march thirty-one :: 93 weeks old

Mack is 93 weeks old today.

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For those of you whom have emailed me asking when the April 2010 Desktop Calendars are coming, they’re here!! From left to right you have the B&W record player print (that one is mine!), devil girl, flowers & branches. Pick which one you want, save it to your desktop as a wallpaper and voila – a free gift from myself & three other wonderful ladies (2 of which I get to meet later this month in beautiful British Columbia!)

At work today I got to meet Yannick Lupien, who is a Canadian Freestyle swimmer. He’s won silver for Canada at the Olympics! I had no idea he was friends with 2 of the guys whom work for me, and he came today to see them. It was really cool hearing all about swimming & the Olympics. This week has been filled with athletes. 6 degrees of separation really does exist, eh? (Well, I’m not related to any of them through dating/marriage, whatnot) but it’s such a small world. Really. Now, if only I could get Curtis Stone in the same room…!

This evening I went out with some friends to a different coffee shop.
We sat cosily by a fireplace (though it wasn’t on), and enjoyed conversation.

My mind wasn’t 100% focused tonight, I’m tired and have been feeling out of it the last couple of days, so I didn’t want to work on anything complicated or work on anything that was new. I pulled out my trusted Babette & knocked off 4 squares tonight while I was out. I can almost do these with my eyes shut. I say almost, because then I wouldn’t know where to put the hook in…!



These are the 4 squares I managed to finish tonight. I’ve now got 45 squares done for Babette. It’s really coming along. I really don’t know how large I want to make it, but I know that I don’t want to do any seaming until after all the squares are done, so that I can properly do a color placement with all the squares. Sounds like a good plan, I think. I will be using black fingering weight to seam all the squares together.

I now have about a hundred pages left in the book I’m reading, so I hope to finish it soon. I really want to finish it, and start something new. What books have you read lately? Anything worth suggesting?! If so, please leave me a comment. I’d like to know what books you thought were really good, even if you’re not done reading them yet.

march thirty

I got a lot of stuff done today. I had a long list of things to do once I got home from taking Sean to daycare, Mack to swimming and then back to daycare to drop off Mack. In swimming today, we got to hang out with Mack’s friend Jeremy (who is 2 months younger than him) and realized that another friend, Emily (whom used to come to Jelly Bean Jess’ music class that I organized last year) was in our class as well. It’s fun to have friends in mom & tot classes. I also learned that the Quarterback for the Montreal Alouettes, Anthony Calvillo, brings his daughter to swimming on Tuesday mornings as well. He’s in Mexico this week, but should be back next week. Jamie wants me to get an autograph. I’m thinking about bringing my Grey Cup hat from when I went to the cup the year before last, to get it signed. The only thing is – the hat that I have, they lost that year on home turf. Though, last year (2009) they won. Oh well. We’ll see if I can get an autograph. It may take me a few weeks to get the courage to ask him.

I spent a good portion of my time this afternoon re-organizing the crawl space in our basement. I was looking for a box that had some clothing in it, as well, it was a huge mess. Don’t you just love knowing where everything is, when it’s nice & tidy? I am really happy that I managed to sort that out, re-organize a bunch of boxes, and clean up in there. I also had some boxes of clothing that Mack has recently outgrown to put into storage. When Sean outgrows his clothing, it goes into a box in Mack’s closet, until he fits into it, but now I have everything under size 24 months / size 2 to store in our crawl space, as Mack has now outgrown everything.

I also managed to hand wash all the fine china that was used last night. There was no way I was putting that into the dishwasher. The china was from our registry when we got married, and is very delicate. Oh, and the never ending laundry – yeah, did a bit of that too, because you know, there was some to be done.

Tonight we went to my parents house for the 2nd Passover Seder.

Mackie doesn’t leave home without Bunny.

Mackie kept calling Matzah a cookie. Uhm, not really Mack. Cookies taste WAY better!

Sean had ants in his pants during the meal and played musical laps.

We were a small group tonight in my parents kitchen. We’ve never been only 14 people for a Passover Seder with my mom’s side of the family. A few people were sick or out of town. It was actually quite cozy all of us around my parents (huge) kitchen table. We didn’t even need an extra table added off the main table. It’s always nice to talk to people around the table without having to scream to the other end.

