Day 10: Free Food

Today I was using the "just for u" app and found three items that we could get for free. That's right, free!! We got hot dogs, craisins, and flavored wheat thins. These are things we would not usually buy, but free is free. I'm grateful for this awesome deal!

Day 9: Paved Walking Paths

 Today I went for a walk (and a bit of a run) at a park close to where we live. While I also enjoy trails through hills, forests, mountains, etc., I really appreciate a good paved path now that I am usually pushing a stroller on my walks. I am grateful for this great paved path that is pretty close to our house. 

Day 8: My Kindle

DH got me a Kindle for my birthday last year. I really went back on forth about whether or not I wanted one. I enjoy a regular book and feeling its weight and using that to judge how much of the book is left to read. I also love that regular books are entertainment that don't require batteries or charging. You can read on a plane during take off and landing. Not true with a Kindle. Although I was somewhat apprehensive, I am so grateful for my Kindle. Without it I probably wouldn't have finished a single book after having  DD. The Kindle has been great because I could read it and "turn pages" while rocking the baby to sleep, which can sometimes take a very long time!  Even though it took almost a year to really appreciate it, I am so grateful for this wonderful birthday gift. 

Day 7: Great Parks

Today we went to a really fun park with my coworkers and their kids. This park was great!  They had playgrounds, a huge lawn, a carousel, train, creeks, a lake and ducks. Baby E went on her first train ride. It was probably a five minute loop and she fell asleep by the time we returned to the station. I am grateful for being introduced to a new park that we will definitely be visiting again!

Day 6: Pedicures

I love when I am able be a little pampered with a pedicure. Even more so when I get to do it with the girls. That was a special treat this afternoon and I enjoyed every minute. I picked bright yellow because it was so cheerful. I am grateful for relaxation with good friends!

Day 5: The Library

Our library has many activities and events. Today we went to story time and they were also having a 5 year birthday celebration for the library. This means Baby E got stories, songs, AND saw some wildlife, all for free!!!  So grateful for the library.

Day 4: Messy Food Faces

We recently started giving Baby E solids. So far peas, green beans, and carrots (which was on the menu today). She seems to like all three. Even though it's a big mess to clean, I am grateful for messy faces that make me smile.

Day 3: Leo

Our cat, Leo went missing over the weekend. We found out yesterday that he had passed away. He was the sweetest, most chill cat, that would play fetch, and we will miss him terribly. He was the first pet my husband and I got together. He would have been 5 years old in October. While it makes me so sad that he is gone, I'm grateful for the time we had with him.

Day 2: The Zoo

Not gonna lie, I love the fact that the title rhymes (did not plan it which makes it even better!). Yesterday I took Em to the zoo for the first time. Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures near the animals, but I still have the proof in front of the gift shop. She did pretty well (including sleeping through half of the time we were there), which is always something to be grateful for.

365 Days of Gratitude

Day 1: Mobile blogging from my phone. Hopefully this will allow me to blog regularly. It won't be about knitting everyday, but I'm keeping and continuing with the same blog.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

As Expected

From previous posts, I'm sure it is assumed that I haven't been posting due to having a baby. The assumption would be correct. I have been too busy to knit, blog, or do just about any other regular activity. It's all totally worth it!

One day old in the blanket I knit:



One day old, first family photo:



Ready for her first walk (do you think her mom's a knitter...ha ha!)



One month old:



Time is really flying and I love her more and more each day!

Trellis Lives Again

When my cousin had her first baby, I knit Trellis. It was the first baby sweater I knit, for the first baby in that generation of cousins. Sadly, the sweater was stolen. I wrote about it here.

Now that I am having my first baby, I decided to reknit this sweater. I may have mentioned before that I don't always love knitting cables, but I love the way they look. All I can say is thank goodness this is a baby a sweater. It might be her only handknit cabled sweater, but never say never.

When knitting for baby, I have been trying to stay away from pink, assuming that we would get tons of pink clothes (which we have). I had pink buttons for this sweater already that I bought about three years ago when a knitting shop closed. I thought about doing a white sweater about a minute before reminding myself that this would be for a little person that will probably spit up a lot. So, pink it is!







Also, this year for New Year's Eve, we didn't really do anything. My sister-in-law came over and played video games with my husband while I finished a book I was reading. We kept it low key and just stayed home and I was actually able to stay up late enough to watch the ball drop.

