Photos from The Boy's first year.

While getting my photos off of Yahoo! Photos, and hopefully transferred to Flickr I came across several pictures of The Boy's first year. I thought I'd share a few of my favorites.

Just a week old.

Sleeping on Daddy's chest.

5 Months old.

Sitting in a tire.

Standing up in Mom's chair. (About 7 months old)

Things that make me happy.

I haven't had time, or energy, or what have you to think of things that make me happy for the August Happiness challenge. I admit I dropped the ball there for awhile. So here goes with a short list of things that make me happy today.

Hennifer, who took time off work to take us to the dentist and to pick up medications.
The Boy is back to normal.
Our budget was able to absorb the cost of all the dental work. ($297.50 so far)
The weather hasn't been too hot, or too rainy.
I have a couple of friends I know I can call and talk to when/if I need to.
My Dad celebrated his 69th Birthday on the 10th of this month.

The Boy is doing well, now that we figured out that he will take his medication if we mix it with milk. However, we go through milk twice as fast now. I need to get to the store soon to get milk and a few other things.

Bad Teeth update.

You can see the swelling here. The two lower left back teeth had abscesses on them and they both had to be pulled. Maybe now he will not fight so hard against having his teeth brushed.

So anyway, we took him to the dentist SLG's Mom recommended, they looked at him and determined that there were several teeth that need to be taken care of. But of course those two were an immediate need. They referred us to an Oral Surgeon.

That office recommended that we bring him in right away. So, long story short, we took him in (Thanks Hennifer!) and they rearranged their schedule and got those awful teeth pulled out. He's feeling better now, but won't take his medication very well, so he's in pain quite a bit. We are mixing it with Milk which helps. There is still swelling, but it's getting better. On Tuesday we will take him in for a follow up exam, and hopefully we will have some time to recover financially before we schedule the other teeth. (More on that later.)

Bad tooth days.

The Boy has had a tooth ache for a couple of days. I've been looking for a dentist who would take him as soon as possible and was in our Provider Network for our insurance. I also wanted a Pediatric Dentist because The Boy is going to be really freaked out over this, and I want someone who understands and can handle it. Yesterday I found out that the only one in Salem that matches our criteria isn't taking new patients. This Morning The Boy has a swollen face, and HAS to get to a dentist NOW. Luckily SLG's Mom had a recommendation for me, and they will take him this after noon. They aren't in the PPO, but we can go to them anyway. Insurance will pay 80% after the $50 deductible, but there won't be a reduced price like a Network Dentist would have so we will end up paying more. But they will bill the insurance company first, and then we will pay whatever the insurance doesn't, so I have a few days to make sure we have money in the bank for it.

August Happiness Challenge.

I noticed on one of the blogs I read every day a tag for the August Happiness Challenge. I think I'll join in this. I used to do a Monday post (or whenever I got around to posting that week) about things that made me happy, or made me smile. This is a month long thing, but I probably won't be doing it everyday.

So here goes:

Right now, a nice cup of coffee and cooler weather make me happy.

Feel free to join in, you can add your happy things to comments if you don't have a blog or don't want to do it on your own blog.

New addition to the page.

I've added a Flickr Badge to my blog. I think you can click on it and it will take you to my Flickr site. You may have to sign in, but if you have a Yahoo! account you can use that, it's free and you don't have to put pictures there if you don't want to. Let me know how that works, I've had Flickr for a long time I don't know how these things work.

I take pictures of the kids almost every day. Here are a couple from August 1.

They were pretending to dance together. The Boy is getting more ... happy? ... about having SLG around. He still doesn't want a little sister of his own, but he isn't quite as in a hurry for her to go home any more.

SLG was walking toward me and I snapped this seconds before she abruptly sat down.

August 2.

Here's our little super model again. She saw I had the camera out and gave me this "smile for the camera" smile. Cute isn't she?

The Boy was feeling kind of Blah yesterday. I think he wanted a nap, but if I let him sleep during the day he will be awake late into the night.

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!