Blueberries & Peaches

 

Last Friday was rainy, damp, grey and chilly. A perfect day to do some baking!! Between early pregnancy yuckiness and the weather being too hot to turn the oven on, we haven't had very many (at all) baked goods. Ree was more then happy when I announced we'd be making muffins, scones & peach crisp.

She was a BIG help. Her job was measuring the blueberries out and then placing them in the batter. Notice how they are in one layer in the bowl. She spent about a half hour or so measuring and putting them neatly in there. Those are the muffins, she did the same for the blueberry scones!

After the muffins were ready to go in the oven she sat there to watch so she'd see when they popped up. She was SO excited to sit and eat the muffins that she made. I was so happy too hoping she'd eat them. She is a very picky eater! She took a big bite & I knew by the look on her face that she'd have something to say when she was done chewing. I was right "These muffins make my mouth blue & purple and I don't like the taste of blue & purple. Next time lets leave out the blueberries!"

I then started in on making the peach crisp I was bringing to supper before our beach date with family the next night. My goal is to start using some of those ideas that I pin on Pinterest. Peaches this year have been delicious and I wanted to do something with them so I went to Pinterest the other day & found this recipe and it came out delicious! I didn't have quite the amount of peaches it called for so I cut down on the butter and should have cut down on the topping too. But it still came out yummy!

Today would be another great day to bake, the weather is beautiful sun, hardly any humidity at all, blue skies....except I think we'll spend time outside instead of in the kitchen!

Weekending

Our weekend was full of:

Laundry

errands

supper at Nana's

an evening at the beach!

The water was COLD! Ree was shivering even after a hot bath!

Shopping

Ree picked out some new pajama's for her little sister

lots of drawing pictures

celebrating one of Ree's Auntie's birthday's

playing with a new dog

How was your weekend?

Joining Amanda

Yarn Along

This week's yarn along isn't much different from last week.

I'm still working on the newborn stripy socks. I'm not making a match for each one. HOPEFULLY I'll have those finished by next week! They are so little and easy I really have no excuse for not having them done yet!

(Could be because my mind is working on about 20 other projects!)

The granny squares on the left are the ones I've finished since this past weekend. I feel like I've been working on these forever. But now that I've taken a picture with them all together....I still have a long way to go! Each time I finish a square Ree asks "Is it ready for me to use as a blanket?" Umm. Nope. 'Cause then comes all the joining!!

I've also included Ree's "knitting" (or crocheting. I'm not ready to give her knitting needles yet.) Her knitting consists of wrapping yarn around the crochet hook REALLY TIGHT then having me unwind it, rewind the ball and repeating. It's great fun, especially when I'm in the middle of a row or round of granny square!

Reading has slowed down a little bit now that it's just a little bit cooler to not have to spend all day in the air conditioning. I did finish Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker. The last 100 pages or so were very slow. Now I've started All This Talk of Love. A story about an Italian American family. The parents emigrated here and now it's their first generation children. So far it's pretty good. Nothing really to write home about but it's holding my attention.

Projects

With the new baby coming my mind has been going in overtime making lists. The little one is due December 10th but a c-section will be scheduled for a week before that. Ree came a month early so I'm planning for anytime between mid-November to the first week in December.

With Ree's birthday the 4th of December and Christmas not far after that I feel the need to be organized! I made a list of who I need to get Christmas presents for & what I think I may want to get.

But the big list is all the things I want to make for baby! (And Ree too!)

First up is Ree's big girl quilt. She and I went through my fabric stash the other day and picked out fabrics. I need to start cutting and I think all I'll need to purchase is only a yard! My husband and I sat down and I told him what I wanted the quilt to look like, he did the math & drew it out so we also have a pattern! Now I need to just get going!

I then came across this simple quilt that Ginny's son made. I now what Ree to help me pick out some fat quarters to make her baby sister a quilt. MAYBE we can do that & get it done by Christmas?

And then there's the knitting.

