9.18.2011

Such A Wonderful Week!

My Week Sept. 15

This week has been such a blast! I've been crocheting up a storm working on Judah's ripple blanket & making granny squares for the Blogger Blanket Project! I FINALLY found my favorite crochet hook! It's a blue H hook with a bamboo handle! It's been missing for quite some time! When I took the couch cushions off to wash them, the hook was tucked away in the couch!

My doctors appointment was cancelled Tuesday, as the OB had to go in to deliver a baby! Not a problem, but it was kinda annoying that we had to drive an hour & 30 minutes to get to his office. We were about 3 miles away from his office when we got the call. We took advantage of the day and went to Old Navy for some maternity blue jeans & then we headed to Lenox Mall for some shopping! We went in LUSH, the apple store & Anthro. It was Robin's first time ever going in Anthropologie and he was actually in love! I have to admit, my hubby has good taste! He loved the natural wood & stone floor and a lot of the home decorations! He even pointed out a few bedspreads that he liked.. I might just have to make a wish list for Christmas or something! I was so surprised he loved it.. It made me love him a wee bit more on top of the muchness that I love him. It was like a cherry on top of whipped cream ;) Two things that really caught my eye were these::::
Crochet bird house @ anthropologie! I gave to make one of these!!
A crochet blanket from anthropologie thatbi gotta make too!!!
Um, I DIE!!! A crochet bird house?!?! Have mercy! I don't know if I would put it outside, but it would be such a cute place for a little feathery family to brood! AND that blanket. OH.. my eyes and heart just swell looking at it! I can hardly stand it!



I also had my baby shower this weekend too! Which means my BFF Natalie was down for the weekend! We stayed up till 3:30am Friday night! We made cake pops & chocolate covered marshmellow & oreos for the shower! She decorated it in a "Rain Shower" theme! Everything was so cute & light blue! It was so beautiful! My friend Jessica said everything looked like a Pinterest board! We made blue punch & had cups with paper umbrellas & straws! The cake pops were almost a disaster but after putting them in the freezer & swapping candy melts for Almond bark made everything work out perfectly! We got a little stressed out Friday night and decided to forget all the baby shower hoopla & get in the hot tub! We laughed so much and so hard! It was like we were teenagers again.. minus the weird hair and obvious lack of fashion sense. Needless to say, it was a blast! Saturday loads of my family & friends came over and showered me with love & gifts! Such WONDERful gifts! Some of which I will cherish for a lifetime!! Tons of stuff to get us started with out little man! I still can't get over how SOON he will be here... 5 more weeks.

Hopefully this week we can get around to moving our rooms around to make room for little Judah & give me an area to "nest" and decorate!

What did you ladies/gents do this weekend?!

  

9.16.2011

Baby Blanket Progress


If you follow me on instagram or flickr, these pictures aren't new to you! This past week I set asdie my granny squares to work on Judah's Ripple Blanket. The clock is ticking & he'll be here REALLY soon.. like within the next MONTH! Crazy. So I've been working on this every spare moment I get and I don't get those alot. I really need to put in some serious hours on this to get it finished! I've got about 6 more weeks until my due date ;) Hopefully I can get it finished before then!(And YES, we finally decided on a baby name: Judah River :D  I'm sure I'm going to call him River & his daddy will call him Judah. :P)
Happiness is a glass of water & crocheting on the couch.

Looks like someone needs to go to hobby lobby!

Belly & me crocheting in the car with Jessica!
Do you see that belly?! Lol. (Mini update from my post a few days ago about Judah being breech, he's head down now :) which makes my heart skippy and my eyes tear up a bit. This whole Vbac thing is really going to happen! I feel so happy & blessed!)
Baby Boy Blanket
I took this picture the day I started the blanket. A ripple blanket works up so quickly! And doing just two rows of colors each, you're constantly changing out yarn! Which, to me, breaks it up and it's easy to finish two rows in one sitting ;)
I'm using Attic24's pattern from memory :). It's seriously the easiest thing to remember once you get your "foundation" chain & first row finished. Lucy does a fantastic job of making things really easy to understand too! You might remember this blanket that I made for my nephew:
Joshua's Ripple Blanket
I used that same pattern for it! It's awesome cause you can make it as big or as small as you want it, just by the number of chains you make in the beginning!

