v.2

Some of the latest Sienna pics!

Sienna loves the Sesame Street car my brother sent her for Christmas!

Sienna helping daddy put the Christmas tree away. She literally threw the ornaments into the box!

Helping Daddy grind some coffee!

Sienna is always outside the circle! (at music class!)

Comments(0)

The sewing bug has hit again and I decided to make a tote bag for one of my mother in law’s Christmas presents. I was feeling guilty that I’m such a crafty person but I rarely make more presents than buy. I don’t know what compelled me to try a pattern I never tried before for a present for someone but it didn’t come out too terrible. LOL. It was challenging, that is for sure! If I make it again, I’m sure it won’t be as difficult. I had this fabric for a couple of months. When I saw it, it just screamed my MIL’s name! The pattern for the bag is here.

Skippy posing with the bag (it’s reversible!)

A matching zippered pouch

I also made this grocery tote for a swap-bot tote bag swap. I hope the receipient likes it! The pattern is here. I already received my bag while I was in Jamaica and it’s so nice! I’ll post it when I take a photo of it.

The box is not included! I just put it in there to show the bag filled.

The bottom

Here’s a pillowcase I made for Sienna’s new pillow! The Elmo fabric was leftover from when I made her shopping cart cover. I also made another case with a monkey fabric. I thought I took a photo of it but I guess not!

Comments(1)

We spent a week in Jamaica to visit with Yves’ family. We stayed with his parents up in the mountain. Yves grew up in Jamaica and spent about 2-3 years at the mountain house during his early teen years right before moving to Chicago. Before that they lived at the beach house and I’ve heard about both these places for awhile. It was nice to finally be able to see where he grew up.

My main concern was the flight with Sienna. The flight itself was almost 4 hours and then from the airport to the mountain was almost another 2 hours. Sienna was awesome! We got her her own seat and I’m glad we did. Although she only slept half an hour on the flight, she was relatively well behaved! The only tension was landing because of her ears popping and she wouldn’t drink anything but I kept offering her water. Once we got out of customs after an hour, Yves’ parents and brother were there waiting for us. We felt the heat and humidity right away and of course I got a mosquito bite straight away! I pulled out a dress for Sienna to change into so she didn’t have to suffer too much. We headed over to pick up her cousin Gaby from day care and then spent some time at Carol-Anne’s apartment to break up the traveling. The first time up the mountain was rough for me and my bladder! Yves’ warned me about the roads but I really had no idea! It’s only 10 miles but it’s winding and bumpy so takes about 45 minutes to go up to their house.

We made it up the mountain! In front of the main house.

Going to the cottage where we’ll be living and sleeping.

Night view from the main house

Tuesday we stayed up in the mountain and roamed around the area. It’s cool up there at night and in the morning. We took a walk/hike in the morning to see the coffee plants and the mountain and wonderful views. It was also CA’s birthday so her and JP came up later for cake and dinner.

Watching the Muppets DVD in the morning

These benches are made of concrete!

Going for a tractor ride with Daddy and Grandpa!

Coffee picked and ready to be sent to the factory!

Gaby and Sienna help Grandma decorate the tree!

The next post will be about our trip to the beach at Hellshire! Yves also has a flickr set that he’s updating faster than I am posting! Check it out here!

Comments(0)

I promise a post soon about our wonderful trip to Jamaica! I thought instead of getting too far behind, I would post about Christmas and hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!

We made out pretty good since we really didn’t want to spend too much on gifts because of our trip. I really lucked out as Yves bought me a new ipod! 120 gb! What a surprise too! I also got some afghan hooks to try tunisian crochet, a zakka sewing book, ‘tell me what to say‘ parenting book and a case for my new ipod! I got Yves one of those furry bomber hats and a pair of Keen shoes (which were a bit too small but since I got it from zappos.com, they were open today and able to exchange them- I LOVE zappos.com and wish all online stores were as good as them!) Sienna made out pretty well with a farm set, baking set, guitar, toy camera and Auntie Joy stopped by later and gave her a Little People’s camping set. She played with it all! My parents had also bought her a table and chair set and some cute clothes. Yves family gave us a nice assortment of stuff that we carried home in our bags. I got pretty earrings and an earring and necklace set, Yves got a book and a t-shirt and Sienna got a pretty gold bracelet, some books and a puzzle board and we are all sharing the Jamaican rubber bracelets and keychain and screwdriver set with JP’s radio station logos on them, a bossa n’ Bob Marley covers CD an Jamaica cap! I hope I didn’t forget anything! I made a bacon, egg and cheese frittata and turkey sausage for breakfast and my parents came over for lunch. They cooked broccoli, baby bok choy and spinach and we ordered Hong Kong style steak and Honey Walnut Shrimp from the chinese restaurant. All quite good! We were able to connect with the family in Jamaica and got to watch them open the presents we got for them. Almost as good as being there!