Ree says baby girl needs a pink sweater and a yellow sweater. We have to go pick out some pink yarn & I think I'll make the Puerperium out of pink and The Five Hour Baby sweater out of yellow.

Ever since Easter I've wanted to make Ree a dark blue Sunday Sweater for Christmas. We'll see. Maybe I'll wait on that and make it for NEXT Christmas....matching sister sweaters?

And then there's the rainbow "blanket" that Ree keeps talking about every time she sees my boneyard shawl. So I think I'll make that up using this yarn:

There's other things on my list, like the socks I have in mind for a few family members; Christmas ornaments; etc. 

This isn't to mention the projects I'm already working on. Stay tuned for tomorrow's yarn along post for that! 

Weekending

The weekend started Friday night with a trip to the beach for some relief from this heat. It wasn't much cooler there, just a little breezier. But Ree had fun playing on the playground & in the sand.

Saturday morning was still hot. We spent it low-key with Ree playing with her shapes. I had put these up a few months ago when my nephew came over then forgot about them. It was like a new toy when I pulled them out yesterday! She spent almost 2 hours playing with them! I worked a little more on the granny squares for her afghan.

The afternoon was spent with naps for everyone. A MASSIVE thunder storm moved in just as we were packing up to head north for a house warming party. It didn't bring too much relief from the heat. 

An evening at a house warming party where there were almost as many dogs as people. Ree was in her glory! She spent the time running after all of them and following her big cousin around. As it got dark two of the guys got out their guitars and started playing. Ree put on a dance/singing show for everyone. She's not very reserved this one!

Today dawned a little cooler & less humid then it has been thankfully! Along with the relief came some energy. We cleaned out the baby closet (sort of. We at least pulled everything out to see what we had). Baby girl (did I mention baby was a girl?) is not in need of anything! 

My knitting & sewing mojo has returned. I have lists of things to knit for both Ree & her baby sister. I've been spending lots of time looking at fabric on-line & in my stash for Ree's big girl quilt. 

This afternoon will be more list making, more fabric gazing, maybe a little knitting, maybe a little cutting out of fabric. 

Joining in with Amanda

Around the garden

These pictures are a few weeks old by now, but I wanted to share a little bit about what's going on in our gardens!

In my almost last post before taking the first trimester of this pregnancy off from blogging, I talked about how Ree & I had begun our seedlings. 

We got a HUGE pile of dirt delivered about a month ago & to my husband and Ree it was like Christmas! I've never seen two happier people! (It's kind of like when I go into a yarn store I suppose!)

They spent a few days digging and transferring and planting all the seedlings. (In case you are wondering, there is still a big pile of dirt in our driveway. We overestimated a little bit. The husband assures me he has places to put it. It's just been WAY too hot to be moving dirt around!)

Ree is SO PROUD of her morning glories! She and Daddy hung some crochet thread to give them a place to climb and then she ALL BY HERSELF (almost) planted the plants in the ground. These flowers were little seeds in a packet and she did almost the whole process by herself! 

In our vegetable garden this year we're growing: purple cauliflower; red bell peppers; black beauty eggplant; purple Italian eggplant; bronze beauty lettuce and carrots. My sister in law is growing lots of tomatoes so we decided that we'll do trades: tomatoes for peppers (we planted about 25 pepper plants!).

We once again got things in the ground a little late but I'm excited to see everything grow!

Weekending

This is how I feel after our weekend too!

We began weekending Friday night with a neighborhood walk. Walking & I aren't getting along at the moment. Being on my feet for any length of time makes the ligament pain in my stomach hurt. It was a short walk!

Saturday morning we met some friends at the playground at the zoo. Chasing Ree around has the same effect as walking!

Saturday afternoon was resting & mentally preparing for the heat to return. It ended with pizza night, another neighborhood walk...just for Ree & her Daddy this time. They came home all excited about the bunny they saw & the flowers they smelled & the dogs they ran into.

Sunday was a relaxing morning; then mattress shopping for Ree's soon to be big-girl-bed. We haven't bought one yet, the husband likes to research these things, but it will be soon. I'm thinking I REALLY should start working on her quilt. I have some fabric for it and a general design idea. Now I need to actually start cutting INTO the fabric!

