The last 4 days or so in Pictures.

The Boy and I went for a walk late yesterday afternoon, looking for plants to take pictures of. Here are some of the flowers we found. This first one is on a stem that is almost 6 ft. tall. It's actually a bit more purple in real life.


These two are different stages of the same plant, I think. I have no idea what they are, but they are interesting.

I don't know if the seed pod behind the flower is from the same plant or not, but I liked the contrast for the full bloom, prime of life, flower and the almost finished, old age, seed pod.

There were several of these, some were very orange others were yellow. I loved the purple centers.

You can't see it very well here, but there are two little spider webs attached to this rose bud.

There was a block party sponsored by a local church just a few blocks away from our apartment. They had BBQ hamburgers and hot dogs with chips and sodas or water. There were several things for the kids to do. Face painting/Fake tattoos were very popular. This little girl is 5 and gave The Boy a "sun" on his arm, he later gave himself some colorful abstract designs on the other arm. They used Crayola Watercolor Pencils which worked wonderfully and washed off very easily in the bath later.

They also had some tubs full of bubble stuff for the kids to play with. The Boy didn't really get how to make the bubbles work right, but he did get bubbles some times. I missed the shot of him falling, bottom first, into the soapy water tub. (Darn it!) The sun light wasn't right to get the really pretty iridescent bubbles I would have liked to capture, but all in all it was a fun day.

SLG likes to wear her Mom's sun glasses, well she does for a minute or two anyway. This was a lucky shot, she looked up at me at just the right moment and hadn't pulled them off yet. I think she's going to be a Movie Star!

The Boy likes playing with SLG, but he is sure he doesn't want a baby sister of his own! He often gets tired of her before she goes home. Here they are sitting together playing with the shape sorter. They look so sweet and cooperative, until you find out that less than a minute later they were mad at each other because they didn't want to play the same way!

Pictures and invite to discuss The new Harry Potter book.

Here are a few pictures of The Boy. This first one is the letter "A" in ASL (American Sign Language). He didn't like waiting for the camera to be ready.



Here is his version of the letter "B". He can't seem to get his fingers together. :)


The same holds true for the letter "C".



He was tired and didn't want to do it any more by the time we go to the letter "D".

We went to the park yesterday. I caught him off guard with this shot.

For those who read the Harry Potter books, I finished mine 11hours after I bought it. I'm going to read the whole series from start to finish now. If you would like to discuss the new book let me know, I don't want to spoil it for those who haven't read it yet, or those who tend to read slower than I do so that they can savor a book rather than devour it.

I wish I had some an extra $150! Kitchen Aid mixer deal.

I heard, yesterday, about this fantastic deal at Lowe's. In their advertisement that appeared in papers recently, the deals lasting until July 26th, they had/have a special order Kitchen Aid 5 Quart Mixer for $150! This is a really GREAT deal, because it usually costs $349.99 from the Kitchen Aid web site. The model is this one, and all colors are available. I like the Onyx Black and the Gloss Cinnimon, I cann't seem to get the two greems to come up, but I'm sure that they are nice, oh and Plum won't show itself to me either. You will need to call your local Lowe's, unless you have a copy of the add to take in with you, ask for appliance customer service. Tell them that you want the special order Kitchen Aid mixer and give them the model number. (It's KSM150PS plus two letters for the color code) There shouldn't be any problems with it, people all over the country were talking about it on a message board I belong to. Some think it's a mistake in the ad, others say it's a real special order thing. I hope that some of you can take advantage of this, I can't right now. (I hate credit cards because I can get into big trouble with them, but I wish I had one right now, I could make Payments and I could get one. sigh)

If you do get one let me know, or if you have a problem with it let me know. Don't blame me however, LOL, I'm just passing on something I've heard.

I know I promised postings on the days we spent down by the river, so here it is.

THE THIRD OF JULY

Howard is holding SLG while The Boy plays in the water.

The Boy playing in the water.

SLG playing with The Boy's Gatorade bottle. She was very good sitting on the blanket and playing with the toys we brought for her, she liked the bottles better though.

A nice close up. A little blurry but you can see how pretty she is.

I think she is going to be a Super Model! She does product endorsement fairly well, don't you think?

A couple of scenery pictures.

