Now announcing....

Both born 10/28 at 8:35am, little Samuel (2Ibs 13oz) and Jacob (4Ibs 1 oz)!!!

Here's the short story, since I'm still in the hospital recovering from my C-section and I'm pretty pooped:

Tuesday, a week and a half ago, my obgyn found out that I was 2cm dilated and was worried about preterm labor, of course. She set me up to have another NST and doctor check-up 2 days later (Thursday) where I was still the same but the NST showed signs of contractions every 8 minutes. At that point, I was admitted into the Labor Center to stop the contractions, and I spent the day getting shots and steroids to help the boy's lungs to develop faster just in case I was to deliver anyways. I was sent home that night instead of spending the 24 hours and was scheduled for a Monday checkup and NST, which was fine. However, they also scheduled me for another Level II ultrasound because the Tuesday ultrasound showed a weight discordance between the boys of a pound. (Really, this IS the SHORT story.) At the level II, the doctors found that Sam was 2 pounds and 11 oz and Jake was 3 pounds 15 oz and that Sam's placenta was starting to actually revert in blood-supplying performance. The doctor says that because be didn't gain really anything all week and the Doppler showed a weaker supply than his brother...it was possible that keeping him in there longer just more maturation could actually cause more problems and possibly death if long enough. He recommended a C-section THAT NIGHT or the next day or so.
Still in shock, we waited for my regular obgyn to give me a call and give her opinion, which was the same. Freaking out, that evening we got our affairs in order and Thursday 10/28, I was C-sectioned at 8am. (Scariest event of my life, and if you guys want that story and what it's like, maybe I'll tell the tale later.)

The boys are doing well. Baby Sam, even though a pound smaller, is breathing well and is in an incubator, while his brother Jake was on a breathing machine and has done a lot better to the point where he is aided with oxygen with just one of those breathing tubes instead of a mask. They both now have wires hooked up all over them and one running through their mouth, but they both seem to be doing better and better with each visit and not only little sam sucks on his pacifier...we found out last hour that Jake can do the same, if motivated. We left them both happily sucking on their purple hospital pacies. (Little sam will actually hold the pacifier with his little hand too.)

As for me, the "day after" isn't fun at all. The morphine that lasts for 24hours really shows how important the medicine was...and the nurses kept telling me to stay on top of the pain because it's hard to control it once you get beyond 3 or 4 out of 10. Well, I was doing fine until the afternoon today where I really started feeling the incision, as well as backpain. I've been popping pills like a madwomen to get it controlled again and I'm looking forward to finally getting past the little "pain hump" of a couple of days (or so they say). I will be released Sunday, and have not held my babies yet...do not know when they will come home (Sam might come home sooner than his brother if he keeps it up, as well as his weight). I ache that my babies will stay in the hospital for maybe a couple of weeks or longer.........(their due date was 12/11/10)

I still can't believe I'm a mommy and I still look at their itty bitty, fragile bodies in amazement and awe.

Baby pride & Fall 2010

Well, I know I said in the last post that I wouldn't blog about the hat until the second one is done, but I guess I lied and you're going to see it since I'm about 3 inches away from being done with the second. I'll post again about the two hats, and little matching mittens in the next post. But anyways, here is the first baby Bears earflap cap for Jake/Sam. I have no idea what month this cap corresponds to, but it might be 0-6 or just 3-6 depending on the size of their heads. The cap is pretty stretchy though.

I was looking through Ravelry to find inspiration on Bears hats, and didn't find any...so I had to go google some images on how to better place the colors. It seemed that orange looked good at the base, and then to stripe the white and blue and of course finish off with blue. I added the pom-pom and braided cord for more visual interest, and the hat would not be complete without that blue crochet edging. I'm sure the hat will look better on a human than a lumpy monkey's head, but we'll have to wait for some more pics after they are born.

I hope you like photos, because this post is jam-packed with them because we are very much ripe into Fall and it just seems fitting to place them all in this post.

Here is the finished babies' room. There is nothing left to do but hang up two animal wall peices. Even their sheets and onesies are washed with baby detergent. We were very fortunate to have the grandparents purchase the major furniture for the little babes. The bedding is from their "great grandpa" and the mobiles are from others at my baby shower on Sunday.

