Tick, tick, tick...

We're back home and trying to gather the energy to unpack and prepare for Z going back to work. Since we're in a bit of an upheaval anyway, we moved M into a toddler bed today.

I've made jokes for the past few years that she would be sleeping in a crib until she went to university. It's so easy, since I know where she is at night and don't have to worry about her roaming around her room or leaving it. For some reason she never figured out that she could get out of it if she really wanted. Some of our friends called us today and said that they were moving their daughter into a bigger bed and offered us a toddler bed, if we wanted it. An hour later, the bed is set up, M's blankets, toys and pillows are on the bed and T is sleeping peacefully in his 'new' crib. At nap time, I reminded M about her new bed and she ran down the hall and jumped into it - the first and only time I expect that she'll ever be so excited about it. Still, it was very cute. She was more reluctant tonight, stalling every way she possibly could, but now she's sleeping peacefully in her 'BIG GIRL BED!' She wanted to read books about being a big sister tonight and told me as I was turning out the light that she was also going to be wearing big girl underwear tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow, the last day of 2011...I decided a couple of days ago that I wanted to get a few things done before New Years. I wanted to make several recipes that fit with M's new diet (we just found out about her allergies, which is fodder for a much longer post), swap T's current, too-small clothing in his dresser for 6 to 12 months clothing, finish my mom's Eleanor shrug, unpack all of our suitcases that we used over Christmas, and try to finish M's Wallaby sweater. So far I've made some of the planned recipes (crockpot borscht and minestrone soup, which M refers to as "Mini-stroller"), cleaned out T's dresser and be working feverishly on my mom's shrug. I've been soaking split peas for soup and made simple syrup for raspberry-blueberry sorbet, both of which I'm hoping to finish making tonight. My plans are to finish mom's shrug tomorrow and make lentil soup and butternut squash soup as well. We'll see how it goes. By the way, did I mention how much I love yummly.com? I love how easy it is to sort out recipes that don't fit in M's diet. If you haven't tried it yet, you should.

OK, clock's ticking...

The Night Before Christmas...

Being the parent of a two year old and a six month old, I've been thinking a lot about Christmas and family traditions over the past week. Specifically, I've been thinking about gift-giving.

As an adult with a lot of family members, Christmas over the past few years has become more about spending time together and less about giving presents to each other. I don't think it's particularly realistic for everyone in my family to buy everyone else a gift. That's a lot of gifts. At a certain point, I was buying 14 or 15 gifts for everyone in my family, and that was before we had bought anything for my husband's family members. Now that I look back and think about this, especially knowing that I was a grad student, surviving on my grad stipend and student loans, I shake my head. If there was ever a time I couldn't realistically afford it...

But, I think that I was caught up in the family tradition of giving gifts. And somehow I think there was a leftover expectation that my parents would continue to buy us gifts as adults, like they did when we were kids. It took a few years after moving out of my parents' house to figure it out, but I eventually did clue in that, although my family members love me completely, there should be no expectation that they would buy me gifts. Not that I was really spoiled or demanding about gifts. It was just what happened, like all of our other family Christmas traditions. 

I don't think that I spend money extravagantly, but I also have the ability to buy a lot of the things that I'd like throughout the year. My husband and I talk a lot about money, especially if we're going to be buying a bigger item (as I type this on our newish Macbook Pro - it's not that we never spend money). I just don't really need anything and don't like the idea that someone has to get me something, just because. Because of what? I love spending time with my family, including my parents, siblings and their spouses and kids. It sounds totally corny, but I would rather spend time with these people than get a gift. 

My family gradually shifted from buying everyone gifts, to drawing a couple of names out of a hat and buying for those people, to now, when we don't really exchange gifts. This year we got everyone in our family a treat of some sort - a chocolate bar, a bottle of beer (there are a lot of connoisseurs in my family), etc. Now, everyone gets a small treat in their stocking, but it's also not a lot of 'stuff'. I already have a hard time keeping my house clean with all the stuff that I have.

Having said all of this, I think back to when I was a kid on Christmas morning. The excitement! What did Santa bring me? And, although I've come to realize that as an adult I don't particularly want anything, I've been thinking a lot about being a kid and the joy that comes with Christmas. It is exciting to see the Christmas tree with a couple of presents under it, and to wake up the next morning and see that Santa had come. I thought long and hard about it this year, especially now that my oldest kid is remembering things and is so interactive. I feel like this is the time when we're starting to set the tone for what Christmas is going to be like for our family.  

So, with all of this in mind, my husband and I decided to buy our daughter a scooter this year, and I bought an I See Me book for our son. The scooter is called a Mini Kick, and is the same kind (but different colour) that one of M's friends has. It's nice because I've seen her ride it and can tell that she'll master it within a week. The book I bought for T is a similar book to one I bought for M for her first Christmas. It's a pirate-themed book which spells out the letters of his name, and has different qualities for each of the different letters. It's very, very cute.

