A Celebration!

Today was a special day for one of my little ladies. She graduated the 2 year kindergarten. program at C.B. Stirling Elementary School here in Hamilton. Yes, Paisley will be in grade 1 in September!!! I got a few pictures of her, one before entering the gym with the graduating class and then I got a nice one of her teacher handing her the certificate. Unfortunately my camera's batteries were dying since the first picture but we did get some...at least.
:-)







I even caught my baby girl Rowan enjoying the festivities...or she was eagerly awaiting the treats afterwards.


We also received her report card yesterday and she did excellent, so I guess she'll be getting a bigger bike at some point this summer like she asked us for. She learned how to ride 2 wheeler earlier this spring, so she's exciting about riding now.

Mommy & Daddy are so very proud of you Paisley and can't wait to see what grade 1 will bring!!!!

Baby She's 1

On Friday my baby girl Rowan turned 1. It seems like just yesterday I was trying to get on the computer after having her to blog about the new baby's arrival.
We had a small party for her on Saturday, both my parents and Ron's came for the gathering. I baked her a cupcake cake the night before, I was trying to make it into the shape of a heart. It didn't turn out quite how I wanted but hey...I tried. She loved the cake, so I guess it really didn't matter in the end. In the two months since my last post, I made her a hat for the big day. I made her the birthday cake hat from Susan B. Anderson's Ittty Bitty Hats. I've been just itching to get it up here too, but I figured I'd wait for her birthday.

As well as spending time outside with the girls and going to Paisley's soccer games, I have been knitting. I'm currently working on a baby blanket for my sister, it's the ripple baby blanket from More than one way to knit a hat. Ironically, I started it the night she went into labour without even knowing it. She wasn't actually due until June 25th, so she was well over a month early. She had her little girl Halle Brianne Rose on her birthday (May 22nd) which is kind of neat and at least I' ll never forget her birthday (I'm good with remembering birthdays anyway). I also finished the sweater I was making for Rowan. I promise, I will post pictures soon. (Famous last words eh??)

MIA

It certainly has been a while since my last post. Needless to say, I have been busy!!
Paisley has been wanting a Wii Fit since Christmas so we finally purchased one earlier in March. I wasn't sure about it on the first day we got it, but I have become quite an addict and haven't missed a day since. I can't believe how much of a work out it is too! I love doing yoga, rhythm boxing (which you have to unlock with credits you earn for playing), I also love step aerobics and have unlocked advanced step and free step. I've been working on jogging as well! I can't believe how much fun I am having with it and have banked way more hours on it then my whole family combined. :-) It's even a really nice scale and you have to do a daily body test and weigh in everyday. I haven't really lost any weight yet(bummer, I keep fluctuating up and down), but I'm sure I have lost inches.
I have been knitting a bit too. I finished the Pinwheel sweater, and I need to rip out the edging on the shrug and redo it. I also received a new book for my birthday from Rhonda. Socks a la Carte. I've cast-on for a pair of socks and I like the book. It has really neat split pages inside where you can mix and match cuffs, bodies and toes. My only complaint about the book is the photographs. I felt they should have used a different colour of yarn to illustrate the patterns better but other then that a really cool concept. :-)

Last Wednesday we decided that we had enough of our Kraft Dinner Orange walls and painted them a really nice beige colour called Pecan Sandie. It looks so fresh and clean! I'm really liking it. We also rearranged the living room and Rowan has lots of crawling space. After years of searching we also found a blind for our little side window we have by the back door. Love LOVE love it!!!!!!

Speaking of Kraft Dinner, Rowan decided that she wanted it for lunch today with Paisley. My little baby's growing up. :( Although, she was too adorable while eating it.

I think that is about it. I'm just anxiously awaiting the nicer weather, we've got to get out and practise soccer with Paisley as it will be her first year playing. It's going to be fun going to games every week. I also can't wait to get some new pictures for my bare walls, I'm working on that next as well as touching up my baseboards. I'm thinking we're due for some family type stuff up on the walls....

Wow, what a ramble, but that has been my life lately!!! I've really gotta get knitting for my new niece due in June, eeeak.

hearts

Your Heart is Red and Orange

Your heart is enthusiastic and optimistic. You are creative, witty, and brilliant. You bring levity and happiness to relationships. You're good at loving people for who they are.

What Are the Colors of Your Heart?