Almost every person at my two showers (work & family) gave the babies clothing. I have almost two of everything because when you hear twins people people think more "identical" then "fraternal"...so I was really grateful to come across the gifts with similar, but different looking pjs or onesies. I have them organized from newborn to 24 months, and although it looks like they possibly can't go through all of their clothing from the look of their closet, I heard a rumor that babies go through clothing like water throughout the day. And don't worry...we also received lots and lots of diapers. My mom organized a "raffle" for diapers, telling all of the guests that for every 10 diapers they bring to the shower they get their name in the bowl for a prize. We ended up getting dozens of boxes that for twins should last, oh, a few months! Usually you don't think of diapers as an exciting gift at a shower for singletons, but for us...every time we opened up a box, a little more weight fell off my shoulders.

Here is our house in the fall. It looked so pretty when the leaves fell fresh from the tree last week. The colors aren't so vibrant now that they have dried up, so I'm glad we got some shots while they were so orange and yellow.

A shot of the neighborhood too.

Baby Gift

Hey guys,
Now that we are slowly unpacking and uncovering more things, I finally came across the baby gift I received right before I moved that my blogfriend Bobbi graciously knit up for my little boys.

What a sweetie! Thanks again Bobbi...you're awesome!

As for my own knits, I've got a baby "Bears Fan" earflap hat on the needles right now and it's 50% done. You'll get to see the picture when both are done. No posting until the fat lady sings...otherwise, it will be like second sock syndrome, but for hats.

The little babes are now about 3 pounds each and are moving around in me like little aliens. You can really see and feel the little limbs popping out of the tummy, and they are particularily fond of my bellybutton, which feels very strange.

FO: Little Ribbed Baby Jacket

Well, the little ribbed jacket is finished. Like always, I was waiting on having to buy matching buttons. I have a little box filled with buttons of all sorts, but I always somehow manage to make projects that don't exactly match them.

I think the boys will look dashing in this. I used one of their PJ's as a template for size. This model will fit 0-3 months.

The collar turned out OK, but I'm not too thrilled with it. I think it will look better if the top-most button weren't buttoned.

If you notice, the sleeves rib pattern has been changed up from the body of the sweater for some visual appeal. I didn't want the whole sweater to simply just have predictable ridges.

I love the look of seed-stitch, but by this point...it's driving me batty having to go back and forth like that (for some reason it creates tension instead of relaxing me) and the next sweater will have garter stitch as a border, and I'm contemplating making a different sweater altogether for the second boy. (They are going to share these sweaters. I'm not making one specifically for one kid.) I'm thinking something more under the lines of the triangle pattern that I used for "Joe's Office Socks."

Pattern: "Little Ribbed Baby Jacket" by KUAS
Yarn: 1.3 skeins of Plymouth Yarn Galway Highland Heather in teal. Worsted weight wool.
Needles: size US9
Construction: mostly sideways
Start and completed: September 27th-29th, 2010
Made for: Jake & Sam (my expected baby boys)

Getting a good dose of Fall? I've been making pumpkin pie, I went apple picking a couple of weeks ago with my mom and grandpa, picked out pumpkins for the front of our house, I've been making apple cider and have sugar cookie dough ready to be rolled out and cut into little leaf and acorn shapes. Leaves are falling all over our yard, it's colder....I'm in heaven. Mother Nature, can you please let this last all October long??

Little Ribbed Baby Jacket

Well, we are officially moved into our new home (although there are plenty of boxes to unpack still)! We have painted the baby's room light yellow, and the office a light steel blue, and are feeling more and more comfortable in this new environment. It is a really strange feeling living for the first week in the buyer's home...but I think it's starting to go away as the days go on.

Above is a photo of a new baby jacket project that I started. I'm dubbing it the "Little Ribbed Baby Jacket." It's a sideways construction, which makes it more interesting to the eyes and easier on the hands as it requires less sewing in the end. I'm using some of the babies' clothing to judge how much and far to knit for size 0-3 mos since I'm doing free-style as usual.

