floor!

There's a lot more to getting ready to put it in than there is to actually putting it in.
We had to take out carpet, remove staples, sand, screw things down, this, that, that other thing...

Link to set of pictures on flickr.

We're only partway done, but it's going to be nice!

What happens when Mom gets stressed?

She goes a little bit crazy and rips up the carpet.

:)

The rest of it makes me sad, but this makes me happy.

Pixie update

Well, she gained 2oz since the last time we were there, and I thought that was pretty good since she only gained 2oz from 12-15 months, but apparently that's not good enough.
Since she's been okay with the yogurt and cheese in her diet (a little eczema, but not bad) the doc wants us to give her a can of pediasure every day. I also have to make an appointment with a nutritionist for dietary ideas and with an ENT for a swallowing evaluation to make sure there isn't some physical problem with her taking solid food.
The bloodwork came back good. No celiac or any other disorders. She is anemic and he has ordered iron drops for that, but the stuff he ordered wasn't covered by our insurance so I called them back and am waiting to hear if he'll call in something else. $75 a month is too much for something that should be covered!
Other than that, she has an ear infection. I hesitated bringing her in today because she obviously wasn't feeling well, but now I'm glad I did since we caught that early.
I'm just getting sick and tired of all the appointments. It reminds me of when Rowan was a baby and we were here there and everywhere with him - but at least there was a reason for it. Here it just feels like we have to jump through their hoops to prove there's nothing wrong with her and she'll grow in her own good time.

The Knitting Olympics

Yes, I *am* doing them again. Last time, 4 years ago, I worked on knitting the childhood sweater from knitty for Rowan.
This year I decided that my new skill would be learning stranded colorwork. There's a pair of mittens in The Knitter's Book of Yarn that I've been drooling over for quite some time now, but I've been afraid of them. Colorwork! Scary!
After Cece yelled at me for being afraid of knitting, I decided to take them on as my olympic challenge. So I've casted on, and I've already discovered that I've known how to make welts for a really long time - I've just been calling them elastic waistbands. ;)
But I won't be having a whole run of olympic knits this year like I did last time. This year the challenge is knitting these mittens while having 3 kids, 1 husband, a dog, and installing a laminate floor. We'll see who snaps first... me or my needles.

John and his Valentine

Yes, I know. I'm the real Valentine. But sometimes Loki needs to feel the love, too.

General update

So I know I haven't been updating here. I don't really have a reason.
Most of you who look at this already know that Eleri has been diagnosed with failure to thrive. I hate even typing that out. Our ped says that it's nothing to do with her development... it's just that she hasn't gained weight over the last 6 months and her weight has plateau'd. He'd be fine with it if she was following some sort of growth curve, even if it was below the charts. But she's not following any curve. She's just not gaining weight.
So they took blood and ran some tests, and he just called to let me know that they weren't able to run all the tests that they wanted to run. They ended up not having enough blood. So we're supposed to go to the hospital tomorrow to their big lab and they'll do another draw and run the metabolic tests that they weren't able to run before - they're testing for things like Celiac disease and other malabsorption problems.
I don't know how I feel about all this. I'm tired of worrying. I'm tired of fretting. I'm just plain tired. We go in next week for another weight check, and I hope that the addition of yogurt and cheese and the fact that I'm presenting her with food at every turn has put an ounce or two on her. I don't care what her growth curve looks like. I just want her to have one.

Niall is Niall. Full of mischief and attitude and spunk. He feels that waiting for kindergarten is taking entirely too long and doesn't like the fact that all the other kids are gone to school during the day so he doesn't have anyone to play with. Next year can't come fast enough for him.

Rowan is doing well. He's still on soft foods and isn't in PE at school, but other than that he's back to his old self. He's even wearing jeans again instead of elastic waisted pants. We see Dr. T. for another follow up on March 2nd.

I sold our stroller and saved up some knitting money and got flooring. It's here now, "acclimating" to the house. I hope to get the carpet out of here soon.

Snow snow snow!

Where was Eleri? Well, she's too little to sled.

Pixie Dust sweater

I started this one when Rowan had his pre op and finished it the night before his post op. It didn't take that long to knit, but I didn't have a lot of knitting time along in the middle there.
I think she likes it.
The pattern is the KPS Baby Cardigan, only I made button loops and used sheepy buttons instead of making ties. The yarn is from Mosaic Moon, in the Pixie Dust colorway.

The Pixie has reached a very hard to photograph age. She's on the MOVE and isn't stopping for anybody, much less that same old momperson behind the camera.

She has not yet learned the art of going in and out through the dog door, but I fear that it's not too far in the future. It's a good thing we gate off the kitchen most of the time.

