Twas the day before the day before Christmas...

The living room is a jumble of gifts and wrapping paraphenalia. A few years ago I bought a large amount of Christmas wrapping paper after Christmas when it was marked down. I'm finally coming to the end of it; I think I have enough for this year. It's nice and strong. I love wrapping presents, but I've been so spoiled by this thick paper, that I know I'm going to get frustrated wrapping the last few with the cheaper paper. I'll be tugging on the paper and ri-i-i-ip. I guess I'll be picking up a bunch more next week. :)

The kids are finally out of school, and wham! it suddenly feels like Christmas. How weird is that? I've been decorating, wrapping, playing Christmas music for weeks and wondered why it still didn't feel like Christmas. Half an hour after getting home from school with the kids, and I'm thinking, "Christmas is coming! Christmas is coming!"

My Christmas cards and letters are finally all signed, addressed and stamped and stacked by the door, waiting for me to take them to the post office this morning. Yes, they're late. They're "New Years cards". :)

We've been going through the Brandy Beans. We're not big drinkers, an occasional glass of wine, maybe a Ceasar when we're out for a fancy dinner, but when it's "Brandy Bean Season"....look out. :) They're just so yummy.

We're having Christmas tomorrow with TKHubband's family, and then there's the Christmas Eve service, so I have to get everything that's left done today. Pumpkin Tarts, Candied Yams, wrapping presents, mailing cards and gathering everything together so I don't forget to take something to either my in-laws or the Christmas Eve service. I think I can manage it. I think I might even be ready for Christmas morning already! Well, except for the rest of the presents I need to wrap...

Progress slowing...

...to a halt.

I still haven't sent my Christmas cards. I haven't even finished the newsletter I will put in to let family know what we've been up to. I made 30 beautiful cards and they're still sitting here.

This year, they are New Years cards and letters. That's okay, right?

I love this!

Saw it first at Anywhere But Here.

You may have noticed...

...some old posts popping up like they're new. Well, they've been saved as draft since I wrote them waiting for me to get the pictures off the camera. So, now I've finally uploaded the pictures and those posts are terribly out of date! Since the craft one, I've started several things and finished a couple. Since the snow one, it's all melted away and it snowed again last night! (just an inch, though)

I'm really going to try to update more often, I've just been distracted by Christmas planning, organizing and baking.

Top of my list is getting more pictures up. I do have a few really good pictures that I should share, but I procrastinate too much!

So, we've had some snow...

I love snow. Growing up here in the Pacific Northwest (BC-ers call it the "South Coast"), I was very aware that "we never get enough snow". Most times we have a green Christmas, and some winters we don't get any snow that "sticks".

Common comments about winter weather here:
"It's snowing, but it isn't sticking."
"The snow's sticking! But it'll rain tomorrow."
"Wow! It snowed 4 inches!"
"No, it isn't snowing."
"No, sweetie, it still isn't snowing."
"No, sweetie, it still isn't snowing. Maybe it will snow tonight."
"No, sweetie, it looks like it isn't going to snow this time."

:)


The kids are definitely enjoying the snow, but it's warming up now. In a few days, when the rain comes, our deep snow will slowly, surely melt away.

sigh

So, what have I been doing?

Finishing.




















Finishing.










Finishing.



















(I don't know why the top picture is sideways...Blogger did it.) So, yes, I finished my Ballet Wrap Cardigan from Interweave Knits! I finished it at the Womens Craft Weekend, which was my goal. Yay! I like it very much. The sleeves might be a tiny bit too long (I'm a shorty), but they haven't been annoying me yet, so it should be okay. I also crocheted the ties instead of knitting them. To be honest, I was tired of knitting this yarn. The sleeves just about made me nuts, they seemed to take FOREVER! I couldn't bear the thought of knitting two ribbed 50 inch ties that were only 7 stitches wide. The yarn is textured, so I don't think it's obvious (and especially not to non-knitters).

I also finished Monkey-Boy's Rainbow Blanket. He loves it very much, but still wants his "white blanket", which is rapidly decreasing in size. I decided to make him a new blanket because the blanket I made him as a baby is falling apart. That's what happens when you chew on a crocheted blanket. I'm not heart-broken because to be honest, it hadn't turned out how I wanted. I think the pattern was actually written for bulky-weight, not worsted weight, so it was quite loose and airy - not the best for a toddler who drags it around everywhere. It looks terribly ratty now. Of course, he still loves it, so as it disintigrates, it'll just keep getting smaller until he gives it up. His Rainbow Blanket uses the same stitch, but with a smaller hook, so it's a lot denser and should hold up better.

