march nineteen

I’ve finished the front of Sean’s sweater. It’s currently dry blocking. I’ll probably wet block the front & back before I do the neck ribbing (the neck is still on a live cable).

So after leaving work today, I picked up the kids from daycare and took them to the park. It was a little chilly for 14C, but we had fun nonetheless. I cast on the first sleeve for Sean’s sweater while the kids were digging in the sand.

Mack wants to show you he likes baseball.

He sat there at one point making faces at me. Not sure if he just wanted to be photographed, but it was so cute.

 
I love his little faces. That’s what life’s all about.

Sean pointed out every airplane & bird that flew by. Very observant child.

And had fun jumping high to the sky.

 
Such a sweet boy.

This evening I worked on the sleeve for Sean’s sweater, working out the details on how to place the stripes. I think it’s going to work out just perfectly. Stay tuned, it’ll be finished before you know it. I’m hoping he gets to wear it to school this upcoming week, as he’s been telling his teachers all about it.

march eighteen

Progress! (I’ve actually finished the front just now, so more progress pictures tomorrow). All I have left to do now is the sleeves & the neck ribbing. I can smell the finish line on Sean’s Sweater.

After I picked up the boys from daycare today and were done doing groceries, I had this conversation with Sean:

Sean “I want to put this sticker on the window”.
Me: “No, please don’t”.
Sean: “But I really want to put it on the window”.
Me: “Please don’t, I don’t want you to. Why don’t you put it on your car seat instead?”
Sean: “No thanks, it’ll get stuck because it’s sticky”.
Robyn: “That’s exactly why I don’t want it on my car window”.

Boys. At least he understands why not to put it on his car seat. Guess where the “PAID” sticker is now that the cashier gave him when we checked out our groceries? Stuck to my car window.

My joints on my left hand are aching. This means it’s going to rain in the next few days. I almost took it as a disability to knit tonight, but I managed to work through it. Do any of you suffer from arthritis? It runs in my family, on my mother’s side, I’m almost positive it’s early arthritis. Not only have I been dealing with that in the last 24 hours, but I’ve had back pains and aches for the last couple of weeks (I’d say at least a month) and the heel spurs just seem to be getting worse. Is this really what happens to your body as you age? If so, I must be screwed.

I was emailed a few days ago by my wonderful father, to remind me to change my winter tires. I love these little reminders, they’re great. Honestly, I have no time to think during the day about stuff like changing my winter tires, that this is a great reminder. However, I heard that it's supposed to snow next week. I don’t want that to happen and have my summer tires on my car, so I’m waiting a bit more to change over my tires. Sucks though, I just chucked my winter boots (as they weren’t going to make it until next winter, and they weren’t exactly cheap boots) so I don’t have proper winter boots anymore. I’m going to pray to the sun gods and hope that there is no snow. Mother nature… she’s a really tricky woman, ain’t she?

march seventeen :: 91 weeks old / 21 months old

Mack is 91 weeks old today which makes him 21 months old today. Three months until his birthday. Three.

Sean wanted to show you that he got a new sweater too today.
(Don’t worry I dressed them in green to go to daycare).

Today this is what I had to tackle. (That’s not even all of it – there was one more load drying in the dryer as I took this picture). The never ending pile of laundry. 4 people, lots of laundry. That’s probably about 8 loads to fold in this picture. Took me all day and a lot of getting sidetracked, but now I can go to bed with it all folded (will put it away in tomorrow, as I can’t go into the kids rooms now). Is it just for me, or does the laundry never end for you too??



I baked some brownies today. Decorated them with some St-Patrick’s Day goodness. Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I was going out with my new knitting & crochet circle tonight over to someone’s house, and didn’t want to go empty handed. While out, I worked on Sean’s Sweater front. It’s coming along. I thought I’d have more time to work on it today, but unfortunately the laundry was more important, so I didn’t finish the front today. Maybe tomorrow.

People were wearing green items today (I forgot to wear green, as a tad disorganized when I left the house today).