I had to show you Mack’s outfit. It’s the cutest thing ever. It’s a 3 piece golf outfit, that he got as a gift for his first birthday. It’s 18 month sized, but it looked a little large, so I kept it for tonight. (He hadn’t worn it yet). I may be able to get him to wear it a few more times before he outgrows it. It’s just too darn cute.

I’m almost done the book I’m currently reading, Holly’s Inbox. I’ve got under 200 pages left, in an almost 700 page book. I’ve been trying to read every night before bed. Most nights I can read numerous pages before my eyes get heavy, and some nights I just can’t read at all. Though, I miss reading so much, so I’ve been trying to do more of it. I just don’t want it to cut into my knitting/crochet time… because that’s precious as it is.

march twenty-nine :: 169 weeks old

Sean is 169 weeks old today.

This morning we ran to Sean’s swim lesson (after dropping off Mack at daycare). I managed to run 1 errand before his swim class, and took him along to one more errand after his swim class. He likes running errands with me. I like the company, it’s nice. I got to finish the last dishcloth I made for my step-mother-in-law while Sean was learning how to swim.

Here are the 3 dishcloths I made for my step-MIL (Jamie’s step-mom). Two of them are using the square pattern I’m using for Babette (5 round squares). I can crochet those with my eyes closed. The other was just a simple square in double crochet. I used Bernat Handicrafter Cotton in Beach Ball Blue. Love the color mixture.

My mother-in-law’s birthday (Jamie’s mom) was last Monday, so to go along with the cube of photos that I picked up last week and put our photos into, I made her a basket of yarn with the appropriate size needles. I stashed the basket with 8 skeins of yarn, so there’s a pretty rainbow going on. It was so nice once it was all wrapped up with the plastic gift wrap & ribbon.

I got the table set up today for tonight’s dinner with plenty of time to spare.

I finally got to use my fine china! We got a setting for 16 people for our wedding, and have never used it before. (Probably because it’s not dishwasher safe. I’m not a big fan of hand washing dishes). In any case, tonight was a worthy cause, to pull them out & use them. My first Passover Seder in my home.

The horse radish was set on the table. (I’m not a fan of horse radish, but I love the serving dish!)

We also put out the seder dish.
This one was given to me as a gift from my mother, passed down from my grandmother.

And I also used this dish for the first time since receiving it for my bridal shower (back in 2004!) It’s a gorgeous plate, and I realized it fits Matzah perfectly! So, it’s now my Matzah dish. It was meant to be.

Everyone was here for 6pm tonight, and we sat down shortly after and read the Seder. My mother-in-law lead the service in hebrew.

We raised our glasses of wine.


We read from the book.

And Sean sang the alphabet to the tune of the 4 questions since he had no idea what he was doing. It was too cute. I wish I had my video camera with me at the time – it was just something I would have liked to have recorded.

The meal went off without any problems (despites a few forgotten things this afternoon while preparing – but those were easily fixed with borrowed eggs and using the microwave to thaw out some frozen stuff that were made last week and forgotten in the freezer until last minute – oops!) Sean gobbled down more hard boiled eggs than I was able to keep track of (I had no idea he liked eggs that much!) and Mack thinks Matzah is a cookie (I’m okay with that – it’s much healthier than most cookies!). We had a great time and as long as I have help from my step-MIL, I’d consider hosting Jamie’s family at my house again next year; Starting a new tradition.

Seder number 2, tomorrow night, is at my parents house. I’m looking forward to a repeat of good food. The diet? Yeah, that’ll start up again after Pesach’s over. There’s no dieting during passover. It’s just impossible with the types of food you eat during the holidays!

march twenty-eight :: 39 months old

Sean is 39 months old today!

The flowers that my step-mother-in-law brought me on Friday have finally blossomed. They’re so pretty. They’ll be on the Passover table on Monday night. I think they’ll add a nice touch.

This afternoon Sean & I played some cards. He wanted to play poker. Since you can’t exactly get a 3 year old to understand poker, I had to invent a game. We took 2 decks. Sean’s idea was to separate and each get a color. So for round one I had all the red cards (hearts & diamonds) and he had all the black cards (spades & clubs). Then we shuffled the cards we had. We flipped them one by one and whomever had the higher card got a poker chip. At the end, whomever had the most poker chips, won. It was fun. We played two rounds, the 2nd row we switched the color of cards so I had the black ones and he had the red ones. It was fun.