The booties and hat were way too cute to not make. This is the first time I brought home a knitting magazine, dug out the yarn and cast on the next day! My friend just had a little guy and he's tiny, so I made the 3-month size and I think they'll fit him in the new year.

I've also been making some Christmas gifties, but I've just wrapped them and I forgot to take a picture. Oh well, I'm planning to make some more.

3-day vacation

Well, I'm off to a "Women's Craft Weekend" at Timberline Ranch! For three days, I will be without TKHubband and the monkey-children. I'm not sure what I'm going to do! :D

I'm going with my mother-in-law, my future sister-in-law and her mom. We're all rooming together, which should be a lot of fun. I've packed too many projects because I don't really know what to expect. 4 bags for a 3-day camp...Well, okay, one bag is my sleeping bag and pillow, so that doesn't count. One bag is my clothes (the smallest one). One small suitcase for my card stuff, one large tote for my yarn projects (largest bag) and two small boxes with my scrapbooking stuff (these will fit with my yarn stuff later). That's not that bad...right?

Everyone's meeting here in an hour to load up our van and then it will be maybe an hour's drive to the camp. Unfortunately it's rainy and dark, so the drive won't be great, but I'm sure the company will make it fun.

Time to cook dinner for the monkey-children and TKHubband. Then I have to clean out the van a bit so it'll be ready to load.

Have a great weekend!

Remember our war veterans and soldiers tomorrow on Remembrance Day.
(Really, we take our freedoms too much for granted.)

It's November again...

Fall is the busiest time and is also the time of the year when I have the least amount of energy.

I think the energy thing is because of all the stuff starting to pile up: birthdays, holidays, school stuff, etc. My energy is stretched in more areas. Well, that combined with the tilting of the northern hemisphere away from the sun...
I don't really notice the evenings getting earlier through August or even September, it's when the rains come and the time changes in late October that it surprises me how dark it is so early (and yes, it surprises me every year...talk about short term memory!). :)
So, November is dark. No Christmas lights up yet, and it's dull and gray most of the days because of the rain and it gets dark around 5...maybe 4:30. (Now, I can't really complain about it because in the summer, well, it's sunny until nearly 10.) But I sure notice the lack of sun this time of year on the "wet coast".

I'll have to take the kids outside to splash in the puddles. That'll probably help a bit. :)

We're back from the great white north

:) I had to say it. We did have snow in Saskatoon while we were there and it is north of us (by quite a bit actually).

Now we're back and I have laundry and unpacking and grocery shopping and photo organizing and photo uploading and blog reading and blog posting and meal making and lots of other stuff to do.

Pictures definitely to come!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We're not having our celebration this weekend because we're travelling to Saskatchewan for a family wedding. The in-laws left yesterday by car and we're leaving tomorrow by air. We're going to have a BIG family celebration on Wednesday there. Then, of course, there will be the BIG family celebration at the wedding!

I thought I'd list a few things I'm thankful for. These are in no particular order, really just how they came to mind.

God, Family, wonderful friends, TKHubband, our monkey-children, our (pretty decent) health, our church, the kids' school, their wonderful teachers, TKHubband's job, our climate, our house and big yard, our cats, nice yarn (yes, I know, it's a weakness), flowers, trees, thunderstorms, doing crafts with the monkey-children, my computer (time-waster that it is), home-made cookies.

Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Morning Conversation

"Mom, it's morning-time, but the sun isn't even up yet!"
"I know, isn't that funny?"
"Maybe the sun is really, really, really, really, really, sweepy [sleepy]."
"Oh, maybe."
(yawn) "Me too."

Summer Trip to the Island

So, I've been playing with Flickr a bit more and added a couple more pictures. I've made a set for our summer trip to the island. I will be adding pictures to this set as I upload them.

PS: Eventually I'll update my sidebar...it's very out of date. :)

First day of preschool for monkey-boy

First day of preschool for monkey-boy
Originally uploaded by TKHousewife.

Monkey-girl is 'helping' Monkey-boy look at the book on his first day of preschool.

I was a bit worried that Monkey-boy would cry or be clingy for the first few times. He isn't too keen on Mommy leaving him (unless Monkey-girl is staying with him.) Everything went really well and he loves his school. He's even got a 'best friend' already. As he says, "I have two best friends now [monkey-girl]! You and C!"

First day of school

First day of school
Originally uploaded by TKHousewife.

First day of school pictures, as promised.