Comments(0)

Yves says that of all the years we’ve been together, I might have helped decorate the tree once. It’s true that I get lazy in decorating for the holidays so I can’t really dispute that but I don’t believe it was only once! Maybe twice! In any case, I did not help this time. Yves and Sienna decorated the tree on Sunday, a perfect rainy day activity!

Sienna was actually helping by handing Yves the ornaments from the box!

Here is a picture of the tree lit

You can see it better in this photo. Don’t they look damn cute?

Comments(2)

Yves gets on my case for not wearing a hat during winter. I only wear one when it’s really, really, really cold out since a hat flattens my hair. I saw this headband in the recent Crochet Today magazine and thought it would be a good solution. (Yes, I look like a dork!)

I realized I wanted to take a photo in front of the tree but my big head is blocking it so here is another one!

And here is the underside of it where I whip stitched some fleece (leftover from Sienna’s shopping cart cover I made) onto it. Midway through I had to undo it because it became uneven.

I’m not sure how warm it will really keep me but my ears will be covered! And I’m not sure how often I would really wear it since it’s kinda a pain to tie it onto my head. HA. After Yves saw these pictures, I was informed that I was wearing it too low on my head. I suppose I did! HA!

Comments(4)

I think Sienna’s almost ready for Guitar Hero World Tour!

And here is a cute picture of Sienna at Emma’s house for a playdate. Those are Sienna’s mango snack and Emma loves them too! So nice of Sienna to share! 😉

Comments(0)

Here are 2 dishcloths I crocheted for a swap on swap-bot. The pattern for the yellow one is here and the pattern the blue one I can’t find right now!

For the ornament swap, we had 3 different partners and you’re supposed to make 3 different ornaments. I had fun making a gingerbread man, reindeer and snowflake. I used fabric paint to decorate the gingerbread man and reindeer. I forgot to take photos of the ornaments I got in return but there were an ball ornament, butterfly and 2 bells with real bells!

Sorry the photos of the ornaments didn’t come out so great. I get so impatient!

Comments(0)

The past few Fridays haven’t been terrible but they weren’t very pleasant because they were filled with doctor appointments. The 14th was for Sienna’s chest x-ray and blood test. Her new doctor wanted her to get an x-ray because of the coughing she was still having just to double check. The blood test was to test for lead, apparently that’s a new thing and recommended by the American Association of Pediatrics (I guess her old doctor didn’t follow the AAP). Yves took off to go with me because I didn’t think I could handle the x-ray. Well, the x-ray went smoothly, no tears! It was the blood test that produced tears! Poor thing! They had to get 4 vials of blood (not filled) and by the 3rd one, Sienna wasn’t very happy and no matter how me, Yves or Bob tried to console her, the tears came. We went to the library after that (we were in and out in an hour!!) and she was fine for the rest of the day. Me and Yves were more traumatized and Yves felt like taking a nap! LOL

The next Friday was my turn, going back to see the cardiologist for a follow up. I try not to get annoyed at waiting for 2+ hours to get in but I can’t help it. Either they overbook or the doctor comes in late or something because I always ask for the very first appt. and the assistant assures me I’m getting it yet I still wait so long. UGH!! I was supposed to do a stress test back in October but the insurance wouldn’t cover it so the doctor went to another center and somehow I got in. So the following Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, I went in for a stress test. I couldn’t eat breakfast or have any caffeine and the test took about 2.5 hours. It didn’t feel like that long because I hardly had to wait for anything (how pleasant!). They took a sonogram of my heart, pictures of my heart then I had to walk on the treadmill for about 3 minutes and then they took more pictures of my heart. I had to wear a heart monitor for 24 hours, a little gadget with wires attached to my chest. It’s not a big deal, I had worn it before several years ago when I was getting heart palpitations and that’s how I found out I had mitral valve prolapse. I had to drop off the monitor the next day so we’ll see what happens! I hope these next few Fridays will be doctorless!

There were 4 more of these plugs on my stomach area

Here’s the monitor around my waste.

Comments(0)

I wanted to make Sienna  a new blanket that was square and colorful (as opposed to star shaped and plain) for winter. I got this pattern from Lion Brand and used Homespun yarn. I started it in mid October (I think) and made it halfway through in relatively quick time but then Sienna got sick (something I really don’t want to remember!) and lost my mojo on it. I got it back last week and finished it! Woohoo! The orangey/green yarn in the lower right was some old yarn I had and I liked the color. I went out and bought the blue as an accent color and the other orangey/reddish yarn on the upper left. I thought I was buying the same color  but as you can see, it is not. I guess the old one I had was really old and probably discontinued. I had a total of 3 skeins as the pattern said that’s all I needed but I went a little too far across and ran out for the last edging (which is in a burgundy color) and the old yarn was probably not a full skein, which is why I need the blue to finish off the square! What a mish mash but I think Sienna likes it!

Comments(1)