Had the most surreal week ever. Overwhelmed, overjoyed, exhausted, bursting with love. My life has officially changed forever.

Right after birth; all cleaned up and meeting mommy for the first time:

Daddy and baby checking each other out:

Hanging out in the bouncer:

Big yawn:

Want to hear something funny? I was scheduled to be induced this past Tuesday, but the baby decided to get things started naturally a couple hours before the induction. And I had a crochet project packed away in my hospital bag. Yep, I figured during the induction I would be bored. Turns out, by the time I got to the hospital, I didn’t have time for a thing (things progressed way faster than anticipated). I suppose that crochet project will have to wait. (Maybe during nursing sessions when I’m also catching up on Project Runway and Top Chef episodes? Hehehe)

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ETA: If you can handle it, the birth story is here (password: nathaniel) =)

I have trouble finishing projects. I have even more trouble letting go. But mind over matter, it had to be done. I don’t need another handbag, I know I will never actually finish this project, and I could probably reuse this yarn for something else. So here goes (taking a deep breath)…

Here’s what it was, in it’s pre-frogged form:

Pretty, right? Loved the cables. It was supposed to be a cabled handbag. Just to indulge myself, some close-ups of the cables:

And then, here it is, frogged. I had forgotten that I was knitting this handbag with the yarn DOUBLED. I knew it was going to be a sucker to untangle the mess.

Untangling it all WAS a big pain! It took several hours. But it is finally over.

I wonder what this yarn will reincarnate into next? (My favorite part!)

I am a spoiled mother-to-be and actually had three showers. When some people don’t even get one, I had three. Actually, that’s a lie. We had four total. The last one was actually a surprise shower for Hubby thrown by his co-workers (sweet, huh?), and I was “in” on the surprise. We were so touched by not just all the friends that came out to support and bless us, but we also know it was a lot of work for my friends to coordinate these events, so as a token of my appreciation, I gifted each of them something different. Some of them were not handmade, but some of them were. Here are a couple of them that I did myself.

My first time working with stones and settings (all the parts laid out):

The finished products:

The beginnings of a tennis bracelet – not much to see eh? This is the “backbone” of the bracelet.

I haven’t quite finished the tennis bracelet – it’s currently stalled at the moment because the wirework is a lot more difficult than I anticipated. We’ll see if I’m successful at it one of these days.

And a fun pair of dangly earrings:

=)