February 13th: Happy First Birthday Andrew!

More Blizzard Photos!

Blizzard of 2013! Some Photos :)

Toddler Craft Project: Valentine's Day Cards!

Did a fun craft project with Will's playgroup recently - Valentine's Day Cards!  I printed out a picture of each toddler from one of our playgroup dates, and we helped them attach them to the inside of construction paper cards that they decorated with stamps, stickers, crayons and little heart cut-outs.  

I made little cutouts that said "Happy Valentine's Day!" for them to stick on the front of the card, and "Love," for them to stick near their photo making it a photo signature :)

Will decorated the backs of his envelopes with heart and lady bug stamps (which he also used to stamp the hand of just about every mom in the room).

It was simple, but fun to have them use a picture of themselves and get to play with some stickers and stamps!

Probably the ink pad should have been kept more closely in my possession, and probably there were too many things that needed to be stuck on each card (two text items and one photo to make the card a legitimate valentine) but thanks to my hands-on Mommy friends, I saw a lot of cute Valentine's Day cards leaving, and I think the kids had fun!

Happy Valentine's Day, and Happy Crafting! :)

I recommend writing out completely unnecessary directions so that you feel awesome and organized and like planning crafts for toddlers is intelligent work (it is IMPORTANT work, just, well, not that hard.)

Paper heart cutouts made using a paper punch from Paper Source.
(LOVE that store.)

Knitting is Relaxing (aka Kelly vs. the Crocodile)

He's done!!!!

WILL'S CROCODILE IS DONE!!!  WILL'S CROCODILE IS DONE!!!  WILL'S CROCODILE IS DONE!!!  WILL'S CROCODILE IS DONE!!!  WILL'S CROCODILE IS DONE!!!

This probably doesn't excite you since you probably didn't know I was knitting Will a crocodile, but let me tell you, Greg and I are both QUITE relieved that this guy is finished.  Even my Mom is happy for me (ok, relieved), and she lives two states away from the endless seaming and finish work chaos that was this crocodile.  She's the one who suggested the cheeky title (Knitting is Relaxing) for this blog post.  Of course, the knitting WAS relaxing, it was the seaming and RE-knitting and re-seaming that wasn't so much fun!

The inspiration for knitting Will's crocodile - he loves pointing out the crocodile on his dinner plate!

The knitting pattern is from Sarah Keen's "Knitted Wild Animals" and it's an amazing pattern - just look at the detailed shaping.  The amount of thought put into designing this is incredible, and it looks fantastic. 

Love this knitting pattern book - the detail and shaping for the toys is fantastic. 

That being said, I did kind of want to tear my hair out by the time I was done.  The four feet were knit in eight pieces, then there were four legs, the body of the crocodile, two eyeballs, and two eyelids not to mention embroidery work.  That's SEVENTEEN pieces to knit for this stuffed animal.  Oh, unless you lose three of the feet pieces a week before Christmas.  Then it's twenty.  Unless you're a little tired one night and you knit one of the legs too short, then it's twenty one pieces.  Of course, if you lose one of the eyelids, then it's twenty two pieces and by now you've knit enough pieces that you're lucky you found those feet you'd lost even though you already knit replacements because now your should-be-sainted husband can unravel one so you can knit a new eyelid for Will's Christmas crocodile that you're finishing late January.  (Because of course, you've run out of yarn knitting all these extra pieces.)

AHHHHH!!!!!!!

Here are some suggestions in case you decide to knit your own crocodile, although many of these can be applied to knitting projects in general:

BAD KNITTER, BAD!

• If it's less than a month before Christmas, you have two small children, and you're knitting several other projects, don't start a knitting project comprised mostly of seed stitch, over a foot long, and knit in seventeen pieces
• If you do knit a project with that many pieces, KEEP TRACK OF YOUR PIECES
• LOOK AT THE PHOTOS CAREFULLY before you start sewing on appendages.  Misplaced legs make for a very funny looking crocodile, and you'll be pulling them off and re-sewing them
• Read all the instructions (I'm done!  Oh wait, I have to do the nostrils.  Greg, are you ok?)
• Read all the instructions (Ohh, wait, it's chain stitch embroidery for the mouth.. I needed twice this amount of yarn... I need to pull the mouth out... Greg, are you ok?)

GOOD KNITTER!

• I found for the leg placement that lining up the gussets with the end of the seed stitch on the body and seaming halfway up towards the top of the leg from there gave me the most realistic looking crocodile
• After seaming the feet, I lined the back of the foot up with the back of the leg (gusset side) just like a heel and whip-stitched around
• Here's a great online tutorial for chain stitch if you're not familiar with it (I wasn't) 

The crocodile books I found to go with Will's crocodile!

"I'm going to eat Andrew's lovey! Arr arr arr arrr."

"Will's crocodile tried to eat my lovey, but I GOT him!  YAY!!!"

Running with a Double Jogging Stroller

Ready to go!
(Knitters can read about those adorable mittens on my Mom's Ravelry page.)

The snow melted and we had an unseasonably warm day for January, so I bundled the kids up and went for a run with the double jogger!

Running with the double jogger is great because I don't have to wait until the kids are napping to hop on the treadmill, or until I have a babysitter or my husband is home on the weekend so I can run outside by myself.  Both of them love going for a ride, and this time of year it's especially nice for them to get some fresh air!

We were lucky enough to inherit a well-loved L.L. Bean double jogging stroller from my uncle's family, and it still works great!  (Especially once Greg re-inflated the tires.)

Here are some thoughts about running with a double jogging stroller:

• Run for distance and not speed.  The stroller seems to add about a minute per mile to my pace when I push the double jogger with both kids in it (about 50-60 pounds if you count both kids and the stroller weight)

• Push the handle with one arm and move the other one normally.  This gives me a much more normal stride than if I held with both hands, which is not great for your form because you end up leaning forward too much while you're running.  It's also great because then when you feel like quitting you can switch arms, see if that feels better for a little bit, then switch back.  Gives you something to do!

• I don't listen to my ipod when I'm pushing the stroller because I like being able to have a conversation with my toddler if he starts pointing things out to me, and then I feel like if one of the kids got fussy I'd know right away.

• Run up the hills for a bonus workout!  I used to always walk up the hills, and that's completely legitimate since you're still pushing a lot of weight.  Recently I've started running up them, and it drops my pace significantly on the hills, but I like the workout.  I think it depends on whether you're looking for distance or intensity, you might run more mileage if you give yourself some slack and walk up the big hills!

• I try to stick to places where there's sidewalk, then a little grassy stretch and then a breakdown lane just to be safe when I run with the double jogger.  If you don't, I'd recommend making sure you use a strap.  We've hit a corner of a rock wall with the stroller and fallen before, and it's good to know there's some grass between the stroller and the road even if you've got the strap on your wrist!

• Best part about running with a double jogger - watch other pedestrians and runners give you the right of way (because let's be honest, where are you going to go?!) and pretend they're deferring to you because you're so fast and awesome and athletic looking :)

***Ran my first 5k with the double jogger recently, you can check out the blog post here: http://kellysnormal.blogspot.com/2013/04/first-5k-with-double-stroller.html

Watch out for wall outcroppings!

The perfect running sidewalk!

Ahh, fresh air.  So invigorating.
(I thought their heads looked suspiciously slanted)  

Loving my cool new arm-warmers and hat I got for Christmas!

Andrew is Eleven Months!

He's pulling himself up to standing, claps for everything, and will be walking before we know it.  He's even said his first two official words: "Da-da" and "kitty".  Love you, Andrew-bugs!