Here's me & baby on NYE, 36 weeks :)

Catching Up

I can't believe it is already December! Yikes! I haven't even started thinking about Christmas knitting. All I can think about are baby knits!! Fortunately, I have stock piled some finished knitted items throughout the year. Just have to figure out what goes where.

So, finished knits. I did end up finishing the rainbow striped socks; and in less than a week. Definitely worth frogging!! They are plain, simple, and I love them.



I have a bunch of leftover rainbow yarn, so I made this baby hat:



Then I seemed to get on a kick of baby knitting. During a recent knit night, one of the knitters brought some of her leftover sock yarn and let everyone have at it. Now, I have a ton of these leftover sock yarn balls, but somehow when it comes from someone else and there are different colorways, it is just so much better. With the one ball I took, I made this hat:



I thought I had enough leftover still to make a pair of infant socks. I got this far on the second sock and ran out of yarn:



So clever knitter that I am, I ripped out the top part of the hat and knit off from the hat onto the unfinished sock and then finished the hat up again. Hopefully the hat will still be long enough. Here are the finished socks:



Next I decided to knit another pair of infant socks that would match the first baby sweater I made for our first baby. You would think that I would have learned my lesson. Here is the first sock:



And the second sock:



As you can see, I managed to do it again. Unfortunately, this time I did not have a rolled brim hat that I could steal some yarn from. Doesn't quite work the same with a finished baby sweater.

Recently, when listening to the Knitmore Girls Podcast, they advised that "it never hurts to ask." I am usually one that doesn't like to ask for help or especially for freebies. Don't get me wrong, I love freebies; I just don't like ASKING for them. But then I remembered the knitter from knit night who gave away all those leftover balls of sock yarn and thought I would turn to Ravelry.

I just have to say, knitter's are the nicest, coolest people ever!! Within a couple hours of posting my desperate request, a fellow knitter on Ravelry (who I did not know previously) offered to send me the required yarn to finish off my sock. Amazing!! And, to boot, she let me know that she wouldn't be able to mail it to me until Monday because she was in the process of moving. Are you kidding me!?! Awesome!!! There should definitely be some good knitter's karma coming her way.

So basically in the last month, I have been doing more knitting than blogging, which I sometimes feel bad about, but not really. Let's face it, it takes much longer to knit things to blog about than it does to actually type up the blog post. Besides how can you resist knitting when it's cold outside and this is your view from the couch:



(That boy LOVES the fire!).

Also a baby "bump" (more like bulge) update:



Thanksgiving, 31 weeks

Crazy or Brilliant?

Now I am sure we all have those projects that need to spend some time alone and think about what they have done to us. They get put away in a bag, a drawer, or shoved into the back of a closet. I recently pulled out one of these such projects. This guy had been on "time out" for about a year (not really sure, because for some reason I never entered it on ravelry...so not like me). Here is the project that had to think long and hard about what he did:



They are sideways socks. The pattern wasn't particularly hard, just a different way of constructing socks, which I thought would be fun when I started them. I also thought it would be cool to have sock with vertical stripes instead of horizontal ones. Turns out I was wrong. These socks were not fun at all for me. If I was dreading working on the first sock, what made me think I would ever do the second sock? It might have been my first case for Second Sock Syndrome (SSS).

So the sock was shoved in a bag and then smashed into the bottom of my knitting basket. I pulled it out the other day and didn't want it sitting there unfinished any longer (maybe pregnancy is causing finishitis). I hated to rip it out because I spent so much time on it already, but after realizing that I would have to keep knitting this sock plus the second one in order to finish the pair, I finally decide to frog it (something that is sometimes very painful for me as I watch hours and hours of work be undone in minutes).

In these situations, all you can do is slip the needle out and RIP IT!



It actually ended up looking like really colorful top ramen, which is kind of fun. Plus once it was all ripped out I immediately cast on a pair of basic toe up socks. I finished one sock in about two days and have already cast on number 2.

I felt a little crazy at first when I frogged all my hard work, but felt brilliant once I had finished that first sock.

Made My Day!

About 5 years ago, I was able to go to a book signing for the Yarn Harlot. Me, being a shy person (and newer to the knitting world), didn't say much. Just got my audio book signed, took a picture, and that was pretty much it.