After mattress shopping we headed up north to where the heat was worse for an outdoor bbq with family. A surprise for Ree was that her three favorite dogs were there & she got a surprise gift all the way from Hawaii! A gorgeous new dress. She fell asleep on the way home and didn't move from the car to the couch then from the couch to bed. A successful weekend!!

Linking up with Amanda!

Yarn Along

With this past weekend being so hot & spending a lot of time upstairs with the air conditioning I got quite a bit of knitting & reading done.

I finished the stripy socks from last week. I LOVE the yarn...Knit Picks Felici in Time Traveler (which is gone now). It knit up nice and soft. I hope it wears well. I did the heel in a darker grey yarn because I was afraid I wouldn't have enough of the Felici. I did but oh well because THEN I got to knit a newborn pair of stripy socks!

I couldn't wait to cast on SOMETHING for the new babe until we find out next week what it will be. I figure stripy socks are gender neutral. These are from one of the leftover balls of yarn. I plan on knitting up another little pair from the other ball.

I've been getting quite a bit of reading in too. Over the weekend I started & finished The Fault in our Stars on the recommendation of my sister. It was excellent. I couldn't put it down. Now I'm reading Dan Brown's new book. It's ok so far. I am liking reading about the art history of Italy.

Weekending

This weekend was:

HOT.

We spent a lot of time after the 4th inside, upstairs where we have a window air-conditoner.

Ree playing me reading. And reading some more.

Food was grab whatever you can that's cool so I don't have to cook.

It was late day runs through the sprinkler so both Ree & the vegetables (and Momma) can cool off.

It was afternoon naps and late mornings.

It was low-key and relaxed. Just the way I like it! (Although just a tad cooler would have been nice!)

Finally joining Amanda again for Weekending posts!

Yarn Along

I haven't done too much knitting in the past few months. Small things here and there but I started getting horrible motion sick to go along with the morning sickness and even knitting made me nauseous.

Thankfully that has passed and my knitting mojo is slowly returning. I've been working on these socks for quite a few weeks and can see them being done by the weekend! I've also begun work on Ree's granny square afghan using her favorite colors.

I really want to start knitting for baby, but I want to wait until we find out the gender. That is just over 2 weeks away now!

Reading hasn't been happening too much these past months either. Just in the past week though that has seemed to return too. I finished The Orchardist just the other day. I believe I found it through one of Karen's yarn along posts. I enjoyed it. Certainly a different sort of read but I found myself not being able to put it down. I'm in between books right now....I have at least 3 waiting for me at the library so I need to make that one of my stops today!

Playing catch-up

You'd think that with my last post being almost 3 months ago (!!!) I'd have a lot to catch you up on. But that's not really the case. Pretty much right after my last weekending post, morning sickness hit and stayed for quite some time. 

I didn't pick up my camera for weeks; Ree did nothing educational, artsy or creative unless she figured out how to do it on her own. Which resulted in LOTS and LOTS of printer paper drawings. I only knit a very, very little bit. Cleaning didn't happen. Cooking & dishes were done by my husband. The only thing I kept up on was laundry. And growing a tiny human. 

See, not much blog worthy stuff! 

Just when I thought the morning sickness was gone we got colds & ear infections. But thankfully we seem to have turned a corner now and everyone is feeling better! So much better that I've actually gotten most of my knitting mojo back, Ree & I have plans for art, I've picked my camera up again and the house is (fairly) clean. I'm hoping to be back here regularly again as I've missed documenting all the things that Ree and I do during our days!

The above pictures were supposed to have been a weekending post. Friday night at home was so very humid & sunny so we picked up a pizza and went to a local beach. It was windy, overcast & cold there! We ate pizza in the car then went for a lovely walk along the sandbar picking up shells and gazing at the lighthouse.

It's nice to be back in the swing of the things & I've got lots of posts coming to catch up on the knitting, garden, Ree and daily life!