My friend has these really neat mirrors on her wall in her living room. I thought they were so neat, I had to take a picture of some of them. (There was actually more on the wall on either side of these center ones. She had gotten the idea out of a magazine once, and over the years started to collect mirrors. I thought it was really nice. Mirrors are really fun to use as decoration.

I’ve been trying to figure out lately how I ended up with over 700+ people on my facebook list. I didn’t realize that I knew that many people. Almost 98% of my list are people that I’ve actually met. For example, someone I don’t know is Cynthia and she’s on my list, but we’re meeting this Spring. (YEY! I can’t wait). I think I may have one other pen pal from the 6th grade on my list that I still keep in touch with, whom I’ve never met. Anyhow…! Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been doing some spring cleaning. I realized that a lot of the huge list was people I’d met over the years in either one of the 2 high schools I attended. (One was from grades 7-9 and the other I went to for grades 10 & 11 and graduated there after the 11th grade – yes, in Quebec we don’t have the 12th or 13th grade (I think Ontario just got rid of their 13th grade if I’m not mistaken?) I also was very involved in a youth group as a teenager, meeting people not only in my own city, but in others. I’ve managed to remove about 40% of my list rather than hiding their feeds (because I really didn’t care that they just ordered a pizza for dinner). It feels good to clean up the list. (Less mind-clutter). Now, trying to figure out how to weed more from the remaining people.

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march sixteen

Spring is in the air. I love it. It was GORGEOUS outside today when I picked up the kids from daycare. 12°C. No hats! Open jackets! Oh ya! Despite the fact that I think I’ve got a head cold (my face feels congested and I know I slept with my mouth open last night as I couldn’t breathe 100% through my nose – no fun!) I stayed over an hour outside at the park in our circle. I love being outside with the kids. The fresh air does the body good. If I’m sick tomorrow, I know why.

Mack loves sports just like his big brother does.

Mack discovered a new word today. “Bang”. He repeated the word as he banged the gardening fork on the post.
I guess he felt the need to communicate the word and show that he knew what it meant.

Eventually daddy got home from work and came outside to play.

Wait a second… Jamie’s actually smiling with teeth! I love it.

Oh, that means I had someone to take a picture of me & the boys.
(I love the self portraits I do with the, but they’re a little too “close-up” sometimes).

Like I wrote before, we spent over an hour at the park getting us back home after 6:30pm. Since dinner kind of got forgotten about we quickly treated ourselves to some take-out and got the kids ready for bed once they were done eating. The amount of fun they had outside today playing in the sand, sliding down the slides, chasing after our neighbours 3 boys (who are ages 6, 7, and 8 – yes, I told their mother that she was insane for having them 14 months apart and then another 16 months apart). (And I thought I was nuts with having the kids so close in age (17.5 months apart). She said it’s finally paying off now that they’re so close in age, but for the longest time it was tough. (Good to know).

Tomorrow I need to make sure that I do not procrastinate and I DO fold all the laundry that I’ve been doing over the last few days. There must be 8 loads worth of folding to do. I will do it tomorrow. I will. Someone please remind me.

Oh, and because of this head cold business, my mind wasn’t there tonight to work on the front of Sean’s Sweater. So it’s delayed one more day. I’ll get the front done tomorrow. PROMISE. Got to get Sean wearing that sweater already. Before summer that is.

march fifteen :: 167 weeks old

Sean is 167 weeks old today.

Sean had his last swim class of the current session today. The next session starts up again next week and it’s the same 2 girls (sisters) in his class with the same swim teacher, the lovely Dana. I really like Dana, she’s super good with the kids.

Today after swim class I went to go buy a drink at the machine that is in the arena next to the pool area. I didn’t know how much drinks were, and I wasn’t sure if I’d have enough change. This is the adorable conversation I had with

Sean:Sean: “Mommy, you’re not buying a drink today?”
Mommy: “No Sean, I only have 1 coin and I need 2 to buy the drink and this machine doesn’t take paper money”.
Sean: “Next week I’ll bring my piggy bank & I’ll buy you a drink mommy”.
Mommy: “That is very sweet of you Sean, do you think you have enough money to buy me a drink?”
Sean: “I have lots of monies, and when daddy gets home from work he’ll have more in his pocket”.

