Sweet Tooth

We've been in full on birthday mode at our house and spent the evening making birthday cupcakes for Marley to bring to school. She wanted confetti cupcakes, with strawberry frosting, and skull and crossbones. For her birthday on Thursday she has requested that we have lunch at the Indian restaurant around the corner. Her party will be a full pirate theme, with a treasure hunt, etc. Speaking of pirates and her birthday, I have managed to procrastinate on her skull and crossbones pirate sweater until really the last minute possible. I have the front and back finished, and are almost finished with the second sleeve. I could really have it knit in about and hour, and then another hour for finishing, but instead I am sitting here blogging about procrastinating. Ugh. The other problem is that the pattern had a giant skull and crossbones chart on the front that was supposed to be done as intarsia, and I decided on doing the duplicate stitch instead, which I don't mind at all. Well I started stitching it on tonight and I am thinking that I am really not happy with the way it is turning out, and it is a ton of work to do and then not be happy. Maybe I could find a patch to put on instead? I don't know. I guess I just need to get it done.

Besides Marley's party I have also been planning a baby shower for my best friend Sarah, and I can't stop thinking about all of that (instead of Marley's sweater). I wasn't really planning on having a theme, but after buying some stuff to make the invites I am doing a sweet tooth or cupcakes and candy theme. I am having a friend make a ton of cupcakes instead of a cake, I may try to make old fashioned style lollipop, and so on. I've got way too many ideas and we'll see how many of them actually turn out.

Back to the sweater.

Hunter's Visit

Abe and Marley's cousin (well he's probably like a second or third or twice removed) Hunter came over for a visit on Saturday and I took some really great pictures of he and Abe playing. Hunter lives in Springfeild, MO and his Mom, Angie, was in town for the weekend with her swim team for state (they took second!). We watched him last year at this time, and boy has he grown, he is now 13 months, and such a cutie. I remembered being pregnant with Abe last time and thinking I don't know if we will be able to handle both Marley and a new baby, obviously it worked out though. Hunter has this thing with pacis, his Grandma says "a pair and a spare", he keeps one in his mouth and one in each hand, if a hand is free he will grab the next available, which was usually in Abe's mouth. So they spent the first 45 minutes of visit in this pacifier power struggle, no one got too out of control though. They made a huge mess of the toys, turned into little jedi masters with Marley's light sabers, and really had a lot of fun playing together. Aunt Betty, if you are reading this, will you make sure that Angie and Jim see these pictures.

2.20.09

We just got home from a wonderful dinner at Tom and Ellen's (Declan's aunt and uncle) and I think if I took in one more bite of food or even just too large of a breath that I might pop. We had lasagna with lots and lots of cheese, bread, and four layer chocolate cake. Wow. A couple of months ago they started having an open house on Friday nights for who ever wants to join them for dinner and I think there were around 20 of us including the kids. It was a pretty amazing evening, two of Declan's cousins are pregnant, one due in about a month, one due I think this summer. Another cousin, the wonderful Amy, had to leave early to have an MRI, and when she got there she found out that she wouldn't be able to have the MRI because she too is pregnant. Congrats Amy! I can't wait to find out more!

This weekend I have to get to work finishing up Marley's birthday gifts, her pirate sweater and a pair of socks. Her pirate sweater has been hanging over my head for months, and was intended for Christmas, but we know how procrastination goes. Her birthday is on the 26th, but we will be having a pirate themed party on the 28th, so I figure this sweater will be perfect for her party. The sweater is black with black and white striped sleeves and a skull and cross bones on the front. The skull and cross bones was supposed to be done as intarsia, but because I couldn't focus on following a chart while knitting I will just duplicate stitch it on afterwords. The socks shouldn't take much time because I am holding two strands of sock yarn together and using #5 needles.

I will try and get a lot of this done tommorow while she spends the weekend at my Mom's. She knows she is getting the sweater, or hopes she is, but the socks are a surprise. She picked the yarn out at a swap a few months ago. The yarn is dyed by someone who lives nearby, Yummee Yarn, and the colorway is Neon Lights. It is very bright, very fun. I imagine that I won't get as much knitting done as I would like because we will have my cousin's little boy Hunter over for the afternoon, he is 13 months, and I imagine Abe will just be showing him all of the good spots around the house to get into trouble. I'll let you know how it goes.

