Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Maggie is 9 weeks old!

Sweet Maggie is growing like a weed.  She had her 2 month well child visit the other day and weighed in at 12lbs 8 oz which puts her in the 74th percentile for weight. She was 23 inches long which outs her in the 68th percentile for height.  I'm glad she slowed down her growing a little bit though because she has so many cute 3 month clothes that I would hate for her not to be able to wear any of them if she grew too fast. She was a trooper on the way back from Missouri.  Only got fussy once and slept most of the way home.  She is still pretty much projectile spitting at least once a day still but she managed not to do it on the plane. She also still has a nice green boogery nose but she doesn't appear to be sick at all.  Her doctor said it was possible that she could have a sinus infection but it would be highly unlikely in a child of her age especially since she doesn't appear to be sick or have a fever. She doesn't seem to spit up as much if I suck out her nose each night before bed so I guess we'll keep doing that even though she really doesn't like it!  At least her ears looked good so no ear infections yet.

I finished my Multnomah last week. I love how the pattern lends itself to the yarn and it looks very oceany to me.  I wish the shawl were a bit bigger- although I guess I could have made it bigger if I had more yarn.  I did add two extra feather and fan pattern repeats.  It very nicely covers my shoulders but not much else.  Also somehow it doesn't seem to want to stay wrapped around my neck to use like a scarf.  Still it's a lovely little shawl.

 I'm reading Burn by Linda Howard for fun.  Linda Howard is one of my favorite fun reading authors.  Her stories are always interesting, a little unique, and quick reads.  We are also getting ready to celebrate the beginning of advent this year. Frank's mother is here visiting for the month so we'd thought we begin the traditon of the Jesse Tree with the boys.  They are old enough to begin understanding and they enjoy stories. We'll probably combine reading from this book with The Usborne Little Book of Stories from the Old Testament because that book is more in story form as opposed to direct readings from the Bible.

Happy Advent (starting Sunday) and come yarn along with us over at Ginny's place.

Monday, November 26, 2012

Maggie is two months old!

My girl is 2 months old today. We are busily packing and up and getting ready to head home tomorrow so other than running a few quick errands we are having a quiet day at home doing laundry and packing. We aren't leaving until 7pm so the plan is to take the boys to visit Frank's cousin at work.  He is a firefighter so he'll let the boys climb up in the fire truck and check it all out.  They are thrilled to say the least.

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Maggie's First Thanksgiving


We celebrated Maggie's first Thanksgiving in Missouri with Frank's family.  We so rarely get to go and spend some quality time out there because of work commitments here in NH.  Since I am currently on maternity leave and Veteran's Day and Thanksgiving fell within consecutive weeks this year we were able to scrounge up 2 whole weeks of vacation time to go and visit the family.  Additionally we managed to score plane tickets for all five of us for less than $1000 so off we went. First thing Thanksgiving morning we went to church and then headed to Troy, Missouri to the home of Frank's Aunt Dot who was hosting this year. Not many people realize but family holidays with Frank's family are a massive affair.  He has 27 first cousins on his mother's side alone, plus aunts and uncles, cousins' spouses and cousins' children. Now not everyone was there of course but it was a pretty packed house. Maggie wasn't actually the youngest baby there- one of the cousins had a week old baby there who was so precious and tiny! Anyway we had a wonderful day with plenty of yummy food and more than enough company!  Yeah for big families... The boys got a little (lot)wound up by the end of the day and pretty much attacked their cousin Sarah- who was a great sport about it all. They fell asleep on the way home thank goodness.
All Smiles!

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Maggie is 8 weeks old!

Maggie is eight weeks old!
How time flies! I can hardly believe my baby is eight weeks old already and in a few short weeks I'll be back at work. She is doing well overall although the last few days she has been on a truly impressive barfing kick. I don't know if her tummy is upset because of all her post nasal drip from runny nose or it's just an upset tummy but we have had multiple episodes of projectile barfing all over mommy! and daddy and the car seat... Otherwise she is sleeping better at night- only really waking up once to eat right now so that is great! We've had a busy few days visiting family and doing fun things with the boys. Today we are off to the zoo.

I've been working on my knitting although not as much as I thought I might since we are on vacation.  Too much playing with my children to actually have time to knit but at least that is a good excuse  I've gotten through a few rounds of feather and fan on my Multnomah and it is looking really nice.  I carried it all the way to the center stitch though because I didn't like the way the pattern looked with the triangle at the bottom. I also finally had time to pick up a book and am reading some lovely easy reading by Nora Roberts!

Come yarn along with us over at Ginny's place.

Visit to the City Museum

James gleefully throwing balls in the giant pit
 We are having a lovely visit here in MO.  The weather has for the most part cooperated and we have had warm, sunny days. It's not nearly as cold as at home.  The boys have thoroughly enjoyed helping Grandpa feed the cows and riding around the farm on Grandpa's mule.  They were thrilled when he took them to the sale barn last night- what an adventure! They have also been enjoying some serious spoiling on the part of Grandma but hey that's what Grandmas are for, right?  I've had some nice quality time with Maggie while the boys have been off romping and I even left her with Grandma for a few hours so Frank and I could go to a movie. Luckily she took a bottle like a champ and everyone survived- mommy included.