Since our house isn't completely unpacked, I'll give you a preview of the only finished room in the house, the kitchen:

I'm in love with it, and the large island inspires me to cook & bake. I've already been adding little "Fall touches" around to make it cozier and christened the oven with a pumpkin pie!

Fuzzy Wuzzy Cap

Holy smokes, I'm back again? (hee hee hee.)
Just popping in to show you the little fuzzy wuzzy caps I made my little babies. Yesterday in the ultrasound, I found out that the two little buggers must be conspiring deep in the womb. They used to be both in the head-down position, ready for take-off in several weeks...but when we looked at the ultrasound, they are now both breached and the two of them were forehead to forehead and looking like they were talking or communicating with eachother. They must have heard the TLC baby shows I've been watching recently and learned how long it takes to get down that shoot. At least they are both buds, though. They are starting to do the whole alien thing while moving and kicking, where you see my belly rise and fall with their large movements.

The green in the caps are really nicer looking in real life. They look a little split-pea soupish in these photos. The nice thing about them is that they are very soft and match the baby cocoon I showed you all in the last post.

They are knit up on a 5.5'' diameter loom. They were a cinch to make and gave me some more instant gratification. Maybe I should have all of my knitting stuff taking up my family room in the new house, since when it's in the way and in plain view it gives me motivation to knit up these new projects...

Fuzzy Baby Cocoon

Well, ladies and gents, we've got a FO! I forced myself to not only cast on...but knit and knit until the darn thing was finished. If you've been with me for a while, you probably know that I am notorious for hibernating WIPs.

Pattern: Fuzzy Baby Cocoon by KUAS
Needles: size 13, 11 & 10.5 straights
Yarn: Yarn Bee's Cameo (bulky)
Started & finished: 9/7/10
For: my little babies.

I'll have to make one more just like this so I have matching ones for Jake and Sam. While packing, I have found that I have been hoarding yarn like no other, and I realized that I have "grinch-like" yarn that can be used for another type of cocoon for taking photos, and of course a spare bit for grinchy booties.

Can't wait to take new pictures with live babies all snuggly in them...

Quick hello.

Still alive. It's been blazing hot in our top-floor apartment, so not much in the ways of knitting...but I do plan on showing you the booties and matching hats once the hats are completed. I've also been packing because our closing date is in the middle of September. Other than that, reading some mystery cozies on the couch, craving to make some fluffy cupcakes and apple turnovers, and watching way too much Foodnetwork besides working my two jobs. I'm really, really wanting the weather to finally cool off, and everything Fall is swimming in my head.

25.5 weeks, probably 11-12 weeks to go for twin births. What I do know is that two babies are heavy, and they both like to head-butt me since they both head-down and it feels weird!


Update: I have forgotten to show you this ridiculous photo of a fleece baby carrier, found on uniquedaily.com. It is, what I can only imagine, a fusion of a kangaroo pouch and what seems to be an alien emerging from her stomach. Creepy.

If this doesn't make you laugh or smile, I don't know what will...

Bet that kid's face is cold still.

Tote.

Well, it's official...we bought a house! After much heartache and hassle, and 3 house offers later, we got the original house we wanted. I've been in over 50 houses, and have spent endless hours on the Internet looking at who-knows-how-many-more house listings. I just got back from the house inspection, and could not have been more pleased with the results. Overall, there are only several very minor little tweaks needing to be made (like putting a 50 cent cap on something electrical), which really reassures us, since it's a renovated older home. I've had a very long and stressful week that seemed to just be getting worse and worse...and I went into the inspection thinking it would be my luck to have something major needing to be fixed, but I was happily wrong, and realized that they put more work into the home than I even knew of (like even all new windows within the last few years). I'm happy that this house journey is almost over, and our planned move-in day is in the middle of September.

You're looking at a new KUAS design that I just couldn't help myself to. It's going to be a felted diaper bag/tote (I'm thinking about naming it "a Knitter's Diaper Tote"). It's a beast of a bag right now, and I'm hoping to get it down 1/3 or maybe 1/4 of its size once it's done felting. I plan on making storage pockets for the bottles and 1 for diaper wipes that will go inside the tote, and the outside should resemble my Vera Bradley purse, where the handles start at the base of the purse and there is a single pocket between the front handle. The handles will be brown and also felted. The top of the tote will snap shut on the sides and there will be a single pink wooden button in the middle that will button shut with a flap.

