Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Made To Be Broken

As I mentioned in a recent post, I have been doing a lot of unintentional self-reflection which has resulted in one change after another (I am not sure what brought this on). I am normally quite change adverse, but for some reason I just can't stop myself lately. My latest promises to myself (which will surely be broken, because who really ever keeps promises they make themselves) consist of the following:


- I promise that my 30s are going to be my best decade yet. I realize that I am still a few years away, but for some reason 30 brings a lot of hope for me; hope to be in the best shape of my life (I even went to the gym today after years away *gasp*); hope that I will have figured out how to balance work, being a mom, crafting, and having a chronic illness; hope that raising Chase will just become more and more exciting; hope that 5 great years of marriage will turn into 10; hope that by 30 I will have life a bit more figured out (or that I will at least believe that I do). I think 30 sounds perfect...I can't wait.


- I promise that I will be a better blogger. I recently realized a few things about my blog. 1) I don't pay very much attention to it 2) I am not sure that anyone ever really visits my blog 3) why would anyone visit my blog as my posts are often fairly boring (well just very self-focused instead of reader focused) 4) if I want people to visit my blog I need to visit theirs 5) I am not a very good writer and I need to figure out how to make my writing my interesting 6) I need to take better pictures 7) I need to blog about the little things because sometimes those are the most interesting stories.


- I promise that I will start finishing things I start. I say this and yet I currently have 3 blankets, 2 sweaters, a few jewelry pieces, a billion scrapbooks, a few sewing projects, etc, that are all in progress at this very moment. So that being said, guess what I did tonight, I bought "Knitting Lingerie Style" by Joan McGowan-Michael and "Essential Knits For Kids" by Debbie Bliss so that I now have a zillion new projects to start. I'm hopeless (this promise may have already been broken).


All of this self-reflection sure does make for long to do lists...

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Chase's New Sweater

We are back from Breckenridge and although I am bummed to be finished with vacation I am very excited about the crafting that I got done there! If you want to check out vacation photos go to our family page.


I knit Chase a sweater from a pattern I found on Ravelry, it is similar to the Cobblestone sweater I have seen. Details are on my Ravelry page. The only thing I am disappointed in is how big the sweater is! Maybe it will fit him when he is 3... I am in the process of re-knitting this sweater in a smaller size and different color. (BTW my husband doesn't like the sweater - he thinks it looks like a girl sweater - but I love it anyways).





Here are the knit soakers I finished for a friend that just had a baby. I am thrilled with how these turned out. They are a bit smaller than I wanted (apparently I suck at sizing things) but I think they will work well for a newborn.


Friday, June 26, 2009

Family Vacation Highlights







I love vacationing with the entire family (including built in Grammy and Aunt Kathy babysitting). We are currently wrapping up a week in Breckenridge.

Some of the highlights of the trip have been:
- We took Chase swimming for the first time. It was like we took two different kids...for the first half an hour Chase was terrified. He clung to me as tight as he could screaming "scary scary scary NO MOMMY NO MOMMY" and he clutched his side so hard he had a red hand print on his side. After carrying the kid around the pool (making sure not to get ANY SCARY WATER on him) for thirty minutes I finally took him to the shallow water with Grammy and we sat down in the water and forced Chase to sit in my lap. He tolerated this at best. At that point one of my cousins started blowing bubbles in the water and Chase's water twin suddenly appeared. Chase started dunking his head in the water and blowing bubbles, he kicked around and splashed, he floated on both his back and his stomach, it was like we had been to the pool a million times. I hope next time we go (which will probably be later today) the swimming twin is in town.
- I have had a ton of crafting time and I am about 90% done with a pair of knit soakers and I am 80% done with my first sweater (a little brown sweater for Chase that is similar to the Cobblestone sweater I have seen on the web). I got the pattern on Raverlry.
- The crepes here are amazing! I swear I would drive up just to eat them!
- Having enough babysitting time that I have been able to sunbath, knit, see movies, go on dinner dates, shop, take walks, nap, etc.
- Listening to Chase "read" Little Beauty, a really cute book my dad bought him.
- Taking hot tubs on the deck with a mountain view.
- My new Pandora charm bracelet.

Not so amazing vacationing moments:
- Getting up EVERYDAY at 5am. Apparently that is Chase's new wake up time.
- Cleaning up projectile vomit after Chase got carsick. We were driving back to the house we rented after a day at the marina and Chase started saying "Car too hot, Car is hot, Hot car, Hot Car!!!" to which I replied "Chase the air conditioning is at 65 and it is NOT HOT IN THE CAR." As we pulled up to the house my cousin squealed in disgust because Chase had urped up a bit on himself. As I went to pull him out of the car, holy projectile vomit, all over my car, and his car seat, and himself, it was quite the disaster. I hate the smell of fruit snack scented vomit.
- Having sleep battles with an almost 2 year old who refuses to go to sleep.
- Thinking about how this is my last day of vacation...

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

In The Near Future

Lately I have had the itch for a new and improved life...or maybe a new and improved me...or maybe the same old life and the same old me but with a few new shiny features...


Given how busy my current life is, I unfortunately can't make too many drastic changes at once but here are a few of the small short term goals that I am aiming for. It's the small things that count right?