This afternoon after I picked up the kids from daycare it was so nice out, that I took them for a walk. After our walk, we stopped at the park in front of our house to play for a bit until Jamie got home from work.

They played on the slide.

They got a kick out of going down the slide together (well, as best as they could).

Eventually they got the hang of going down together.

But Mackie just couldn’t stop going down the slide. He was having a blast.

Sean stopped in his tracks when he saw the kid who lives across the park from us in our circle playing hockey with his friend. Oh, did he was to go run over and play too. I pretty much had to hold him back. Soon enough he’ll be big enough to play with them too.

So he distracted himself by climbing.

Sean has no fear of heights.

This evening I worked on Sean’s Sweater. I’m making good progress on it, especially after all that ripping back I had to do yesterday. I probably can get the front done tomorrow and then start on the sleeve son Wednesday. That’s the plan anyhow. Tonight was a relaxing evening catching up on some tv watching with Jamie. Sometimes a quiet evening is just what we need. I’ll never say no to extra/relaxing knitting time. I really want to get it to him already, he’s even told his teachers today that his mommy is knitting him a Team Canada Jersey Sweater and they were telling me all about what he was telling them today. Very cute. I told Jamie about this when he got home from work and apparently he saw the back of his sweater blocking in our bedroom this morning (I have it in my walk-in closet so the kids & cat don’t go near it) and he saw this morning and told Jamie “look daddy, is that my sweater? for me? really? mommy’s making that for me?”… Oh, he’ll be in heaven when it’s done. I can just picture the look on his face when he sees it done for the first time.

I’m still up because I wanted to make sure that I got my photo order in before the sale ended at midnight. I just just just got it in, in the knick of time. (I’m a procrastinator sometimes, trying to work on that). I really didn’t want to miss the .10¢ print sale as I have been waiting for one for a while now since I missed one at Costco just two weeks ago than ran for 2 weeks even, and I didn’t find myself organized to get them printed then. (I was actually waiting for 3 pictures that a friend took that I wanted to include in the photo order, but she was out of town, and then couldn’t find them upon returning from her trip. She actually just found them on 2 days ago, just in time for this 2 day print sale (yesterday & today). I can’t wait to get my photos back. I have some empty frames waiting for some of the images. It feels good to be finally up-to-date on my photo printing.

march fourteen

This morning Sean pulled a “Robyn”. He’s so my child. 150% me. Don’t get me wrong, he has a lot of characteristics that are Jamie as well, but he’s so my child. You see, he helped daddy prepare the eggs to make French Toast this morning. Before Jamie was allowed to take them to use them, he insisted (on his own, no prompting from me – I was sitting at the kitchen table with Mackenzie already) that he HAD to take a picture of the eggs before Jamie was allowed to take them. Yep. That’s me. So what I’d do. That’s my boy!

He loves the camera that he got for his birthday.

And even took a picture of me taking a picture of him.
This is an actual real digital camera (for kids, obviously, by Little Tikes).
I can’t wait to dump them to my computer and see what he’s taken!

The boys were so cute this afternoon.
Sean kept saying “Mack come sit on my lap, I’ll read you a story”.

It was so sweet.

They even posed for a few photos.

It was all nice & cute until they ended up sitting on each other.

Brushing teeth is a huge thing in our house, the kids are just obsessed with brushing. No complaints here. I usually have to pry them away from the sink, and get fights that they want to keep brushing. They ask 10 times a day to brush their teeth. Is there something magical in the kiddie toothpaste that is luring them in? I’d like to know!

This evening we went to my parents house for dinner, of course Sean insisted he HAD to bring along his camera. Yep, he’s definitely my child, 150%. (I don’t leave home without at least one of my cameras!)

I started making progress on the front of Sean’s sweater.

