One Less Appendix

We are now down one appendix - after a brief but excruciating bout of pain and a fast drive to the ER, Curtis had an emergency appendectomy, resulting in an overnight hospital stay (his first) and now lots of babying at home. I know that's a lot of information for one sentence, but it was a lot of information in the space of 2 hours! But all is well, it didn't rupture, and Curtis is now on the mend.

I figured you didn't want to see the actual scar (it is in fact sort of boring since it's covered in glue), but here is a diagram showing the location of the appendix (or where Curtis's used to be).

Needless to say, our plans for the next 2 weeks have been completely upended.

In other news, we had a visitor today. After 2 days of rain, this little fellow came out to explore and Toby and I had a little biology lesson about snails. Toby was very cute about the whole thing.

We also had fun with crayons this morning :)
And here is Ms. Lucy Potato Head.

So it is raining, we are all stuck in the house, Curtis is laid up, Lucy is teething, and Toby is still exploring the tantrum possibilities available to three year olds. Fun times.

Toys, toys, toys!

These have been my main project for the last two months - a donation to my local MOPS group for the meeting raffles! I am so excited about all three toys...I hope they make 3 kids very happy :)

First up is another Dolly, Dolly, like the one I made Lucy for Christmas, using scraps of acrylic. I adore her.

Next up is a giraffe made with Lion Brand Microspun...he's super soft and cuddly!


And last but not least is this Construction worker from the book Knitted and Felted Toys, by Zoe Halstead. Once again, Blogger screwed up the order of my pics, so you have to look at the close up of the tools before you get to see the whole little man.



The construction worker is 14 inches tall, so quite larger than I imagined! But I love all three...the last one took quite a while to make, though.

NC Zoo

On Friday we headed to the NC Zoo in Ashboro...we had a great day!

Here's Toby "riding" an elephant

Lucy playing in the dino eggs
Toby helping to rescue elephants in this very cool helicopter!
Toby, Curtis, and Lucy
Toby and the bison.
Toby and Daddy checking out the alligators.
Lucy rode in the backpack carrier all day and eventually conked out...awesome :) We were there all day and had a great time. The rest of the weekend was definitely more low key.

Not much else going on here. Lucy is resisting a much needed morning nap. Yay.

Sorry for the lack of updates!

This has been a blanket a long time in the making. It never had a recipient, I just knew someday I would want to be able to give away a blanket in a moment's notice...I had that notice last week so I finished it up and it will be mailed out today.

The yarn is Caron Simply Soft.

Here are a custom pair of shorties, going out today, knitted in Berroco Ultra Alpaca (one of my fav yarns!)
A hat I knitted last month.

I've been busy with tons of projects lately, just not taking the time to update the blog! I know, I need to be better about it!

Grandma and Grandpa + Toby and Lucy = Fun Fun Weekend!

In spite of some nasty, dreary weather, we managed to drum up a fun and exciting weekend for Grandma and Grandpa C! They drove in Thursday, while Curtis was still out of town (he was in Tampa last week). But with them came the rain. After a gorgeous week last week full of days in the 70's and 80's, the temps plummeted and the rains came...for 4 whole days. That put a damper on our plans to explore the zoo and botanical gardens, but we managed to have a whole lot of fun anyway!

On Friday we stayed in for a good part of the day, but then took Toby and Lucy to play at the Imagination Station, a local indoor playplace for some much needed running time! Curtis came home late Friday night, so Saturday we were ready to explore! We tried out a new place in Raleigh - Marbles Children's Museum. I think a lot of other people had the same idea to escape the weather, but we had a blast! The kids loved it. On Sunday we pretty much stayed in, but Monday we were itching to get out. We had planned on the zoo but a last minute change in the forecast spelled MORE RAIN, so we found the Museum of Life and Science in Durham. Curtis and I had not been either, so we took in the long drive and it was well worth it! Everyone had a wonderful time, and even getting caught in a rain shower was all part of the fun!

We were sad to say goodbye to Grandpa and Grandma this morning and hope they have a safe trip home!

Now for pics! SOrry, but these are in backwards order, as I still do not like Blogger's way of uploading pics.

The Museum in Durham had a huge butterfly conservatory and it was awesome! I loved playing with my camera in there!



They had an indoor exhibit with native NC animals...Lucy loved this snake that came to the window to play with her.
Mommy actually got in a few pictures this time! Here's Lucy's piggies.
Toby and Lucy inside a cloud...I think this was their favorite!

Lucy going down the slide.
Toby outside the bear exhibit at the museum of life and science.
Toby and Lucy in the butterfly conservatory.
This was at Marbles Children's Museum...Toby loved the ball pit!
Toby also learned to weave...Mommy was proud!
Lucy in the big pirate ship!
Playing Connect Four.
The kids had a blast...we will definitely go both places again!

Lucy has been fighting a cold all weekend, as well as cutting 4 molars. Add in sharing a room with her brother and well, she hasn't had much sleep...and neither have mommy and daddy!
I sure hope she feels better soon...and starts sleeping. This up all night stuff just isn't cutting it at 15 months of age.

A Bicycling We Shall Go

It took all day, but Toby finally got his bike!

We bought it yesterday, and Curtis built it last night in hopes we'd be out early this morning cycling away....but....Toby just couldn't get his act together this morning and had bicycling privileges revoked before 9am. SO, he had to wait until after quiet time, but he finally had his chance!


