emotions and elephants


It feels so good to finish a project like this. As you may remember, a wonderful gal from my church asked me to make her some "argyle elephants" for a baby shower she is throwing next weekend. 



I have made the pieces for an elephant before but never finished,stuffed or sewed it together. (shocking, I know)


I feel very strongly that I do not have any exceptional talent when it comes to knitting. I am simply following instructions written by someone else using techniques explained to me by another someone. Because I feel this way I tend to respond "I know!" when someone says "That is amazing!" about a project like the elephants. I am genuinely just as surprised as you are (I'm assuming) that I was able to turn out these little guys.


 As per usual, I under estimated the amount of work left to be done and was up until the wee hours of the morning finishing them. This is the aftermath.




WARNING: The following content is a little emotional. 

It give me such a satisfying sense of accomplishment to... you know... actually finish something. I know this sounds strange, but at times I need something to make me feel like more then just a mom. After hours of talking about Lilly, taking care of her and loving with my whole being it is nice to have something to show for myself. It feels very selfish and almost (ironically) childish to say those things out loud. I want to say that I do it out of some sort of support for other moms so they know that they aren't the only ones feeling that way but that's not true. I guess I'm just afraid that I am the only one and am hoping that someone else comes along and says "me too."

And just to be clear- I love my Lillian more then anyone has ever loved anything. 
(true story)

Holy Weekend!




There are so many words to describe this past weekend: adorable, nostalgic, stressful, good, crazy, painful, ... the list goes on. 


Lets start with Saturday.


Lillian was a flower girl in my childhood friend Rachel's wedding. She was absolutely adorable in her little white dress and walked down the aisle perfectly but the day was stressful none the less. To make a long story short, Lilly didn't get much of a nap, I locked myself out of the house and we were almost late to the wedding. Thank God she is a trooper and was well behaved (when others were around). I took her outside during the ceremony so she wouldn't be a distraction and took this cute little picture while she was peeping in the day care play area.

After the ceremony, I sent Lilly home with her daddy and enjoyed the reception with old friends. A super cute (and crafty) thing from the wedding were the table markers. They used old history books with numbers cut out of cute card stock. It gave a very antique feel to there reception.


Sunday was my first day back in children's church in almost a month. This would have been a'okay if it weren't for Friday morning. On Friday morning I thought I had a complimentary fitness evaluation at my gym. It turned out to be nothing more then a personal training session with a guy who didn't ask me what my goals were, didn't listen to what I was saying and spent the hour ripping up my abs. Needless to say, I did NOT buy more sessions. And I felt fine Saturday but on Sunday I couldn't even stand up straight which you can imagine makes running around after a room of 1 and 2 year olds a little more difficult. All I can say is THANK THE LORD for gold fish and its supernatural ability to make children sit still.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that one of my Husband's best friends from college was in town for the weekend also. 

Like I said, it was a crazy awesome weekend. And now I must go clean up the aftermath.

And the mother of the year award goes to....


Not me!

Yes, that would be a picture of Lillian mid fall. Mommy was too busy taking pictures to catch her. 
Whoopsy.

(Click on the picture to view a larger size.)

'Bye Harold


Good ol' Harry was shipped off to frigid Minnesota Yesterday. Hope those yellow pants keep him warm.

Harold turned out smaller then my first human bean because he was made with finger weight yarn instead of medium gauge. Pretty unbelievable, I know.


AND (!!!) I can finally show off these booties. I made them for a friends baby shower (which was like a month ago) and even though they were finished on time I didn't send them until yesterday... so, I guess Lindsey could see this before actually receiving the booties. Whoops, oh well. 

SPOILER ALERT LINDSEY, YOU'RE GETTING BOOTIES!



Kitty Cat Mother

The hubs is working tonight so I told myself that this would be my night to work on my stuff (blogging, knitting, ect.) but my sick Lilly had other plans.



First of all, did I mention that I just finished reading "The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" by Amy Chua? It is a great book and is very eye opening. I have long decided that I want to be a strict parent but Amy had big goals set for her daughters and plans to achieve them that would make me look like a softee even on my worst day. So I decided to take bits of the book and apply them to my parenting style. I am going to be a (partial) Tiger Mother!

Therefore, tonight when stuffy nosed Lillian refused to go quietly to bed I said "Fine, if that is your choice you can suffer the consequences."  Then, after she all out screamed for a half hour, I was going to simply go into her room, help her calm down and put her back into her crib. I walked in, picked her up and she wrapped her little arms around my neck and squeezed. She pulled back and did the "hurt" sign with her sweet little  fingers and went back in for another hug. 


So, here she is laying on her Mickey Mouse couch watching Barney.

Tonight I was a Kitty Cat Mother.



PS- New toys are up on my etsy shop. 

Ahoy, Land Lubbers

Lillian, me and Emily at Magen's Bay.

Well, on Saturday I arrived back in the Sun Shine State after cruising around the Caribbean for a few days. It was an amazingly wonderful family trip but I have to say that all that relaxing left me exhausted! Maybe it's the fact that I don't have my land legs back yet or that I have to prepare my own meals and clean up after myself again but real life has hit me like a ton of bricks. 

My "to do" list is getting longer by the minute but I have finished a few things (unpacking is not one of them)...

Erin's human bean! Even smaller then the previous one due to a smaller gauge yarn.
He will be on his way tomorrow!


Also, I got my first custom order! A gal from church wants some argyle elephants for the center piece of a baby shower she is throwing next month. 

Here is the sketch of the different design options.


She chose argyle ears and feet and I agree 100%.

I tried to get to the suppliy store today so I could start on them but my sweet little Lilly is also having a hard time re-adjusting to normal life after our tropical getaway... so it didn't happen.

There's always tomorrow, right?


PS- I'm trying to convince my body that it doesn't need as much sleep as it has been getting. I mean, 8+ hours a night?!? It is beginning to seem wasteful. So, I set my alarm for 7am this morning (after going to bed at midnight) and successfully got out of bed at 7:30. BUT NOW I'M EXHAUSTED!!! I think somethings wrong with me...

PPS- If this post doesn't make real sense I blame it on the aforementioned condition.