Collage

Collage

Monday, December 29, 2014

Carter's First Christmas

This Christmas was a little more special having Carter to celebrate with! I wasn't sure how the day would go with Carter being so little, but she seemed to have fun and only got fussy later in the day. She even helped to open some of her presents! We would start unwrapping, then she would grab the paper and we would pull the gift away from her.

We didn't get Carter many gifts because we always just buy anything she actually needs, but she was pretty impressed with the huge bear we got her :)


After opening gifts at our house we went to my parents. Carter got spoiled :) One of her favorites was a little reindeer lovey. 


We headed home to unload and repack, then headed to the hub's parents. Carter got to hang out with her cousins!


She and her youngest cousin, Becca, had an especially good time.


All in all we had a great day filled with family. I can't wait until next year when Carter can participate more!

Saturday, December 27, 2014

Knitting, 2015 Version

Since Carter was born the amount of knitting I have done has plummeted. There just isn't enough free time in the day! She is a good sleeper and takes 3-4 naps a day (and sleeps through the night!) but with working I'm already not home a ton, and I hate spending my time with her while she is awake doing other things. Therefore, while she sleeps I'm usually eating, pumping, showering, or cleaning the house.

However, I am starting to try and make time for knitting, even if its only 15 minutes a day. I thought I would try something new this year and pick 12 project to work on for 2015. I considered any gift knitting I would want to do, and then made up a "schedule" for my knitting. A project a month set up so that any knitting with a deadline should theoretically be done in advance. I don't plan to finish every project within the month that I start (one is a blanket!) The idea is to work mainly on that project for the month, and if I finish early I can either work on a WIP, start next month's project, or cast on something new.

Here's my plan for 2015:

January: a Vivid blanket for my brother and soon to be sister-in-law for their wedding in June
February: Exeter hat for the hubs
March: Spring Garden Tee for Carter
April: Finish mom's sweater
May: Bloom for Carter
June: Socks for Dad
July: Socks for Carter
August: Sheep sweater for Carter
September: Red Riding coat for Carter
October: Wolf Pack hat for my cousin
November: plain socks for me
December: finish Sockhead hat

I know the blanket will take several months so that's why I'm starting that in January. I also know that November and December will be busy, so I thought having easy projects to work on would make it easier to stick to my schedule. We shall see how well it works! I hope to revisit this every so often to give updates :)

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

All About Baby

I wanted to write a post about the baby, since my break encompassed getting pregnant and her birth! It's not going to be detailed though because, lets face it, no one wants to read 9 months worth of story!

We found out we were pregnant January 2nd and were really excited because we had been trying for a few months. I actually didn't wait long enough when I took the test and thought it was negative, and only after checking it later in the day did I realize there were two lines! I had an easy pregnancy- mild amount of morning sickness and no other major complaints. Around 9 weeks I began to feel like we were having a girl. I shared this with the hubs and he agreed, which is funny because before we got pregnant I think we both had hoped for a boy.


We had a lot of fun telling our friends and family that we were pregnant. I think the best reaction was my brother's. We told him via Skype, and he promptly jumped up and disappeared. The hubs and I looked at each other, and squinted at the screen looking for him. His apartment was dark, but we could just make out his outline running around his apartment. He jumped back on the couch and asked if we were serious. When we confirmed we were, he started yelling and running around again. It took a few minutes of this to get him back so we could chat some more!


At 19 weeks an ultrasound confirmed we were having a girl! I was really excited, and promptly told the hubs I didn't like any of our baby names and that we needed to start over. HA.  We eventually settled on a name that we both loved, but we kept it a secret the whole pregnancy. We referred to the baby as Squirt to avoid us accidentally spilling our name choice!


Toward the end of my pregnancy my friends kept telling me we should get our car seat installed and pack our bags for the hospital, but I wasn't in a rush. I came two days late via C section, and I knew most first time moms went overdue. Wouldn't you know it, at 37 weeks and 3 days I woke up at 5am to my water breaking! We hung out at the house for a while, and when my contractions didn't pick up my doctor asked us to come on in to the hospital anyway to get checked out. Since my water had broken we were definitely staying, but I needed pitocin to help speed things along. 12 hours after checking into the hospital, we had our baby girl! She was 19in and 7lbs 15 oz. Hard to believe if she would have been 3 days earlier she would have had to go to the NICU for being a preemie!


I was grateful for the quick labor and delivery (pushed for under an hour!) and of course meeting the baby! We named her Carter Anne, and I have to say that becoming her mom is one of the best things ever. I'm absolutely smitten with her, and its hard to believe that she is 4 months old today! She continues to do everything on her own time (usually early!) and has the best personality.


Like most new parents, I take way too many photos of her, and many of them will probably make their way to the blog. This is your warning :)

Monday, December 22, 2014

Revamp

I took a long break from blogging and a lot has happened in the past 15 months or so! I got a new job (library manager), got pregnant, went on a few trips, knitted a lot, made a ton of recipes, went to several weddings, had a baby girl (more on that later) and have had an absolute blast watching her grow up!


I've realized over the past few weeks or so that I really want to start using this space again, but it will probably be in a different way than I did before. There will still be knitting content, recipes, and I'll share a bit about what we do, but I will also have a lot about babies (it's pretty much impossible not to talk about a baby once you have one!) I'm also thinking I may talk about home decor and organization, because for me it has become a bigger part of my life now that I have an infant.


I also really want to do more reviews (movies, books, products, services) and maybe link up with other bloggers. I know when I am looking for a new product I love hearing what other people have to recommend, so it only makes sense to me to include that type of stuff here as well.


I'm going to do a condensed post about my pregnancy and the birth of our baby soon, but that's all the additional catching up I plan to do. I'm really looking forward to using this space again!