I’ve finished a few more babette squares. (Actually made a few more tonight but I’ll have to photograph those with daylight tomorrow). I love these little squares. They crochet up so quickly.

I cast on for a pair of socks for a swap pal. She’s not a knitter (she crochets) and no one has ever hand knit her anything. I am not going to say what swap this is for, just in case she happens to stumble upon my blog – though it’s a secret swap, she doesn’t know I have her. I’m using some yarn that was one of my 2008 sock club kits. I can’t tell Jamie that I’m making these, as I have some socks for him that (I owe him from Christmas 2009) that are just barely started.

I’ve also crochet a few dish cloths today for my step-mother-in-law. She had requested some on Friday, and I managed to get 2 done. I want to make at least one more, time permitting – before tomorrow’s seder. I want to be able to give them to her then.

Last weekend Jamie & I cleaned out our Tupperware drawer. Anything that didn’t have a lid or lids that didn’t have a bottom, were chucked. It’s amazing how many pieces we had that didn’t have a mate. I am telling you – because we put everything back into the 2 tupperwear drawers (smaller ones in one and larger ones in another), my life this week has been so much easier. No more frustration trying to find tupperwear lids to match what you’re trying to store. Ahh, spring cleaning has been good mentally too!

Tonight I switched Mack’s wardrobe over from size 18 months to size 24 months / size 2. No more baby… he’s a big boy now. I can’t believe he’s a toddler now. He’s been a toddler for a while, but he was still my baby. No more. The kid talks now. He understands and answers back. He has opinions. When did my baby grow up? I can’t believe how much clothes he has though. I won’t need to do his laundry at least for the next month & a half. I never even realized Sean had this much in size 2/24 months. Though, I do have to say there is new stuff that was put into Mack’s closet that was gifts for Mack. So that added to it. Well, he’ll for sure be one well dressed kid. No doubt about that.

march twenty-seven

My sweet & innocent Mackie.

So cute with spiky hair.

This evening I had some friends over for a pot luck dinner. This time we decided to add in fruit into the Sangria. It was really super delicious! Usually we’ve been making it with wine, diet 7up & orange juice (with pulp – adds a better texture to the Sangria!) Tonight we actually put in chunks of apple, and it was fabulous!

We participated in Earth Hour tonight. For one hour we sat by candle light. We chatted, ate & some of us stitched (we were surprisingly able to see with all the candles burning). It was nice, and we did our part. Hopefully it’ll help.

I started some dishcloths today. My step-mother-in-law asked for some, so I’m going to make her a bunch to give her as a gift for helping me with all the Passover baking/cooking. I want to make them before Monday, managed to squeeze 2 in today, and hopefully I’ll get time to make another 2 tomorrow. I’m kind of just inventing them as I go. The first one I did a replica of one of my babette squares, but the other was just sort of out of no where. Does anyone have any good Crochet Dishcloth patterns?

I’m going to go crawl into bed and read some more. I hope I can keep my eyes open, I’m so tired.

march twenty-six

SPECS:
Pattern: Team Canada Sweater
For: Sean (though it’ll go to Mackenzie & I’m going to knit Sean a larger size)
Yarn: Cascade 220 Superwash in Red & White.
Needles: US 5 & US 6
Size: 3-4T
Timeline: March 1-25, 2010
Modifications: My own design!
Opinion: I love it. Sean loves it. There’s not much wiggle room to wear a t-shirt under, so I’m going to give this one to Mack as Sean won’t fit into it in the fall, and knit a larger one for Sean. Now that I have all my notes, I can easily do a 2nd sweater.

I’m so very proud of my first sweater design!
It was worth all the bumps I hit along the way.
Thank you to my knit friends for the encouragement to continue with it.
There are times when I wasn’t sure what to do next or what I was doing next.
I really am grateful for those who nudged me along.
I managed to get this done in less than a month!

Sean loves it.

As you can see, it just just just fits him.
Though, I don’t mind knitting it again in a larger size for him.
It was a fun knit, and it gives me the chance to test knit it again for the PDF I am putting together.

