Confession time: I have finished only two (maybe three?) blankets since I got pregnant with Christopher about 18 months ago. I just lost all motivation to do anything, let alone crochet while I was pregnant and then once I had him I had to learn to do everything with one hand which makes crochet very tricky.
The two blankets I finished are a clam shell pattern blanket I made for Christopher (barely got it done before he was born and he almost never uses it) and this wiggly stripe blanket for my new nephew, Owen. I once made 25 blankets in a year and sent them to everyone I knew having a baby. Sorry to everyone who had a baby in the last 18 months and thought you might get crochet from me!
I really wanted to get something to my brother and his wife before their little boy was born. This is my first flesh and blood real-deal nephew and I am completely obsessed with him! I pulled out my yarn a couple months before he was due and really forced myself to buckle down and work on this thing. I have been teaching my coworker how to crochet on Mondays for the last six or seven months so she became my weekly motivator/task master.
Christopher also tried to "help" me whenever he could. And by help I mean he tried to eat my crochet hook while I was using it, pulled the yarn out it's skeins, ripped out stitches and taste-tested the finished product.
Looks good, mom! The fringe is extra nice!
I've made this pattern before way back here and I loved it so much that I kept the blanket in my own stash for future children. It makes the most snuggly, warm blankie especially with all that fringe dripping from the edges. I will definitely make this pattern again, I really enjoy the process of making it as well as the finished product!
The color Petrol from Stylecraft has been in my yarn stash for a long time now and I have been dying to use it. I was going to make it into a girl blanket with a coral and pale blue but that never happened (see excuses above!). I love they way it looks with the pale gray and the almost lime/neon green. It makes me so happy to think about my little nephew all snuggled up in this blanket. My only wish is that I could have delivered it in person!
Owen's Blanket Stats
Yarn: Stylecraft Special DK (Petrol, Silver, Grass Green) one ball of each, Red Heart Soft (White) two balls.
You know those days that start out full of promise and good intentions- and then just fall apart? I feel like that was my day on October 19, 2016. I decided the night before to do another installment of my "A Day with Topher" series so I saw it through but kept thinking, why did I choose the worst day ever to capture?? I hope this serves as a real life snapshot of what life is like for mothers. Not all days are like this and I realize a lot of people have it much harder than I do but this is a true picture of what our day was like.
9:30 PM the night before - I put Topher down for the night in his little sleeping bag with his blankie and glow elephant. I usually watch him on the monitor until he falls asleep and then I take his blanket away so he doesn't wrap it around his head in the night. I love it when he's so smiley and content to go right to bed!
4:30 AM- A little earlier than usual, Topher wakes up and wants to be eat. I think he just wants to know that mom and dad are still there and we haven't abandoned him in the night. He usually just eats and goes straight back to sleep which I count as a huge blessing.
8:30 AM - Dad is getting ready for work and Topher hears him in the bathroom and wakes up. Sometimes he will cry in the morning but most of the time I just hear him in there talking to himself. I nurse him a little more and we head downstairs for the day.
9:00 AM - Breakfast! Today it's very under ripe kiwi and toaster waffles. We really need to do our grocery shopping today! Topher likes to watch cars from the front window while he has breakfast. This kid is obsessed with cars!
9:30 AM - Crawling around the house, trying to get to the fireplace so he can cover himself with soot, tearing apart mama's plant and hitting everything with his toy hammer. We also play with the bristle blocks, try to bite mom's knee and attack the laptop where mom is supposedly working.
10:00 AM - I have a call with my boss. Thank heavens he doesn't mind Christopher yelling in the background. If I'm talking Topher has to be talking which makes for some interesting calls. Christopher attempts to crawl under the dining room chairs that are blocking the fireplace, gets stuck and screams until I rescue him. Towards the end of the call he takes to just screeching for no reason at all. Luckily my boss just laughs.