So that gives you an idea of our day, July 3, 2007. We were there for a few hours, but the sun was giving me a head ache so we left earlier than we had planned. We did decide that we would be spending The Fourth of July down there.

THE FOURTH OF JULY

The boy didn't want to play in the water this time. He spent a lot of his time looking at rocks and walking along the shore line.

Carol found this little crawdad in the water by a log.

A family of ducks came by for a visit a couple of times. The kids fed them one time with a left over hot dog bun.

A group shot, Thomas (Carol's husband), Carol, Thomas's sister, The Boy and me. Howard was taking the picture. We had picnic with grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, and some potato salad I made the night before. I forgot the can opener so we didn't get to have the baked beans I brought.

The pictures of the fireworks worked better this year than they did last year.

I hope everyone who celebrates the Fourth of July had a great time. All the rest of you, I hope you had a good day anyway.

New Baby! (Updated)

I'll get around to posting about the Fourth of July and the 2 days we spent out by the river later this week.

(Mark, my brother and the babies Grandpa, called to tell me about his new little Granddaughter. Her name is Natalie Marie, she has a lot of dark hair which may or may not turn out to be red. She has long slender fingers, and Her Grandpa says she is the most beautiful child he has seen since DJ was born. DJ is Natalie's big brother. I think he said that she was 7 pounds and 14 ounces, but I could be wrong.) My niece had her little girl this morning sometime after 9 AM. I got the news kind of second hand when I called my Mom and she told me that Craig had called and talked to my Dad. So I'm not really sure about the details. I don't want to call anyone else tonight, I'm sure that they are all pretty busy and too excited to be worried about letting me in on the details. So I'll make sure to catch you all up on it when I get the details. I do know that she was over 7 pounds and 20 inches long, but I don't remember how many ounces she weighed. I'm very happy for them, and excited to have another niece!

So I just want to say "Welcome little one. Aunt Becca loves you!" And to the new Mama "I love you, and can't wait to see you again. Grammy will bring me out to see you sometime while she is here unless you don't want her to."

Our busy day. (Very full of kid stuff)

Yesterday we went shopping. It was Howard's day off, so we took both kids and went to Target. Sweet Little Girl (from now on known as SLG) went to sleep on the bus and slept for over an hour. She woke up in time for lunch. We had to return a malfunctioning toy of The Boy's, and decided to get cash instead of a replacement. The Boy decided to buy SLG a toy to hang from her baby carrier/car seat handle so she would have something to do. We had some lunch and then went to The Learning Palace. The Boy played with the train set they have out, and SLG watched a little boy named Andrew as he played with the trains. He's about 16 months old, and quite tall. She really liked him, to the point she got frustrated with her hanging toy and pushed it to the side really hard. It was so cute, she smiled and talked to him. I don't know if it her first flirtation or not, but it was fun to watch.

We then went to a shoe store to get me a pair of Airwalks one size bigger than the ones I got last month. I need the bigger ones when my feet swell or when they hurt too much for the others. It's not really that big of a problem, but those shoes are the only thing that eases the pain from Sciatica when that hits, so I want to be able to wear them no matter what the condition of my feet. I talked Howard into getting some as well. He's not sure of them yet, but they will work for just walking around here or going out to check the mail on his days off. We found a pair for The Boy, he likes them because he can put them on by himself without ANY adult help. We may have gotten his a bit small though, they fit fine right now, but one size bigger would have been nice. (They didn't have any in the next size) Howard wanted to get SLG a pair of pink ones, but they don't have any small enough for her. The store had a buy one get one for half price sale going on so it wasn't too bad.

We wandered around and looked at things in the Mall for awhile and then stopped by the food court to grab a snack. SLG ate a few crackers and maybe 2 ounces of formula, but wanted to watch people more. The Boy ate one and a half orders of chicken nuggets and drank some milk. Then we went to the Pet Store. The puppies were playing and oh so cute! Both kids got a kick out of that! Then it was time for SLG to go home. We were all so tired that we ordered pizza for dinner. The Boy put himself to bed at about 7:15 PM, and I went to bed at about 8:30.

Medical update, Me.