On The Move

It's been a long time coming, but as of Friday Rowan has officially been on the move. The crawling has begun. It's slow but she can get anything she wants now. Of course there are tonnes of things that she could possible get into but she goes right to my knitting corner every time, pulling out yarn or really anything in arms reach to her. I'm in need of something nice that I can keep my WIP's in so they are still close for me when I have free time to work on them. My birthday is coming up in 14 days and I asked them just that, although I'd like something decorative that has a flat surface so that I could possible set my tea on top (since hubby occupies my coffee table with his laptop). The last week in my house has been a sick fest here, both the girls have been sick. I had to take Rowan to see the doctor last week and she ended up having an ear infection. They're both still hacking and coughing with runny noses and a little cranky but I think they are getting better. As for me, I may be coming down with it...not sure yet. I've had a sore throat for a few days but it's not too sore. I'm hoping maybe it'll just go away and I get off un⋅scathed.

Knitting has been at a halt for now, although I did finish the i-cord edging on the pinwheel sweater last night and I'm pretty much done the shrug that I was knitting for Paisley. The shrug was for a wedding that we were supposed to go to on Saturday but couldn't go to due to the girls being under the weather. I'll get some pictures up here soon!

Not too much as been going on though. I'm glad that there has been no snow lately, I'll take this cold instead. It's so much easier getting Paisley to school and back without it...stroller moves better. :-)
Rowan will be 9 months on Thursday too, only 3 months until she's a year. Wow, it's been flying by!


Well, until next time...

Happy Knitting!!!!!

The power of Tink

I finally started the Pinwheel Sweater for Rowan. Everything was going swimmingly until I came to the armholes. I tired my best to understand the pattern as written for the armholes, but after doing so it just wasn't working. So I tinked back...waaaay back to a mistake in my third colour on one of the yarn overs. Everything's A-OK now and I also found another way to do the armholes that I think makes a little more sense then the actual pattern so I will give that a whirl. It seems to be knitting up quick and I'm find the yarn lovely to work with. It's just Knit Picks Swish 100% Superwash wool. It feels nice to the touch though, I think it will be nice against Rowan girl's skin. :-) I'm very please at how my colours look together too. I wasn't sure how I wanted to do my striping but I think it will work quite nice. I'm also really getting a chance to use my new harmony options needles too.



We had a little fiasco with trying to ball my skeins of yarn. The natural shades come in skeins because it can be hand dyed. So Ron has helped Rhonda (mom) with this as a kid so he said he would help me because I never done it before. What an ordeal, this is what I ended up with:
Instead of 2 beautiful cakes I got this disaster. 4 small messed up balls and in the bag you see tangles...yes that's right, a huge tangled up mess! I guess next time I will wait until we go out to Rhonda's to do it. At least she has a swift (and knows what she is doing). *LOL*
I appreciate the effort on Ron's part though, it was sweet (even if we did argue a bit at the time over it). :-)



Aside from knitting Rowan turned 8 months last week. I can't believe that she will be a year old in 4 months. Both my girls are growing too fast! :-s







Happy Valentine's Day!!

Crummy Days!

To start off, I wanted to go to Mary Maxim today to pick up some yarn to make a baby sweater for some friends of mine who just had a baby. Ron told me on Sunday that he would take me, ofcourse today on his day off he didn't want to go so now I don't get the yarn I need to start the project. I wasn't pleased that he didn't want to take me, nor did he remember that he said that he would. Now what am I to do????
I've had the the yarn to make a pinwheel sweater for well over a year (I ordered a bunch of knit picks swish). I was going to make it for my niece who was born December 2007, but I never got around to it so now since I have another baby girl of my own, I thought I'd make it for Rowan instead. I wanted to start on it tonight while I watched American Idol. I checked out which needles I would be needing for the pattern and discovered that they were pretty much the only dpns I didn't have. So while Ron and Paisley were making cal zones for supper he told me to slip out to Micheal's (which is now a 3min drive from our house) and get some. Do you think they had the size I was looking for?? Ofcourse not!! I leave and head to the next closest store Wal-mart and they also happen to be out of that size. I just needed 5.5mm dpns, I guess it just wasn't in the cards tonight to start that project either.
There...I just needed to vent on yet another unsuccessful day of knitting. Thanks for listening and hopefully next time I have some progress of aleast something up here.

mmm Pancakes!