Speaking of "toting," the babies are 22 weeks & 4 days along. I haven't had as many backaches in the night like I did a week or two ago, which makes me happy. They are now at the point where they are kicking harder and since they are riding low, it feels like hiccups or are jumping in the area above my pelvic bone. Still can't tell between some of the kick/hiccup/or maybe braxton hicks sensation they warn you about. "Lefty" baby still seems like he's really the only kicker, as "Righty" hardly ever kicks on his side, unless they are positioned differently now that they have less room. In a week they will be about a pound each; it's sad thinking that they have a week or so left before they won't have enough room to do somersaults. It's cool, though, putting your hand on your belly and feeling movement once in a while. It will be really weird when the movement is more pronounced.

Baby Kimono Jacket

Hey Gang, here is the other baby jacket that I finished this last week:

Pattern: Harvey Kimono Jacket
Needles: size 5 and 6US
Yarn: 2 skeins of dark green "di.Ve Zenith" yarn
Mod's: seed stitch instead of garter stitch
For: my twin munchins

The jacket is cute, but since I ran out of the dark green yarn, I was forced to use another shade of green, which inevitably shows the seed stitch on the edging more messily than the invisible same color edging. Oh well. :)

If you're just coming in this week, check out the BSJ 3 from the last post for more baby knits.

BSJ 3

Welcome to my remodeled blog. I finally got the motivation to "repaint" because I have a bunch of knits to show off since my last appearance on this blog. Joe and I are currently house-bidding at the moment, which is taking up all of my free time (and boy does it resemble a bad ping-pong match), but I have two baby jackets to show you, as well as some other cutsie knits that I'll show off one by one in the posts this week. Yeah, I know...a heart attack for the FO part, and a double hospital visit for the multiple posts in the same week part. I've got two little munchkins to knit for; plan on seeing me more regularly.


Pattern: EZ's Baby Surprise Jacket
Needles: size 7US
Yarn: FrogTree yarn in brown, orange, gray and teal. 1 skein each.


Quite surprisingly, I've had many tribulations with this knit. Who would have thought, since I've made it two times before this. I first had trouble getting my hands on the pattern. I finally found a blog friend who graciously offered to show me the information that I was missing. However, I also used the note-sheet that I found a long time ago online for this pattern (that is mathematically erroneous in some spots), and I couldn't remember which parts I changed. So, I had the easy part done: just knitting the increase rows. By row 50, I realized the truth in the saying "assuming makes an ass out of 'u' and me." Dorkus here forgot that very early on, you must increase after the cuff area, or by row 50, you'll come to realize the stitch count is WAY off. Now, I did end up painfullyfrogging all the work way back to, what, like row 10 to fix it...thus having to redo all of the alternate color striping that I did. After working a couple of days on it at the family reunion, it felt like a huge set-back.

Now, fast forward to way later in the game. I had to cut the yarn due to the bind-offs for the collar, and when I reattached them and started knitting I must have started knitting from the wrong side...because several rows later...the colorway was not quite right.
Now ok, I have been working on and off, knitting during family games, during boring nothingness hours, and at late hours...so I wasn't quite knitting clear-minded, but frogging it twice seemed annoying, especially when most of your time knitting it was spent on untwisting four skeins of yarn every other row.

Colorway fixed. Fast forward to the end of the game. The brown running out. That's basically when the project hibernated for two weeks because I was bummed that I didn't have enough some how.

Fast forward to two days ago. Did I remember to mark down which row I left off with two weeks ago? No, that would have been such a easy ending to what seemed like a hard knit. I thought for a second that I was going to have to frog back to a landmark, but luckily...by that point my brain clicked on and I found out where I was.

Do a slow fast forward to today, since I had to go out to JoAnn's Fabric because that's the only place where I can find buttons. Out of all the buttons I have in my craft box, orange did not make an appearance in the quantity of 5. Bummer.


