monday gratitudes

Today I am grateful for...

• Another good Dr. appt today. Only18 more days to go...more or less!
• Beef stew in the oven.
• Working from home today writing grad school reccommendations for students.
• The baby's car seat being easy to install in my car.
• My mom
• A sunday date day with my husband for lunch and the movies to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie.
• Orange Juice. I can't get enough.
• Knitting. Lots of projects going right now.
• Getting work done and things crossed off my to-do lists.
• A half-price sale on Troll Beads at the local Paper Store. Bought my sister this one

aquarius - photo from http://www.trollbeads.co.us

          for her birthday tomorrow. And this one for me!

green shadow - photo from http://www.trollbeads.co.uk

That's all for now! Happy Monday!

a new year

Ebelskiver - Danish round pancakes

So we enter a New Year! Last year marked a year of extreme ups and downs. More than any other year for me and my family. But this year is starting out a wonderfully exciting note. We are getting ready around here to welcome Baby Ellie.

Yesterday Cary and I celebrated our first married New Year quietly. Relaxing, cleaning, watching the Lion King, and enjoying a quiet day at home. My mom gave us an Ebelskiver pan from Williams & Sonoma for Christmas. They are little round pancakes. We filled ours with blueberries, rasberries, blackberries. We used defrosted frozen berries from Trader Joes and the Ebelskiver mix from Williams & Sonoma. They were heavenly! I would like to get the cookbook to get some more ideas. They were suprisingly easy to make...no harder than regular pancakes. I actually found them easier since I am not good at making normal sized pancakes that don't fall apart when I flip them!

Today I "killed" Christmas. That is how my Dad affectionately calls the New Year tradition of De-Christmasing the house. So I took down the tree. Vacuumed. Though sitting here I still see needles on the rug. And I will probably continue to see needles in the rug until next December! I can't wait for Cary to bring back the three large Christmas totes to my parent's storage shed so we can reclaim some of our space. We are going to stay in our 1-bedroom apartment until next October likely. So we are working to streamline things as we get ready for the baby. I have taken many bags to the Salvation Army and we have cleaned closets, reorganized. We are almost ready. In a few weeks we will order our crib. Just waiting to get my Rewards credit from Babies R' Us to put toward the cost. I need to wash all the baby clothes. My mom has been so helpful and generous. She has gotten so much for us...along with our other family and friends and my shower. I need to also bring an extra tote of larger clothes back to my parent's for storage until we need it. I think we are going to be able to easily make our space work for awhile without feeling overcrowded. I am definately in full Virgo nesting mode!

So with that in mind, I better log off for now and write more later!

Happy 2012!

day after Christmas

coffee table decorations and our tree

This Christmas was wonderful. It marked a year of extreme ups and downs. It was perfect to have my family close, under one roof and all healthy this year. I am grateful. Christmas passing also means that we are that much closer to meeting our baby girl Elizabeth ("Ellie"). I'm starting to freak out. I'm excited but nervous. I'm hoping to have some down time today since I am feeling so tired. But it is hard for me to sit still and not "nest!" I just ordered photos. My hope is to start an Ellie scrapbook to get back into scrapping. It has been a year since I have. Since my dad got sick last year. I have been focusing on knitting. I think on Friday I will take a trip to my LSS to get some inspiration.

Anyhow...here are some other photos of our Christmas this year...

the men. my other christmas sugar cookies looked like weird aliens!

table decoration

cookies for cary with his mom's recipe

our disney honeymoon ornament

the tree

cary bought a present and wrapped it up to me from the soon-to-be-new baby.

me. this marks the beginning of a new year, journey and adventure.

Happy Day after Christmas!

baby hats and other things

Bonnet from Sirdar #1242 in Sirdar Snuggly Baby Bamboo

Finished another cute, girly, pink knitted thing for the baby. Now I started in on a regular-old, grown up hat for me! Needed to switch. I am almost finished with another little sweater for her though. Need to finish sleeve #2 and then piece it together. I still haven't done any scrapping, drawing, collage, cardmaking. Not in almost a year. But knitting has been my outlet. I am considering going to my LSS tomorrow and picking up a few things with the $20 coupon I got there to start a baby scrapbook. We'll see.

Started out this pretty fall day, Veteran's Day, having breakfast at a local pancake place with my husband. So happy and so grateful he is home safe with me. Thinking of all veterans today....especially him, my dad, my grandpa, and my uncles.  Thank you to them and all veterans.

Happy Friday!

monday gratitudes

Today I am grateful...

1. We got to the apple store....apple orchard (Not to be confused with the Apple Store!) this weekend and bought ourselves a pumpkin and my favorites...Cortland apples!
2. For homemade apple pie (from previously mentioned Cortlands and Macs)
3. I have been attending Sunday night knitting circle
4. To have met a nice, young mother at the apartment gym today. She is new to the area and we had a nice chat.
5. To be reading on the Kindle I got for my birthday.
6. For pink, ruffles, purple, girly things!
7. For decaf tea
8. To have such wonderful co-workers.
9. That when our daughter is born she will be able to have the same pediatrician I had after my first retired. I really liked her.
10. That Cary put together his computer desk. It looks nice and he really deserved his own "station" for his gaming!
11. To have girl's night to look forward to this weekend.

Today I was able to check many things off my To-Do lists. That made me feel so much better. I was feeling like I was drowning in lists of things that need to get done....at each of my two jobs, this apartment, artistically, baby prep, etc. Overwhelming.  I was able to get a lot done.

Here's to a good week!
Happy Monday:)

first baby sweater...for me.

 I finished my first sweater for the baby. I took a class at my local yarn shop to learn the basics to make the Pinwheel Sweater. Such a fun pattern and a lot easier than it looks. The pattern is clever...it can be worn two ways so it fits babies through 4 years old depending on how it is worn. In the class it was so fun to see how different the sweater looked with the color choices each knitter made. Here are a few closeups and different angles...

edging

spread out...back view

back of the sweater

I'm now working on a different sweater pattern in a really nice cotton yarn I have used before and love. Have a few other small projects going too. I haven't been scrapbooking or making cards so my outlet has been mainly knitting. When I have the energy! Last night I fell asleep watching tv by 8:30pm! I'm in for a long pregnancy.

Happy Thursday!

monday gratitudes

It has been awhile since I have regularly blogged and since I have done my weekly Monday Gratitudes. But I have much to be grateful for lately. We are expecting a baby girl this February! We are very excited and cannot wait to meet her. I have been feeling pretty well, aside from a nasty cold and cough the past 3 weeks. We are figuring out how we will juggle everything, organize our little apartment, and enter this new phase. Exciting, scary, overwhelming, happy....all sorts of feelings!

Here is what I am grateful for today...

• my first day back at the gym since getting a nasty cough three weeks ago.
• a good night's sleep
• my knitting
• a freshly vacuumed living room
• apples with cinnamon
• Indian summer in New England
• long weekends
• fall scented candles...cinnamon, pumpkin, etc.

I hope to share my most recent knitting project later this week!

Happy Monday!