How is it possible that I haven’t blogged any crocheting since October!? Oh, wait…I guess I did blog about some cup sleeves and crocheted golden snitches back at the end of February. But still! The lack of blogging about it certainly does not indicate a lack of crocheting. Let me show you.

This rainbow blanket is one of the most recent things I’ve crocheted, and I love it. It’s probably one of my favorite things I’ve ever crocheted. It was made it for my friend Joanna‘s sweet baby boy, but Elliora tried claiming it as her own. First she came over and plopped down on the blanket when I was trying to take photos. (That was only two months ago. Now she runs if I point a camera at her; forget her voluntarily inserting herself in a photo she wasn’t asked to pose for in the first place.)

Then she stood, gathered the blanket into her arms, and walked off with it. She climbed into the blue chair still holding the blanket, and hugged it, grinning at me, daring me to take it away from her. The goober.

A photo of the rainbow blanket before Elliora tried staking her claim.

Photo taken two months ago. It’s bigger now, since the blanket is one-third done!

Have I told you all about the sky blanket I’m crocheting? You might have seen the sky scarf on Pinterest. I liked the idea, but decided I wanted a blanket, and went with my trademark spiral squares instead of stripes. I started just after the first of the year. Each day, I look at the sky around noon (or whenever I remember; or unless it rains or snows anytime that day, in which case the day’s square is sparkly gray or sparkly white), and that evening I spend about 20 minutes crocheting one three-inch square out of the appropriate color yarn and then attach it to the blanket. I’ll end up with 360 squares arranged in 20 rows of 18, and maybe a six-round border for the last six days of the year, which will make a decent-size blanket in shades of blue, gray, and white. It’s a totally different color scheme than my usual palette of brights. I’m surprised by how much I like it and look forward to cuddling under it at the end of the year.

My sister-in-law Dana sent me this bag for my birthday. I love it.

These two little nine-patch blankets were made for our friends Lynette and Med’s twin girls.

I didn’t notice till after I’d started working on the purple one that the colors were very Mardi Gras. Good thing Lynette and Med appreciate (and throw!) a good party.

This photo was actually my Day 6 photo from 7 Days this past December. (You know, that 7 Days week I never finished blogging about because (1) it was Christmas, and (2) I got sick on Christmas Eve. Sigh.) Summer complimented a similar coffee-cup sleeve in Mandy’s Day 2 photo, so I offered to make her one.

Queta, another 7-Dayer, complimented the same coffee-cup sleeve. I made one for her too. (Apparently, all it takes is a compliment and I’m falling all over myself to make you stuff.)

Erin peeking over the blanket I crocheted for Indira Jane.

Two-month-old Indy, sleeping under her blanket. She’s EIGHT months old now, and I have not seen her since this picture was taken. That’s so sad. Once we’re back on the west coast, I think I’m gonna be visiting Oregon a lot more often. How else are Elliora and Indy going to become best friends?

Last but not least, some yarnballs! I’ve made a bunch of crocheted balls for my friend Rebekah’s kids over the years. Her husband Jason loves them (balls you can play with relatively safely IN THE HOUSE) and periodically puts in an order for more. Not long ago I made these three for them. And I just remembered, I need to make them a few more! I should add that to my crafting queue…

Mystery yarnballs! For the life of me, I cannot remember who I made these for. Was it more balls for Bekah’s kids? Did I make these for Jen‘s Preston? Did I perhaps make them for you? I honestly can’t recall.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get cracking on about three baby blankets, including one for a baby who is already several months old and another one for Sonja‘s baby who will be born any minute now. (ANY MINUTE, Sonja. I’m sure of it.)

What kinds of crafty things have you been doing lately?

*I have never actually crocheted any ketchup. But now I kind of want to.

There are so many violets in our backyard in the spring that it looks almost completely purple for a couple of weeks. It’s one of the reasons Elliora’s middle name is Violet, because our backyard looked like this around the time we found out we were pregnant. It was actually even more violet-covered a week before this, believe it or not. It’s almost the end of violet season around here.

Here’s an alternate Day 7 shot. Our LED twinkle lights (they’re not Christmas lights because we keep them up year-round) cast interesting pools of light and shadow on the ceiling and walls around them. I was inspired by Bex’s shot of her grandparents’ vintage bunch-of-grapes lamp and the cool shadows it cast.