Today I baked up a storm with my step-mother-in-law. Passover is next week and I’m hosting the first night at my house with my husband’s family. It’s my first time doing this, so I had my step-mother-in-law come over to bake with me today. She’s also never prepared a Passover dinner, so we learned together, which was nice. She’s cooked variations of what we’ve made today before, but not “kosher for passover” style.

We made a brisket, passover schnitzel, candy carrots (tsimmis), charoses (a passover apple & nut dish), meat sauce (for dinner & lots to freeze for future dinners (this is not for the dinner on Monday night, but I did make it with matzoh meal so it’s kosher for passover), and 2 different types of mandel bread. The first, we made a batch that is kosher for passover, to take to my parents house on Tuesday night. The second batch of mandel bread that we made was with regular flour and not for passover. It was for dessert tonight, as my father-in-law joined us after work. I made enough for tonight & for tomorrow evening’s dessert as well. MMmmm, delicious! I feel like I’m forgetting something we made today, but I think I mentioned everything. It was quite the productive day! We got started early morning and finished late afternoon. We also made a mid-day run to the grocery store. It smells absolutely delicious in my house!

My feet are killing for standing on my feet all day baking, so I think I’m going to go crawl into bed with my book & get closer to the end of the book! I’m dying to finish it already. It’s really cute but there are other books on my shelves calling my name to be read already.

march twenty-five

Today I spent seaming together Sean’s Sweater. He should be good to go in it tomorrow. I’m that close to weaving in the last of the ends. He’s going to be one happy kid tomorrow when I present it to him.

I had a power failure today so I lost some work time. I still have some stuff that I need to take care, but that will get a bit delayed as tomorrow I’ll be cooking all day with my step-mother-in-law for Passover, which starts Monday sundown. I’m actually rather excited to be spending the day cooking with her. It’ll be a great learning experience!

Tonight I went to the Habs game with my brother. First we headed to a small bookshop downtown as something my brother ordered came in. I hadn’t been to that book store since I was in college, and I kind of missed it. I ended up picking up 2 chick lit books while there tonight, and my brother got a few extra items as well. We had dinner across the street from the bookshop, which my brother treated – thank you! Tonight’s game was my (early) birthday present. (My birthday is after the hockey season ends). It was a really nice evening!

  We won 4-1 against the Florida Panthers. What a great game! I got to witness Tomas Plekanec’s 100th career goal. I worked a bit on some seaming/weaving in ends on Sean’s sweater (gosh there’s a lot of it!) and then worked on one more square for Babette.

I am really glad that I got out of the house this evening – It really helped. I was in a real cranky mood for the most part of the day. I had decided to change up my glasses and put on my black & pink ones, but I think they need adjusting because by the time 4pm rolled around I had a headache. I am glad I put back my purple frames back on… I feel a lot better now.

I also have been doing a lot of reading over the last few days, and I’m finally making a dent in the book I’m currently reading. I’m now 60% done the book, about 400 pages in. I think for the next book I chose to read, it definitely will not be almost 700 pages. 700 pages is quite heavy to hold!

In weather news, today was a high of +13C. However, tonight it’s supposed to go to a low of –12C. Quite the crazy range! After having a “spritz” of winter a few days ago, I was hoping it would be over. I put away (again) my winter jacket and took back out my spring jacket yesterday. Well guess what? Tomorrow, it’s back to the trustee winter jacket again. I hate this! Make up your mind mother nature, you’re a little messed up/confused right now & I’m not too fond of your hormonal rages.

Ok, back to seaming. I’d like a certain little boy to have a new sweater for tomorrow!

march twenty-four :: 92 weeks old

Mack is 92 weeks old today.

Today I spent the good part of the late morning into the early afternoon rolling meatballs. Lots of meatballs. Can you guess how many I’ve rolled here? If you guess correctly (and you can’t be on my facebook page to respond here, because I leaked the answer there – oops!) Maybe I’ll toss you a prize if you guess correctly! To give you an idea, that’s 8 lbs of meat.



I decided to do a little inventory of some of my knitting stuff, (while cleaning it up) and discovered that I have quite the collection of tape measures. Free ones, clubs I’ve been in, purchased ones, gifts. I love tape measures. Maybe I should start collecting them… fun ones, of course. Here I have 13 of them, but I am sure I probably have one or two missing from this stash. Do you collect anything? If so, what?



