Christmas gifts

Well I've started working on Christmas gifts. I get tired of spending so much money all at once (in addition to Christmas we have four December birthdays in the family - including three the week immediately after Christmas). So in past years I have tried to spread a lot of the buying out during the year. This year I'm trying to make more handmade things. I'm hoping this will be a little more economical (I am putting my Joann's and michael's) and a little more thoughtful.

The first things I am working on are fleece blankets for my nieces. Joann's had all of their fleece 50% off plus I had a coupon so I got the yardage for the blanket. I picked up ladybugs for the younger one and flowers for the older one - both pink!



I'm so excited to start working on these! I'm also going to include a stuffed animal for each girl. A ladybug for the younger one and probably a Teddy bear for the older one.

Some other things I'm planning are slippers for all of the girls and cake balls for grandpa. I'll probably also do blankets and toys for the boys


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Progress

I'm now 3/4 of the way through the giant checkerboard. I may actually finish it before Father's Day! I have just 5.5 green squares and 8 blue squares left to complete. I'm a little worried about running out of yarn. I think it will be close - especially with the blue. I think I am going to give to E regardless of whether it is all the way done. I'd have to wait until Christmas if I want to give it on a holiday otherwise. But hopefully with the extra knitting time I have coming up, I won't have to make that decision.


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Random Acts of Cuteness

Tonight we were playing outside. C and I had been telling knock knock jokes. Here's what followed:
C, laughing: Mom, you're hilarious!
Me: thank you,
C: Mom, what does hilarious means?

Also among the cute tonight were C and J playing in the sandbox together. J would scoop the sand into a cup and dump it into c's cup. Then C would dump it into a bucket. They were making "ice-cream" for me together.

They also played on their trikes together and pushed each other in the cart around the patio. Lots of fun tonight!

The big 3-0

I turned 30 this week.

Yikes!!!!!

Okay now that I have that out of my system...it was a pretty nice day. I went and painted pottery like I usually do. I also got a couple of hours of knitting in, which is good since I was under a time constraint (more on that later). My parents also took me out to lunch - I thought it was really sweet of them to do that. The most amazing part of my day though was my birthday cake! My sister made me cupcakes. But these were no ordinary cupcakes; they were shaped like skeins of yarn with fondant used to make the wrapper. She also dipped wheat sticks in chocolate and put smarties on the end to look like the needles. Absolutely amazing! She is ridiculously talented.



On the knitting side of things I ran into a few issues. I found out the baby shower for my friend was this weekend so I didn't have nearly the amount of time I thought I would to finish the blanket. I tried really hard to get it done but by Wednesday I knew I was sunk and wasn't going to finish. At my knitting group that night someone suggested doing a hat instead. I wish I had thought to switch sooner and I probably would have had time to do some booties too. As it was I was bagging up the hat just 45 minutes be fore the shower. But at least it's cute. It's the same pattern as the green hat I posted before but with a flower embellishment on it. I used some bright pink yarn I got for my birthday (see mention of awesome sister above - she also got me real yarn to match the cake!)



Now I don't know what to do about the blanket. I'm on square 14 of 15 but the question is do I still give it to her when the baby is born or do I keep it in reserve for another friend? On the plus side I can hibernate it for a little while either way since I'm so sick of looking at the thing right now. I've got to get cracking to finish E's Father's Day gift anyways. Luckily I have some major free time coming up in the next couple of weeks!

Mother's Day

This weekend was Mother's day. So I did some baking for it. I never know what to get my mom or MIL so I ended up doing gift cards for their favorite restaurants. But I wanted to do something with more thought in it too so I baked brownies. I had never done brownies from scratch before but I had no box mixes in the house. It wasn't nearly as difficult as I expected it to be. I also made chocolate chip muffins - we were going to E's family for brunch and I didnt want to show up empty handed.

Sunday was Mother's day and I had a very nice day. Since E's family wanted to do brunch, I ended up going to a different church that had an earlier service. They had a guest speaker who was very interesting and I was able to focus the whole time (it helped that the boys were very chill). It was a good start to the day.

Afterward we went to my inlaws' house and I brought the chocolate chip muffins along. The kiddos seemed to enjoy them but who wouldn't enjoy chocolate for breakfast! My BIL made mimosas so all of the grownups had a good time too...After we ate I gave my MIL her brownies. She gave me something too, which was unexpected and very sweet.

Next stop was my mother's house. The boys got to play in the water when we got there so they were thrilled - I know it's hard for them to be on there best behavior all day. My mom gave my sister and I pictures of our kids on tiles with the date noted- very cute and I will have to put this idea away for future use. I gave my mom the brownies and decided to do a few for my sis too since it was her first mother's day.

It ended up being a very good and relaxing day!

I also went to my C's preschool for Mothers Day Tea yesterday. It was so cute! The kids sang us three songs and then every child told us what made their mom so special and gave her a picture (see the pic below of C with his teacher). C said that I was special because "she loves me and I love her back." What a sweetheart! Since school let out early I was also able to take C to the park-  just me and him.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. C

Sometimes I swear my son is a new version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde  Or maybe he has an identical twin that looks just like him but has a completely different personality. Or (and this is the most likely scenario) maybe he is four. It seems to be the only way I can explain why he behaves the way he does.

Yesterday this split personality behavior was on full display. C had been sassy and sacastic and nothing was getting through to him. Then all of the sudden it was "I love you mom" with kisses. A short time later the sassy child came back, as he was mean to his brother and very disrespectful to me. It went like this, back and forth, all the way to bedtime.

Yesterday I was frustrated. It's hard to deal with when you don't know what to expect. Today I am seeing it a little more clearly - right now he is emerging from the terrible twos/trying threes into someone who can articulate what he needs. It's hard, but we'll get through it.