The happiest baby in the world...

...is not very happy right now. Poor thing has two eye teeth coming in right now. She's going to look rather funny when they finish coming in - three teeth on the bottom and then two vampire teeth. I feel bad for her though, she just keeps chewing on her hand and whimpering. :o( Add that to the fact that she just can't quite figure out crawling, and she's a pretty frustrated baby.

Today is the Kite Festival at a nearby park. I didn't know about it till a friend called to tell me about it yesterday. She's taking her daughter, a friend of Chloe's. I told her we'd go. Ugh. I'm not looking forward to it. I hate that many people. Thankfully it's only a handful of blocks away, so we can walk and won't have to worry about trying to park. The first 500 kids get a free kite, so she wants to be there super early. We'll see how early we get there - Chloe's at Mark's, so it depends on whether he manages to drop her off on time or not. (He doesn't usually manage.)

I finished making my list of stuff we need to go camping next week. I have the girls' clothes and most of mine packed. I had Andrew bring up the camping totes so I can go through them and see what needs replacing and such. We didn't camp much last year (something about being ginormously pregnant makes you not want to go camping) so our stuff hasn't been used in awhile. I'm looking forward to getting out of here for a few days.

I finished a soaker last night:

The whole thing was mostly done a few weeks ago, but I hadn't added leg cuffs or a drawstring.

Pattern: Fern & Faerie free soaker pattern
Needles: size 7 circs
Yarn: Mystery wool from a yard sale years ago, .25 a ball, I think. I used two balls, one of each color held together throughout. It's horribly ugly. I'm calling it the Split Pea Soup soaker. My intention was to use up some stash yarn, and I did.

I've been doing a splendid job of using up all that yarn I bought at the yard sale a few months ago. I was making serious progress! Then my dad saw a big box of yarn at a yard sale, and bought the whole box. He's so sweet. :-) However, this means my stash is overflowing again. I'm not sure sure what I'm going to make next.

At that same yard sale, my mother also bought a high chair for two dollars. The pad was all torn up, so I'll have to make a new one. For two dollars, that's fine with me. Baby seems to like the high chair. Before this we just had one of those seats that you hook on the table which was fine for most of the time, but this will come in handy. AND at the same yard sale, my mommy bought me a brand new Pampered Chef muffin pan. Yay! I love my Pampered Chef stoneware. I have a cookie sheet and a bread pan, and now the muffin pan. This stuff is great, I tell you. I'm going to break in the muffin pan this morning with some apple oatmeal muffins.

I don't yard sale much anymore - getting out the door early with two little girls isn't such an easy task. But that's okay, I'll just let my parents yard sale for me. :o) They do a great job. LOL

Lelah

Pattern: Lelah tube top
Size 10.5 and 8 24" circs
Dale of Norway Dalegarn Heilo, 4 skeins, picked up at that yard sale. I totally wouldn't have picked the color for myself, but at $1 a ball, who can go wrong? I actually really like it.

Knitted a size medium on needles 1 size smaller than called for. I added a purl row at the fold for the elastic casing to give it a neater edge. I could've probably decreased 10 or 15 stitches, maybe more, around the top, it's a little looser than I'd like. It's also about an inch longer than it should be. It doesn't fit really great, but it fits well enough that I'll probably wear it some. It really isn't all that flattering on my less-than-impressive chestal region. I need a good strapless bra to push 'em up a little. ;o)

Close-up of the fish tail lace pattern:

Prior to blocking, with no elastic or ribbon (and some really funky flash effects):
Took approximately 5 days' worth of knitting time, maybe two hours a day?

The Classics

My daughter has a sudden interest in one of literature's great classics: The Phantom of the Opera.

Remember a few weeks back when Sir Andrew Lloyd Weber was on American Idol? Yeah, that's what sparked it. She saw that chandelier fall and she was immediately enthralled. When we were at the library the other day, she came across the book, and insisted we check it out. She proudly handed it to the librarian who asked, "How old is she?" LOL I said "Five. She has good taste." :o)

So we're about 5 chapters into the book. She begs me to read it about every 30 minutes, and if I'm unavailable for reading, she will sit and look at the pictures (there are only a handful of pictures, and she can already tell you about each one of them, but still insists on looking at them some more.) She was even trying to sound out a sentence, but when she got to the word "graveyard" she gave up.

Did you ever see Jersey Girl? Where the little girl has to perform in a talent show and all the other kids pick that song from Cats and she picks Sweeney Todd? That's kind of how I feel. LOL Normal children love classics like Anne of Green Gables or Little House on the Prairie. Mine has opted for ghosts and grave yards and threat letters and crashing chandeliers. Sweet. No wonder she has nightmares.