And that's it. I thought about buying all sorts of little presents for the kids, but we decided to stick with one present for each. This could change when they're a little older, but I certainly don't think that I need to go all-out for Christmas. It seems that it would be harder to go backwards and scale back on the number of presents that you buy them. So, we bought them each a special gift that I know that they'll each use for the next few years (in the case of the scooter, before she outgrows it) or perhaps keep it into adulthood (in the case of the book).

I've had a few moments of reconsidering, especially hearing other parents talk about the many gifts they've bought for their children (no judgement intended, everyone should make their own decisions). But, I like what we've decided, and I like how the presents reflect values that I'd like for my family - getting outside and being active with the scooter, and sitting and reading a special book together. 

Well, that was much longer than I intended. Happy holidays to all!

I also actually finished some handmade gifts for some of our friends' kids, which I'll post about another day. Hurray for actually finishing on time!

Fall Update...in December

Well, my blog has definitely gotten off to a slow start. I was on the fence for a while about the name of the blog and so didn't post as often as I wanted. Now that I've decided on my new name, I want to catch up with the posts that I wanted to make. I seems a little silly to write an update on our Fall, but I'm going to go for it. T had a lot of firsts this Fall, and M is so fascinating now that she is up, running around and talking (non-stop).

So, a summary of our Fall in pictures:

Visiting Sea Cider Farm and Ciderhouse for Apple Day:

Playing at the beach, saying hi to a seal. Obviously, M is a little apprehensive about being so close:

Kindergym for rainy days:

This is what happens when you're stuck inside on a rainy day and leave Mom's sight for two minutes:

Smiley, happy baby:

A family walk. I love that we live in a place that can grow holly trees and dinner plate-sized dahlias. The berries are blackberries that didn't ripen before the cold weather. I tried one but it had started to ferment already. Luckily we had picked a huge batch for jam a couple months earlier.

Pumpkin picking at Michells Farm Market. Funny enough, this was the only time of the year that M couldn't find her pumpkin hat, so she settled for a bunny hat.

Halloween! I made a viking hat for a smiling T and a lamb costume for M. Her friend was dressed as a lion, which is funny because M has the temperament of a lion, and her friend is a little lamb. Apologies for the blurred picture - I don't want to post a picture of someone else's child. Plus, I thought it was really cute that the lion was pretending to eat the lamb!

Picnic in the leaves. The leaf in the bottom picture was more than a foot wide.

Back again...

After a long, long wait, I've finally decided on the new name for my blog. I was really torn about what to name it and anytime I would have some inspiration, I would find that someone else already had a blog (or twitter account, or etsy store, etc.) with the same name.

So, after long consideration, I've finally decided on Steeped Stitches. I wanted a name that would reflect my goal of knitting while having a cup of tea everyday. Being able to sit and have some quiet time while being creative has become a luxury for me, especially now that I have two children. I'm already 6 months into my maternity leave and want to make sure that I spend my days doing the things that I love. It's easy to be focussed on spending time with the kids but I also want to take advantage of the (sometimes rare) moments of peace and quiet around my house. It's easy for me to start thinking of cleaning, or paying bills, or taking a nap, or catching up on emails (and so on) when it's quiet but I find that at the end of the day I'm pining for a little downtime with my knitting. So, I know that having a blog will help ensure that I focus on a little time for myself each day.

I'm currently working on a handful projects which I would love to have done before Christmas. I have my mom's shrug that I started knitting for her as a gift for last Christmas (oh, the shame!). I also started a pair of socks for my brother-in-law and a head warmer for my sister, also for last Christmas. I finished one of the socks and the head warmer that I made for my sister is way too small so I need to start over. I'm making some crocheted snowflakes, since I figure that they'll come in handy somehow. I did a test knit for yellowcosmo (on ravelry) for her First Snow Mittens. I finished one mitten but need to make the second (do I sense a theme here?). My sister-in-law has asked me to make a pair of slippers for my nephew too. All things that shouldn't take nearly as long as they've taken me.

I've got a ton of other projects that need to be finished but don't have a particular deadline. I've started knitting a Wallaby hoodie for M but got sidelined when I had to sit down and pick up stitches to add the front pocket. My Kina cardigan is about 30% done, but got sidetracked when the cable of my needle broke and half the stitches slid off. I started T's baby blanket months ago and am about half finished. I stalled on the project because I'm not totally happy with it. Even though I've put a lot of time into it, I'm thinking about frogging it and doing it again on smaller needles with intarsia stars, rather than illusion knitting.

And, even though I don't seem capable of finishing anything, I actually have finished several projects recently. I finally finished my Squishy Baby Blanket. My lesson learned - just splurge and buy the yarn that  I want right from the beginning. What was supposed to be a fast knit turned into a never-ending project because I kept trying all sorts of different yarns and colours. In the end, I bought the main colour in the yarn that I wanted and found the border colour in my stash. I finished crocheting an owl hat for M - I love how fast crochet is! I also knit a little candy cane hat for T. The pattern is from Itty Bitty Hats by Susan B. Anderson. Susan's crystal clear pattern-writing and cute designs helped turn me from occasional knitter to compulsive knitter. I can't recommend the book enough!

Alright, a lot to share in one post. I have a backlog of photos to add, which I'll do over the next few days. I'll also share more about my own patterns that I'm currently writing up.