But this happy little bugger is finished. I'm quite happy that we finally made it to the end, this little jacket and I. It seems like a sophisticated number of one of my boys.

The next BSJ I plan on doing consists of the idiot's guide-pattern that I wrote out on the laptop that goes in full length of directions of every row, no cheats or shortcuts...and the yarn will consists of two variated and complimenting yarns. No muss, no fuss next time.


Stay tuned this week for a baby kimono jacket.

Hello, from Michigan

Thunderstorms, down-pours, and electrical outages, OH MY! Well, you wouldn't know about it looking at the pictures, but our 2 hour trip turned into a 4ish hour one and our family reunion got jump-started by having no power for the first couple of days. It wouldn't have been so bad if the family size was smaller, and we didn't have to buy so much food all the time and store it into a fridge that didn't have power, and also if the whole town wasn't under either for a few days. We had to travel far to buy food, and lucky for us, the stove ran on gas.

However, it has been fun having "me time"...reading, knitting, walking along Lake Michigan and such. I can get used to this whole no work thing real fast.

The sign above is a little snipit of what we saw on the beach: do not enter signs. It was really hilarious. You get to the beach, and you have like 100 feet of actual beach front where you can do as you please and to your left and right are all of these "keep off" signs. We did learn that you were allowed to walk along the beach, as long as you keep the rule "wet sand=green, dry sand=red."

We had several cabins to hold our generously-sized family. Joe and I practically had a cabin to our selves (it was a one-room one, but had a kitchen and bathroom with a washer and dryer in it). The scenery and decor was amazing, and the whole theme was "Elephant Walk" after the movie and book. Elephants littered the premises.

Here is a preview of the BSJ 3, for baby boy, if there is such a gender residing inside of me. Here's the thing, I first had trouble getting my hands on the pattern, but when I did, I happily knit and followed the predictable decreases until halfway through the pattern when I noticed that the back had more stitches than it should have (like in the double digits). I thought to myself, that can't be right...I did all of the decreases in all of the right spots and timings...until I looked through the pattern one more time in the beginning and noticed that on row 11 or so I was supposed to increase the sleeve stitches, thus adding many more decrease rows. The piece was not salvageable, and I had to frog the whole darn thing after two days of knitting it with color-switching and love. That really set me back, but I restarted it the next day and I am currently (and very tiredly so) am approaching the home-stretch. The sweater is cute, and I am loving the color scheme and natural alpaca quality to the yarn.

I used my Frog Tree yarn in sport that I had from the LYS that recently went under. It looks like I put a lot of work into color-switching...and I did, but not with lots of strands on the edging. Every row twists the 4 yarns together, and unwinding the tangles takes up a good percentage of the knitting process. However, it's worth it. The little tyke, or tomboy, will look cute in it.

I think I'm starting to feel the babies kick some. I put my hand on the spots, though, and the kicking stops. Meanies. 29th is the next ultra sound...will they let me find out what they are?

Family Reunion

Hey guys. Just giving you a tiny update before I leave for a week-long reunion with Joe's family in Michigan. I've finally got my hands on the EZ BSJ pattern that I was so desperate for (and I thanked the person repeatedly, what a goddess of the knitting fortunes), because I casted on for it before I found that the pattern was MIA. And the only library book in our county is checked out. And our local bookstores don't have it in stock. The Kimono jacket is about done. I have stopped short of one sleeve to do the next because I am still very worried about how much yarn is left. I hate fretting about that kind of stuff. I'll meet you back with some picture of my well-needed vacation and hopefully two finished (boy) sweaters! Babies seem to be doing fine, and boy am I getting bigger....
The next ultra sound is on the 29th, and maybe I'll find out the sexes? 16.5 weeks by then! I'm still waiting for my first undeniable kick!

Baby Kimono

I have searched high and low for that darn BSJ pattern to no avail. I have made two of them, and somehow the pattern managed to slip away from my hands. I really was hoping to start the jacket so I could bring it to my week-long reunion coming up next week. Now I just have to pray that the patron who currently is checking out The Opinionated Knitter book returns it early. Not likely though, since it's due back on the 22nd.