So I see a ton of opportunities for homeschooling in this interest she's formed. There is, of course, the study of opera music. There is also France itself, where the story takes place, mostly in the city of Paris. She has informed me that she would like to go to Paris. I told her to talk to her step father. :o) Tomorrow we're going to make a French recipe out of a multi-cultural cook book I picked up at the library along with our beloved novel. We can draw the French flag, learn a few French words (I took French in high school, and loved it.) We can talk about what it must have been like to perform in front of all those people, something she loves thinking about ever since the first time I took her to see a live play. I saw Phantom when I was 11 or 12, with my aunt for my birthday. We took a special trip into LA. I remember the awe I felt. When she's a bit older, I hope take her to see a showing of it. In the meantime, I still have my playbill and some other little souvenirs that I need to dig out of the basement. There's also the author of the book, and what his life was like, living in France as a little boy. She went to sleep last night listening to the Phantom theme song, creepy as it is.

She has this sort of fascination with graveyards. Not in a twisted way, in a relatively innocent five-year-old sort of way, just that curiosity that sparks whenever something is unknown. Part of me is tempted to take her to visit my brother's grave. She's seen his pictures, and knows that he was my brother, as well as she can for her age and ability to understand. I'm not sure though, that might be pretty heavy for a little girl. It might be better just to let her use her imagination and think what she wants to think for awhile, until she's old enough to really understand. The concept of death is becoming real to her though - if you step on a bug, it dies. If a dog gets cancer, it dies. We have to be careful what we talk about in front of her now, because she understands that death is permanent. How awful. I don't remember when I first understood about death, but it's certainly not a fun subject to discuss with a little girl!

Anyhow, I suppose it's time for me to start researching Phantom-era Paris. I'd love to find some real photos of old opera houses. And I need to find a picture of baby squirrels. She asked me today what they look like.

Wikipedia, here I come. How did anyone homeschool before the invention of Wikipedia? I'll never know...

A green door

I painted my front door yesterday.


It used to be white. I wish I would've taken before and after shots so you could see how much better it really looks. White is so dull. I don't think anything should be white, if it could be painted a different color. I'm very pleased with the results of the door painting, though it's going to take a bit of getting used to - every time I walk around the corner, I think the front door is hanging wide open. I'm not used to seeing a dark color there. :o)

I had a hard time deciding between this dark green, or a bright red. Colors are symbolic for me, they carry a ton of meaning, and those two seemed to fit us the best. Andrew ended up choosing green. For me, green is the color for life, and especially growth. It's also the color of creativity. So green is fitting. :o)

===

Today is library day. We have some actual subjects we want to check books out on - there's no story time, so it'll be a quick trip. We might go to the park with her friends to let them ride their bikes and scooters. Andrew's getting my tire on my van fixed this afternoon. (It has a bolt in it, and it's causing it to leak slowly. Ugh! Not even 3,000 miles on the van, and I'm probably going to need a new tire. Annoying.) I want to go to Target this afternoon to get a few things, but that will probably have to wait till tomorrow.

Yesterday, in addition to painting the front door, I baked bread, swept and mopped my floors, folded a couple loads of laundry, and walked down to my dad's work to deliver carrot juice and a couple slices of fresh bread, then we stopped at the duck pond on the way back to feed the voracious ducks. It was a good day.

I have no self control

I was at Wal Mart yesterday doing some grocery shopping. I needed a zipper, so we headed over to the craft department. Buying a zipper forced us to walk past the remnant baskets, and we saw this pretty bit of fabric with butterflies all over it. Using the fact that it was only $3.50, I reasoned with myself until I put it in the basket. :::sigh::: And here is what it became:


She doesn't look very happy, but that's because I interrupted her computer game in order to get the picture. She really does like it. It's the same pattern as that other hot pink butterfly dress that I made before, and she wears that thing every time she sees that it's clean in her closet. And this one didn't have all the pleats and pintucks and such, it was really simple, not quite an hour from start to finish. It'll end up being playclothes, but that's fine, as long as she enjoys wearing it. :o)

Another shot of the dress, in action:

Chloe's favorite garden activity is killing ants. We have tons of ants. She's got a spray bottle full of watered down Miracle II soap. It's entirely non-toxic, and kills ants as well as anything.

And here's silly baby after we took her hair out of the band in the tub. :o)

The cat is nearly always in on the action. He's only fallen in once, and since then has learned to keep his hind quarters firmly planted on the floor outside of the tub.


