God Bless Colin

Looking like a china doll in the family christening gown. this was HAND SEWN by my great-grandmother from her wedding gown. it is 106 years old. he is the last of the 4th generation to wear this gown.


bundled up for church. the hat/sweater set I bought for Ryan before I could really knit. the blanket I started to knit for Andy, gave up and added a really wide crochet border! you can't see them, but he also wearing a pair of booties that Todd's grandma Berger made. she crocheted a pair for each of her grandchildren so that they would each have a pair for their children. she passed before Todd adn I met, so it was pretty cool to have them.


pouring the water


saying "hi" to Grandma in church


Colin with Mommy, Daddy and Godparents (and a zonked out Jason! - one of these days I'll post a picture of that kid awake!)

Catching up

Been busy around here!
we had a great Halloween...




















Andy lost another tooth...

Kathy came for a visit...

Kim came over too. ...

There was knitting..

Tea.. wine .. and LOTS of chocolate! Andy made Kathy Breakfast both days she was here. Friday was a grapes and cheese sandwich and saturday was peanut butter, margarine and graham gracker sandwich. He's never made ME breakfast...

I sewed some Baby Legs.
I really like them and I need to get some more socks to hack up. I knew this was a simple project, but it really was a complete no-brainer. great beginner project.

I'm back at work just as Colin is getting interesting....

I'm still trying to figure out the best pumping schedule. I'm NAK now... I've got more diapers to sew and I need to get some microfleece and flannel to make some more fitteds to go with all of this wool! I've also ordered some hemp fleece to make inserts. the microfiber absorbs fast and the hemp absorbs a LOT so I'll top some layers of hemp with m/f. I may just sew the ends to speed up drying time.

HEIGH HO....

yup.. back to work for me. good news and bad news I suppose. I'd forgotten what a PITA pumping is, but it is SO worth it! I'm loving the new pump. It is a Medela PIS Advance. I had the classic before, but this one is SO much more efficient with the let-down cycles. I'm also really loving the Lily Padz. they are a bit cumbersome fore nusing at home, not at all condusive to BFIP, but they are GREAT for work! I'm not having any leaking issues and it isn't a big deal to get them on and off for pumping, b/c I'm behind closed doors and
I don't have to juggle a hungry/sleepy baby to use them.

I'm taking a note from others and generally avoid discussing work here. i like my job. I want to keep it. one reason being the boss himself. hes gone out of his way to make my transition back easy. instead of dumping a pile of projects on me, he gave me a few things to start out and is slowly adding to my workload. there have been some personnel changes while I was gone. I knew they were comming, but just getting used to the dynamic.. It'll be interesting to see how this affects my job description..

We took the boys to a halloween party yesterday. We've got some great pics of hte boys in their costumes. I'll have to post those when I am not pumping, typing and having a cup of tea... I also made soem Halloween diapers and some baby legs I'll have to post pics of those later too.

Please pardon the sporradic posts as I get used to working and pumping again. DO keep an eye out fo rhte return of FREE PATTERN FRIDAY! for those of you new to my blog, I used to post a free pattern of my design or a link to a free pattern on another site that I like. any requests or wnat to pimp your own pattern, drop me an email.

The gospel according to Andy

Not to get all religous today, but.... we were painting our paper mache pumpkin pinatas today and they asked what we are doing tomorrow. I told them that tomorrow is Sunday and they have Sunday School. Andy proceedes to tell me that we celebrate Easter b/c Jesus died. so I thought I'd ask him if hw knew why we celebrate Christmas. his answer...... "because we're not Jewish." what a smart ass! he's right tho... I'll have to work on the details.

so then we start looking at a craft magazine as the paint dries and we saw a neat thanksgiving project. It is a tree shape cut out of foam and a bunch of fall leaves to write what you are thankful for on them and gklue them to the tree. so I asked Andy what he is thankful for.. once I explained what thankful means, he told me he was thankful for TV and candy....

Teeth and Temple

Andy came home from school yesterday and told us that he had a loose tooth, but he was too young to have a loose tooth... Somehow he fot the idea that he had to be 6 to have a loose tooth. At least we still have the tooth fairy box still handy from Ryan's dental adventure....

and while I'm still on the topic of teeth, I noticed last night while we were at temple, that Colin is sprouting his firt 2 teeth! Can't feel them yet, but they are visiblr through the gums. So, my oldest and youngest are getting teeth!

