2

Today, Peanut is 2.  The past two years have never ceased to surprise, amaze, delight, enlighten, entertain, educate, and bless me.  And now our little Peanut, our Gift from God, is two.  I cannot believe how quickly these two years have gone, how slowly they have passed, how much she has changed, and all the ways she is just as she was the day she was born.

So Happy Birthday, Peanut!  You have made me a mother, and you have made me the mother I am.  You are my tiny star and I thank God for you every day.

Birthday prep

Have you seen those Telus commercials with the animals?  Particularly their most recent campaign?


Well, Peanut loves them.  Adores them.  We don't watch any children's programming, so she doesn't really pay much attention to television the majority of the time, but when those '60's tunes start rockin' and that hippo starts frolickin' she howls with glee.  "Po-po! Po-po!" she cries: it's awesome.

Peanut will be celebrating her Second Birthday on Wednesday, so The Recruiter and I have been discussing what gifts might be best for our girl.  As you may have noticed, I like to get crafty, particularly for special occasions, so I took my cue from Peanut's newest obsession and came up with...

...this!




The Recruiter and I are pretty in love with this shirt.  But here's where I ask a question of you: does it need a nose and a mouth?

More birthday garments to come!

Synthesis

We GOT IT!!!  The McLeods are moving to McLeod Street!!!

I'm so thrilled to have found a home that we can live in indefinitely (surely we will someday need something bigger, but not for awhile yet) and in a neighbourhood where we can be happy.  I am also extremely glad that I can finally stop looking at apartments!  Reading ads, making appointments, actually keeping appointments while dragging a poor little Peanut along who just wants to explore and play and sleep on some semblance of a normal routine...ugh!  Such a pain.  But it's done now, and we can focus on packing, purging (we have too much stuff), decorating and moving.

Hooray for good news days and hooray for putting down roots!

A long over due post about random things

What's new? It's been awhile, eh? Here's what's going on here.

Peanut has discovered peanut butter (the synthesis is pretty awesome, isn't it?). She loves it. She calls it butter (well, "bah!" but we know what she means). She also drinks milk by the litre. She also has a taste for take-out fries and delivery pizza. No, my beautifully and lovingly homemade versions will not do: she only wants the pricey, greasy stuff. Whatever. She's eating *something*, she's packing on the pounds, and she's happy as a clam.

In other news, The Recruiter is a recruiter no longer: he's now a proposal writer. But we'll keep calling him that, since I can't think of anything remotely clever to change the title to. Today was his first day and it seems to be a great place for him to work. They even gave him some company swag. And as far as he knows they aren't breaking any laws right now, so it's up up up for him.

And we're moving! Again! But at least this year it's more on our terms than Fate's. After the fire last summer we had only days to find a place, and we were lucky to find the place we did. Most of the apartments we saw were pretty...horrifying. The condo we ended up finding has served us well, but it has also helped us learn what concessions we are - and are not - willing to make. For us, ultimately, it's a question of location. And since we rent someone's home (she's posted out of the country with the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade - DFAIT - which is who the pre-fire condo works for as well) and she's due to move back in come September, we know that we need to move, but we get some control over when and how and where to. Which is good. After much looking, we think we've found a place. Now we just wait to see if our application is approved (crossed fingers and oblations to the Cosmic Rental Deities would be much appreciated!). It's sunny, it's airy, it's a good size - not too small, but not so big that we can senselessly hoard random crap the way we've been doing for the better part of our marriage - and it's in a great part of downtown. And there's a really awesome part which, if we get it, I will tell you all about. Let's just say, the McLeods need to live there.

My work with the church continues, albeit a little hesitantly. I will admit that I'm feeling rather thwarted by the fact that so many churches and church leaders seem to want my job to exist in theory, but in actuality want nothing to do with me. It's frustrating, but I keep trying to remind myself that as much as it may matter in the practical sense what those people think, in the truest sense my work has little to do with them directly. My work is about and for young people, so a certain degree of ignoring naysayers will be, inevitably, necessary.

And knitting. Yes, knitting. As you see from my last post, I made a recent splurge and set myself up with two cones of Louet Gems in Goldenrod. It is exactly the colour I hoped it would be when I ordered it from a LYS based on pictures I saw online. And my, but it is a lovely knit! Soft and springy and glossy. It will make a fabulous Katharine - cropped, naturellement. I'm a few inches into it, having just started the lace pattern, and as soon as I fix one little problem, I'll be back on track to getting it finished.

See it? Yeah, knitting while watching television and/or a toddler is best left for later in a project, once the pattern has become a little more second-nature. Ah, well. My crochet hook will get some lovin'.

And speaking of crochet, I'm loving Peanut's newest accessory. It whipped up in about an evening. As much as I love knitting, you really can't beat crochet for speed.