You Are Buttermilk Pancakes

Your prefer traditional, old fashioned foods. You shy away from anything fake, and you like meals with simple ingredients. It's not likely someone would find margarine or diet soda in your kitchen. Instead, someone might find a loaf of homemade bread baking or a soup simmering.

What Kind of Pancakes Are You?

Meeeowww!!

Rhonda sent me the pictures of Rowan in the kitty cat hat I made for her. She looks absolutely purrrfect in it! I'm planning on making another in a bit heavier yarn because the baby yarn is a little thin for this cold weather we've been having lately. I'd like to make one for my neice too, I'm sure she'd look like a doll in it. :-)

This pattern is from an old Patons Beehive Book, Issue 420.

(I've acquired quite a few of these little books over the last year.) Kitten Bonnet & Mitts called for Canadiana Fingering 4 ply or Patons Fuzzy Wuzzy. I would love to get my hands on some Fuzzy Wuzzy, too bad it's no longer available, I check on their site. The picture they show was done with it and it looks so cute. I just used some 4 ply baby yarn that I had in the old stash. It also used 3.25mm needle but I used a 3.5mm just because I was itching to try out my new knit picks needles that I got for Christmas. After wearing the hat on her for over a week now, it's gotten quite loose so when I do this hat again I will use the smaller needles. :-)

Baby Pants

I got a phone call a little over a week ago from my sister and she had a favour to ask of me. Her friend is having a baby really soon and I guess she bought a knitted outfit at the hospital gift shop. It's the "going home" outfit for the baby but she was disappointed that it didn't have pants to go with it, so ofcourse my sister told her friend that I knit and that she would ask me if I could knit her some "Mary & Joseph Blue" pants. Her friend is from Haiti (moved to Canada not long ago), so my sister had to scratch her head a little on that colour and they came up with baby blue. *LOL*. After looking at pattern after pattern, I was having the hardest time finding exactly what I was looking for. Everything seemed like it was going to be too big for a newborn baby. I even started a pair out of a Debbie Bliss pattern book that I borrowed from Rhonda, but I ended up frogging them (they just seemed too large) and doing a little more searching on the Internet. I finally stumbled upon this pattern and decided to just go with it, the due date is fast approaching (February 1st). I just had to do a quick pair of booties to go with them too and on Friday I put them in the mail. She should get them sometime this week! :-)

I also knit a kitty cat bonnet for Rowan, but I have yet to get a picture of her wearing it. It was from an old Patons leaflet. It's too adorable! In search of finding a pattern for baby pants I also found a really cute pant pattern for Rowan as well. It's Baby Bell bottoms from the Blue Blog. I've never been a big fan of knitted pants but these are CUTE! I also want to do a moss stitch cardigan for the girl as well. It's just a pattern from the ball band of bernat baby softee and I thought it was sweet looking. All this knitting for Rowan and I think I need to find something to knit for Paisley...

Well that's about it for another weekend that came and went (too fast), we had a good one though. Saturday we dropped Rowan off at Gramma's house for the night and we took Paisley to a movie. She wanted to see The Tale of Desperaux but it wasn't playing around here so she settled for Bedtime Stories. It was fun for all! It was really nice to just get out and spend some quality time with just Paisley as well, I think she had fun but she was so tired (we missed the 7pm movie due to huge line ups and the new cinema on the Stoney Creek Mountain, so if you're from Hamilton and planning on going there...give yourself lots of time. It's a maaad house ) so then we came home again to check the times and the next time that feature was playing was 10:15, so we ended up going to Ancaster instead for one that was playing at 9:30. She was pooped out and fell alseep on the way home (it didn't help that she was sick all day the day before).

Well, I'd better get to bed. The baby's been a bit cranky all day today and hopefully she'll sleep a full night.

I love my needles

Thanks to Robyn at Knit & Purl Mama I found a really neat & quick pattern for a headband and got to try out my new knit picks needles (which I might add are like knitting with butter...I love them so).

Now I give you Headband in Alaska knit up in just a little less then a day. I used some stash, Paton's Classic Wool. I'm thinking of gifting this to my Mom for a late Christmas gift. I will be knitting this again, I wouldn't mind one and I know a few others who could use one. :-)

That's all for now, Rowan is napping so it's back to the daily grind of house chores. I've got laundry to finish, ah the saga of the never ending laundry continues!

Happy New Year Years everyone, remember to drive safe tonight *wink*!

I wanted a sweater for Christmas too!

