Another fun-filled Saturday

The Continental knitting is progressing. At least the knit stitch is, anyway. I'm getting much better at it, though am still having problems with tension and getting the yarn to slide through my left hand easily, but not with too much slack. The purl stitch, though, is a whole other story. I'm continuing to struggle with that one. When does it "click"...both with my fingers AND my brain?

Today G taught his Boot Camp for New Dads class and took Jack with him, so Catie and I had a "girls day". Well, a couple hours at least. We went to McDonald's for lunch. I know, I know...but I thought she could play on the playground, which I thought was indoors. It wasn't, and it was a little chilly. She proceeded to drink apple juice and suck the ketchup off her french fries. I don't think she took a single bite of food. From there, we headed to Barnes and Noble. Where we split a chocolate chip cookie. Well, I ate most of the cookie and she picked out the chocolate chips and would only eat those. Is this going to be a trend? Then we looked at books. I wanted to buy this, but they didn't have it in stock. The website LIED! So we headed home after a bit, and are spending yet another Saturday night knitting and reading. Exciting life we lead, eh?

Because I have no knitting pics for you, unless you want to look at my Continental knitting swatch, here's a couple of kiddie pics for you.

Catie in the bath: and Jack snoozing after a long night of nursing. NON-STOP. Exhausting. For both of us.

When did I grow so many thumbs?

Tonight my mom and I took a Fair Isle knitting class at Drop A Stitch in Boise. I'm decidedly an English knitter. So for me, it was a lesson in Continental knitting as well as Fair Isle. And apparently I hold the yarn all weird in my right hand too. So tonight I'm trying to learn:

1) a new way of holding the needles and yarn that's in my right hand
2) to knit Continental
3) to work with 2 colors at once, all the while...
4) doing all this using both hands at the same time.

Good Lord! I haven't felt that uncoordinated in years. Hence the "thumb" title above.

After 2 hours, I had this


And a close up.I started out with a pattern, but couldn't even master the technique. So I simply proceeded to alternating back and forth between the two colors...every other stitch one row, every two stitches the next, etc.

I think I might like knitting Continental. I've decided to try and master that first, then move on to more than one strand. But it was fun. This is going to open up a whole new world of knitting for me!!!

Shearing Day

We're all well at home. Jack is growing by leaps and bounds, and probably weighs close to 10 lbs. already. He's gaining a pound a week. Outfits that were way too big on him when he came home now fit almost perfectly. Catie is being a great big sister (most of the time anyway). I'm having a great time staying home with them. If only maternity leave could last forever...

On Friday, the sheep shearer came. I wasn't sure how it would go. We have a big open pasture, with no smaller pen to put them in. So we brought the sheep into the back yard. He simply walked up to a sheep, grabbed it, and got to work. This is Aran getting her haircut:and Lacey getting hers:

Oh..this feels so much better. Now I have 2 garbage bags full of wool, anxiously awaiting a date with the bath and carder. Time to get busy and start spinning all this up.

And finally, a couple of mother/daughter and father son pics...awwww

New bathroom pics

We're settling in nicely at home. Jack is doing great. He had his check up today...he's gained an amazing 9 ounces in 3 days!! Further proof he's a little piggy, and I'm a cow. Just call me Bessie.

So our bathroom is 98% done. We're waiting for a part to extend the showerhead, so we can't use the shower yet, but everything else is pretty much done.

The pedestal sink, new lighting, and new medicine cabinet...

And the best part...the clawfoot tub (made in 1894, and salvaged from my grandparents' house in southern Oregon), and new tile floor. The contractors tried hard to talk us out of tile, but I've had my heart set on this type of tile since I bought the house 5 years ago. More costly, but it's what I wanted. Unfortunately, the subflooring was all rotten, so replacing that was a pretty extensive (i.e. expensive) project, but now, we have an incredibly stable new floor. And I can soak in the bathtub every night after work.

Now it's back to Jack...he's waking up. Eat. Sleep. Poop. Repeat. But I wouldn't have it any other way.

Home at Last

So I fully anticipated staying at the hospital until Saturday. This morning we got a great surprise when the doc said we could go home today instead. So G, Jack, and I loaded up and headed to my parents to pick up Catie. They didn't know Jack had been discharged, so were surprised, to say the least, when we showed up with the baby. Then after a little "adjustment" time between Catie and the new baby (alternating periods of her kissing the baby and then crying because she wanted to sit on someone's lap, but Jack was there), we headed home.

I haven't been home for about 5 weeks. So I got to come home to a nice clean house with a brand new bathroom and brand new baby. I got to take a nap in my own bed. I got to sit on my own couch and nurse Jack. Splendid!

So without further ado, let me introduce you to Jack Edward Decker.


After he was first born:Our first together shot before he was whisked off to the nursery:
I love this picture of G's and Jack's hands:
Holding Jack for the first time in 4 days...2 tubes out, 3 to go.

All snuggled up and ready to head home:


Catie meeting and kissing her brother for the first time:

Life is good.

It's a...BABY. Okay...a BOY!!

Well, it's been a rough past few weeks. As you may have read (though I don't have too many readers, I'm so sporadic at posting) the preeclampsia set in the beginning of February. So I spent one night in the hospital, and then got to go home on bedrest. The just after my last post, the blood pressure shot up again, so I spent a week in the hospital. Where I did manage to get a whole lot of knitting done.

Then it was back home for a week and a half. And through all this, we've been staying at my parents' house because the bathroom remodel wasn't done. I was scheduled to be induced on Wednesday, Feb 28. But Tuesday night, I went into labor on my own. So I was up all night contracting. We went in to the hospital Wednesday morning, and I was 4 to 5 centimeters. My doc broke my water, and off I went.

Jack Edward Decker was born at 5:05 pm on Wednesday the 28th. He looks a lot like his daddy, and is so much darker complected than compared to Catie. He was 3 weeks and 2 days early. But still managed to come in at a hefty 7 lb 4oz. Had I gone all the way to his due date, he probably would have been 9 lb. Ouch. Unfortunately, he had some respiratory issues, which we hoped would resolve. But they didn't, so at about midnight, he was transferred to the NICU in Boise. He was intubated before they left our hospital, and stayed on the ventilator until Saturday morning.

So Saturday morning, they took out his breathing tube. Today they took out one of the IVs from his belly button. And this afternoon we got to hold him for the first time since the first couple of minutes he was born. I was quite teary. Hopefully I can actually start to nurse him tomorrow, and I'm crossing my fingers we can go home by Wednesday or Thursday depending on how he does.

The bathroom will be done tomorrow. I hear it looks great, but since I haven't been home in a month, I can't say. But boy does that clawfoot tub sound good right about now.

We're staying at the hospital, and I'm using the terminal in the waiting room to post this. I have no way to get pics on here, but will as soon as I get home. Take my word for it though, Jack is pretty damn cute.