Spring Shower

For the past few weeks and especially this last one I have been nose deep in baby shower planning for my BFF Sarah. She is having a little girl in just about 2-3 weeks!!! So the shower was at our house, and I was not only throwing the shower, but had offered to make some diapers for them. I was so happy to hear that they were going to give cloth diapers a try. Anyway... Friday I was so stressed out, sewing diapers, cleaning the house, decorating the house, etc. I swear anything bad that could have gone wrong went wrong when it came to sewing the diapers. Every time I tried to put in the elastic either the machine would jam, thread would break, thread would run out, etc. Then when I got it all going in the right direction, I spilled a huge glass of water all over everything. Sigh.

Despite the problems everything went smooth on Saturday. Guys came with the gals, and hung out in the garage smoking cigars and drinking. A couple would walk in the house, the girl would drop off a present, the guy would head to the backyard, 6 pack in hand. It was like no shower I have ever been too. Seriously. We had a guy nearly pass out on the dining room table at 4pm, from drinking too much at the baby shower. This was not what I had in mind. But again, despite the binge baby shower drinking (none of which was done by the shower recipient), it all went smoothly.

Here are a few pictures....

For stress relief I started knitting a Pi Shawl. I was a little hesitant to mention it, because I feel like when I mention knitting here or on Ravelry I never end up finishing it. It's like a curse. But I bringing it up because I have it so close to being finished. A Pi Shawl in a week!? Yes, it can be done. Well I am leaving out the last bit of increases, because I am afraid I will run out of yarn knitting on my 576 stitches. So I cast off after the last round of 288 stitches, and will do some kind of lace border. More on that later.

Spring Classes

One of the things I love about Knit and Caboodle is that Connie is so open to new class ideas, and so this spring I have a couple of classes to teach that I very excited to mention....

KoolAid Dyeing Saturday, March 7 10am-Noon
In this kid friendly class we will learn the basics of dyeing yarn, starting with a great dye- kool aid. You will need to bring yarn to dye, preferably a natural fiber. Bring as many skeins as you want, plus kool aid to dye each (2-3 packets of various colors per skein). I will provide a chart for dyeing along with instructions on how to dye on your own. Bring something to take your yarn home in, because it will be wet. Cost $20

Log Cabin Knitting April (exact date to come, it is a one session class)
The theory for bog cabin knitting is the same as for the log cabin quilts, you work each side, building each up and turning as you go. Skills needed are knitting and binding off, and we will learn lots about picking up stitches. With log cabin knitting you can keep going and going until you reach your desired size, so project ideas can start with a dishcloth, to dishtowel, to pillow case, to bath mat, to baby blanket. You will need to bring appropriate sized yarn an needles. Also yarn appropriate for project (a dish cloth would be good in cotton). I like doing log cabin knitting with more than one color, but that is up to you.

Beyond the Basics 3 Sessions end of May to beginning of June
After learning the knitting basics (knitting, purling, increasing, decreasing, and binding off) there is often a desire to move on to the next step or even a fear of what is next. In this class we will learn 3 beyond beginner techniques, cables, colorwork, and lace. Each session will focus on a new technique with a dishcloth as the project for each session. Each of the techniques are basic, so don't be afraid when you hear lace or that we will be doing some fairisle. This primer to each skill will be a nice way to try out some new skills with out diving right in to a large project. We will also learn how to read charts for each skill.

I also have another 6 week Beginning Knitting class starting Monday, March 16th from 10am-Noon.