Riding the train
Today we went to the City Museum in St Louis. I'm honestly not sure how to describe this place but it was awesome! Frank has been saying for years when the boys got old enough he wanted to take them and now I understand why. Basically the whole place- all six stories- is a giant maze and climbing structure, including a giant ball pit. We slid down a 10 story slide, rode trains, played in the ball pit, explore caves, drove a firetruck, slid down a whole bunch more slides and generally climbed and clambered all over the place for 6 hours straight. We had a little hiccup in the middle of the day when Maggie decided to throw up all over herself and me.  Luckily she had a change of clothes and mostly she just hit my pants so I was able to sponge them off and continue on, but then of course Xander spilled a full glass of soda everywhere so I spent the middle art of the day pretty wet.  Why I brought an extra change of clothes for myself on the plane for this contingency but didn't think to bring some today is beyond me. Anyway the point being I highly recommend the City Museum if you are ever in St Louis with kiddos- preferably adventurous, maybe slightly older kids than mine.  I'm off to bed because tomorrow we are off to the zoo!

Climbing the outside maze!

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Maggie is 7 weeks old!

My precious little chub!
 My precious little Magdalen is 7 weeks old today. How time flies! She is smiling a lot these days and every once in a while make the the most wonderful little cooing noises. She is such a chub with the most kissable cheeks.  We went to a meeting at my work yesterday and when I put her on the scale she weighed in at 12lbs 4 oz so she is maintaining her 1/2 lb per week weight gain right now. We are heading to MO today to visit Grandma and Grandpa so that should be fun.  We get to have a nice long visit this year so hopefully we'll get the chance to do some fun things with the boys. Our plan is to go to the St Louis Zoo- so prayers for at least one nice weather day!
 
We had a minor/major knitting catastrophe this week.  I started on a pair of mittens for Xander and  finished the first one no problem.  I was running short on yarn but I thought I could eke it out. So since I finished the one mitten late at night I left my knitting stuff out on the end table in the living room. Now usually the boys know better than to touch my knitting or my knitting accessories but for some particular reason the next morning when Xander got up he thought it would be a good idea to take my scissors to what remained of the skein of orange. He then proceeded to cut the entire skein into itty bitty pieces. I thought I was going to have a stroke when I went to go pick up the skein the next morning and it all fell apart in my hands. Amazingly he managed to leave a few longer pieces and the orange was just the accent stripe so I was able to piece together a second mitten, but you'll notice one mitten has more of a green thumb b/c I couldn't eke it out that far.  Needless to say I don't think Xander will be touching my knitting again anytime soon since he landed himself in a massive timeout and a ban on all access to scissors for the foreseeable future.
 
As for reading I did start in on Outlander by Diana Gabaldon.  I've read the entire Outlander series before. I heard that she is coming out with a new book in the series next year and it's been so long since I read them I felt like it would be nice to have a refresher course before I get the new one.  Plus since I have read them before they don't really require my absolute attention in case I get distracted... because that never happens with three small children in the house (please hear the sarcasm dripping).  
 
I'm yarning along with Ginny again over at Small Things so come and see all the lovely knitting!

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Maggie's first smiles...

My little girl has really started smiling and it's just wonderful!  I couldn't really get a picture so here is a video. Don't mind Xander being a whiny but in the background.  Two seconds before this video HE was the one singing to her!

Maggie is 6 weeks old!

My oldest and my youngest enjoying a quiet moment together
 It's so incredibly hard for me to believe that Maggie is 6 weeks old already!  How time flies... I'm so grateful that my husband has agreed to be dirt poor for the next few months so that I don't have to go back to work for another six weeks! Maggie is growing like a weed- she must weigh at least 12 lbs by now.  She has pretty much outgrown all her newborn clothes and is moving into 3-6 months. Overall she is a really good baby despite being a night owl like her mama! Yesterday she was really cranky in the afternoon and evening but she seems a little better today.  I literally could not put her down yesterday - must be that six week growth spurt. She is starting to give me real smiles now and they just warm my heart.  I'll try to get a picture. She has really amazing head control too. She really can hold her head up without much help or support.



Easy Knit mittens for James- he picked out his own colors!
The other day I realized that winter was truly upon us and I couldn't ignore it anymore! So I dug out all the winter hats and coats etc for the kids.  I had been meaning to make mittens for the boys but hadn't quite gotten to it yet so the other day James and I dug through the yarn stash and dug up some yarn for mittens.  I actually had several 1/2 balls and other colors so I let James chose what he wanted.  First he picked the orange but I didn't have enough to make plain orange mittens so I asked him to pick another color and he picked the tuareg blue. I was skeptical at first but they actually came out cute.  These are seamed since it was the first time I used the pattern I just followed it as written but I am making another pair for Xander that I am knitting in the round.  I had planned on making them last night but hard to knit and hold a crabby baby at the same time so I only got one cuff done.  Today I'm hoping to find some time to work on them. Ravelry details here. I'm still working on my Multnomah but I've just gotten to the lace section so I need some time where I can pay attention to what I am doing before I can move forward.  Once I do the repeat a few times I should be good but I don't want to mess it up in the first few rows.

I haven't found much time for reading yet so we'll have to stick with knitting for now. I'm joining up again with Ginny at Small Things to share the knitting love though.