10:30 AM - Nurse and put buddy down for a nap. He fights it for a while but he's been so good about putting himself to sleep these last few months. While he's going to sleep I frantically plow through a bunch of work, tidy the house and get ready for the rest of the day. Usually.
11:11 AM - He is still fighting going to sleep and the neighbor has started mowing his lawn. Of course they did! Noise doesn't usually wake him up once he's asleep but it makes it a little more distracting if he's trying to put himself to bed. This is the one day when I actually need to leave the house by a certain time and he won't sleep. Great.
12:30 PM - Pull baby out of bed -he's NOT happy about this- and head out to Salem. We are teaching with the Sister Missionaries from our church today!
2:30 PM - On the way back from Salem we decide to go to Costco and pick up a few things. The nicest guy helped us load our groceries in the parking lot and everyone was charmed by Topher.
4:00 PM - Topher falls asleep in the car just before we get home- literally two blocks from the house. I try to sneak him into the crib but he doesn't fall back asleep.
^^Just look at that sad face!^^
4:30 PM - He's still screaming. I nurse him for a minute and put him back in the crib.
4:55 PM - Get him out of the crib, crawl around the nursery, have a snack
5:15 PM - Try once again to put him down for a nap. He screams some more.
5:25 PM - Still screaming but at least he's laying down. That's something, right?
5:28 PM - Nope, now he's standing at the edge of the crib banging on the top rail- his signature "come and get me right now!" move.
5:35 PM - Finally hear the last cries from him and he falls asleep. It's only an hour an a half past the normal time he begs to go down for a nap. He'd normally be waking up in about half an hour for dinner.
6:15 PM - I am starting to work on some dinner for myself (Thomas is getting home later tonight than normal) when I hear some crying. I have the windows open and tell myself it's someone else's baby. Yeah right! It's mine and he's screaming. Please note that he normally takes a two hour nap in the afternoon. It's been approximately 40 minutes.
6:30 PM - Baby is up and we're having dinner together on the couch whether I like it or not. The dining room is all messy because we're doing some big projects in there soon so the couch it is. Christopher likes to touch my salad but he won't actually eat any of it. He just picks up pieces and puts them back down. I poke chicken in his mouth which he realizes he does like and then he attacks my salad with my fork. It's times like these I wish I had a walk-in pantry or a closet or somewhere I could go eat alone.
I did record him eating with the giant fork because it's just so cute and I know this phase will be too short!
7:00 PM - I unwisely attempt to unload the dishwasher. This is Topher's favorite thing. As soon as he hears it open he looks up from whatever else he's destroying and crawls at top speed for the open door of the magical dishwasher. I put him on the opposite side of the living room and run to empty a few things before he gets there. As I am holding my leg in front of the door to block him from climbing in with the dishes, he is getting more and more mad until he finally bites my middle toes as hard as he can. I don't know if I have ever seen him do something like that out of anger or frustration. I laugh/yell and pick him up deciding that the dishes can wait till dad gets home.
7:02 PM - Reading books and praying that dad gets home soon. Please just get home already!
7:10 PM - Dad calls! And reminds me that it's Relief Society Temple night and I was planning to go. I need to leave in about 20 minutes. The hose is a total tip but I text my friend and arrange for her to pick me up so we can go together.
^^Notice the Costco goods still not put away and the baby heading back to the dishwasher^^
7:30 PM -Thomas pulls into the driveway right as my friend pulls up. I throw the baby at Thomas and run out the door.
8:00 PM - Much needed time at the Temple to just be quiet, not have a baby whining at me or pulling on my shirt. I get some time to think and worry and feel peace. It almost didn't seem like it would be a good idea for me to come- Topher needed to go to bed early, the house needed to be cleaned (see pics above ha!), I was so tired and not really prepared to go. Sometimes I think I take for granted that we live about 17 minutes from the Temple but tonight made me remember that we really are lucky.
10:30 PM- Arrive home and sit in the car talking to my friend until about 11.
Midnight - Finally get into bed after writing a few emails, having a snack and getting ready for bed.
