Our House in the Middle of Our Street

Hey Y'all, this isn't MY giveaway, jump over to a knitting buddy of mine, Christynelson.net and enter to win your very own copy of Martha Stewart's new book Encyclopedia of Crafts . Christy is a local etsy girl, who recently started her own business at the website linked above. She does craft challenges every month (in this hectic time of my life I have yet to try one, but I've seen some pretty awesome outcomes!) and has a great sense of humor. She is giving away 5 copies so get your comments in on her website before April 3rd! (Sidenote: Martha and I have had a spat recently. Her accountant has my $24.00 subscription fees sitting in his bank, and my bank has proven it, but I have had hassle after hassle trying to explain this to them. Not cool, Martha, not cool. If she wasn't so dang amazing, I might just have boycotted her. ((I love you Martha)). I am so ashamed!)

My Picasa picture "holder"...thingy... hasn't been working to my advantage lately. I've been taking pictures left and right to document the first few weeks of Anikka's life and just generally things we've been up to, but when I try to upload them, they either a) take FOREVER (as in, hours, literally) or b) get lost! It takes me forever to track them down. Sorry for the long time in between posts, but hopefully I'll get it figured out sooner rather than later. For about two months, we've been hosting a community group at our house every Thursday night. We meet with two other couples and two single guys for a potluck and the food is always tasty! Since we only had a table that seated 6 comfortably, Stefan and I thought we would try to find an old long table on craigslist. We'd been looking for a few weeks and there was nothing more than a few tables that seated 8 and were a few hundred dollars. People...craigslist is like a garage sale...a few hundre...

And by things, I not only mean the flowers outside in this beautiful spring weather we've been having...but also the little lady is starting to be awake a lot more during the day. Hello, Sunshine! We're doing pretty good here, although days can still be chaotic (read: yesterday, prime example!) and I don't feel I have anything to report except the amount of diapers I change per day (close to 15-17) or how many days I have been letting slide between doing a load of laundry (7). Did I mention Anikka was awake a lot now? Well, ok, not that awake. Girls still likes to sleep. I tried to get her to smile for the camera...but... she would have none of it!

My favorite type of gifts are handmade ones. You remember my knitted baby shower gifts ? Love them! I was estatic when my Aunt Pat (Grandma to these two cutie-patooties ) gave me a beautiful quilt for Anikka's birth. She made one for Lukka too, comeplete with jungle animals and bright colors when he was born. This one is decorated with cute little pastel colored animals like a turtle, frog, and butterfly. In the picture below you can see the beautiful detail of stitching. Those squiggly lines are throughout the entire quilt (I know "squiggly isn't the correct term, but I forgot what it's called)! This little guy is my favorite! Thanks again, Aunt Patty, I love it!

If you are a fan of etsy, this post is for you! I have a few knitting friends that are a part of an etsy team called Lincoln Handmade (and unfortunately because of this season in my life I am not apart of it...yet!) They are hosting a giveaway-a-day on each of their blogs. For a full list of the blogs go to this post (on my friend Julie's blog ). Refibered , whose giveaway post is today, is allowing each person a second entry if they blog about it...hence...why you're reading this! This site will take you to the entire group of Lincoln Handmade's beautiful creations! Good Luck!

Since Stefan and I are back to sharing a car during the week,the babes and I have been spending a lot of time outside on the porch and in the front yard. Lukka is also learning how to trike! He can't quite figure out the pedals are for pushing, though, so for now, he just walks with it. He'll learn soon enough! Don't forget the rad space-man-like sunglasses. He will tell you "bright, eyes" when he wants to put them on. Sorry that the ones I found have the geeky velco in the back, but seriously dude, you're SO darn cute in them! And let's not forget our little sunbathing beauty.... :)

You get your own comfy chair (when the baby isn't using it) and not only does it bounce, but it vibrates too, for a nice massage while watching Elmo and Friends on TV (yes, he really did do that!!). Maxin' and relaxin' are just a daily part of our lives. :) (EDIT: This was supposed to be a video, has anyone ever had trouble posting a video to blogger? It just won't work for me!)

Can you tell which is which? They are about the same age in these pictures, and wearing the infamous "Eeyore Hat". They are even making the same expression to make it more difficult! Answer...well, I guess that was an easy one since Anikka is clearly in pink! Right after delivery, I saw immediately that she looked almost exactly like her big brother!

For those of you who love hearing others' birth stories, this post is for you! On Monday night, Feb 16th, around 11PM, I had with a really tight Braxton Hicks contraction, so tight that it actually woke me up! I had never been woken up by them before, but still having about 2 more weeks to go, I got up to go to the bathroom, and didn't think much about it. A half hour later, I woke up again , to another one. "This is odd" I thought, but really didn't put any thought into it other than that. Another hour, two more contractions after every 30 minutes. At this point I was feeling a little sick to my stomach, and thought that because I had eaten pizza earlier in the week, this was a random gluten-induced stomach cramp. I spent the next hour in the bathroom, ahem , not feeling so well, and took a bath to make my stomach ache go away (what is it with pregnant ladies and baths? I certainly took my share of them with this pregnancy!). After I was warmed up from the chill...