Yes, you read that right! We went to Temple last night. It was my first time since I am Catholic and all. I was still amazed at the similarity between the Jewish service and a Catholic mass. Hard wooden pews, incense, a lot of standing, sitting and singing (no kneeling.. BONUS!!) there was even bread and wine. I should seem obvious that the two are so similar, as Christianity has is roots Judaism. I've been to other Christian services that are nothing like the RC mass. Quite honestly, one of the things I enjoy most about being Catholic, is the comfort of the ritual of mass. Whatever else is spiraling out of control in my life, I know when to sit, stand, kneel and sing. I can recite the appropriate responses without really processing. So, while it was still quite different and I didn't understand the language of most of the service, I did feel quite comfortable.

Why were we there? Good question! It was a baby naming for Mike and Nicole's daughter, Rachel. We were halfway there when we realized that neither of us remembered the camera, so no pics of the guest of honor. She is very cute tho! Mazeltov Rachel!

BTW- what is the appropriate response to Mazeltov???? I know there are some Jews reading this.. (Heather, Mike, Mike...) so please chime in! Educate the Gentile...

UPDATE: Andy just yanked his tooth out!!!! looks like the tooth fairy will be paying us another visit tonight!

A moment of Silence...

for my Mets.....

At least they made it further than the Yankees!

May the Force be With You

The Light at the End of the Tunnel..

..is just a freight train comming my way. to quote Metallica!

let's just say when it rains it pours. thst's th good news and the bad news.

back to knitting. and no, I can't show pics. I'm aimimg to publish this one...

Colin McTartanpants

I FINALLY finished the cabled cardi. I was going to have him model it for a picture, but it wasn't worth waking a baby over. below it is the tartan wrap soaker to go under his kilt. again.. sleeping baby... I'm casting on another little secret project, but I will say that it goes with the picture.. BTW I hate working cables in homespun!

Colin had his first "Mommy-in-a-bottle" last night. guess who gave it to him? Ryan!!!! of course there's no picture.. sigh..

Cable on....

FINALLY after stiing in m y bag for a while, I'm back to working on Colin's Cables. I ran out of yarn after I got the cable strips and ribbed cuffs done. I finally got to Janet Kemp's today and picked up another skein of wool. If I knew who the patron saint of fiber was, I'd be praying for her ('casue you KNOW it's a her!) help matching dye lots! turns out I didnt' need to! she had another 5 skeins in back- SAME DYE LOT!

I came home (late thanks to crappy traffic on 110!) and found a yarn sale flyer in the mailbox! local yarn from local sheep spun locally.. I'm there! God knows I needed some knitting zen today!

comming soon... a tartan soaker to go with a wee little kilt. anyone know where I can find a good pattern for baby kilt hose?

time to clean the poop off of Ryan's NEW sneekers.. don't even ask!

Look what I got!

After almost a year of living with subfloor in my kitchen (ever try to mop plywood????), I FINALLY have a real floor!!! You'll see lots more floor when Colin gets mobile!

Ryan's teacher guilted Todd into reading to Ryan's class. Not that he minded. He loves reading to the boys and he loves sharing that with the other kids too!

More pictures!!!

are you sick of looking at my kids yet? too bad! we got more pictures from Jerry last night. they are absolutely beautiful as usual! it's good to have talented firiends!

he did an AMAZING DVD slideshow too! he used some of the belly pics and other pictures of the boys and even one of the flowers Todd bought me while I was in the hospital.

Cabled Cardi

I've managed to keep knitting away on the Cabled Cardi. I've gotthe back and fronts complete. I knit the neck band and I'm about to pick up and knit the the button and buttonhole bands. I still have to do the sleeves, but I'm not sure if I have enough yarn, so I'm going to do the bands first, then get more yarn jic I can't get the same dye lot.

New pics!!!

I've got some knitting update pics to post, but you've GOT to see these first!!!! These were taken by our friend Jerry.

Ryan trying to hide from the camera:


Andy having a snack:


And of course, 2 day old Colin:

A Couple of FOs

My sripey suprise is complete and gift given. Initially I wasn't going for the bucket hat look, but I really like it. I may try to put an actual brim on the next one! This is worked up in LB fisherman's wool that I hand dyed a while back.

Cargo is complete! as usual I modified the pattern! in addition to the wool & gauge changes I discussed previously, I added some short row shaping to the back to fit over teh diaper better. thanks to the knitters at the wool soakers group for the suggestion!! at first I was thinking that these things are going to be WAY to big for Colin.. but then he gained 12 oz and grew a 1/2 inch in 6 days! I hope they won't be too small!!!

