Project Life : Weeks 14, 15 & 16

 Week 14

The weather was crazy, literally one day freezing cold, the next glorious sunshine

We had an 8 mile round trip walk to a Mums group in the sun, which was lovely

Made the trip up and down the M6 twice, to help Mum with her decorating

Little man was given infant Gaviscon to help with acid reflux, which in turn made his tummy poorly

Jack turned two months old!

We visited the in laws and Nan had a go at nappy changing

All really ordinary week to week things!

Week 15

 

We spent the Easter weekend helping decorate Mums spare room, where we will stay whilst we house hunt

Jack had a touch of cold, so we tried some baby Karvol to help the snuffles

We started to buy 3-6 months baby clothes in readiness, as he was filling the 0-3s!

I went for another run, marking a start in a return to post baby fitness

Jack had his first swim (I'm planning a separate insert for this)

Family trip to Ikea for meatballs and collecting some drawers

Week 16

 

 First double page spread! A simpler format this time with using printed

 journalling cards, much easier and I love how it looks.

Started the week with a trip to a car boot sale at Blackpool

Crazy Monday with a weigh in at the clinic, booking a trip to London later in the year and making an application for my accountancy practicing certificate.

Tuesday saw our first baby massage session (I'm not that keen) and Jack rolled over!

A play date on Wednesday with the ladies from the ante natal class & their beautiful babies

3 hours spent in Costa on Thursday chatting and learning to cross stitch with Gemma, then hitting the road to visit our niece Sophie, for her first birthday party

Friday, James had his medical for his new job, we visited the park and the seaside afterwards

Saturday, a family day, I baked a Hairy Bikers pie which everyone seemed to enjoy!

Now to get to work on weeks 17 & 18!

Operation Finish all the WIPs

I am going to do it this time, honestly! There's only 4 projects on the go, two knitting and two crochet and I will get them completed before I start anything else. Promise.

Manu

I cast on for Manu in September 2010, knit the back, started a sleeve and left it for over a year. I really don't know why, I guess I just got distracted.  I picked it back up whilst I was waiting for baby to arrive (pretty much in that last sofa bound week when I'd finished all the baby knits) and whizzed through the sleeves and made a start on the yoke.  After things had settled down following Jacks arrival I got on to some of the more technical aspects of the pattern, Sunday Short Rows, pleats, picking up for the button bands and mastering the icord bind off and icord button holes.  I've got to admit that things got a little challenging here, unzipping the provisional cast on got me all in a tangle and although the icord bind off is really easy, knowing where to start it had me all confused!

That being said, I've finished the body now.  I've also bound off the sleeves and knit the first pocket then oops, I ran out of yarn.  Obviously adding additional length to the sleeves chewed more yardage than I had so I've had to buy another ball, I'm just hoping that the dye lots aren't too odd.

So far though, it fits! Despite feeling like I'd fallen out of love with it half way through and that the finished item would neither fit or flatter, it actually does both. I'm really proud of myself for pushing on and learning those new techniques, I just can't wait to get my final ball of yarn, pick some buttons out and get it done.

Podster

Flip top mittens. Cast on on 31 Jan, the night I went into labour.  40+ rounds of twisted rib seemed to take a life time.  I seem to have had a lot of trouble with this pattern, but can't find any other references to mistakes on the Rav notes, which makes me think I am missing something! Simple things, like telling you to decrease at the marker but erm, I can't see any reference to placing a marker? We'll get there.  To be honest I am knitting these purely for the finished item rather than the pleasure of knitting them so I'll be glad when they're done, put away for next Autumn and I can have my 2.5mm needles back to make some socks.

So that's the knitting WIP, I'm hoping to get these sorted in the next few weeks. Crochet wise...

Summer Ripple

 Of course the dreaded ripple, only 21 rows and a border to go, hey I've only been at it for two years.

Snake

Did I ever show you this? I started it in January for the nursery. I've no idea how to make the stripes jogless but frankly I don't think I'm so bothered.  What I will say, is that it's enormous. I'm going to be boring and repeat the colours as I haven't got a good eye for random colours. It should be cute when done!

I will report back, wish me luck!

Sunshine Award

Oh wow, it's been a long time since any one dropped by with a blog award for me! (Probably due to my pitiful lack of blogging!)

So THANK YOU Neeno for awarding me!  Of course receiving a blog award tends to mean you answer a bunch of daft questions, so here we go...

 

Favourite colour: Purple.  If you've ever been in or seen my living room will know this!

Favourite animal: Cats, of course, I have two of my own & two at my Mums

Favourite number: Erm! Not sure I have one!

 

 

Favourite non-alcoholic drink: Tea! Obsessively so.

Facebook or Twitter: Twitter! I do use Facebook, but I'm not crazy about it.  It's good to share pictures etc. with family and friends I don't get to see often but I'm a much bigger fan of Twitter and Instagram, can I throw Instagram in there?

 

My passion: Home making. I think i was born to be a home maker, I'm kind of verging on the Stepford wife, I love cleaning and tidying my house and having my husbands tea ready when he gets home from work!