In the meantime, I have started the Harvey Kimono Jacket to calm my freaking nerves. I'm really nervous about how much yarn I have for this project. I'm using an Italian yarn that I purchased my last year of college, and I can't remember the name of the brand unless I search my blog because I removed both of the labels. I only have two 100 or 150yd skeins, and the pattern almost calls for 300yds. I'm hoping the designer over-shot the yardage requirement. I am making the smallest size.

I casted-on yesterday and finished the back, now I'm working on the left flap before I have to teach today. Meanwhile, I started dinner; I made a Caesar noodle salad, and chicken breasts spiced with Cajun and lime seasonings is currently marinating until I get back home later on in the evening to grill on those handy grill pans. (The other night I made a really scrumptious pork roast with potatoes and carrots that simmered in the crockpot for 6 hours. I even made a pumpkin pie that day, since it felt like Fall again.) I'm hoping the chicken turns out as successful. It seemed like a yummy idea.

The start of something new

Well, I am now offially in my second trimester! My bump is getting larger, and yet I still feel the need for small, manageable projects. I pulled this "Sweet as Candy" Cardi out of the hibernation bin and knitted away at it. Well, ok, it served as two purposes...because I needed my size 7 circ's too.

But, I feel great having finished another project after a long lull of startitis. I am craving to knit another baby cardi in sportweight yarn with lots of wonderful bright colors. I think I have been watching way too much Ravelry projects done with those wonderful assortments of colors as shawls and cardi's.

Really, this entire cardi was improv, and I don't mean in the general sort of way that I normally knit and design. This is a no-real-vision type of improv. It was started 2 or 3 years ago in just a top-down raglan fashion when I had that sort of kick, and was hibernating ever since until a few days ago when I just decided that instead of a boring 1x1 edging, I'll try some simple frilly-frill garter lacing. Heck, it's meant for a girl (if I have at least one), and you can get away with that sort of thing when they're babies.

I think it's cute, overall. I just have to knit away at a boy version now. No frills. I'm thinking maybe another BSJ.

By the way, I'm tres excited about this year's Midwest Fiber Fair. Anyone planning on attending that? I used to think that the other ones were close to me (30-45 mins), but now!...it's 12 minutes away, and would have been 5 minutes if they hadn't relocated Lake County Fairgrounds this year. I'm super-duper excited to buy some bright shades, maybe some STR for some more baby things.

I've been tending to my balcony garden, and am waiting with much anticipation for my tomatoes to pop up. Ever since my Snowpeas and radishes came up, I splurged some more for my garden (which I only have a few types of plants to show you, since these photos are a couple weeks old).

The first to really be fruitful is of course my snowpea plant. I have yet to see the string beans pop up, but it's still the beginning of June.

My lovely radish plant that overgrew, and didn't come with the instructions that once it flowers, the radishes diminish to support it. Yowzers. I decided to dig them up and make Radish Leaf Potato Soup. It was interesting, and wholesome. I'm not sure how much vitamins are retained after cooking it, but as a raw product, radishes are one of the most vitamin-rich plants. So I've read.

My cherry/beef tomato plant that looks totally different now. It's flowering everywhere, and I watch every day for some tomatoes to form.

If anyone's interested, my plant inventory now seems to be: snowpea, string bean, cherry, beef and roma tomatoes, green onion, radishes, jalepeno, rasberry, green pepper, cilantro, basil and a couple flowering plants.

Lastly, Joe and I spent last Saturday at Kalahari, as a last-minute attempt to have a vacation before we don't have a life anymore. We do have a week-long reunion that's coming up in the middle of June, but this was just about us. I couldn't do much (really, just the lazy river, eatting, getting a little sun and drinking virgin drinks), but it was nice to say we tried to have a little vacation in the Dells.

Babies!

Here's some ultrasound pics!
The first one is of the 7.5 week shot, when I first found out about the twins...


The next set is 11.5 weeks, and after all of the shock!
I love this one, especially when it's flipped. You can make out the nose and eyes better, and the feet looks like it had been moving around while the photo was taken.
I believe this bottom one is a bird's eye view (of both):They were both moving around...bobbing their heads and kind of squirming as they will. It was very strange and wonderful to witness.