I needed something to do so my hands weren’t bored as Sean’s sweater was blocking until today. So last night I worked on some squares for Babette. I love this bright yellow one (which I believe is some Tanis Fiber Arts Fingering Weight). I love these little squares, they are SO much fun to make. The whip up in about 20 minutes (or less) and are so much fun. I can’t wait to find more time to work on this project. They are great (the squares) because it’s a complete portable project. I always have the proper size hook and a few balls of leftover colors in a little project bag in my purse. Can’t go wrong!

I went out for coffee with some friends tonight, to an old dive I used to go to. It was nice for a change of scenery and to get out of the house. I brought along Sean’s Sweater, which has been removed off the blocking boards. (To the person who left the comment on my blog about the foam boards, I got them for 1$ a piece at my local dollar store – not expensive at all!) Though, I know you can get sets (with letters & numbers and even plain ones too – at either a local Walmart, Michaels (where I bought the alphabet ones in Sean’s room). I was able to do the neck ribbing to attach the sweater together and bind off. I ripped back my bind off as I didn’t like it, and just re-finished the bind-off in another way, because I wanted it to stretch more, and I wasn’t happy with the first method I tried. Now to just sew on the sleeves, seam & weave in all the ends… I can get it done!

Knitted Things Rock

march twenty-three

Tonight I finished the last of the sweater. It’s all wet blocking now. Tomorrow, I’ll pull it all off the mats, and do the neck ribbing & the seaming… and hopefully by Thursday, Sean will have a brand new sweater to wear. He’s going to be one lucky kid. I have a feeling he’s going to want to sleep in it for… a week straight? (I say this because when he got his new jersey (real hockey jersey) he did sleep in it for about a week, and wore it all day as well. He wouldn’t take it off… I hope my sweater has the same effect!)

We had a power failure at work this morning, but luckily by the time I got into the office, the power was back. I think it’s the weather. It was really icky outside today, a cross between raining and snowing. A little bit of both. I think mother nature is a little messed up right now. She can’t decide whether she wants to be winter or spring. (I call for spring…)

I just read this article online. I’m absolutely disgusted. One of the kids who plays on that team is my neighbour. This is the league that Sean will eventually play in, in our hometown. I can’t believe that the team has to forfeit a game because it falls on the first night of Passover next week. 10 of the 15 players on the team are Jewish. The organizers of the competition that they will have to forfeit a game in, said that “it would be easier to move Passover” than to reschedule a playoff game. Are they for real? (Thankfully it’s not the league that I want Sean to play in that is causing these issues, but a regional competition organization.

I spoke to one of my cousins in California today and she got back some information from the autopsy that was performed on her brother yesterday. It seems that preliminary results show suffocation due to pneumonia. He was being treated for pneumonia, that we knew. It really is a shame, and I can’t believe that it caused his death. I’ve heard of pneumonia being deadly, but I guess I never realized it’s severity until it affected someone in my own family. My heart goes out to my family that lost their son, brother, grandchild, cousin, uncle. I wish I could be there to comfort them in their time of loss.

Tonight was a challenging evening, as Sean didn’t nap in daycare today. Mack was unusually cranky all evening for someone who did nap in daycare today. Hmph. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day. Tomorrow I’m home all day baking/cooking for Passover next week. It seems that somehow I agreed to have my husband’s side of the family over the first night. I’ve never prepared a holiday before, so it should be interesting. Thankfully my step-mother-in-law is available to help me cook/bake. We’ll also get to use our fine china for the very first time (still sitting in the protectors I bought for them, since the wedding 5 years ago). Very excited to use the China, though, extremely nervous at the same time.

This evening at dinner Sean was really smart/cute/funny. Jamie told him after he had finished his meat that if he ate at least half of his french fries, he could have a special dessert. Well, what does Sean do? He takes a bite into each and every fry on his plate, and eats half of each (and lines them up). He pushes his plate over to Jamie and says “Look Daddy, I ate half my fries.” It was too cute. This kid makes me laugh. I don’t know what I’d do without him. He is just so smart.

