Things to Remember...

There are a few things I really want to remember about my kiddos at this age.......

Big Man E is such a funny kid. He is ALWAYS full of questions, especially "what ifs." He's a little bit crazy with energy, and for my sanity I have to send him outside pretty regularly, hence my favorite freckles coming out. His favorite books are the Magic Tree House series, and anything to do with legos and Star Wars is an instant attraction for him. 

Little Miss C sings every time she wants to tell you something. Anything. She loves My Little Ponies and Merida from Brave. She mostly likes to play boy games like her brother, but when you get her around little girls she can be very girly. She's also working on her "L's", so instead of "I wuv you" she says "I llllllove you" and it's so cute. Her favorite thing to talk about is birthdays, and she knows which order all of our birthdays will fall this year.

Baby J really isn't much of a baby any more. She loves FOOD, and if you leave your food on the table she will almost certainly take it before you can blink. But, if you give her her own plate she is not likely to even eat half of it. She copies everything her brother and sister say, and she tickles anything she can find, including the air. She sings me songs about Jesus all the time in the car, especially when I am sad and it makes my day. My favorite thing she says right now is "why thank you!"

Happy Easter!

Dryall = Happy

We've only started to hang the drywall in the basement, and by "we" I mean my dad and my husband. The sheets are just too heavy for me to lift right now. Anyways, here is the playroom, with drywall 100% complete! We only have 12 WEEKS left to finish this basement, and boy am I stressed out!

I know this place is where I usually just post creative and crafty things, but seriously, it's my blog and I'll write whatever the f*ck I want on it.

I'm struggling.

I feel like an empty shell.

It feels like my entire being has been sucked out and there is nothing left.

I'm frustrated with my kids all the time.

I'm angry with my friends.

I hate being pregnant.

I find myself crying all the time.

At night I can't barely sleep. During the day, all I want to do is sleep.

I actually had a couple of good days this week, and I was super excited because I thought it was just pregnancy related, that maybe I had finally gotten out of the morning sickness and exhaustion funk (at 26 weeks), and then it started all over again today.

Maybe it's because of the pregnancy (I never have easy ones). Maybe it's because my best friend and her husband are thinking about moving again, even though they just moved last year and I want to scream at them that it's a big distraction from the tasks that are right in front of them, to wait a few years and use the support they have here, and then go. Maybe it's the sickness that has been passed around my family, and it might have finally hit me. Maybe it's the friend that broke my heart 4 years ago and left is coming back, and while I'm super excited to see her, I'm terrified at the same time. Maybe it's the basement not being done yet, and I really want it to be done before baby comes. Maybe it's because my birthday is coming up soon, and while I don't mind growing older at all (I'm actually excited to be 30 next year) I have gotten depressed the couple of weeks before my birthday for the last few years in a row.

I feel like every time I start to make plans, to have hopes and dreams, they are ripped from me and leave a great big hole. My heart must look like swiss cheese by now. I'm terrified of having a fourth baby, that I will lose my identity completely and not be able to do anything any more with friends. The time I will have with people will probably be very little and precious. I had a friend message me today on Facebook asking for a playdate. We've only had two so far, and she apologized because she was worried I thought they weren't very good and that's why I haven't made more plans with her. I actually  really enjoyed my time with her, I just have been super busy and only consistent in a couple of friendships. I felt terrible. I had coffee with another friend recently, and I left angry because she was struggling and needed some help and I didn't feel like listening. I love my moms group, and last week I left angry because all my table talked about was healthy food. I feel selfish, but truthfully I feel so empty that I don't know how to give it any more.

I don't know what I'm expecting from putting all of this garbage out into the world. I really don't care any more. This is life right now, and it's hard.

I Might Have Lied....

Okay, so you remember in this post how I said there was no way in heck I was going to do shrugs for the girls this year for Easter? Well, while writing that post I got inspired. I searched more patterns, and I found the perfect one. Which leads to.... voila!

This one is for Little Miss C, Baby J also has one that's almost complete, I just need to buy a bit more yarn. I guess I shouldn't speak too soon before deciding on something like this!

First Lace Attempt

First of all, ohmygosh, my friend Joanna Johnson from Slate Falls Press released this GORGEOUS pattern in Knitty eMagazine a couple of weeks ago. Can we say YUM!?! And it's free! I swear Joanna, I'm not trying to be a suckup or anything, but seriously, your patterns are AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL! I could hardly wait to try it.