I had a Doctors appointment on Tuesday. It was a yearly check-up kind of appointment, where tests/procedures were done that most women don't like to talk about. So anyway, things are looking good so far. I have to go get some blood tests, and a mammogram. I've lost about 15 pounds since the last Doctors appointment in California! Now I gotta keep it up and see if I can get down to the weight I think is best for me. Which means I still need to loose about 140 pounds. I also had to have a tetanus shot, my right upper arm is still feeling sore, but at least it's done.

Permission given.

Our Sweet Little Girls Mom sent me a text message allowing me to post pictures. I had to wait until her Dad picked her up, and I had things to deal with concerning The Boy, but I'm here now so here goes.

My favorite by far. It was hard to get her to sit still, and harder still to get her to stand so I could get a good shot. But this one turned out pretty good.

This is the best of her standing up. You can see how baggy the tights are. She really looks cute in the dress, when she learns to walk it will be easier for her.

Here is one with her crawling, as you can see the skirt gets under her knees and that causes a slight problem. She's pretty smart and works around it, but she'll be walking soon so I guess it won't matter. I just hope it will still fit her and the weather won't be too hot for it.

Our Sweet Little Girls Jumper

I won't post pictures of her wearing the dress, although I did take several. I haven't asked her Mom if it's okay yet so you will just have to imagine a cute little girl wearing this little jumper.

This is the front. You can see where the stripe took a change of direction down near the bottom of the skirt. The color band/stripe seems wider to me than the other one was, I'm not sure why it's so different.

This is the back. Little Girl was trying to grab the dress and though it on the ground. LOL

Here is a close up of the lace design at the hem of the skirt. I think it would show up better if the dress was a solid color, maybe with a contrasting skirt/petticoat/slip underneath it to help the lace show up better.

So now it's done. I have enough yarn left for at least on pair of socks for me, and maybe on pair for someone smaller as well. Like Aidan, whose Daddy wouldn't like it at all but who knows maybe I'll make them anyway. I just need to get size 3 double pointed needles, the pattern I have right now calls for a set of 5, but I'm still looking for other patterns to try as well. I'll probably post pictures when I get them finished. If I actually get them finished.

Mac and cheese and knit project.

Today I made home made Mac and Cheese. I found the recipe in my "Good Housekeeping Cookbook". It tuned out really well. I think I'll skip the bread crumb topping. I didn't have the dry mustard so I left it out. I also don't have a casserole dish so I put it in my spring form pan, it may have been spread a bit thin, but I think it worked well anyway. Aidan seems to like it, and I know I do.

I'm working on the second little jumper. This one is for My Sweet Little Girl. The stripe problem hasn't appeared this time, but it did have something strange happen. It was making a spiral stripe like the first one only it was going the other way around, but then it shifted and is now going the other way. This leaves a fairly large area of either the color stripes or the grey and white. I'll see how it looks once I get to the top of the skirt. Otherwise this one is working up quicker and easier. I think it is going to look better over all as well, because I have more experience with the pattern. Not that I think the one I did of Snowanna's baby is ugly or anything. Anyway I'll take pictures when I get to the top of the skirt and let you all see how it worked out.

The Baby shower, and pictures of the jumper.

So anyway, I got the jumper finished Friday afternoon. Then I washed it and blocked it on a towel to dry, so the hem wouldn't be so curled. I think it turned out pretty well, the color band runs around the dress in a spiral from the bottom to the waist band. I got a couple of little onesies and some tights to go with it.

Here's the best picture I have of it.

The shower was really nice, we all had a nice time. This little girl is going to be spoiled though. LOL Not really, she just has so many people who love her.

Here is one of Snowanna standing in profile.

Frustration!

Okay, so I spent last night working on the jumper for Isolde. I'm frustrated because I would get 6 or 7 rows done and then decide to tear it out and try again. What's the problem? Well, the stripes are working just fine except for the fact that all the gray and white are on one side and the colors are on the other. I trying to cast on a different places in the color scheme, but EVERY time it's the same thing. (sigh) Maybe it's because it's knit in rounds rather than rows. So anyway, I'm thinking about tearing it out again and adding 16 or 24 stitches. The pattern at the bottom of the skirt is in multiples of 8. Or maybe I'll have to go up to the size 2 dress instead of the size 1.

Here is what I have done so far. I'm thinking about continuing working until I'm past the "Fish tail lace" pattern, I have 13 more rows to go and then I'll just be knitting around for a few inches. What do you think? I really want this to be done by next week-end for the baby shower.