I think I’m on a winning streak. Yesterday I won a free coffee at Tim Horton’s. Today, I win another coffee at Tim Horton’s. I also went to the pharmacy to cash in my bingo lotto scratchies, and when I thought I only won my money back on 3 of the 4 lottos (2$ each), I actually won 16$ in total. 16 is my lucky number. How interesting… I wonder what else this week will bring. It’s been a great week so far. Let’s hope it continues.

march twenty-two :: 168 weeks old

Rest in Peace Brandon, 05/27/1988 – 03/20/2010
(Brandon (white tshirt) with his siblings).

On Saturday night my mother called me while I had people over. She said she had some bad news. At first my heart jumped, as she was babysitting both my children. She then spat our right away that both my children were fast asleep and it had nothing to do with them. Immediately I thought “Oh no, my grandparents? One of them?” Nope. Not them. My 21 year old cousin Brandon went to sleep on Friday night and never woke up Saturday morning. Cause of death, still unknown.

Live each day as if it were your last, because you never know when it’ll be.

Sean is 168 weeks old today.

Sean’s new swimming session started this morning. There are now 4 kids in the class (which means less individual time with the teacher. The max is supposed to be only 3 kids per class, so I am going to inquire next week why there was a 4th let into the class. I’m paying for a certain amount of time and now getting less out of it. I want Sean to learn how to swim, not sit on the side on the yellow table and play with toys. Hmph. (Sean is off with the teacher in the front of the image in the above photo).

I worked on the 2nd sleeve of Sean’s Sweater. It’s coming along.

Sean being silly after swimming.

This afternoon we had a playdate at my friend’s house.
(Yes, that’s her son being silly upside down!)

The kids all took turns in the swing.
(I wish I had a tree in my front or back that would support a swing like this)
(Oh wait, I forgot, we got a swing set last year as a gift. Oops. Forgot!)

Mack was the only one who wasn’t too happy about the swing today.
Usually he loves it.

Then we came inside, covered their kitchen table in paper and all four of them colored.

Sean had a field day on their trampoline. I’m shocked he hasn’t asked for one yet.
(Maybe for his birthday?)

We made the kids Whacky Mac for dinner. (Kosher Macaroni & Cheese).
With 2 boxes we also added in spaghetti noodles so that it would feed all of us.

I finally got the kids home & in bed. Jamie’s at the Habs game tonight. Lucky guy.
It actually took some yanking the kids out of their house to get home.
Sean actually asked me if he could sleep over there.
We all thought it was cute.

I put together a gift for my mother-in-law (Jamie’s mom) who’s birthday is today. I had picked up some pictures today that I ordered last week when I caught a .10¢ sale at the Pharmacy. We’ll be seeing Jamie’s mom next week for the Jewish Holidays, and I wanted to make her something for her birthday. I got her this cube that revolves around. It’s really cute. I’m actually thinking about going back and getting myself one! I like it so much. I filled it up with a bunch of pictures of the boys, one of Sean & my nephew and one of Jamie & I. It’s so cute. I can’t wait to give it to her.

Today must be my lucky day! I grabbed some Tim Horton’s for breakfast while running some errands after Sean’s swim class and won a free coffee! I love Roll up the Rim to Win at Tim Horton’s! I don’t go often enough, but got lucky today! It’s always nice to win something!

Had a really nice day today. I think I’m headed to bed early tonight. Mr. Mack decided to wake up last night after midnight. He had gone to bed a bit later than usual, since we only got home from my parents house around 8:15/8:30. Usually Mack’s in bed between 7:30 and 7:45 pm or 8pm latest, but really… latest. Anyhow, I tried twice to put him back into his crib (the first time after a diaper change). He screamed. He didn’t want milk either. I took him downstairs to my office for 10 minutes while I finished up what I was doing in my office (I was still up). Then I took him into our bed. He lay quietly for a while. He tossed and turned. He tried to sleep on Jamie. He was kicking Jamie. He was kicking me. Jamie wasn't too happy because he had to work today. Again I tried to put him back in his crib. No luck. So I brought up some blankets from the den and made a bed on the floor in my bedroom. Ahh… that worked. Got him to sleep for about 3 and a half hours from 3:30 am until about 7 am. I’m exhausted. I just don’t get why he woke up in the first place. I hope he sleeps the night in his crib tonight. I’m hoping whatever it was that was bothering him, has passed.