Here are some other really awesome ideas:

You could channel the Missoni Line at Target with Vickie Howell's newest pattern! She has a new yarn out with Caron too called Sheepish! I looks lovely! She refers to it as a Chevron Pattern, which is pretty much the same thing as a ripple blanket from what I can tell! But you can purchase these EXACT colors and follow her pattern for an identical blanket! Um, can we say CROCHET ALONG? We should all do it! What do you think?! I would LOVE to have a little project to work on with everyone! Not to mention, I want this blanket REALLY bad! I just looks so beautiful & colorful!



You could make a sweet ripple cowl!!! This one looks so soft & yummy!


OR a granny ripple! How pretty is this? It would be interesting to de-stash with this pattern. I just imagine the mix-matchy-ness of a hundred differnt colors would look neat!

There are so many project I want to be working on right now and it's getting that time of year to snuggle up with a little hooky business & a cup of hot tea and just swing outside or let the cool breeze in through the windows. *sigh* Did I ever mention that I love fall? ;)









9.12.2011

My Week!


First Instagram Collage


 This week has been pretty fun & interesting! I FINALLY got an iPhone. I'm sure you all remember the posts where I post a hundred pictures of cute iphones.. my digital wish list! Well, my dreams came true and I'm so stinking happy about it! I'm really surprised by how much I love having a smartphone! I ADORE Instagram & I'm sure everyone following me will get tired of my many, many updates! Does the "new" ever wear off?! lol!

I'm trying to get caught up on some crochet projects! I've been making granny squares & I have two sets ready for the Blogger Blanket project! I gotta get busy and get all these made up, so when the baby gets here I won't get behind! I've only got FIVE weeks until I'm "full term"!! It's craziness! So, I gotta get SUPER busy on Judah's ripple blanket too! It shouldn't take me too long if I can just FOCUS!

What projects are you trying to keep up with & how excited are you for OCTOBER!? I can't wait!!
(Do you guys see that eyeball wreath!! i love it! it was in Country Living Magazine, along with some AWESOME decopouged pumpkins)





9.02.2011

The Baby Things

Source: None via heather on Pinterest


Hello friends! It's in the wee hours of the morning & I'm sitting here pondering. I'm thinking about how little I've talked about LIFE on here lately. Or rather, how little I've talked at all. Life is all about fluctuation. I guess I've just been out of the flux of things lately.
(Forewarning: This is long. And a bit emotional. And maybe even a tad bit graphic, but most importantly, my soul bearing out on-line, venting and coping.)

LOADS of things have changed in the last few months. Robin got a new job! (THANK YOU GOD!!!), Autumn is potty trained (Again, thank you GOD!) lol. And I'm almost to my due date! Ha, did you forget I was pregnant? I'm due October 27th!!! A Halloween baby is what I'm hoping for!

 I'm 32 weeks now and showing reallllllly good. It's kind of sad that I hate taking pictures of myself while pregnant. I've only got a few pictures of me while I was pregnant with Autumn & so far I've only taken one picture this pregnancy. My face is all sorts of puffy & my nose gets really big from pregnancy hormones.. it just looks all messed up! BUT, I am pregnant. I can promise I have a little mr. pumpkin growing inside me & moving around.

This pregnancy has been a little different than my first. Not too much, but a little bit. Being pregnant a second time isn't such a big deal. Just getting past all the morning sickness is the hardest part! Now, I'm just blissfully breezing through my weeks of being pregnant wondering exactly where did the time go?

It seems like just a few days ago I took the pregnancy test, because I KNEW just KNEW I was pregnant! And I was. I ran outside to Robin & jumped up & down, so excited. Then a few hours later I cried. And a few days later I thought to myself "What in the world were we thinking!" If you've been preggers, you know what I'm talking about. The excitement of knowing you are having a baby verus the psycological mind field as you begin to think of how you are going to afford & raise another youngin. It's tough stuff facing that reality.