It came!

Wow! Just a couple of minutes after I finished the last post the UPS Lady came by! I was almost dancing with excitement. The yarn is beautiful, soft and I think will knit up really pretty. I started the first jumper, when Sweet little Girl was napping, I got as far as the second row already. (It took me awhile to get the right amount of a tail with the casting on.) So anyway, now that Sweet little Girl has gone home with her Daddy, I'm going to be knitting until time to cook dinner, and then if my hands can handle it I'll be knitting up until bed time, with some breaks of course when I put The Boy to bed and other such things.

Here is a picture of the yarn, needles, stitch holders, and what I've gotten done so far. (The pattern starts on circular needles. I'm just hoping that I can knit it in the correct gauge.)

Have I mentioned I hate waiting?!

Okay, so the box with the yarn and other stuff for the jumpers is on the truck to be delivered today! I'm really excited about it. But now I will be spending the day until it arrives waiting for it to get here! At least I have The Boy and Sweet little Girl to keep my busy.

I got things vacuumed last night so she can play here around the table, but that also means she can get to the cords for the modem and router and the laptop charger. So far she has only found them once, and I've laid something over them now so they aren't so obvious to her.

The Boy wavers between wanting to cuddle her and being tired of her wanting to play with HIS stuff. He told me that he would like to keep her, but every night when she goes home he happily gets out the toys he has to keep in his room while she is here. This has been good for him, and for me. We will miss her when she goes to her other daycare situation in September. I am hoping that her Mom and I will be able to get together often now that we are living in the same city again.

Hmm ... I'm still waiting for the UPS guy to get here. (I guess it could be a UPS gal, so maybe UPS person would be the better choice of words.) Waiting sucks! I know that it's still early in the day but ... I want it NOW! Oh, and I know that I won't be able to do anything with it yet, because knitting with a wide awake baby isn't something I want to try to do. But at least it would be here in case she goes to sleep or something.

Writing takes a lot longer when you have little children wanting attention. LOL I've been writing this entry for almost an hour now. I stopped to feed our Sweet little Girl. (She didn't eat much because she wanted to blow bubbles in her food. Then she bumped her head on the table. I stopped to cuddle her and try to get her to drink some milk. She was more interested in what Aidan was doing than anything. (She didn't even want to be held for more than a minute.) Aidan needed to go to the potty, but didn't make it so we had to change his pull up. And I often stop typing just to look around and see where they are. Right now they are sitting on the kitchen floor looking at each other and clapping their hands.

Will the UPS person EVER get here! (sigh) Maybe I'd better stop writing now and find something else to keep me busy. I HATE waiting!

Project update.

None of the stores in town have the yarn I want to use for the jumpers, so I had to order it. I know the Lion Brand yarn isn't usually one of the yarns used by some knitters. It's one of the yarns you find in places like Wal-Mart, but not that little speciality yarn store down the block. I would love to be able to afford to use pure natural fibers, hand spun and hand painted yarns. But even with the "cheaper" yarns like Lion Brand and Red Heart it costs quite a bit more to make a sweater than it does to buy one in the store. (One sweater I'd like to make for myself would cost $118 just in materials.)

I got a notice just hours after making the order that it had already been shipped! Maybe it will be here before the shower after all. I doubt I'll have time to get one for the jumpers finished before the shower, but I'd like to show Snowanna the yarn I chose anyway. The only thing I need to get, that I couldn't order from Lion Brand, are the buttons. I need 4 for each jumper. They need to be 3/4 inch buttons, but I'm not sure what color they should be. I went ahead with the Spring colors magic stripe yarn. Maybe I should keep it on the safe side and go with white buttons. But pink or green would be fun. What do you think? I'll have to get to a store to get them soon after I get the yarn, so I don't forget them. LOL

Cooking with kids.

The Boy is getting really interested in cooking, so I got the Rachael Ray book "Cooking Rocks! Rachael Ray 30-minute meals For Kids". He likes it, and the recipes are pretty good for the most part. But we don't use the book all that often. He does help me stir things when I'm making dinner, or baking, He adds ingredients if I've measured them for him, and he will even help me clean up after wards. Well, he will empty the trash bowl or put the bowls, plates and measuring equipment in the sink for me and then he's usually off to do other things. LOL I think it's nice that he and I can share an interest in cooking. (I'm going to give my Dad a copy of the "For Kids" recipe book for his birthday, he has some Grand-kids that would probably love to help their Grandaddy cook.)