All proud with my progress, I got to almost the end of the CANADA name under the logo and then realized… That the back piece I’d done stripes on the bottom above the ripping to match their jerseys. Whoops. Into the frog pond. Re-stared it tonight. Progress photos tomorrow.

march thirteen

This morning we headed out the door to be at soccer registration for 10 am. I’m officially a soccer mom! (Where’s my mini van?) Sean starts soccer this June until August for 1 hour every Saturday morning. He has one (maybe two – waiting to find out) friends on his team (ok, their mommy is my friend), so that’ll be nice. The league provides us with the uniform (shirt, shorts & socks) and we need to provide the sneakers (does not have to be cleats at this age) and the shin guards (if we could find in the child’s size – which we did this morning while running errands). I can’t wait for Sean to play soccer. He needs this outlet to release his energy!

After running our errands we decided to try Boston Pizza for lunch. Sean’s fever was gone when he woke up this morning, so we chanced it. I was worried if we pushed it too much that his fever might come back late afternoon (fever usually likes to come out to play around 5pm).

We all really enjoyed Boston Pizza. A lot. They have Whole Wheat Pizza on the menu, which I had NO idea! My new fave place & guess what? They deliver!!! This news totally made my day. (Doesn’t take much!) Until tomorrow kids eat free with the purchase of an adult meal, which was kind of a bonus. Not only was it free, but it came with a drink, a dessert & a surprise gift! (Sean chose a top & Mack chose a little ball with a happy face on it).

This afternoon I did some work while Mack napped. Sean refused to nap, as usual. Though, he really does become super cranky when he doesn’t nap on weekends and I really need to come up with another solution so that come late afternoon I don’t have a cranky child on my hands.

This evening Jamie had hockey so I had some friends over for some more Sangria. (I think my friends are using me for my tasty alcoholic drink expertise). I finally got up the courage to finish working on the logo for Sean’s Team Canada Jersey Sweater, and it actually looks fantastic. I started knitting the front tonight and got the point just before the chart color work tonight. I’ll continue working further on it tomorrow. Once the front is done I just have the sleeves to do and the neck ribbing to join the back & front together. I cannot wait to see Sean’s face when it’s all done and he can finally wear it. He’ll freak in excitement, I just know it.

This week I really need to take a chill week. Catch up on some tv shows on my PVR, read some more, just hang out. I’ve been running around so much lately, and it’s time to chill back & relax. It’s just about what the doctor ordered. Sound good?

march twelve

I kept Sean home from school today as he woke up this morning still coughing. He had been hacking all night last night. So just to be safe, I kept him with me today. Though, I had to go into work today for a bit.

I asked him (while getting organized) to bring me 5 diapers from his drawer so that I can pack it in the bag that I took with to work. This is what he came downstairs with. While he knows how to count to 20, and knows what 5 is, he brought me down 17 diapers. Silly kid. Some were his & some were from Mack’s drawer too. I got a good laugh from this.

Sean convince our store manager to do some puzzles with him while mommy worked. I took care of anything that was urgent before calling it a day. Sean was really good while I was there.I brought some things to keep him busy while I worked and that was a huge success.

This evening I baked a meatloaf for dinner as per Sean’s request. It was so huge that we have leftovers for lunch tomorrow, probably lunch on Sunday as well. Meatloaf (with lean meat) is a healthy & inexpensive meal to make. We served it for dinner tonight with whole grain long wild rice & salad. (And both boys like meatloaf).

Tonight, Sean didn’t eat dinner though even if he requested the meal. He said he wasn’t feeling well and asked to lie down on the couch. He passed out. When we went to move him to his bed (and change his diaper & put his pj’s on) we realized that he had a fever, so I gave him tempra and he fell back asleep. He must have been so out of it, we’ve never had him sleeping this early (then again he had no nap today, but he never naps at home on weekends anymore, and he usually stays up later than when he went to bed tonight.

This evening I worked some more on La Novia. I’m currently in the middle of the 18th repeat. (6 rows in each repeat). This makes the scarf approximately 12.5 inches unblocked. I want to work on Sean’s sweater, so I will get to sketching out the logo for it this weekend. It’s on my to-do-list. It’s a must. I want to get it done for him to wear already.