Author Archives: Ali

Sam’s First Birthday Party

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We had a birthday party for Sam a few days before his actual birthday. Sam had such a great time being entertained by the “big kids”.My mom, dad and younger sister were able to make it out for the party, too!

 

 

Pretty minimal decorations (and those darn balloons that caused so much trouble!) But I let Sam pick out the birthday banner at the store. He picked the tie-dyed one! What a hippy child.

 

Opening some of his wonderful presents. He got a lot of books, which we’ve been enjoying SO much. This kid LOVES to be read to!

 

There were a lot of children!

 

He was a bit taken aback for the singing…

 

And the first thing he did was flip his cake upside-down!

 

But once he realized he could smash it between his fingers he really thought that was great.

 

After eating a good amount of frosting he was tapping out.

Happy Birthday, Samuel! And thank you for everyone that came out for his party and have blessed us so much this past year in various ways. Here’s to hoping the next year is just as good as his first! (and hopefully with fewer health problems!)

 

 

So Many Sock Monkeys…

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I greatly underestimated the need for sock monkeys. I had no idea there would be this much interest in sock monkey costumes, so far I’ve sold 7 and I’m turning away orders left and right, simply because of time constraints. I got a lot of compliments on Sam’s last year, but I never knew people would be willing to shell out cold, hard, cash in return for them. Turns out, people are willing to pay for one of a kind, hand-knit costumes… quite a few people!

I’ve still got two and a half to go, and 5 on “standby”. I don’t think I’ll be able to make 7 1/2 more before Halloween, but you never know… my wrists may never recover from this Halloween!

I’m averaging one a week, we’ll see if I can keep that up!

Month 12

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Time for Samuel’s monthly pictures! Here’s a link to Month 1, and Month 2, Month 3, Month 4, Month 5, Month 6 ,Month 7 , Month 8  Month 9 Month 10 and Month 11, in case you missed them! And  here is a link to a page that I’ll be updating every month with all of the pictures together, so you can see them side by side.

With Crocheted Pillow:

In Crib:

With Bear:

Alternate Bear:

An entire year (and two weeks) have passed since Sam joined us. What a great year it’s been! I’ll write up his 12 month stats and milestones on his birthday thread, whenever I get around to writing that. But since these pictures are already several weeks old I figured I should post them sooner rather than later. And I think this will be the last post tagged with the “Baby” tag. I’m going to need to make a toddler tag instead.

 

 

 

 

Go Vandals!

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A size XL Vandal Hat, just in time for Vandal Football Season.

This is actually a replacement hat for one I made earlier this year, I accidentally made the other one too small!

And now, back to Sock Monkeys! (They’re taking over my life at the moment!!!!!!!)

 

 

No More Balloons!

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The day after Sam’s birthday party he broke out in a bad rash. We thought it was from the Red Dye #40 that was in his birthday cake, but it kept coming back and getting worse.

It got progressively worse day after day, even after starting steroids and using Benedryl.

 

Then, on Wednesday Sam was playing with one of the balloons left over from his birthday party that had been floating around the house since Saturday. He held it up to his face, blew a raspberry on it, then looked up at me and laughed. I noticed that his face immediately started turning red and within 5 minutes it looked like this:

And the rash kept spreading, it went all the way down his body.

It didn’t seem to bother him a whole lot, but he did have some swelling in his extremities from the severity of the hives. But at least now we know what caused it. My poor little man is allergic to latex! I feel so badly that it took us 4 whole days to figure out what was causing them. He’s as good as new, now, but the more I find out about latex allergies the more scared I get. It’s in so many things! It can also cause food sensitivities to things like bananas, avacado, kiwi, etc. At least we know what we’re up against now!

I’ll be back soon to share some birthday party pictures, and some more sock monkey pictures, but I’m in a wedding this week and The Apple Brigade has a show this weekend as well, so it will be a busy, busy week!

 

 

 

Jiji The Cat

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I had a special request for Jiji the cat from the movie Kiki’s Delivery Service. They wanted it to look something like this:

(Picture property of Studio Ghibli Toys)

I couldn’t find a pattern for it online, so I just decided to wing it.

The head doesn’t quite stay upright as well as I’d like it to, but hey, I think I got pretty close.

I did felt eyes because I couldn’t quite get the right shape with the yarn, and I think it looks a lot better that way.

 

 

 

Happy Birthday, Sam!

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Happy Birthday to my favorite little man, Samuel.

It’s been such a wonderful year and we are beyond blessed to be given the opportunity to be your parents.

 

 

 

You are walking all over the place, sprouting teeth like there’s no tomorrow and learning lots of new words and phrases. You love it when your dad comes home from work, you love eating Cheerios and playing your baby piano, you love to play outside and hang out with ‘big kids’. I love watching your personality grow! You are turning into such a fun little boy.

 

 

This has been such a great year. We love you, Samuel David III.

Ballerina Monkey 2

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Another custom order for a ballerina monkey!

 

We had Sam’s first birthday party today, we had such a blast! I can’t wait to share pictures with you! But for now my parents are in town and I have some sock monkey costumes to knit up (4 more, actually! Yikes, Halloween is not that far away!!)

 

Plum

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I got this delicious yarn at The Yarn Underground. (I just went in for a pair of needles, and I can’t really ever come out without some scrumptious yarn..)

It’s hand dyed, right here in Moscow! Absolutely gorgeous plum color. I do like to support the locals when I can! And hey, if buying this yummy yarn supports local businesses, well, I guess I’ll make the great sacrifice and buy it.

 

I was thinking of making something for my sweet little niece, Josetta, but I don’t quite know what to make. Anyone have any great (preferably free) patterns for Sport Weight yarn? Something a little girly?

Please share in the comment section if you’ve got any pattern ideas for me!

 

 

 

Sometimes we’re not happy

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Sam got his 12month shots today. He’s been really fussy and really clingy since then.

But in other news, we got weighed and is now 18 pounds! That puts us in the 4th percentile for weight, which is great! His head, however, is in the 75th percentile, so I guess my kid has a lollipop body or something. He’s also walking like a pro these days, walking all the way across rooms!

Since his weight gain has been so good we are going to try weaning off of the Zantac (for his GERD) and seeing how he does. It’s possible that the problem has already resolved itself, so we’ll try a couple of days off of the medication and see how he does. We’re hoping that he stays happy and continues to gain weight, but we’re trying to stay optimistic, as his doctor said it might take up until 18 months for the problem to be completely resolved.

And now we’re gonna go read some books, because that’s the only thing keeping us happy at the moment!