He did really well! The problem is, he can either pedal, or he can steer, but he can't do both! As soon as something distracts him, this is what happens:


We went all the way around the block, though I think the 10 minute walk took at least 40 minutes. I had Lucy in the stroller, and when we got back to the house we realized she had chucked a shoe somewhere, so we got to go back around...more exercise for me! We already had this problem yesterday, except she lost one of her pricier shoes somewhere in a store, and despite much backtracking, we never did find it. I'm not really thrilled about that one, but I wasn't about to lose another today!

Here she is playing with the wagon outside today.
Here you can see how long her hair is getting!

We have a busy week ahead, and we spent a good part of today cleaning...and Curtis finally got ALL my curtain rods hung! I FINALLY have curtains in the kitchen! HOORAY! And we replaced the curtains in Toby's room with something...darker...in hopes he might sleep later as the mornings get lighter. We shall see :)

Happy Birthday Toby!

Sniff, sniff! My boy is three! He is beyond thrilled to join the ranks of "big boys", but I am a little sad that my baby really is turning into a little boy! He's been talking for weeks about his birthday and birthday party - this year is the first real birthday party he's had, and what a party it was!

Toby looooooooves Dr Seuss (a boy after his mama's heart!), so we went with a Cat in the Hat/ Dr Seuss theme for his birthday. I made red and white stovepipe hats for all the guests (Toby had been itching to get his hands on those hats for more than a week, but I kept telling him those were for his party!). Hoping for warm weather, we planned on a party at a park, and the weather more than cooperated! With a high of 75 degrees, Mother Nature was definitely on our side this year.

We started by blowing bubbles and burning off energy the best way kids know how - Run!
Then we had snack - goldfish crackers (an allusion to both the fish in The Cat in the Hat and 1 Fish, 2 Fish) and green eggs (from Green Eggs and Ham, of course! My version was devilled eggs, with green filling!)

Toby picked out the cake flavor this year - red velvet. It went with the theme perfectly! It was a VERY windy day, so we had a hard time keeping hte candles lit, but we had just enough time for him to blow them out by himself!


Then in honor of The Lorax, we planted marigold plants...I hope I can keep Toby's alive! By then it was time for the kids to burn off cupcakes, so we went to the playground, then took a walk to the gazebo at the edge of the water...


After the party, we took Toby to Chick-Fil-A for his favorite - chicken and french fries, and a stop to Coldstone finished off the day. Two very tired children (and two very tired parents!) returned home after a full and fun day.

For his birthday Toby got a pair of binoculars (he loves them, they're very "Diego"), a net to catch butterflies, and a magnifying glass to explore his world...and Toby he helped to pick out his first bike! Suprise, suprise, a Lightning McQueen...(pics are below)


Here's Lucy in a hat I knitted for her.
And the bike! In the front pack is Toby's newest stuffed friend. I had 2 great coupons for Build a Bear so we took the kids today to make their own animals...they had a blast! Toby picked the panda bear, and with no help, named him "Two".
Here's Lucy's monkey that she picked out and helped stuff. His name is Bananas (mommy helped).

So to sum up...I'm very tired. I want to sleep :)

FREE Child Safety Kit

Just an FYI for all the mommies and daddies out there...

http://pollyklaasaction.org/campaign/enewsletter_child_safety_kit

I just signed up for it myself, so I can't vouch for it's accuracy, but I'm hoping it's true! Just thought I'd pass it along for others to try out as well.

Blushing Buttercream Pettiskirt GIVEAWAY!!!!

Blushing Buttercream Pettiskirt GIVEAWAY!!!!

Check out the above link for a very cute giveaway!

Just a Trace!!!!

The weather man was wrong...just a touch of snow around the edges here! Yay! This means Monday can progress as normal...

I love Girl's Clothes!

Have I ever said how much I love that girl's clothes can last a LONG time? I made this dress for Lucy last year...in fact I have pictures of her in it just when she was starting to push up and crawl (about 6 months old). Well, today she is 14.5 months, and she is STILL wearing it!


How cool is that? Sorry about the bedhead, she had just gotten up from nap :)

March...snow???

March is roaring in this weekend...and is supposed to be decidedly lamblike by next weekend (yay for Toby's birthday!) We could see some snow this evening and overnight, though I'm not crossing my fingers...anytime they act this sure of snow, the only SURE thing is a big disappointment. In the meantime, it's been raining since Friday afternoon, so assuming it does get cold we could be dealing with a lot of slick icy roads tomorrow morning!

It's been a busy couple of weeks around here. We've dealt with the flu, which ate up last weekend, and I've been busy with several different projects, one being Toby's birthday coming up next weekend. I'm so excited that my boy is turning three, although a little sad at the same time. He is growing up so much!

Here's a picture of Lucy from yesterday. Her hair is getting SO long now...and it refuses to cooperate (hmmmm....so her hair has her personality too).
Last weekend, between people catching the flu I managed a practice shoot for Toby's 3 year pictures. I decided to do them myself this year rather than pay for them, and I just bought a new backdrop that I love! It's actually a shame I didn't have him in the shirt I wanted (this was just impromptu to see how the backdrop photographed) because I love this shot!

This one shows how great colors photograph against the grey...again, a shame he's wearing sweats, lol...
And a picture of Toby passed out in his room during quiet time...lol.

Ok, we're getting ready to head out the door for church, I just thought I could get this out before we needed to leave!