I also started the pixie cable sweater, but it doesn't look very "pixie" in this color. I'm only on the second pattern repeat, so there isn't much to see just yet. so far, my first attempt at cables is going well. I did cross them all the wrong way, but since it is consistant, I'm just going to keep going with it.

Back to School!!!

Believe it or not.. Andy is in kindergarten and Ryan is in Pre-school again.

A couple of Andy's best friends from preschool are in his class this year! as is our friends son. that will make partes a lot easier now that we already know half the parents!!

Ryan is in the same class as last year - just in the afternoon instead of morning. We had to walk him to his class and he was a bit hesitant at first, but he found his name on his cubby and then found his way to the toys and could care less about us being there, so we left! we did get to show Colin off to Ryan's teacher and Andy's teacher from last year.

Quick Update

Took Colin in for a follow up with the pediatrician. hedsoing GREAT! gaining weight back already and nursing like a champ! He goes back for a weight check on Tuesday.

we got home and found the report from Ryan's sleep study in the mailbox! good news: no Narcolepsy!! (not out of the woods until puberty on that one tho) Bad news: he has "obstructive sleep apnea syndrome" he havereaged 10.8 episodes PER HOUR> looks like he may need his tonsils out! Todd will meet with the Sleep Dr tomorrow and it looks like he'll be referred to an ENT dr and probably have his tonsils out. as much as I hate the thought of someone operating on my 3yo, it would mean a great improvement to his quality of life for the rest of his life.

as if that wasn't enough.. Andy started Kindergarten today!!! Ryans first day of shcool is tomorrow, so I'll do a full back to school recap tomorrow.

Colin Scott Berger

was born Sunday, August 27th, 2006 at 3:32am. He weighed 9 pounds even and measured 21". Tho he was not my biggest, he was by far the hardest delivery! After a bit of a bumpy begining, he is doing terrific now!

Short Version (according to Ryan): "Mommy poopied him out!"

Long version (according to Mommy): Like the others, my labor strarted out slow and easy. Thursday and Friday I was having contractions 20minutes apart and increasing in pressure after my visit with my wonderful midwife, Katy. Friday night we decided on the name. Saturday morning they got as close as 10 minutes apart- Still increasing in pressure, but still not at all painful, so we decided that we really should go to the mall for the car seat safety inspections and have the new seat installed ( talk about timing!). Knowing we still had a long road ahead, we thought we'd walk the mall a bit and get things moving. Todd found the now infamous Iron Maiden onesie and I picked up a copy of one of the Yarn Harlot's books. We went home and and Todd napped while I went for a walk. I came back and when contractions were 3-5 miuntes apart adn getting a lot more pressure, but still not painful. I decided to give Katy a call and give her a hads up. We decided to meet her at the hospital in an hour. We wandered in at about 10:30pm and I had gone from 3 to 4 cm and thinned out a bit more. she had me walk a bit more before she could officaially admit me. After our walk, she broke my water and put in a hep lock b/c of my history of big babies (higher risk of hemmorage). I got comfy on the ball and was even able to rest between contractions. they even let me stay there while I was on the monitors.....until transition hit. NOW it was painful!! We knew he'd be there soon. the contractions were on top of one another and I could'nt stop shaking! it was only a few minutes before I neede to push. Appearantly, he decided that he needed to turn face up during my labor, wrapping his cord around his neck in the process! even tho he was comming quickly, his heart rate started to drop. I found out later that was when she cut the episiotomy, then cut more when she realized he was completely face up. but, just a couple more puses and his head was out and the cord untangled. one more and he was in my arms!! he was not cryibg and pretty limp. the nurse rubbed him with the towel and he started to cry and pink up. he was still pretty lethargic and not intrested in nursing. the pedi nurse took him to the warmer and suctioned him well and brought him back to me. he latched right on and has been nursing like a champ ever since! because of his size, they've kept a close eye on his blood sugar. he had a few low ones and we need to follow up at the pediatrician's tomorrow, but we're home and we're doing fine now. definately a MUCH slower recovery for me, but it could have been SO much worse. the L&D nurse (a midwife "back home" ) said that it was great that I went natural b/c the delivery would have been FAR more complicated had I not been able to know how/when to push.

Despite his rough entry, he's been a textbook baby ever since! eating every 2 hours, napping in between. and he's SO cute!!! we came home last night and spent the day getting settled in. Andy starts Kindergarten tomorrow and Ryan's first day of school is the next day! they are SO excited about being big brothers! Does Colin look just like Ryan or what???

sorry about the typos- NAK! get used to it!