But here I am. 32 weeks pregnant, seeing a doctor half way across the state so I can have a VBAC (natural birth after a c-section). Praying and believing God that I can and will birth this little boy myself & not have to have another doctor EVER cut me open again. And I'm struggling with it all. I know I CAN do it. I know I WANT to do it, but I'm worried that I'm just dysfunctional. 

I had a c-section with Autumn because she was a breech baby. She never turned head down to be born. She sat in utero like a tiny little baby Indian & refused to leaver her comfy little nest. I didn't know anything about how babies were supposed to be born. My doctor wouldn't "turn" the baby because it was an old practice that no-one did anymore & it wasn't safe. (What a load of CRAP!) And they never suggested anything to help turn the baby either. So, at 39 weeks Autumn came into the world through an incision. I was out of it and I didn't get to hold her till later after the surgery. All things considered it was an okay experience. But just becuase something is okay, doesn't mean you ever want to do it again or that you enjoyed the process. Or that the process was meaningful to you. Honestly, I think birth is supposed to be meaningful to you. It's not supposed to be something you feel detached from.

This past week at my doctors appointment my doctor told me that this baby had also turned breech. Just 3 weeks earlier he was head down (and EVERY ultrasound before then he was head down.) I was so disappointed and upset with myself. Thankfully, because I chose a doctor who was KNOWN for being a huge VBAC supporter & practicing evidence based medicine, he turned the baby right then! An ultrasound confirmed that the baby was perfect & head down! YAY!!!  Then I get home. My mind is playing tricks on me. Every little movement & kick is analyzed and I'm trying to figure out where he is. I layed down to take a nap and sure enough, my little pumpkin just flopped RIGHT back to a head up position. It was like he was doing sommersaults in there! Quite uncomfortable & very, very disheartening.

Now, it's two weeks before I have another doctor's appointment and I am so worried that this baby just won't stay down & that I'll have to have another c-section. I'm trying so hard to avoid another one. And maybe there is just something wrong that I can't gestate a baby in the right position. I've been reading and studying baby positioning, trying to understand what I need to do so that he has room to go south. Everyone keeps saying "Oh, it's so early, that baby has plenty of time to turn." And all I hear is, "Autumn never turned and this one never will either." It's a serious concern that I'm having. One that effects a lot of things. It's so easy to shrug it off, but to me it's like the pottery on the shelf is slowly cracking. Bits and bit falling off. Am I broken? Is there just something wrong with me that I can't birth my own baby? 

I know those are just crazy thoughts and are things I shouldn't think about. Let's be honest though, when something doesn't work right with our bodies we blame ourself. I know I have NO control over what my uterus does. I have no control over what position the baby decides to fall into. The only thing I have control over is my thoughts and actions. And I'm trying so hard to keep my thoughts tied up tight & to stay positive. Doubt lingers like a cruel friend though.

To battle all that doubt I'm trying everything to turn this baby. I'm seeing a Chiropractor who practices the webster technique (a spine adjustment known to help relax the muscels around the uterus to give the baby more space to move head down.). I've got a birth ball to sit on to help let gravity take effect. I'm doing pelvic tilts & squatting around everywhere. And I'm praying. Praying God will grant me this desire. Praying that he will turn & stay down. And that he'll be there when I go into labor & make me strong.

Please pray with me.. send baby turn head down thoughts my way. And know that in a couple of weeks I will have a tiny newborn little boy and I would much rather birth him myself than have to have him surgically removed. Because it means a lot to me. It will mean a lot to this baby too.








9.01.2011

The crochet is BANANAS!

My latest crochet creations are FINISHED! YAY! They didn't take long, in fact I made all of them over the course of 3 days. That includes a trip to the yarn store for some supplies! :D 
My friend Victoria's daughter is turning ONE! And for her birthday, her mama might have told me that she would like some play food! I'd been wanting to make some for Autumn & it seemed like a great idea to test out patterns and see how it would go! Well.. here it is!

bowl o'fruits

bowl o'fruits
pear!
grapes!
apple!
banana!