Valentine's Weekend

Last week I had a little extra time off than normal and when I have extra time off I try to cram as much in as possible. My plans included sewing, baking bread, making deep dish pizza, making yogurt, and knitting a Valentine's Day toy for Marley. I did get Marley's Valentine's Day toy finished, and it is based on Kate from Knitty. I will try and find it and get a picture to show off, but unfortunately Marley's Kate is already lost. I left off the ears because I was not happy with my ability to attach them, and I left off the legs because of a time constraint. Valentine's Day morning after Marley found her next to her bed with a box of Conversation Hearts I asked her if she wanted me to make legs, and she said no. Good, that's settled.

I also was able to get some sewing done. Friday morning I got the itch to make bags for everyone I know. I had about 12 people in mind, and I was very particular about what I wanted in my bag. The people in mind were knitter friends and family, so I wanted something that could hold little knitting doodads, no buttons, no snaps, and minimal seaming. I went to Jackmans' while Abe napped at home with Declan and ended up getting some really great fabric. They have Amy Butler fabric! And Kaffe Fasset! <-- this I realized after I checked out otherwise that is all I would have bought. I also got a zipper to fix a jacket I knit for Declan a while ago. Once at home I started fooling around on the sewing machine, and after a couple attempts I ended up with one bag that only a mother could love, one that I will use, and one double pointed knitting needle holder. My 12 friends will have to wait as this took way longer than expected. I used ribbon to tie up the bags, and was pretty impressed with my ability to sew the needle case in an order that eliminated seams from the pockets on the outside. I am also very happy that I bought a seam ripper, because it got a whole lot of use. So here are my two finished products!

Unfortunately there was no time for the cooking after all of the sewing and knitting, but there is always another day.

Saturday night Declan and I enjoyed a nice dinner at Trattoria Marcella. We typically don't do anything like that for Valentine's Day, but we decided that after a new baby, all of the school Declan has been chugging through, and the work both of us have been doing that a romantic dinner was a good reward. Declan wore his kilt and appropriately but on accident ordered their "Cupid's Arrow" cocktail which was pink, fizzy, and served in a champagne flute with a curlicued lemon rind. The waiter and I decided that a guy that was man enough to wear a skirt in public needed a pink cocktail. My Dad stayed at the house with Marley and Abe, and after dinner we went out for a drink with some friends and came home around midnight to find Abe wide awake and playing with my Dad. The next morning I realized that drinking more than two drinks was not a good idea especially when that includes the combo of gin, champagne, Guinness, and red wine.

Marley was pretty funny about us getting ready for dinner and she made me try on 4 dresses, and wondered why I only had black dresses. She and I also tried on every pair of nice black shoes. She made Declan put on a tie and hat for this "romantic" dinner. She wanted to make sure that everything we did oozed "romantic" and even asked after I went to bathroom before leaving if I had taken a "romantic pee".

Grease Baby

Abe has reached a new stage, the "I'm going to cry if you take me away from what I want, and I will scream until I get it back" phase. Did I mention how much fun it is? He has really become the most playful, happy guy and he has this ridiculously wide grin. His favorite things to get into right now, that he shouldn't be getting in to are the recycling bag, the basement trash, magazines and pattern books at work, and the dog and cat food. He is crawling around the basement right now blowing raspberries and carrying around a granola bar wrapper. I tried to take it away from him, but he just cried. He then crawled right back to the trash can grabbed the wrapper again and looked over at me with the biggest smile. You know one of those "but Mom I love it!" smiles. I suppose it's okay as long as he isn't eating it.

On Friday Uncle Barney came over to work on my moped with Declan and because it was such a nice day Abe, Marley and I went out as well. As Marley rode her bike Abe decided to help work on the moped.

It was way cute watching him play with the big guys, and it was well worth all of the dirt I scrubbed from under his nails.