Stephanie just finished another book tour, and there weren't any events close enough for me to attend, but there was one in Portland where my cousin lives. I begged her to go so that I could live vicariously through her. I informed her that she should take her first pair of socks and at least one of her kiddos so that she could be on Stephanie's blog.

I am so glad my cousin made it to the event and she went all out! She took both kids and her husband. I don't think she showed Stephanie any of her own knitting. She had everyone in the family wearing or holding something I had knit for them. She even told Stephanie that they were there for Aunt Amanda and that I had knit all those things. To this Stephanie said, "Aunt Amanda rocks!" That was seriously better than if I had gone to a signing by myself and not said much to her.

Here is the post. My cousin is Laurie, with husband, Timothy, and kids. The Yarn Harlot even mentions "Auntie Amanda." Absolutely awesome!!!

Excuses, Excuses

In my last post I said that I had been super busy, but didn't explain why. Without going into a drawn out story of every little thing we have been doing for the past six weeks or so, I will just say this: we bought our first house!! This is a very exciting time, but also very exhausting since the house we purchased needed/needs a lot of TLC. Hopefully I will be able to post some before and after pictures soon.

On top of all the house projects, I have also been working on growing our baby :)



We found out we are having a GIRL!!

On the knitting front (somehow I was able to sneak it in...including while standing in line at the paint counter at Home Depot), I have some finished projects to share.

Remembering that I have been busy, you must also keep in mind that it was just easier to take pictures with my phone and upload them that way. Translation: quality of pictures sucks.

After finding out we are having a baby girl, I immediately started and (relatively quickly) finished this sweater:



And these longies:



I also made slippers for my niece. She turned four and there was a cute conversation her mom had posted on FB about how she was born in the year of the "Piggy." Being born in the year of the Boar myself, I appreciated the change to the year of the "Piggy" and I figured these slippers would be the perfect gift from me to her:

A View From Behind the Needles

During the last week or two, I barely have enough time to go grocery shopping, let alone knit. So for my post today I bring you another "AVFBN" (see title).

This is where I could squeeze in about 25 stitches today:



That's right, the car wash. Fun times.

Craft Bug

Lately I seem to have been bitten by the Craft Bug. I know that knitting is crafty, but I have the urge to branch out. Some of these crafty things remind me of my childhood, like making friendship bracelets. I used to love making and wearing them. I just finished a bracelet this week, although the method of making it was new.



So basically you just keep moving the thread to the opposite side of the wheel, rotate and repeat. Then a bracelet comes out the other end. Amazing! (What can I say, I'm a simple girl.)



Then after looking around on my new obsession, Pinterest, I found wire wrapped rings, so I decided to make one of those as well. Super quick craft!





Also, on Pinterest, I found a ton of nail art. I was inspired. I used to do fun things with my toenails all the time (again, feeling a little nostalgic). I did something fun with my toenails for Fourth of July this year, but what to do next??



Zebra print!! DH just laughs at me. Oh well. I might as well enjoy doing fun things on my toenails now. Soon enough I won't be able to see my feet anymore. The beginnings of the bump:

One Year Ago Today...

I married my best friend.





We have accomplished so much together in our first year of marriage. Here's a quick run down and review of the last year...

You started your new job and we moved within our first month.



We carved pumpkins together for the very first time.



You prepared and barbecued your first Thanksgiving turkey and now you may be stuck doing it forever. Seemed like nobody could get enough of it!



We celebrated Christmas and sent out our first family Christmas card.



Then we went to Reno with friends to bring in the New Year.



In February, I started my new job. We also hosted our first Super Bowl Party, which I'm sure is something that you would love to repeat every year :)



In April, you spoiled me on my birthday and we celebrated Easter with both of our families.





In May, we found out that our family will be growing :)



For the Fourth of July, we had a great view for fireworks and the least amount of traffic I have ever experienced for a fireworks event. (You were right!)



We celebrated our anniversary early in Pismo since I would be starting work and wouldn't be able to go anywhere during our anniversary weekend.



In August, we celebrated your 30th Birthday.

Currently, we are on the final stretch of owning our own home. It's hard to believe all we have done in one year and I can't wait to see what the next 74+ years (as you say) has in store for us. I love you!