The fruit was so simple to make and a couple of searches on Ravelry & google images hooked me up with the perfect free patterns! I was able to use a lot of my stash yarn up for these too, a HUGE plus in my opinion!
I also made a cute little bunny! Autumn doesn't want to part with the bunny & I'm sure I will have to make another one verrrrry soon. Victoria's little girl's birthday party is this weekend & I hope they love the pressies!



crochetbunny

I've been working hard on granny squares too. I'm trying to get as many made as I possibly can before the baby gets here and all my time is taking up snuggling a newborn!

What have ya'll been working on!?

I hope everyone has a FUN labor day!!


8.07.2011

How Do You Crochet?

hdycrochet
I guess being a hands/eyes on learner I like to learn from other people's ideas too. Crocheting is something that I've completely learned by myself. There was no dialogue about the process or someone showing me what was their prefered method or how they liked to crochet.

I am totally a lazy bum, a procrastionater, a do it when you feel like it type person. Not all the time, but 85% of the time. ;) So, I rarely set a time aside for crocheting. I'll take a project along in the car, if I feel like it. I'll work on it while I'm sitting around watching t.v. and playing with Autumn, if I feel like it. But I don't have a "schedule". I'm wondering if that's the reason I've never finished a blanket. Or finished anything other than small projects like hats, scarves, baby blankets, toys, accessories. Things that can be finished in a few hours or a couple of days.

So, how do you crochet?
Do you plan it out or do you simply just crochet when the mood hits? Do you crochet on the couch/in the car/ on the bus/ train? Do you crochet in a certain chair with a certain hook? What do you use as inspiration?

I'm so curious and I hope all you awesome crochet people out there will answer!  And hopefully I can learn something from your routine!

7.26.2011

Blogger Blanket Project

After successfully procrastinating crocheting granny squares last night, I woke up this morning with great purpose. I ate breakfast and afterwards got busy! I put on a movie for Autumn & I got comfy in the living room with Burlesque (which was pretty good.) and went to work! So far I've made 2 grannies. 6 rounds takes awhile! Not to mention I have to take breaks to help Autumn use the potty, get juice, check on her because she's gotten really quiet. That sort of thing. I've been neglecting to take pictures of the previous squares, so here are my two so far! :)
granny squares 018
granny squares 028
I'm down to my last little bit of that Olive green yarn. It's a discontinued color from Hobby Lobby's  I Love This Yarn. It was my favorite color & you can't find it any more. I've been to countless hobby lobby's looking for it. It makes me sad! So, I've just been using it up as the first round in all my squares cause it uses the least amount of yarn! Hobby Lobby should really re-think making this yarn again. There are some HIDEOUS colors they have that never sell at hobby lobby & they should bring this yarn back!! Please?! lol. I'll be buying it all the time! Anyhoot....

Luckily, my swap partners have taken pictures of the squares I've sent them! YAY! So here they are! I hope you guys don't mind me sharing the pictures!!
I did some stash busting on Jamie's squares, and I feel like they are so hodge podge and mismatched! She loved them, but I still feel like I should have made a more uniformed look now! The botton left square is my FAVORITE! I think breaking the colors up with the cream rows really does something special to the look of it! Jamie I'm so glad you snapped this shot!

These are the squares I made for Becky! I love the way these colors turned out together! I wish I had a whole blanket of them, but let's just be honest, when it comes to big crochet projects I sadly don't have the motivation/determination to finish them! Doesn't instagram make everything look so much cuter! Thanks Becky for tweeting about them!!

Here are the squares I've received already! Every time I check the mailbox I am crossing my fingers for a package from my swap partner!!
Squares from Courtney @you will. won't you?, our swap host! They make me think of St. Patrick's Day and four leaf clovers! :) 
Squares from Christine @ckscribbles She wrote me a cute little note and explained her "color story!" So, cute! She was inspired by the multi-colored yarn & based all her color choices off it! I've never thought of crocheting from a color story! Such a clever idea!
I just had to single this square out! I LOVE IT! I'm a sucker for gradient.. I can't help it. Not to mention that the blues are PERFECT! This square makes me so happy!

Well I'm going to go crochet some more while Autumn takes her nap!
I hope you all are having a wonderful day!