 

Getting or giving presents: Getting.  I'll be honest, I love getting stuff.  Particularly because I seem to be given a lot of Cath Kidston these days, which I can't complain about!

 

Favourite Pattern: Pfffffft, couldn't pick one.  I do love anything from Sewaholic though.  Definitely my favourite pattern line.

Favourite day of the week: Friday! When I was at work Fridays were dress down and we were allowed to leave at lunch time.  Now I'm at home I know that when I kiss my husband goodbye in the morning he could be back as soon as 1pm (we work for the same company) which is exciting!  I love the feeling that there's a whole weekend stretching out in front of us to enjoy.  Fridays often also mean hitting the road to Cumbria to see family, which is exciting too!

Favourite flower: Either Freesias, which I had in my wedding bouquet (so did my Mum, I love that we shared that) or Sweet Peas.

 

Favourite celebrity role model: I don't have one... I'm really not into celebrities.

So, finally I just have to pass the award on... so if you're reading, consider yourself awarded, as I can't choose!!!

Project Life : Week 13

Yes, 13 weeks into the year I have decided to start a Project Life album.  I think I must be crazy! Truth is, I've been watching my scrappy friends (Leanne, Sally etc) put theirs together each week and every time I see their pages I get a twinge of "I so want to do this!". Things pretty much came to a head when I found myself saving bits of receipts and packaging and thinking "that can go in my Project Life... oh hang on, I'm not even doing this yet!!"

I love the fact that the everyday is recorded, little things that perhaps wouldn't justify a whole layout in an album but really give an insight into our lives.  Now that we have Jack in our lives, I that he will one day be able to look back and see what we got up to in those early days.

I'm trying to keep things as simple as possible.  Right now I'm just doing a single side per week so I'm not putting myself under pressure.  However, if one week is particularly eventful, I'll just add an extra page or insert if needs be. I'm also trying to work from existing stash, so I don't spend a lot of cash on stuff I really don't need.  However I will run out of page protectors soon, that is a fact!

I've also invested in a new piece of gadgetry to help, a mini Canon Selphy photo printer. A lot of Project Lifers use these, but I couldn't afford the latest model, however a bit of research unearthed the previous model on the Canon Ebay shop for £20! Bargain! The print quality is amazing and I'm now able to quickly transfer pictures from my "big" camera and iPhone to an SD card and print without running upstairs to the printer and fiddling with photo paper, particularly useful when keeping your other eye on a little baby!

 

In Week 13 ...

We enjoyed a Sunday morning lie in as a family

I had to go to the doctor who told me I had laryngitis

We enjoyed sunny days, bought Jack a sun hat & had a walk to the park

Visited my work friends for lunch and my friend Jen in the evening (hey Jen!)

Jack had his 8 week check from the health visitor

We put our house back on the market (long story!)

Jack started going to bed at 9pm

We drove to Mum's and had a family meal, her lounge looked like a creche!

So, I'm hoping I keep up.  As I've got plenty of Instagram/Twitter friends doing this, I'm hoping they keep me on track! Hopefully this should also mean a weekly post showing my pages. I'd love to hear from you if you're taking part and blogging/tweeting too?

7 Weeks Later

It's been a whole 7 weeks since we met our little man, Jack.  In some ways it feels like the time has flown by, in others I can't remember a time when he wasn't here, it feels like he's been a part of us forever!

We are all so happy! Whilst I was pregnant it seemed that people just wanted to share their "horror stories" and tell me how my life would practically end once baby arrived.  I'm pleased to report that it isn't that bad!  Yes, it's been hard work and tiring, but so rewarding, I wouldn't change a thing.

Our little man is an angel, he's very good at sleeping at night and at the moment will go to bed at around 10pm, waking once or twice in the night for feeds.  This means that I'm not too sleep deprived!  During the day he is harder to get down for a nap and can quite often get a bit overcome, so we are learning to recognise when he is tired and encourage him to go down in his cot for a while.

In his waking periods he likes to play on his activity gym, and at around 4-5 weeks he started to reach out/bat the toys hanging from the top.  Just recently he has started making coos and gurgly noises whilst playing, so cute!

The most difficult part of the day so far has been evenings.  We have some sessions of colicky grizzliness, crying and discomfort due to a build up of wind over the day.  This has been eased by giving him infacol & gripe water and letting him comfort himself with a dummy when he gets very upset.

This week saw me packing away his little new born clothes :-( we were given lots of 0-3 size outfits and sleepsuits which looked so big to start with, but literally overnight we couldn't squeeze his newborn clothes on so he is now sporting some rather baggy 0-3 threads.

We've been getting out in the pram alot, mostly making trips into the village for bits of shopping from the butchers/greengrocers and sometimes just for a walk around the park for some fresh air.  I've also been trying out an infant carrier which we bought using a gift voucher from my Stitch N Bitch group, he seems to really enjoy being carried close so I'm thinking about trying out a softer sling whilst at home so I can carry him about while I do my jobs.

So there you go, baby update done!