Scary news.

We found out on Monday that baby Magnus has a birth defect called craniosynostosis ( the suture in his skull that runs front to back closed prematurely while in utero. As he grows his brain will not have room to expand). The only treatment for this is surgery....scary surgery....skull surgery. 

His surgery will be in July, we are waiting to hear on a date. The next few weeks are filled with appointments for ct scans, meeting surgeons, and hopefully finding a blood donor match within our family. 

Everything else is on hold and just doesn't matter right now. We will be staying in WI as we deal with Magnus's surgery, recovery, and follow ups. 

Please keep our little boy in your thoughts! 

Seven!

My dear, sweet, little Erik turned 7 yesterday!
For 6 years he was my baby and now he holds the title of middle son.
He is kind, thoughtful, my right hand helper, funny, cuddly, and still needs his bunnybear to sleep at night.
We celebrated with a blueberry lemon cake in a bowl ( it is possible to turn cake disasters into something awesome :), and stuffed portobello mushrooms for dinner, one of his favorites!

My heart just overflows with love for this little boy! 7 years has gone so fast.

Operation Colorado

It's been a busy couple of weeks!

We had a wonderful visit with my mom (Oma) and then took a quick but very fun trip out to Colorado to show the boys our new state and to do some house hunting.

I'm happy to say that we did secure a rental, we found a nice 3 bedroom townhouse right in downtown. It's very similar to our current townhouse ( a little larger!). I hadn't really envisioned city living when we moved but I'm getting really excited about it! Having access to public transportation and all sorts of festivals/museums definitely has its perks. Plus I can still do some container gardening on my patio.

The best part of our mini-trip was driving to Estes Park and showing the boys the mountains. They were awestruck as I was too! Amazingly beautiful!

On our drive back to the airport Ivan said he didn't want to leave because Colorado already feels like home. I agree! At one point driving back from the mountains my eyes welled up a bit....it feels like I finally found home for good.

Helpers

I used to live in Boston, not all that long ago. 2 years ago Boston was home. When I heard about the bombing at the marathon yesterday my thoughts immediately went to those I know and love there. My father, several friends, and many former university classmates. All are safe and sound to my great relief!

In the face of senseless tragedy I think of this quote from Mr. Rogers,

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”


― Fred Rogers

It gives me perspective in talking to my children about tragedy, and for me too it is a reminder that humanity overall is good, very good. I need a reminder of that because my gut reaction is to want to hide away in the woods and shelter my children from the craziness out in this world. But we can't hide, and I won't always be able to shelter my boys ( right now I can filter, but someday I will no longer be able to do that).

So I talk to them about the goodness in others, the helpers who don't hesitate a moment.

We know a helper in Boston. A dear friend of our is a PT at one of Boston's largest hospitals. Yesterday and today she has likely seen tragedy and injury she never expected to see. In the coming days and weeks she will be helping some of the victims heal and rehabilitate.

I want her to know that I'm proud of her, the person she is, and the work she does. If I were injured she is the person I would want by my side. She exudes warmth, love, and a positive attitude.

So I'm dedicating this post to her, because when I talked to my children about helpers last night I talked about her and we all felt better knowing some of the injured were going to have her there to help them.

Thank you dear friend for giving all of us hope in goodness.

Pointed West

Last fall our family made the journey from Rhode Island to Wisconsin, and this spring we will be heading even further west to our new home in..... Colorado!!!!

We are really excited as Colorado has been a recurring idea for us over the years. For my husband it will be returning to a place he never really planned to leave years ago. For the boys and I it will be a brand new place. I visited once a decade ago, but the boys have never been.

We have just over a month to put this all together and then we will be on the road to a new state and a new adventure!

Yarn Along

Joining in with Ginny today on the yarn along http://www.gsheller.com/ .

Today I'm test knitting a pattern for Liz of The Sitting Tree ,http://thesittingtree.blogspot.com/2013/04/clyde-bonnet.html . I'm really excited about this pattern, it looks like it will be the perfect Spring/Summer hat for little Magnus. It took me a little while to figure out the provisional cast on, I kept doubting myself and thinking it looked wrong when I really was doing it correctly the entire time. Ravelry notes: http://www.ravelry.com/projects/vintagegreen13/clyde-bonnet

My wonderful husband ordered me a new book to read this week! http://www.amazon.com/Backyard-Homestead-Produce-food-quarter/dp/1603421386  .We feel that we are about 1.5-2 years away from being in a position to purchase our first home, which no matter how much space it ends up having it will promptly be turned into our homestead. I figured while I'm dreaming of our future homestead I might as well educate myself on the actual creation and running of it. So far I am incredibly impressed with this book. It is full of charts, sketches, and tons of information.

Knit rattles

Since Magnus is of course too young for an Easter egg hunt I decided to make him some rattles to celebrate the day.

I used the free knitting pattern from Natural Suburbia.
http://www.naturalsuburbia.com/2012/06/cat-knitting-pattern-and-tutorial.html

Instead of stuffing the cat I put a plastic Easter egg filled with dried beans in the bottom and then filled in the rest with stuffing. The cat came out a bit better than the owl, mostly because I finished up the owl with my left hand while nursing.