===

I bought this game, Jump Start World Kindergarten for Chloe. It was on clearance at Target so I thought we'd give it a shot. She LOVES it. It's really an impressive little game, teaching her all kinds of great skills. Some of the games are way too easy for her (matching shapes, reviewing the alphabet) but others give her a run for her money, just enough to keep her interested. As they progress, the game gets more difficult. There are 12 units in all, though the game only comes with the first two. After that you have to pay for each additional unit. I'm not sure if I'll do that yet or not, but if I stay as happy with the game as I have been, I just might. If you have a kid at the Kindy or First Grade level, I totally recommend this game. Chloe's really enjoying it. There's also a "parent control panel" area that lets you see exactly how they are doing in every area, though I do usually sit with her while she plays if I can.

===

I have a ton to do today. I want to get the floors mopped first thing. I had an issue with a spatula last night. You know, that catapult effect where if you hit one side, it flips over and sort of flies? Yeah, it was covered with enchilada sauce. :::sigh::: I wiped it all up real quick, but my kitchen floor is sort of a pale orange color now. Amazingly, it got in my hair, but missed my white shirt. I counted myself lucky.

After the floors, I need to get bread rising and start steaming some veggies for the baby's food. She's eating 2-3 cubes of food each meal now, and I'm almost out. I bought some paint for my front door, and would like to get that done too, and Tuesday is arts and crafts day at our house (what day ISN'T arts and craft day at our house?) and we're making percussion instruments to take with us when we go camping next week so we can sit around the camp fire and make rhythms.

Oy. I better get off this computer and get moving!

Trash Heap season

Do you remember the Trash Heap?

If you lived through the 80's and were at all exposed to Fraggle Rock, you will.

It's Trash Heap season here in Grand Junction, CO. The city likes to call it "Spring Clean Up Week". It's that week, occurring once each year, when every single family in the city is supposed to remove every ounce of garbage from their homes, and then pile it all on the curb. Amazingly, I think every family actually does this. City workers will be around sometime this week to haul it off.

It's a great idea. I won't complain. We have our own heap right out there in front of the house - the old lawn mower that stopped functioning altogether, a gigantic pile of branches and sticks and other debris from around the yard. There was a dog house out there for about an hour.

Which takes me to the part of Trash Heap week that kind of gets under my skin. It should be assumed that anything you put out in front of your house for the city to haul to the dump will be searched through, thoroughly inspected, and likely hauled off to take up space at someone else's house. I don't know why this bothers me. I have no problem with yard saling, and that's essentially what this is, only it's all free stuff. Last year we put a bunch of junk out. By the time the city guys came around, there were only a couple of branches left. A broken down decorative flower cart, entirely dismantled, now belongs to someone else. There may have been another lawn mower, I can't remember. The dog house wasn't there an hour before some guy came by, stuck it on the hood of his jeep, and drove away (he didn't tie it down or anything! It was rather odd looking.) Something about watching all these people come by and search through ours and our neighbors' trash just skeeves me out. And what start out as gigantic piles of discarded crap end up practically disappearing before Trash Heap Week even officially starts.

Not to mention the fact that people have NO PROBLEM stopping in the middle of the flippin' road to search trash heaps. On some streets the trash heaps consume so much of the street that two cars cannot drive past one another. One waits while other passes. Not a problem, until Jim Bob and his pickup, pulling a flat bed trailer, stops in the middle of the f-ing road to have him a gander at all that treasure. Then you're stuck just sitting there, waiting for him to pile more sh#$ into his trailer full of junk... err, treasure... and drive on.

I feel sorry for anyone that comes here from out of town during Trash Heap Week. They must think we're an awfully disgusting bunch of folks, having all that junk piled out on the curb. Or maybe it depends on where they're from. Some of 'em would probably think we're the coolest town in the world, holding a week-long free yard sale like that. I suppose it's all in the eye of the beholder.

Seriously, it's such a special occasion for this redneck town that the local newspaper ran a story on it on the front page of the local section.

It's just a shame our trash heaps aren't full of all the wisdom and sage advice like the Fraggles'. I have several questions I'd love to hear her answer to.

:o)

Another week

It's Monday again. Always so much to get done! Grocery shopping, laundry, all the usual. And I promised Chloe she could paint a picture on her new easel my mother got for her at a yard sale. Wee fun. I remember painting when I was in kindergarten, it was my favorite. It's just such a mess. Ah well, it's good for her.

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We had a great day yesterday. Went fishing with my parents at Rifle Gap, sort of last minute. We didn't catch anything at all, but had a good time playing out in the sunshine. We found a nice spot by the lake that was all grassy and open, Cora sat on a big blanket, Chloe ran around like a crazy child, and Izzy was thrilled to have water to swim in. :o) Any opportunity to hang out with my parents is a much appreciated one, so I enjoyed myself too. We grilled hot dogs and hung out until 1:30 or so when the girls and I left them there to head back into town.




