebbles Yarn: Handspun gifted to me in a swap Love factor: 10

Dear Elizabeth

I had a rough night last night. I moved Aidan to his crib for the first time, hoping secretly that he'd sleep better there, than next to me in bed. He woke just as much as he usually does, but it meant more walking back and forth for me... where I used to just role over, give him his soother and go back to sleep. I woke up feeling exhausted this morning. The type of tired where you want to weep.

It's 4:00 and I just got home with the kids from an appointment at the Children's Hospital for Grace's hemangiomas. I was going to write a post this morning about needing to advocate for your children, but deleted it halfway through typing it. I went in today to tell the surgeon that she has seen since she was 3 months old, that we would like to have her birthmarks removed. Our family doctor at her 3 year appointment suggested to us that laser surgery on the one on her jaw might be an option. Our surgeon, Dr. Fraulin, told me today that her hemangiomas are too deep and would need to be cut out. They usually do it, if we choose, at pre-school age, between 4 and 5. That would be next summer. A good time for us as Aidan would be old enough I could be the one to stay at the hospital overnight with Grace. But it's a horrible feeling to go to a hospital to tell someone that you would like your child to be harmed. The choice is ours he told me. We can decide to let them involute and see what happens, or choose that she will have a scar. I know what our choice will be, but I still headed home with a heavy heart.

I stopped at the mailbox before pulling into our drive, and your package was there. I have yet to open it, but the tears of tiredness were quickly replaced with tears of joy, perhaps even love. Thank you for somehow getting it to arrive right when I really needed something to make me smile.

Much love,

Carmen

A good day to...

Dig in the dirt & explore worms



And feel grass underfoot



I hope you had a lovely Saturday too :)

Morning Out

I went out to the mall this morning with a girlfriend. Pretty brave of us given we had a 3.5 year old, a 3 year old, an almost 2 year old, and an almost 5 month old. Two of whom were running around not in a stroller.

We met up at the coffee shop and my girlfriend got talking to me about the treadmill voting. It appears there were some things about the vote option I was not aware of. One, that votes could be changed. Really? You could vote on Lola and then decide to change to Milly? Or vice versa (I don't want to appear biased here). She also told me there were 9 votes up on my blog, and that she had the fifth vote.

Now, I had also seen the fifth vote yesterday, and it was the opposite of what she told me. But, given votes can seemingly be changed, I'm trusting her 'vote'.

So, without furthur ado, the name of my treadmill is....

LOLA

Maria, please let me know what tasty type of treats you like and I'll get a package in the mail to you! Hard candy? Sour candy? Vegan chocolates (I'm sure these must exist)...

Also pleased to let you know, I have run on Lola for 1 hour 12 minutes so far this week, which equates to just under 10K. Feeling pretty pumped about that, and that I'm now 3 pounds away from my post partum weight loss goal! Woot!