Hey, look! I am actually done blogging every single one of my 7 Days photos from the run that was only a couple of weeks ago! Not only that, but…I MADE IT THROUGH THE WHOLE WEEK WITHOUT GETTING SICK. IT WAS A 7 DAYS MIRACLE! *cue angelic choirs*

I expect to come down with the plague shortly, now that I said that. (Although I originally wrote that almost two weeks ago and I’m still not sick.) I guess there was that toothache I had that week—really that I had had on and off since around my birthday almost a month ago. It was finally resolved on Day 6 when I went to the dentist. It turned out the problem was a cavity in one of my remaining wisdom teeth. The solution was easy: pull the tooth. It was done and I was driving home less than 30 minutes later, much relieved. I don’t really count that as being sick.

While I’m blogging, a couple of quick things:

• Up until a few days ago, I was more than a month behind on uploading photos to Flickr. I’m still taking photos every day, I just don’t get around to doing anything with them. I’m starting to catch up and am hoping to be caught up before I leave for Omaha. Wish me luck.
• Instagram finally released an app for Android phones, just a few days before Facebook bought Instagram. So I’m enjoying using Instagram as a new, easy way to share photos from my phone on Twitter and Facebook. Or you can see my photos here.
• Elliora has a new favorite all-purpose word, suitable for all sentiments and occasions: MINE. Her dad’s laptop? “Mine!” Annalie’s jacket? “Mine!” My frosted mini-wheats? “Mine mine mine!” Lily the cat? “MIIIIIINE!”
• We’re heading to Omaha on Friday, just me and the girls. (Poor Troy, he has to stay here and work, and have the house to himself for a week and a half.) When we come home, my mom and my niece are coming with us. They’re going to stay and visit for three whole weeks and will be here to celebrate Annalie’s eighth birthday. We’re all pretty excited about that.
• Party plans for Annalie’s birthday were on hold for a while, because we weren’t sure if my mom was going to be able to come here, or if she’d have to stay in Omaha because of some family obligations. Now that we know, I have sorted out the party plans and I think it’s gonna be really fun. It’s a big relief to finally have a plan.
• Chris wrote something great about blogging with two small children that expressed perfectly how I feel, so I’m just going to quote her:
  

  Well, I’d still love to have an awesome, regularly-updated website. That endeavour is sitting on a back burner, as our time and energy are all earmarked for other stuff for a while.

  In my mind I have an enormous stovetop with quite a lot of burners, especially at the back.

• I started a page to keep track of all the words Elliora says. She’s adding about three or four new ones every day. There’s a button for it over on the sidebar. —>

How on earth did it get to be mid-April already!?

(Not my 7 Days photo. It’s at the bottom.)

Last week, we made an impromptu trip down to Southern Virgina to see Karyl and her girls.

Karyl and I are both Navy wives. We’re accustomed to our husbands being gone for weeks or months at a time, and working long hours when they’re not gone. Most of the time, we deal with it just fine.

Once in a while, we struggle. It just happens that last week, we were both struggling a little bit. That made it seem like the perfect time for a 7 Days meet-up.

And you know what? It was. We arrived on Tuesday and had a great time hanging out, eating good food, playing outside, talking and laughing together. Grace and Annalie immediately jumped right back into the friendship they established when Karyl and her girls visited us last summer, when Sonja and Noah were visiting. And Mary Ellen loved Elliora. She seemed to think she was a living doll, and Elliora didn’t seem to mind that at all. Anytime we walked anywhere, Elliora walked straight to ME and grabbed her hand.

I dragged everyone all the way to Virginia Beach, to my favorite Greek restaurant, Elia’s. The hummus and pita there are to die for, and the rest of the food is delicious too. We were regulars at Elia’s when we lived in Virginia Beach over a decade ago, and just like every other time we’ve been there since we moved away—even when years have gone by between visits—Elia remembered us as soon as we walked in the door.

We sat in a booth right next to a high wall. On the other side of that wall was the grill, and Annalie and Grace amused themselves by occasionally standing on the seat and peeking over to chat with Elia and the other people working that day, all of whom seemed to get a kick out of it. Everyone enjoyed the food, especially Elliora. She took bites out of a lemon, rind and all; ate the hummus by the fingerful after we ran out of pita; and gnawed a kabob full of chicken clean. Annalie even branched out from her usual chicken nuggets, and thought the chicken kabobs and rice were really tasty.

The next morning, we all walked Grace to school and got to see her classroom and meet her lovely teacher.

Walking back to Karyl’s, I spotted this heart-shaped rock in the dirt path. I love finding random hearts in the world like this.

We stopped at the playground to let the kids blow off some steam, and so we could get our 7 Days shots.

The theme for Day 5 was FRESH. Karyl’s had the idea that we could be getting some fresh air, which we certainly got playing on the swings. But even more than the air, the time spent with a friend refreshed me. Thanks again, Karyl! We went home with lighter hearts, already looking forward to the next visit.