12:05 AM - Hear Christopher cry. Take a few big breaths and get him out of his crib. Nurse him a little, he falls asleep and allows me to cuddle him for a few minutes. He hardly snuggles anymore so I try to enjoy the few moments he lets me hold him close. I have to say that today was one of the harder days we've had in a while. It's a true miracle that at the end of it all I can look at that sleeping little face and feel so much love and peace. I start to miss him a little and almost can't wait to see his smile in the morning. Almost. He can definitely sleep through the night, I am okay with waiting till morning to play again.
When we bought our house last year it had recently been remodeled and I feel lucky that we found a house we could afford in such great condition. The interior was painted a tan-yellow color and although it wasn't horrible I never really loved it. I prefer gray and that's what we chose to paint our bedroom the day we closed on the house. My plan was to paint the whole interior soon after we moved in but finding out I was pregnant a few days after we closed put a damper on that.
I feel like we've just recently reached the point where we have the time and mental capacity to really work on the house. It's crazy how much a baby can change your life!
The first project we decided to take on was the kitchen. The cupboards are a cream color with an orange-red distressing on the doors. The tan-yellow walls weren't a hugely offensive clash but it just did not go together. The colors were just off and it was so boring! We toyed around with choosing a gray but we couldn't pick one that went with the cupboards and the granite and the tile. It just wasn't meant to be a gray kitchen. We thought of blue or even an orange but in the end we chose a dark red- Benjamin Moore Heritage Red.
This simple change has made such a huge difference in how the house feels. It's like someone actually lives there now! It was a great place to start making changes in the house because it was very quick to finish and the impact was bold and satisfying.
Since we loved the kitchen change so much we decided to bite the bullet and paint the living room too. After Christopher went to bed one night we pulled the leftover paint from our bedroom out of the basement and did a first coat. We thought it would take longer since it's such a large room but the windows and doorways made the process very quick. We picked up more paint in the morning and finished the rest of the painting while Christopher napped. This gray is one of our favorites- Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter. We now have it in our bedroom, the guest room and the living room and we will probably paint the office and main floor bathroom this color too. It looks different in each of these rooms but I am in love with it!
This is what it looked like when we first moved in:
^^See that plant there? That's our rubber tree, it's much bigger now and I am very proud of that!^^
This change wasn't as bold or obvious as the kitchen but again, it totally changed the feel of the room. It looks so much more modern, the drapes look better (they had the same issue as the kitchen cupboards- just slightly clashing), and it just looks more "us".
The most recent change is one I have been wanting since the first time we saw this house- getting rid of the huge "old lady" shrubs in front of the house. I am fairly certain these bushes have been in front of our house since it was built in 1953. They were too old to just cut back because the branches were so thick. They weren't fluffy like you'd think they should be. Plus I just hated the look of them!
This summer a boy in our church congregation has been mowing our lawn and his eyes lit up when we offered him a big chunk of money to get rid of these beasts. He, his dad and younger brother came over one evening with the chain saw and in a matter of minutes they had cut these bushes back to stumps. Our law doubled in size and I was giddy!
I want to plant some hydrangeas and peonies out there and maybe some tulip or buttercup bulbs. I also have a pack of hollyhock seeds from my grandma's garden that I want to attempt to grow. I have managed to keep our rubber plant alive for about three years and an herb garden alive all summer so I am feeling pretty confident in my gardening skills right now. Or I could kill them all in one season and have to start over. Either way, I am going to try and bit by bit this house will become ours!
It's hard to whittle down pictures of your baby. Especially when you are looking at them and realize that seven months later he is a totally different kid! He still has all of these funny faces but he looks so much older now. Watching him grow is so bittersweet! These were taken on the day we had him blessed in church.
This series cracks me up:
And these are the ones when Thomas came in. This boy sure loves hid daddy!
We love this little guy of ours! I am already missing this tiny little baby. Now he's on the move and growing so fast!