A week or so ago Chloe begged me to let her make real lemonade. The kind where you squeeze the lemons, put little lemon slices on the glass, etc. We bought some lemons, but just got around to making the lemonade yesterday. I've never had fresh lemonade before. It was actually pretty good. She had a good time making it, and we shared some with Andrew, who was doing yard work. We think it would be fun to have a bunch of kids over for a 'lemonade party' - bring a few lemons each, and let them all try their hand at squeezing them. I'll have to think more on that, because it could be pretty fun.



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Not much else to report. I've started a 'list of 50 things to do before I die', you can see it down at the bottom of the screen. It's not finished, and there are a few things I've already done that I added since they've been on my mental list for some time (sky diving and having a baby at home). Anyhow, I see it as an awesome opportunity for scrapbooking, and having an actual list will make most of the things more likely to happen.

Anyhow, I guess I'm off for now. Hasta manana, and happy Cinqo de Mayo!

Farm animals

I finally finished this project. I had finished all but the cow back in Feb/March. The cow's head sat in my knitting basket for two months waiting for ears, nose, horns, and a body.

I need to pick up some small black eye beads and sew them on, but otherwise I'm finished. It'll be a Christmas or birthday gift for Cora.

Yarn: stash yarn, all acrylics. F hook for most of them. I Googled 'free crochet pattern pig' and ended up finding a link to all of them, by a girl who sells patterns on Etsy.

I am NOT a crocheter. I don't like it and I'm not good at it. These are reasonably cute, but they aren't perfect. They do work up quickly though for the most part.

I have some cow print flannel in my fabric stash. I might sew a little bag or something to keep them in.

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The library finally found me a copy of Elizabeth Zimmermann's Opinionated Knitter. I had put in an interlibrary loan request for it back in January. I had to sign my life away in order to bring it home. Well, not really, but I had to agree to pay $100 if it is lost or damaged, and there are other rules that go along with it.

Oh, but it's so worth it. Anything written by EZ is worth it. I just adore this woman. She is ingenious in knitting, but also in life. Reading her journal entries is fascinating, pure and simple. I want to own this book. There are at least 3 or 4 things I want to make RIGHT NOW out of her book, but there is so much useful information in there that even if you never actually knitted one of her patterns, you'd still be better off for owning one of her books.

It makes me want to continue journaling, and hope that my family appreciate it as much as hers does. I need to start handwriting my journals, instead of typing them in a blog. And I need to copy all my blogs to a CD so I can keep them and my kids can have them. I wish my mom was a writer. I wish my grandparents were. I think journaling is so neat, especially when a few generations have gone by and you can look back to see what life was like.

Cutie Patootie

I made a soaker.


I'm rather pleased with it. Knitting stripes is never fun, but this was worth it. You have to admit it's one of the cutest butt covers you've ever seen.

Pattern: Fern & Faerie free soaker pattern, size medium

Yarn: Lamb's Pride worsted in victorian pink, creme, and some black I had leftover from a previous project.

Size 7 circular needs. The drawstring is a crochet chain that is slip stitched back.

Now I need to make at least two more. Little goober is growing so fast, I can't keep up!


Look: she stands.

The possessed monkey

Chloe got this monkey for Christmas the year before last. It has a habit of terrifying people... and animals, actually.

Isabel was still pretty little when the evil monkey appeared in our home. At one point it was sitting on the dresser and started doing it's monkey thing - swinging it's arms around and hooting like a psycho monkey does. Izzy freaked out, barking at it with her hair on end. It had to be put away for some time before we were sure she wouldn't attack it and murder it in the middle of the night.

But Izzy's reaction to the possessed little creature was nothing compared to poor Cora tonight. She was sitting on Chloe's bed playing with the whole herd of stuffed animals when suddenly the creepy monkey came to life. I sat it up in front of her so she could look at him - after all, they're about the same size. I thought maybe they could be friends. I couldn't have been more wrong. The poor child started shrieking, a look of pure terror on her face, lip turned down more than should be physically possible and she THREW herself into me, screaming all the while.

We never have figured out how to turn the sucker off. We just hide him for awhile. Chloe jumped up and grabbed him, shoved him in her closet and shut the door while I tried to console the poor baby. She finally calmed down, and she snuggled with me while we read Chloe's bedtime story, but she kept her eye on that closet door the whole time. Every so often you'd hear a muffled "ooh ooh ahhh ahhh" and her lip would tremble again.

I can't think of any better way to convince a child from early on that there really are monsters in the closet.