Sink Baby

Elizabeth's first bath in a sink. I think she likes it. :)

Lessons on Baby

So in the first week of motherhood I've learned a few things:

Nothing in the world smells as sweet as your baby. It's intoxicating.

Pacifiers are a beautiful thing for a little girl who loves to suck on anything!

I definitely have to avoid dairy. Poor little girl. I had a bowl full of ice cream and milk last night and she's had a tummy ache all day. I've always needed to avoid dairy because it stuffs me up, but I could never really give it up. However, one look at this little body in such discomfort is motivation enough for me to give it up easily!!

Waking up at 3 am to feed a hungry body isn't that bad because you get to sit and stare at them the whole time. And the final, peaceful, content look on their sleepy face after a feeding is enough to send me into sweet dreams for the next little while.

So all in all, I'm completely in love with my little girl. :)

Bump on a Log

As I was searching the web for hat patterns to knit, I came across some Amigurumi patterns. The basic idea is that you crochet in a round to get the body and then add on whatever else is necessary. These patterns were so cute I had to try one right away.

The bird came together first and looks oddly cute and perky. Then Prince Charming called out to be made so he could send a hug down to a friend in Georgia. Both came together on the same day in about 6 hours total. I will definitely be making more of these!

A "Mother's" Love

I am tickled to death about my very first knitted sock! Made from purple sheep's wool from my deceased grandmother's trip to New Zealand, it's warm, cozy, and hideous!

And yet there is beauty in it's holes and awkward seams. Each represents a learning curve. Somehow it fits like a dream and is now my most treasured sock because I made it (not quite all by myself, thanks Becca!).

I realize that only it's creator could love it like this, but it deserves the devotion simply because it actually looks like a sock (an effect I didn't really think I'd achieve). Now on to make it's mate who will hopefully be it's better half!

Mary had a little lamb....

(First, apologies to any animal lovers, I can vouch for the happy life of the second sheep, but unfortunately the first is a story I'll never know)

Ahh...the joys of being a married biology major. One minute your dissecting a sheep eyeball, carefully separating the muscles from the sclera, disconnecting the lens from the ciliary bodies, and slicing around the iris, not through it! The next minute your slicing and dicing another part of a sheep, but instead of throwing it into the bio-hazard bag, you throw it into your skillet.

So there I was cutting the fat off of some lamb shoulder for dinner. And this was NOT Mary's "little" lamb. This lamb must have looked like one big, rotund, squishy hairball with four little legs sticking out and not touching the ground. This lamb had FAT!

I entertained myself by trying to name the various muscles and tendons, figuring out where they had been attached, and contemplating the God who made such incredibly intricate things. After about 30 minutes of cutting fat off of 3/4 lb of lamb and still struggling (profusely sweating), an enlightening verse popped into my head:

What God has joined, let no man separate.

I've never understood that verse so well :)

clip art courtesy of www.clipartof.com

Snowy Dreams

I was reading a blog set in Norway and dreaming of my ancestral homeland, with out of the corner of my eye I spied a quiet flurry of white. Day dreams do come true! And now I must quickly get away and walk in this second time of snow. All baking projects are ceased to enjoy the perfect afternoon delight!

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Edit to update: You know you are a southerner when you grab your camera to go for a simple two hour hike in the snow and come back with 100 pictures of snow... just snow. To top it all off, somehow I found 20 short videos of it snowing. Yeah, nothing was going on but snow. Yeesh, I either need to get used to the snow or get a life. But it was fun!

The Present Dress

The reason this dress exists is because I found some fabric that I thought was hideous in my stash and used it to experiment with a new dress pattern. As it turns out, I absolutely love the pattern now. Go figure! It was officially named when a classmate exclaimed, "You look just like a present all wrapped up!" So it's the present dress. :)