I guess that's my signal to get sewing the sweater I started well over a year ago. Nearly 2 years ago, I was gifted several balls of Patons Decor in Aubergine for my birthday from my MIL Rhonda and I had started a sweater with that but I frogged it and the yarn sat for a while until I found the Tilted Duster from Interweave Knits Fall 2007 issue. So yesterday I got it out of hiding and started sewing. I've been loathing, no maybe fearing the sewing because I never like how it turns out because I am a poor seamstress. Surprisingly...it actually turned out not to bad. So now it is finally finished, all I need to do is find some buttons for it (I want to find pewter coloured ones) and ofcourse I'm going to wash it and block it a bit. :-) Once I find the buttons I like, I will post it up again. I'm really look forward to wearing it soon!

Christmas came and went like whirlwind. We did Christmas Eve at my In-Laws in Smithville, Christmas Day we went to Owen Sound to see my family and ended up staying the night and then on Boxing Day we went to Ron's Grandma's place in Ancaster. Santa was good to both of the girls, even Mommy got a few unexpected gifts from Santa, like a water dispenser and a mini food processor to make Rowan food. I whipped her up some applesauce last night and I absolutely love it and I got an awesome vest from Valerie. Someone also knew that I really, really wanted a set of knit picks harmony options. I can't wait to cast something on with them but it's been so hectic the last few days. Ron was sooo sick all day yesterday...eeeweeeey.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas too, but I've got to go for now. Rowan just woke up from a nap, she's been fussy and the house is a mess (I've really got to clean today...soon)!

Seasons Greetings To All!

Paisley & Rowan want to wish you a very happy holiday from our family to yours!

I'd sure LOVE to know where my yarn needles are.

Oh where oh where have my yarn needles gone?
Oh where oh where can they be?
I've looked and looked for over a week
Oh where oh where can they be?

I need to sew my hats together for my nephew and neice's Christmas gifts. I guess I'll have to go buy one..after this snow subsides. I've seriously looked everywhere! I guess that's what happens when you change your living room around and have to move and reduce your knitting hole.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow......

Paisley's look-a-likes

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities - Collage - Morph

Monday December, 8th, 2008

On Monday my little girl Paisley turned 5 years old. It's hard to believe that she is 5 now and all that time has passed. She even has 2 loose teeth (the front bottom two) and the big teeth coming in behind. She's growing up on me...too fast! He had a little birthday party with her friends on Saturday, it was too cute.

Last Friday Dec. 5th my little Rowan girl turned 6 months old, eeeshh. Seems like just yesterday I brought her home from the hosptial.

Not much knitting has been taking place although I've been trying to get some last minute Christmas stuff done. Alot of change has been happening at my house these days, but I'll get into that a little later.

Gotta get Paisley going and ready for school. :-)

Taadaa, A Hat!

I designed a hat to match Helena! I have written the pattern and will post it soon. :-)

Buttons for Helena

Helena is completed now! I wanted buttons instead, so I put in button holes. So I tried for 3 but the first hole I put in was too close to the top it would have choked the poor baby, so I guess I try and fudge in the hole and go with the two. I also tried to make my own frog buttons but I don't like them at all so I will be looking for buttons to match.

Today I'll leave you with this..............That Paisley's so Wiiilldddd!

Beating the Rain

All this rain and I need things to try and bring up my spirits . What better then a baby sweater. I casted on for Helena a few days ago and I'm nearly finished. Here's a sneak peek....

I am really enjoying this pattern. It's well written and very straight forward. I can't wait to finish it so I can cast on for another. This is the 3 month size and I'm thinking of gifting it to my neighbour next door that just had a baby girl only a few short weeks ago. Apparently they love knitted gifts, they told me this a while a go when she was still pregnant. I think they'd like Helena. The yarn sucks to knit with, it's just some baby yarn from wal-mart called baby luv by Georga but the colour's pretty and it's very soft, so it will be nice against the baby's skin.

For now, I'll leave you with Rowan today at 5 months/11 days.

Have a good weekend, perhaps a lot of knitting will be done with this crappy weather we're having her in Southern Ontario. :-)

Too funny!

I just had to post this quick, as I found it quite humorous that a knitter out there got Obama to pose with her knitting. It just seems so crazy and knitterly as I am sitting here thinking of all the crazy things I have photographed my knitting with.

I'll leave you with that...

:-)