- Sell our house and buy a new one (this isn't exactly small but right now it is my number one priority)
- Get fit (yes, unfortunately this means back to dieting and exercising, yuck)
- Finish Chase's 1 year scrapbook (I am going digital because I just can't keep up with paper) and commit to taking more pictures of him in general, I have been terribly lazy about the photos and video lately
- Potty train Chase (I am terrified of this)
- (If and when we buy a new house) decorate a toddler room for Chase and move him out of a crib
- Invest in a little style now and then (I really do look like a slob lately, I am in need of a pedicure, a haircut, new clothes, and some style that doesn't include sweats, old maternity clothes, and t-shirts )
- Spend more time with my hobbies (as long as it doesn't interfere with my friends and family time - unfortunately I think that means it has to cut into sleep time)
- Have a better attitude about work (right now work feels like something that gets in the way of the things I really want to be doing)


I suppose that is enough for now although I probably have about 500 other things that need to be thought about as well.

Monday, June 15, 2009

My Life Has Gone Down The Toilet - Hooray!

Today was a big day in our household - forgive me for the details / subject but this is what my life has come to. Chase told me that he needed to poop and when I took him to the potty - HE ACTUALLY POOPED IN THE POTTY!!! It was our first potty success. Unfortunately about 3 minutes later he said "mommy poop again" and being the naive person that I am, I figured since he had already gone he didn't need to go again - but sure enough about 1 minute later he pooped again in his diaper. Overall I still consider the experience a success. We still aren't "officially" potty training yet, we just talk about it a lot and squeal in delight when we have successes, but I'm pretty sure the real thing is coming soon *GULP - SCARY*. It's sad how when you become a parent the highlight of your day is watching someone else take a crap.


The other way in which my life has gone down the toilet (forgive me for whining but I can't help myself) is that this morning I woke up and my joint pain was so bad and I was so stiff that I couldn't straighten my knees. I spent the entire day hobbling around like an old person and it made me very grouchy. *sigh* If it is chronic fatigue syndrome I am 1.5 years down, with about 1.5 years to go...

Crafting Draught

I haven't been doing much crafting lately, I have started knitting 3 blankets but I haven't finished any of them. Today I whipped up this belt (I got the idea from Capricious) because I am in desperate need of something to hold up my pants. I made a similar one for Chase with paw prints on it.


Thursday, June 11, 2009

40 Minutes Over That?!

Wow - two blog entries in a day! I must be making up for lost time.


Yesterday Chase and I had quite the adventure. When we were leaving daycare Chase started pitching the biggest fit! I had to physically drag him in both arms out of daycare with him screaming down the halls (many a parent gave me the "I'm so glad that isn't me" look). I hauled him to the car only to find that he was kicking and pinching me so much that I couldn't get him in his car seat. So I sat and waited for about 10 minutes thinking that he would calm down - no such luck. I had to push the kiddo into his car seat and he proceeded to cry the entire way home. When we got home I put him in his crib where the tantrum continued for about 20 more minutes. Chase finally calmed his body down after quite the marathon tantrum. So I am sure you are asking yourself what could set off a 20 month year old and make them so mad as to warrant a 40 minute cry? The answer...a pair of 2 inch little rubber toys, one fire truck and one train, that mean old mommy made Chase leave at daycare...





Being the ENORMOUS chump that I am, I went out and bought Chase some of them today because he loved them so much. (We now have 90 tiny vehicles in case anyone needs any.)

Cookies for Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner

Chase is an extremely picky eater. In fact he is vegetarian by his own choice (he won't touch a single type of meat). His favorite foods right now are tofu, edamame, olives, fruit, fries, and of course chocolate and Cheetos. Needless to say that since one of my paranoid mommy areas is him being "underweight" (in the 5th percentile) it bugs me when the kid won't eat ANYTHING for a meal. So I have recently implemented some trickery. Chase will often ask for cookies for a meal so I have started feeding him Clif bars and calling them cookies. Using this fabulous trick I am able to sneak 250 calories worth of protein and other fortified goodness into my skinny kiddo. I wonder what we will have to resort to next...

In other Chase news, now that we are planning on moving, I have been dreaming about decorating Chase's toddler room. I've decided that we are going for an ULTRA modern loft styled room. I want to do it in orange and white with maybe lime green accents. I think I want to paint a thick orange stripe in a white room and then paint white construction trucks in the orange stripe. Here are some of the things I am pondering purchasing....

This table and chair set comes in orange

I love this trundle bed





PS. After browsing through my blog recently I realized ALL of my entries are about Chase so I have decided to make the effort to start blogging about other things as well. I think the rest of my life just isn't that exciting (work, cleaning, illness, etc)...especially since my crafting has its own blog.

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Hard Not to Laugh


Here are some pictures from the other day of my sister, her daughter, and Chase... but the part of this entry worth reading is at the bottom...





The other day after bath for some reason Chase decided that he didn't want to put his diaper or PJs on.  The result was the most spectacular tantrum Chase has had yet.  He was screaming and crying and flopping around so much that Boris and I just couldn't get his diaper on him.  So I picked him up and took him to his room and put him in his crib and told him that when he calmed down we would get in our PJs and go watch Thomas before bed.  Completely naked, Chase proceeded to grab on to the crib bars and he started jumping up and down while screaming and crying.  I could hardly stand it, it was so funny, do you think you could have contained yourself?  I really should have gotten out the camera and taken pictures...