I won!

I just won two drawings for organic baby items! With one, I got a free pair of organic BabyLegs legwarmers. I chose the color Scandia.

Second I won an organic baby gift basket with a Organic, three piece gift set by Cotton Monkey (bib,burp cloth, and quick errand diaper bag), Zah Organics Hawthorne T-Shirt, Zah Organics Coco Pants, go natural baby’s organic cotton wash cloth sets (2 sets= 6 washcloths), Debra Lynn Dadd’s new book Really Green, and one go natural baby fair trade, grass gathering basket. Really really cool!

Both contests were from GoNaturalBaby.com. I can't wait to get them in the mail! I don't think I've ever won anything before...and this is like $150 worth of stuff...so exciting!

She's crafty

I have found myself drawn to crafting blogs of late. I have this fantasy where I have hours and hours of free time and I use it to make beautiful and clever handmade whatevers. Dishcloths, placecard holders, acorn bird feeders, stamped linen napkins, knitted socks. It doesn't matter what, really, I just want to create. I want to be crafty and homemakery and creative.

I've never been particularly crafty. Then I learned how to knit and there was a boom of handmade gifts. I love knitting and I wish I had more time for it, but this new desire goes beyond that. I don't know where it is coming from or how long it will last. I peruse strangers' craft blogs, ogling the beautiful things captured in bright light and clean photography. I find myself thinking that they must be truly happy because they have surrounded themselves with all this loveliness. They have time to be, time to create, space to breathe and find inspiration.

I think the winter darkness must be getting to me. And this basement apartment. I also find myself perusing the apartmet listings on Craigslist quite often...

Mile High

This weekend was my office holiday party. While it wasn't as much fun as last year, wherein Jon and I lost all our fake money playing fake Blackjack, it was still a good time. The party was held at Mile High Stadium, where the Broncos play, and we got to take a tour of the facilities. The best part was going down to the field. When will I ever get to do that again? We also saw the visitor's locker room, luxury boxes, the world's largest kegerator, and some other stuff. But the field...that was cool.

And we got to get all dressed up and go out together. That really was the best part.

Deep Freeze

The official low temperature for Denver last night was -18 degrees. When I left for work this morning, we had warmed up to -7 degrees. The high today is 17. In fact, depending on which weather report you watch, Denver won't see a high above freezing all week. What makes this little cold snap particularly fun is that my office turns the heat OFF over the weekend, so it is FREEZING in here. It's going to take a long time for the temps to get back to normal at my desk. I'm sitting here wrapped in a scarf and wearing a hat.

So. Cold.

Sleep is here...knock on wood

For the past week, Evelyn has fallen into an amazing sleep routine. She gets a bath between 7 and 7:30pm. Then a bottle of formula. She is alseep by 8pm. Then, and this is the exciting part, she sleeps until almost 2am!! That is six hours of uninterrupted sleep, which means I'm getting about 4 hours! She has awakened betwen 1:30am and 2am each night, but no earlier. Then she nurses and goes back to sleep for 3 hours. (And really I think she's getting up after 3 hours just out of habit. She doesn't eat much. Might this be on the way out as well?) It is awesome. I'm up only two times a night at most. I'm still pretty tired, but no where near the zombiness that had taken over previously. I'm almost human again. AND I get two hours of time to myself after she goes to bed. This new trend just magically started happening at 3 months. It was like her brain said "I'm much older today. I think I'll sleep a little longer." I looooove it. (Now knock on wood that blogging about it doesn't somehow jinx the situation!)

Also, this morning Evelyn was trying to grab her tongue. She is getting really interested in her hands and mouth. She loves to talk, suck on her fists, put anything she can grab on to into her mouth. Two nights ago I think she started realizing that she had feet. She was in the bath staring at her feet and splashing them around. All these little milestones are so thrilling to watch. I mean, what was it like to not know you have feet? How exciting must it have been to realize, hey, those things down there belong to ME and I can move them around! Her little brain is growing a mile-a-minute. I can't imagine learning so much so fast anymore. It is miraculous, really, when you think about how much a baby has to master in the first two years of life.

I love that little girl. She makes me laugh and laugh. She is a delight to have in our lives.

I finished something!

Hooray! I finished something! It was small and silly, but it is finished.

Behold my beautiful knit gift card holder...

I think it looks like a candy cane. :)

Pattern:

I held two colors together throughout.

Cast on 20 stitches using any method you like. I used the long-tail cast-on

Work in stockinette st until work measured about 3.5”, or as long as the gift card you are using.

Work two rows in reverse st st.

Continue working in st st until work measured the same length as first section, about 3.5”. Then work 3 more rows in st st.

Two rows reverse st st.

Work 5 rows in st st before beginning decreases.

Decreased two stitches on each RS row (k2tog, knit to last two stitches, ssk) for 6 rows; purl WS rows.

On next RS row create a button hole: k2tog, k3, k2tog, yo, yo, k2tog, k3, ssk.

Purl next row.

Bind off in decreasing pattern.

Steam block the piece, sew on a button, seam the edges and you are done!

Thanksgiving pictures

Here are the Thanksgiving pictures. They are not in any sort of easy-to-follow order. Blogger was being dumb and not letting me move the pictures around. So, sorry in advance.

Evelyn and I at the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning. I'm in my racing stance.



















The Lew family women preparing for the Turkey Trot. That's Rosie, Shawna, me and Evie, and Carol. Look at our lovely shirts!




















The family. Jon, Rosie, Jay, Shawna, me and Evie.

Yay! We decorated our tree! (see below for how we got the tree...)

The baby looks all crazy, but see our pretty tree? I even made some cinnamon-dough ornaments. They were made with glitter and yarn. Very crafty! :) But really, is a Christmas tree really a Christmas tree without some ugly homemade ornament?

This is how we got the aforementioned tree. By cutting it down ourselves at a tree farm! How fun is that? I took a few pictures of Jon chopping down the tree with his BARE HANDS, but I apparently messed something up and didn't take the pictures after all. Suffice it to say it was memory making at its finest.

Evelyn getting a bath in the sink at her grandmother's house. It's cute.