My girls are going to wear handmade dresses again for Easter this year, courtesy of my lovely mama. I requested sleeveless so I could try to knit them little shrugs. I even let Little Miss C pick out the yarn she wanted and found lots of patterns to choose from. One word - HA. I wanted to knit lace cardigans for them, even though I had never knit lace before. After a lot of swearing, my first one pretty much got thrown out the window. I tried to "design my own" using the foliage pattern from Joanna's pattern, and again, a big fat HA. Not this year. I decided to use the pretty turquoise yarn to make the Foliage Pattern, start to finish, as my first practice lacework piece, and put off the cardigans for next year.

This went pretty well for quite awhile. I would make a mistake every now and then, which is to be expected when learning a new technique, right? After about 8 inches though, my mistakes had piled up far too high and I couldn't keep track of where I was supposed to be any more. I cut that yarn and started from square one. First 3 rows of the lace pattern ended up being a disaster, so I ripped out the whole thing and started again. During the third attempt I messed up the number cast on, making it different than planned and also messed up really badly on the first row of lace. Time to rip it out (again) and let it sit for a bit. At least during the season 3 finale of Downton Abbey, which seriously, WHAT THE $@$%@! were they thinking!?! I decided one more time to try again last night. After all, the pattern was easy enough, (and by no means were my mess-ups the fault of the pattern writer), so I thought I would "give it a go" one more time and prove to myself that I'm not "completely daft." (See, too much Downton Abbey.) I was pleasantly surprised to see how much better it went this time, only a few mistakes here and there and I was able to catch them right away! I have loved learning how lace knitting works, with all it's little intricacies and yarnovers. It really is a beautiful way to knit. Plus, I am getting much faster! I was able to whip up this much in about 3 hours last night, so I am well on my way. Maybe I will finish it by the time spring truly is here and it can make a cute little scarf to offset my growing belly in the warmer/cool weather. Anyways, I'm rambling now. Enjoy your weekend, it's supposed to be 70 degrees here! Sounds like a good weekend for some geocaching with the kiddos....

Making a House a Home

It's easy to feel behind the times, out of touch with the current trends, unstylish. (Is that even a word?)   Pinterest has so many great ideas to update your home on the cheap, and as fun as those ideas are I'm starting to find myself drifting from the "trendy" and the "now." I like to frequent places like the Hobby Lobby clearance aisle and flea markets just like anybody else, and even bought a dresser that my bestie and I made over (post to come later.) Sometimes, though, it feels like if I don't have every space on my wall covered, I'm not making my home pretty enough. Heck, I even have big old screw holes and unpainted patches on a wall in my living room, results from our (not so) recent move around of furniture, and I have just never taken care of it.

I guess my thought is that I really could care less about buying lots of "stuff" to make my house look "pretty" in the current times. I have lots of big plans for it, sure, but I'm taking it slow. I'm a little intimidated for the amount of "stuff" we will probably need to purchase once our basement is finished, considering I will have almost another entire home to decorate. Yikes! I want the decor in my home to mean something though. I remember walking through my grandparent's homes, when everything had a story and a reason for being there. My Grandma Nancy had the gallery wall down way before it was cool, covering two entire walls in the hallway with family photos. My Grandma Mitzi had dolls displayed everywhere that she had made with her own hands. Even in my mom's kitchen you can see many special objects that she had in her own home growing up. One of my favorite blogs is http://fortheloveofahouse.blogspot.com/, a story of a husband and wife who bought an old farmhouse and are completely gutting and remaking it. Every piece in her home tells a story of her and her husband traveling the world looking for antiques together, and it's incredibly beautiful. I doubt it will ever go out of style, either.

I want my home to be more than pretty pictures I find at Hobby Lobby. I want it to tell the story of my family. I want it to represent events from my family's history, stories of my children from infancy to adulthood. I want to not care if it looks "perfectly coordinated," and most of all I want it to feel like home. My current mission is to find a paint color for my living room and basement that I can live with for a long time, and over time add pieces that represent us as a family. I want my home to be an ever evolving palette, adding texture and dimension the way our lives are shaped. I'll have a couple of spots for some "trendy" items here and there that will over time be replaced, but for now I am okay with it taking a lifetime to make our house a home.

FO - Fair Isle Mittens

Well, the mittens are done. They were fun, but to be honest, I was glad to be done with them. I just need to stop knitting with cheap yarn! It makes such a difference on how enjoyable the project is. Fortunately, my cousin's daughter LOVED them and they will fit her quite nicely. I hope to get them sent down to them soon, and hopefully they will get at least one more good snow this year so she can get some use out of them!

As the weather is warming up I am finding myself wanting to knit lighter, airier patterns. I am trying to learn lace, though my current project almost had me throwing it out the window. My mom keep saying to keep trying though, that it's hard learning new techniques but after I get it I can make so many lovely things. She's right, so off to knit some more I go.....