Legwarmies

This was my first knitting project in almost 2 years. I miss it, but I've definitely lost my touch. This is a pretty easy pattern but it took me forever to make them. I also made quite a few mistakes. Most were because I was distracted and forgot what I was doing but the main mistake is that these were done in the garter stitch instead of the stockinette stitch. Yes, I sat down to knit these and told myself that the stockinette stitch alternates knit and purl. True...but not in a round. Oh well, they still work and I love the color. I'm definitely making more of these (only next time I will actually use the stockinette stitch).

The pattern is from Never Not Knitting and I used the recommended yarn (I love Debbie Bliss and the baby cashmerino is lovely) in Damson.

Father's Day

To my husband on his very first father's day...

I love the look on your face when you first held our daughter,

I love the how peacefully she sleeps in your arms,

Thank you for taking this journey with me,

I love you and happy father's day!

First Haul

I did my first little harvest from the garden yesterday and it was excellent! I got 1lb of broccoli and a big bunch of kale. So we have broccoli with peanut sauce for dinner and I'm making kale chips today. I also have spinach ready to be picked but I left it until today so we can have a spinach salad for dinner tonight.

Here's hoping the rest of the summer produces more goodness from the garden!

Feeling the Need to Create

I've been feeling the creative itch lately. I do try to do something creative everyday but my list of "to make" things is getting longer and longer and I just don't have the time during the day to get things done. I'm hoping to take some of my projects with us on our vacation later this summer and do some work on them while I have Jon to help with April.

To Sew:

• this pinafore
• this dress
• this bunny
• this bib
• this bonnet

To Quilt:

•  the storytime quilt
• April's birth quilt (in progress)
• the charm squares quilt
• this growth chart

To Knit:

• legwarmies (in progress)
• gift wrap bonnet (in progress)
• almost seamless sweater
• sundress
• shorties

Everything else:

• baby's first book from Sew Liberated  (in progress)
• rag rug
• branch blocks
• finger puppets

This is just my "now" to make list, my future to make list is ridiculous!

Today...

...was a perfect day for...

...drying diapers on the line,

...naked babies,

...summery snacks (a sweet nectarine and a cold drink),

...and walking barefoot in the grass.

Summer is finally here!

4 months

April is 4 months...I can't believe it. She is changing so much everyday. Some mornings I look at her and I swear she is growing overnight.

In terms of her development, I think she is right on track. She can roll from her tummy to her back and from her back to her tummy (she almost rolled off her bed doing this). She is sitting well with support. She sat once without support for a few minutes but has refused to do it since then. She can grasp and hold things and is beginning to pass items between her hands. She can sort of scoot, though at the moment she is more into doing the army crawl. She is still working on laughing; so close but not a true laugh.

Sleep is still something she is trying to figure out. We had about a week or so when she sleep for 6-8 hours at night and took a 2-3 hour nap in the afternoons. It was really nice. But now we are back to cat naps, waking in the night to nurse and she doesn't sleep for more than 5 hours in a row at night (last night she woke every 3 hours). It's tough because she just doesn't understand how tired she is so she will melt down and cry until she finally falls asleep. I've started letting her sleep in our big bed even for naps and that seems to help.

EC for us is hit a bit of a wall. April has started fighting hard against sitting on the potty or being held over the sink so she is having more wet diapers than before. My solution to this is to just lay her on the floor or on the change table over a pad or open diaper and then cue her or wait until she starts to go and make the cue noise. I feel like this is a good middle ground. Yes I'm doing more laundry but I'm still communicating with her. I think if I continue this way, eventually she will be ready to sit on the potty again.

Four months later and her favorite things are still books, music and baths. She is also enjoying finger play and rhymes more. She also really likes looking around at nature (she likes trees and flowers) when we go for walks. I'm so enjoying her right now. She's has the most kissable cheeks and for the moment she's ok with the overload of mommy kisses.

My Garden...These Days

As some of you may recall I really wasn't going to do a garden this year but with the help of some friends and family (my wonderful mother has spent countless hours out there screening for weeds) the garden actually became workable.

We managed to plant peas, sunflowers, onions, broccoli, celery, cabbage, beets, tomatoes, beans, squash, eggplant, cucumber, bok choy, potatoes and zucchini out there. It would probably have been great except for the weather. It has been cold and wet pretty much since I planted everything. So the onions are almost totally dead, the slugs have eaten my cabbage and beets and there isn't a bean in sight. June...it's June people!! I need some sun.
I also decided to do a container garden in case things out in the main garden didn't go so well.

I planted carrots, spinach, lettuce, chard, peppers, tomato and herbs in containers this year. The carrots actually seems really happy and the spinach is finally starting to get growing. The lettuce is tiny and I don't think I'm going to get anything and my basil has given up.

It might end up being a good year for pears though. Even though I haven't seen many bees around, I've got a ton of little pears coming up on the trees. I might get some apples but we have had to hack off quite a few branches due to a tent caterpillar problem. I'm not sure about the cherry because it's really get blossoms and it is way too cold for the peach. The blueberries are looking good though and the raspberries should be ok (did knock a few blossoms off while removing the morning glory). I think it is too cold for the strawberries. I'm hoping for a good fall crop of them instead.
I think what my garden needs now is some sun. I've been doing my best to stay on top of the weeds so hopefully when the sun does finally show up, the garden will be be free of weeds and the plants can just grow, grow, grow!