In kid news... Abe slept in his bed last night! It didn't last all night, as at least an hour was spent in my arms with me in the rocker, but progress was made. Just because Abe slept in his bed doesn't mean that all was well sleep wise through the night, let me give you a time line of what happened...
7:30pm- Marley and Abe to bed, in their beds
9:30pm- Abe wakes up, he is soaking wet (Declan forgot to put a diaper cover on). Change a feed Abe.
10:30pm- I lay down on the sofa to fall asleep (the sofa has turned into our bed)
10:45pm- I hear crying from Marley, and go upstairs to find her sitting up in bed talking about "drawing bones", I cuddle with her and she falls back asleep
11:00pm- I am back down stairs on the sofa
11:15pm- More crying from Marley, she is sitting up in bed, and when I ask her what is wrong she says "It's the letter E!!" I am guessing this must be a bad dream about the awful letter E. I again cuddle her and get her back to sleep
11:30pm- Me on the sofa again
Midnight- Me upstairs in Marley's bed with her after hearing more crying about the letter E. This time she told me that "it's in all of those strange words". We fall asleep on her twin bed.
3:00am- I wake up in Marley's bed to Abe crying, I change and feed him. He decides not to fall asleep, so we move to the rocker in the living room.
4:15am- I get Abe back in bed, and I finally make my way to my bed, not the sofa or Marley's bed.
5:00am- I wake up because there is someone in the room, it's Marley, she curls up with me, steals the pillows and the blankets, just like a kid :)
6:00am- "Mom the clock says 6, I want to get up". I convince her to lay down for a few more minutes before she decides to move in to her room to play for a little bit. Surprisingly she doesn't wake up Abe.
7:00am- Abe is awake and Marley wants some breakfast, it is time to get up.

Thankfully my Mom is picking up Marley from school so that I can rest today, because like Abe I have some nasty kind of sinus infection brewing.

Marley turns 5!

We had one hell of a busy few days, and I am happy that they are over with (I'm exhausted!). I finished Marley's birthday sweater! She wore it 3 days in a row, and obviously loves it. I had it ready to wear on her birthday morning, she was looking forward to wearing it to school, but I had her stay home because of an earache and low fever. Never tell a 5 year old they have to stay home on their birthday, she was mad. We did end up going on for some Indian food with my parents and then ice cream afterwards. We laid low the rest of the afternoon and watched a movie and then my Dad came by and we had an ice cream cake :)
On Friday Abe started feeling bad, well he had stopped sleeping as well as normal on Tuesday, but started feeling bad on Friday, and wouldn't sleep anywhere but in our arms, this "no sleeping in my own bed" policy is still into play.

Saturday came and we were ready for Marley's huge birthday extravaganza... there were 7 or 8 kids over for the pirate party. When they came over we did tattoos and they put on their eye patches and earrings (I wanted a picture of them all dressed up, but that was impossible). After that they made pirate flags, marched through the house and then did the treasure hunt and then of course cake and presents.

Here they are working on their flags

Pirate Avi. He discovered a love of tattoos and got only those out of the treasure chest.

Cake time! The gold coins were for the pirate treasure, but it reminded me of a casino theme.
We caught a picture of Jasmine giving Abe a quick bath while he was getting his diaper changed.

Abe's new tattoo!

The second part of Saturday was Marley's grown up friends and family birthday party. We had Declan's and my parents, a couple of friends and their parents and siblings. Maybe 15 people? It was a lot. We ordered Imo's and went through 6 large pizzas! Marley also got her second cake of the day.
I caught our friend Aaron playing Marley's guitar to her and Beck and Wendy.

Saturday night is seemed like Abe was feeling better. He had a low grade fever earlier in the day, and that evening was ridiculously happy and playful. He didn't sleep in his own bed, but his mood had improved. On Sunday it seemed like he was pretty worn out, but doing okay. Sunday evening he was seeming to be doing worse, and then on Monday he was a whole lot worse. We were just trying to keep him happy, but he turned completely lethargic, and slept on my chest for about 4 hours, even through dinner, and we finally ended up taking him to the hospital after taking his temp and it pushing 104. We got out around 2:30am (!!!!) with a diagnosis of very bad sinusitis and ear infections in both ears. They put him in a hospital gown to help cool him down, but he hated it! It was polyester and the minute I took it off of him and wrapped him in the muslin swaddling blanket he relaxed. They gave him a heavy dose of motrin which quickly relieved he fever and had him back to his ornery self (trying to climb over everything, grad everything, etc.) We started some antibiotics, and hopefully he will be 100% soon.

He did sleep for an hour in his bed after we came home, and then in our arms for the rest of the night. He is actually in his bed for a nap right now and I should take advantage of this and go take a shower, it's been a while.