The knitting projects.

Okay, I think I've found the pattern I want to make for the baby girls. It is a little jumper/sleeveless dress that can be worn with a shirt in cooler weather or with one a onesie when it's warm. The yarn is fairly light weight, and is designed to make stripes all on it's own. Now all I have to do is choose the color pallet I want to use. Maybe you can help me? Here are m two favorites which one do you think would make the best little girl dress? I'm going to make them both in the 12 month size, I think.


This is the Purple, I hope you can see the colors better than they look on my computer right now. It has purple, gray and white and blue stripes.

This is the Spring colors selection. It has orange, gray and white, green and "hot" pink stripes. I'm leaning toward this one, but I'm not really sure I like the purple one too.

I was going to post a picture from the pattern, but for some reason I can't copy it from Adobe Reader. Oh well.

I was going to order the yarn from Lion Brand Yarn On-line, but Snowanna is going to be having a baby shower on June 2nd, so I'd probably better go find the yarn at a store here in town. I have a list of stores that stock Lion brand yarn so I'll call around and see if any of them have it in stock. If not I guess I'll just have to order it and get something else for the shower. Maybe some tights and a little blouse or something to go with the jumper when it's finished.

Happy Birthday Christopher!

My oldest son turned 28 today! I remember being pregnant with him, I remember how I felt when I knew I was actually in labor. It seems like just last week when the Doctor told me I was fully dilated but he couldn't feel the babies head so we would need an x-ray to find out what was happening. I can close my eyes and see the x-ray of my baby high up in my uterus, breech, legs crossed and sucking his thumb. I shiver with fear when I remember hearing the Doctor saying "We are going to have to do a C-section. If the placenta should detach before his head comes out he might suffer brain damage from lack of oxygen, or he could die." I remember looking down into his tiny little face, and feeling that rush of love I always feel when thinking of him for the first time. I might not be able to remember a lot of details of his growing up, but I remember how it felt when he was little and kissed me, or when he was a teen-ager and hugged me.

Happy Birthday Christopher, I hope that your day has been and will continue to be special you deserve it.

An Anniversary.

Last week Howard and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary. We've been together for 9 years now. We have our problems, but for the most part we are still very happy together.

Lately I've been more aware of how small our problems really are. I have two friends who are in the middle of ending important relationships, and two of my favorite bloggers, who happen to be married to each other, have announced that they are getting divorced. I wish I could do something, give them some advice or sympathy or something. But there really isn't anything anyone can do except for being around for them if they need a friend. I hope my friends know that I'm here, I'll listen, I'll help in anyway I can, I just need to know what I can do.

I think in a way I'm feeling a little guilty or something because my relationship is still on good standing while theirs isn't. I know it isn't a rational feeling, I know that they wouldn't want me to be going through what they are. But I'm still a bit reluctant to talk about my marriage with them, or blog about it here because they read might read it and feel sad. Silly I know, but do you understand why I might feel like this?

Reduced energy.

Why is it that when I have the least to give, (energy, strength or emotion) the people around me ask and need the most? It seems like every time I get busy with the dishes or caring for the Sweet little Girl, Aidan needs something to eat or drink or just needs me. Howard isn't much better. For some reason he thinks I should be cooking for him when ever he is home. Today for example: he wanted a sandwich, a grilled ham and cheese, and asked me when I was going to make it for him. The Boy then wanted one too. Sweet Little Girl was about 5 minutes from taking a nap, so she was a bit fussy as well.

Normally that wouldn't have been so bad, but today I'm tired because The Boy took a nap yesterday and then stayed up until 2:30 AM fussing. I also have a head ache, probably because it's that time of the month, or because I only had four and a half hours of sleep last night, or maybe both. Anyway, I could have handled making lunch after Sweet Little Girl was sleeping, but for some reason they didn't really want to wait. I got it taken care of, and she is sleeping right now, so I guess I had enough energy after all.

Maybe I'm just grumpy today and all this is really just a symptom of my grouchiness.