Catching Up (long)

I knew I should have blogged as I went through the weekend. Grab a cup of your favourite beverage to read blogs by, 'cause I've got a lot to tell you about.

Ready?

Oh, wait, my coffee cup is empty...hang on a sec...

Ok, I'm all set.

Let's start with Friday.

So, you all know that Friday was my 29th birthday. The day dawned with crappy pouring rain. I was already feeling low, since I am fighting a cold, the rain just did not help. The babe and I headed out to a La Leche League meeting, where the bad weather must have kept others away since it was a very small group of regulars. It was a nice meeting though, we shared stories and it was a great experience. From there the family went to the grocery store then home for lunch. My hope was to have a picnic lunch somewhere, since Cam had an in-service, but it was not to be. Since I was not feeling well, I spent much of the afternoon snuggled up in my bed watching TV. My beloved husband took care of everything else :)

Dinner was followed by cake, which was probably the most exciting part of the day since it also came with a pyrotechniques display


Then it was present time. I was not sure what to expect since I had told Phil that I didn't want anything (lies, all lies. I just wanted HIM to actually go pick something out. I hate getting my own presents. Not gift cards, I love gift cards. I just did not want to, say, order my own gift off of Chapters.ca like I did last year)

Well...he shocked the crap out of me.

My husband, who only ever goes into the yarn shop to reign in my spending, went into Tangled Skeins and actually bought yarn. Not a gift certificate, actual yarn. And it's gorgeous

(Oceanwind Knits, fingering weight merino in "Indigo")

He finally did what I've been saying for 2 years now (since I started knitting) that if wants to know what to get me for a b-day or christmas or whatever, to go into the shop and talk to Sheryl or Steph. Sheryl knows what I've been petting and Steph knows what would most likely make me run for the needle case to cast on NOW. I think his training is nearly complete :)

He also got me a gift card for the Interlude, with the intention that I could get that pedicure I've wanted all summer. But since it's October, and my hair currently looks like crap, I've changed my appointment to a hair cut and style. I cannot wait :)

Saturday we headed over to the Farmer's Market, which was WAAAAAAAYYYYYY bigger than I thought. We got a wee bit lost, but eventually found the Lismore booth and I purchased some needles for a swap recipient. I wanted to get some cheese for Grace (one of the knitter mommies occasionally brings Stinging Nettle Cheese from That Dutchman, and Grace is crazy for it) but we had to get up to the library for the Challenge.

Saturday was the annual Quintessence Breastfeeding Challenge, this year it was held at the Spring Garden Public Library lawn. There was song by one of the members of Razzmatazz, face painting, bubbles, snacks, and prizes.
At 11:00 we latched on


What's cool about the challenge is knowing that all over the globe, events like this are taking place. At 11:00 local time, essentially creating a wave of latch-on (sort of like watching the New Year's countdowns across the country).

While Grace was getting her face painted my friend's husband came over and recounted to us a commentary made by a passing gentleman: Essentially the man said "I'm all for breastfeeding, it's good for the baby, but I don't think it needs to be in public." Sigh. And that's why we have events like this. My friend's husband handled it well, I probably would have been less kind and used words like "asshat".

Meanwhile, watch for next week's community editions of the Daily News, Gabriel and I are in it once again, this time for nursing and the benefits of events like this and LLL.

Gratuitous cute kid pic:


Grace liked being done up as a kitty, but she felt something was missing. It took us a few minutes to realize that she was telling us she needed lipstick. For some bizarre reason, I actually had lipstick in my purse (that never happens) and it was applied and we had one happy kid.

(In a continuation of his "I'm 8 and refuse to do anything that might be fun" campaign, Cam decided against having his face painted. What's funny is you could see how he was eye-balling the kids with painted faces, you could tell he wanted it, but just was not going to give in. Weirdo)

That evening we headed out to Mahone Bay for the Scarecrow Festival and Pumpkin walk. We met up with my parents and youngest brother, as well as family friends. Sadly, Have A Yarn was closed (although our budget was probably relieved. It was for the best since I would not have been able to buy anything and I might have wept at all the pretties I would have to leave behind), but they had a scarecrow. And I said to myself...bloggable moment!


We meandered through town, getting lots of smiles because Grace was wearing her Dragon costume (she's excited for Hallowe'en, she's going to "knock ona doors and get tweets"). Mom treated my munchkins to fudgesicles (to which Grace exclaimed "look mommy, it's a pop-a-cle, and it's chocolate!")



Thank goodness for wipes!

The pumpkins were plentiful and very artistic, but none of my pics really show the detail unfortunately. There was a woman singing along the walk and her voice was beautiful and the songs she sung really added to the spooky atmosphere.

Sunday we went to the Valley for Apple picking. We have not gone since Grace was in utero, so this was her first time. She was quite excited to "pick da apples offa doze trees...and eat dem!"

Gabriel enjoyed his first "real" food


He did not bite it, no teeth you know, but he did enjoy sucking the juice out!

Cameron enjoyed using his Dad has a ladder


We had a picnic in the Coldbrook park, the wee ones trotted off to visit the animals nearby. From there we headed out to the Corn Maze, which also had quite an elaborate playset set up, using old tractor tires and hay bales. The kids had a blast and didn't even realize that we did not go through the maze itself ;)

All in all, a great weekend, full of family, which was awesome.

In knitting news, I got some yarn I purchased off of ebay. It was such a great price and it's 3 skeins of merino laceweight totalling 2850 yards. I initally considered the Harlot's Snowdrop Shawl, or maybe the Flower Petal Shawl. Then, the day my yarn arrived actually, I stumbled across Butterfly Wings. The yarn so far looks totally delish in this pattern, and I love that there are 5 charts, I'm finding it to be a great challenge! Here is the progress so far:


And the yarn is just so soft and lovely to work with. But this pattern is not one you can do with distractions happening, so it won't make it to KOL (not that I'll be there anytime soon, since my school has changed from Mon to Tues night), and I don't recommend it for car knitting unless your shocks are good (our borrowed car shakes us silly with every bump).

In other knit news I have 2 projects left on my must-do list before I can start of the pile of sock yarn I have waiting. So many pretties, with the 2 skeins of fleece artist merino, 2 of seawool, my swap stuff, and now b-day yarn. They all have patterns that they will be knit with, they're just waiting for the cast on. And they are all for MEEE!

Have you stuck with me throughout? Thanks. Go have some chocolate, you deserve it!