We weren't busy enough or something

So we rearranged our room.
But it was necessary. The Pixie couldn't see us from her bed, and after the surgery business she wasn't doing too well with the being alone thing. And I was getting tired of sleeping on the floor.
So now! New room! Sooner or later we're going to paint in there, too.

Bone graft is next week

All the news on that will be on Rowan's dedicated blog, Rowan's Odyssey.
Be sure to follow us there to stay up to date!

John's fishy hat

Finished on Dec 31st, on the road. One fishy hat, from this pattern, made using scraps of wool ease.
Fitting for the marine biologist, don't you think?

I forgot to turn on the flash, but I like his face here.

Just Dance!

Aunt Kimmy sent the perfect video game for Christmas.

Squeeze my cheeks and I'll give you a kiss tutorial

It all started when Mom brought us a Squeeze My Cheeks Reindeer for Christmas. A patient made it, so she only had one, but I have 2 boys (plus the baby, but she's not at the squabble age, yet). I hadn't seen one in years, but I remembered getting them from somewhere... little old ladies at church, maybe the bank? Probably from Grandma - she was always a source of things like that.
Anyway, I needed another one. I looked around online for how to do it, and I found one for this mouse, but it didn't have pictures and it wasn't the Santa that I remembered from my childhood. So, I had to figure that part out. And once I did, I sewed it together wrong, so I decided to write out how to do it, with pictures, so it might help someone else. And I might need these if we decide to make some more. We probably will because I have a bunch of leftovers, even with having to make 2 to get one sewed together properly.
I didn't even know if they made that plastic canvas stuff anymore, but it turns out they do! You can get it at Walmart - a pack of 6 sheets is only a couple of bucks.

Step one, cut out 3 squares that are 10 squares wide.

Start filling them in. I found that doing it across the diagonal gave it the best coverage. This is super easy to do. Rowan is 7, and he had a lot of fun filling in one of the squares for me.

You need to make 2 squares in red, and one square in the Santa face pattern. Here's the one that I designed. I think it might look better to use pink for his skin instead of yellow, but yellow is the yarn that I had, so that's what I went with for now.

You'll need to use your judgement for eye placement. It looked off when I tried to draw them on there. Or you could use googly eyes. It would be fun to do that and use a small pompom for the top of Santa's hat.
You need to finish two edges of two of the squares so you have a nice opening. This is one of the places I messed up before! I finished the edge that was all Santa beard, and then one edge of each of the other two squres. That's NOT what you want to do. Finish two edges of a red square and leave the other square alone. Make sure you do 2 or 3 stitches in the corners, so the plastic is all the way covered. I did 2 on the sides since they would end up being sewn, and 3 on the corners that would end up being the front.

Now it's time to sew it together. I really don't know how to explain it well, so have another picture.

The square on the top is the one that didn't have any edges finished. You need to make sure the other two finished edges match up like shown. Then you will sew the green sides together, and the yellow sides together. It looks like it won't work, but it will, and you get a fun Santa!

Isn't he cute? If you squeeze his cheeks, he'll give you a kiss.

Santa should have worn a cup

I don't think he was thrilled with the Pixie. I'm pretty sure she nailed him. Props to the big guy for only looking surly instead of throwing her to the floor.

HO HO HO!

It's like that Hitchcock movie, The Birds, only yarnier and with more screaming

It all started with this cute little shrug. Leah asked me to knit it for her daughter, so she could wear it over her dress for Christmas and not get cold. I haven't taken the pretty pretty pictures of it yet, because it's dark and the shrug is still wet, but here's a glimpse.

Pretty, right?
So... I was part way done and Leah asked me if I would be able to make a vest for her baby boy out of the rest of the yarn. I felt it, and said "sure!" thinking that vests aren't that big and don't take up much yarn and I had yet to crack into that second ball of yarn anyway.
*cue music* -- O Fortuna
Let's get in the proper mindset.

So, an 11" sleeve takes up A LOT more yarn than I thought it did. Just sayin'...
We chose the pattern for the owl vest that's been pretty popular on ravelry lately. Yes it isn't for knitting for sale, but I figured in this instance since Leah bought the yarn and all I was just providing the knitting service and she'd be paying me for my time... nothing else... so it was fair.
Anway. I cast on. Good times. The owls popped up quite nicely. Busting along. That ball is looking pretty small... knit more. Feel the ball. Knit more. Feel. hmm. I still have that little end of the first ball that I set aside so I wouldn't have to run out of yarn in the middle of the second sleeve. It will work. Knit more. Look at yarn. Holy moth, I'm going to run out.
IM Leah in a panic. Tell her we have a problem, but I'm going to make it work. Keep knitting. Run out of yarn.

