Clarity

Every once in a while in the midst of my hectic life there comes a moment of such clarity that it makes me pause. Today I had one of those moments. While I was holding the baby, and my son was sitting on the floor playing, and my 2 oldest were tearing up the kitchen in their quest to make breakfast it slapped me in the face how truly blessed I am. I have 4 beautiful, healthy, intelligent children. No...they don't always behave. No...they don't always clean up after themselves. Yes...they drive me absolutely bonkers. But all in all they are truly wonderful and in my day to day life with all the work and frustrations of trying to raise 4 kids on just one income, I tend to forget. Thank you God for blessing me so.

And as the oldest 2 start fighting and the youngest starts crying, the moment is gone as I hunt down the toddler to make sure he's not dumping shampoo or taking the ornaments off the Christmas tree...haha

Finished Sweater

I finished the sweater and cap! Can't believe I finished it this fast, but I actually got a couple of hours of almost uninterrupted crocheting in today! I haven't tried it on the baby yet as I didn't want to wake her, but when I do, I'll make sure to take a pic and post it for all to see how it ended up fitting.
Now I just need to find a good (read easy) pattern for booties that is similar or figure out how to make them myself.

Reunions

It's always fun having reunions with long lost siblings! The girls' oldest sister came for a visit this weekend and they had a great time with her. The last time they saw her was almost a year ago. She recently moved closer to us to go to college, so hopefully we'll get to see her more often.

Poor thing, I thought they were going to run her over when she got here. (We didn't tell them she was coming so it would be a surprise, kind of an early Christmas present!) I think they stayed up most of the night playing games and watching movies. Here they are hamming for the camera.

While she was here we braved the seasonal madness of the mall to get her a dress to wear to a semi-formal party. It was crazy there and I swear I'll never go back during a holiday season.

Making progress

I'm finally making progress on Allie's sweater and I think she'll actually be able to wear it for a month or so before she gets too big for it. I finished the first sleeve (finally) and got about halfway through the other before I had to stop and get the kids ready for bed tonite. Hopefully I'll get it finished tomorrow. Just need to finish the last 2 inches of the second sleeve, edge the body, and get some cute buttons for it. Of course there's still the little cap that goes with it, but I should be able to finish that in one or two evenings depending on how needy the little ones are.

Sweater in progress

I'm finally finding some time to crochet again. I'm attempting to make a sweater for the baby. I've never made a sweater before. The closest I've come to making wearables are scarves, hats, and ponchos. Nothing that difficult. This poor sweater on the other hand. I've frogged the sleeve several times because I keep forgetting to turn at the end of each row rather than working in the round. I'll post another pic when it's actually finished.

I also have a queen size afghan that I'm working on, but there are no photos of it yet.

Camera frenzy

All you parents and grandparents out there know how it is when you have a new baby in the house. The camera comes out and every little moment has to be captured! Seems like the first few months in a baby's life they get photographed more than the rest (at least in my house).

So anyway, my camera has been getting a pretty good workout but it's been difficult to get all 4 kids in one place while they're all awake and somewhat alert. A couple of days ago I finally managed to do just that and got the resulting pic.

Finished projects

I actually did some crocheting while I was pregnant. Not a lot, but a few items. Just thought I'd share them here.







This is a poncho I made for Amber after someone stole her other one.



This is Allie's very first baby blanket.








This is Amber's afghan done in the colors of her choice. There's a photo of Alicia's somewhere back in this blog. Now I just need to make one to fit JW's new bed.





This is a rug I whipped up right before Allie was born to put next to my bed. I hate getting up in the middle of the night and putting my bare feet on a cold floor so this was my solution. It looks better now that the ends have been woven in and it's been washed and blocked.