See that bit at the top there where I ran out? See how the top fronts of the vest are missing? Ya. Frantic IMing with Leah - no she can't send more yarn because it would be a different dye lot and anyway, Old Man Christmas is looking at me and he's only a few days away and I lost all that knitting time when I was having that competition with the Pixie to see who could produce the most snot and be more pitiful....
So. I am an inventive person. I can handle it. I ran a lifeline around the bottom a few rows above the ribbing, and spent a couple of tedious hours picking out the knitting from the bottom up. Have you ever unraveled k2p2 knitting from the wrong direction? It was pretty bad. I required much cheering and sympathy from John. He did his best, which is pretty good for a muggle.

There. The vest, unravelled from the bottom, with the hard-won ball of yarn next to it. Live stitches everywhere, just aching to slide off the needles and cause me pain.This is not knitting that I can do while the Pixie is being helpful, but it was late and I was drained from all the unravelling so I stashed it and went to bed.
Next day:
Fix the fronts. Knit one front up to about where it should be, but I'm no fool (at least, not after I've been smacked around a little by the knitting). I unwound the ball and knit the other side from the other end, so that I could make sure that the sides would at least match, even if they did come up short. They didn't, though. I had enough, and could finally join the shoulders and close that chapter of my life. Eventually. After I joined one shoulder inside out mobius strip style and had to redo it. I must have been getting cocky. See the little twig of yarn left? I measured it. It's 1.75 yards.

So all that was left was to knit on the lives stitches at the bottom and then do the neck and arm holes like a normal person. So I did, in white, and I must say it's pretty snazzy. Much snazzier than it would have been if the whole thing was plain green.

So there you go. Wet vest, in bad light. The pretty pictures will come tomorrow when it's dry. And I don't think badly of the owls at all. I still think they're darling, and I think there are two little boys around here who might be getting their own owl vests once I recover.
Of course, I will start them with the contrasting trim.

Candle Bath

This is something I started doing with the boys in about mid-November, and it's a really good thing! We call it the candlebath. They get candle light and classical music, and most of the time there are bubbles in the water.
The catch? They have to use soft voices and soft movements to go with the soft light and soft music. If they get rowdy or loud, the lights come back on and the music gets shut off.
It's been working really well! Bathtime is soothing and calming instead of a splashfest that gets the ceiling wet.
Definitely one of my better parenting ideas.

Niall's photoshoot

You can view the whole set, but you have to be my friend on Flickr. I have our photos set to private, just for my sanity. It's easy to join, and all you have to do is ask me to be your friend.

Anyway, we did our photoshoot. I need a lot more practice before I can do a white shirt well. These are indoors, natural (not great) light, fleece blanket backdrop. They're all tight in because our blanket was kind of small. These are some of the best ones.

That's my guy!
The full shoot is here. Let me know if you need help seeing it.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/45427621@N00/sets/72157622969920292/

My Niall is 5!

He was 9lbs when he was born. We were shocked! But looking back, it shouldn't have been that big of a surprise...

Everyone fell in love with him right away. Rowan couldn't keep away from him.

And then he started to grow. And Grow. And Grow! He outgrew his carseat at 2 months old.

By 6 months old he was giving the Michelin Man a run for his money.

He learned to climb

He learned to pick strawberries

And he learned where we kept the powder.

Niall taught us that some baby gates are useless, and that the parenting handbook should either include lessons on toilet anatomy or the number of a good plumber.
And oh ya, there was that sharpie incident, and my engagement went missing (forever) and that time he broke the camera, and, and and...

All those times with the yarn...

And the fuzzy hair

And the makeup

And the constant, endless, always getting in to things he's not supposed to be getting in to

And now he's a big brother, too, and you couldn't find a guy who loves his baby sister more.

He's my Niall. My darling sweetheart. The reason I had to bolt the bookcases to the walls and the number for poison control is on the fridge. The guy who keeps us on our toes, keeps us guessing, and always, always keeps us laughing.

Our lives wouldn't be the same without him. I'm so glad he's ours!
Happy Birthday, Niall James!

This time, I win

Rowan's shoelaces have been a constant thorn in our sides. He can tie, but he's not very good at it and they're always loose. So they always come undone. This wouldn't be so bad, but he doesn't care if they're undone so they're always flopping around and getting ripped up.
I had an idea to fix it. One piece of elastic, thread it through, and sew the ends together.
Sha-zam. Done. Issue solved. It's been a week and they're holding up just fine.

Not Friday at all

I fell off that train a while ago. Enjoy!