You can't tell from this picture, but they were both really excited about going to school. And really happy, too. They just wouldn't smile for the picture. I have 5 pictures of this pose and they are either looking confused or have really fake-looking smiles. Oh well, maybe next year.

In Through the Nose

This is TKHubband here, with my second-ever blog entry. So if you're wondering why this post seems a little different from the standard fare, that would be why.

Our monkey children tend to cry a lot. Maybe we're failing as parents, but I prefer to think it's genetic. Anyway, one tactic that T (TKHousewife) has used a lot to get the tears to stop is to get the sad little monkey in question to take a deep breath in through the nose and then let it out through the mouth. The trouble is that it doesn't work. Maybe it used to work at some point in the swirling mists of the distant past, but if it did, I have forgotten about it. T is nothing if not persistent, though, and so the monkeys are quite familiar with this ineffective technique. Who knows, maybe it works when Daddy isn't around.

The monkey children are currently aged 4 and 5. An interesting thing about kids that age is that they find potty humour supremely hilarious. T says that boys of ALL ages find potty humour funny, and there may be truth to that as well.

A few days ago, Monkey Boy was set off about something during dinner. I don't remember what it was, but he was inconsolable. I decided to try something new. I told him, very seriously, to take a deep breath in through his nose, which I demonstrated for him. He ignored me completely, to my utter unsurprise. Then I told him to let it out through his bum, at which point I made a long, loud raspberry. Yup, at the dinner table. The effect was instant and dramatic. Uncontrollable tears transformed into fits of laughter, and then to, "Again! Again!" from both of the monkeys.

I performed this breathing exercise a number of times, ending with a grand finale that involved thrashing wildly in my chair with the force of the primary gaseous release, followed by a few after shocks. Yeah, at the dinner table. I think T was laughing, too, or at least I hope she was. She hasn't left me yet at least.

In the days since then, "breathing out through my bum" has become a magical cure-all. Forget about sissy stuff like kissing it better. The phrase, "Take a deep breath in through your nose" is now 100% effective. The crying stops, and the monkey's eyes twinkle in anticipation of what's coming next. Ah, the power of potty humour. I should tell you sometime about how I made Monkey Girl laugh so hard that she actually threw up (yeah, I felt bad) by pretending, repeatedly, that she scared me so much that I peed my pants.

Announcement

I have a Flickr page now! This way I'll be able to link to my online pictures instead of uploading them to blogger. Yay!

Here it is.

(For someone who used to have a computery, technical job, I'm sure easily amused by minor technical advances on my blog!)

I survived the first day of school

Pictures to follow...

Blah, blah, blah...what a bore

Bah! Things have been too busy lately.

I DO have some cool pictures of our trip. And some pictures of craft stuff. And August garden pictures. The monkey-children have been keeping up with their regular antics. I guess there's just too much to blog about... :)

Once the monkey-children are in school, I'll (hopefully) be able to get the posts up more regularly. Monkey-girl is going to Kindergarten again and Monkey-boy is going to "Junior Kindergarten" aka preschool. Friday is the first day for both of them, so I have a couple more days to get ready.

Today, Monkey-boy has his preschool music class, but Monkey-girl's dance class doesn't start until next week, so I'll have to bring a craft for her to work on during his class. She is starting to hand sew (with the felt pieces that have holes for the yarn) and has made a purse and a hand puppet, so I think I'll introduce her to real needles soon. She's almost 6 and has good fine motor control, so I think it'll be okay. She's already asked me if I can teach her how to do the blanket stitch because she likes the way it looks. (Oooo! Then I can make her a little pincushion, needle holder, etc! Maybe I'll make one similar to this...and maybe that's a little too clever for me.)

Lately in the evenings, TKHubband has been playing Oblivion on the Xbox 360. (The title of this post is a quote from the game.) So I sit beside him on the couch and knit! Yay me! I have finished the back of the summer top I'm making from KnitPicks Shine Worsted. Then I realized that I miscalculated the amount of yarn I bought, so I'm waiting for my order to come to do the fronts. I figure if the colour is from different dye lots, it will be okay because the only place you'll notice is the side seams...and it probably wouldn't be obvious anyways. Since I have to wait to work on that project, I'm back to working on my cross-over cardigan from Interweave Knits. I'd finished the back and both fronts and then stalled on the sleeves. I think I just got a bit tired of it, but now, I'm pretty excited to get it finished as fall is almost here and I want to wear it!

Monkey-girl is going to be a flowergirl in a wedding this fall, and I'm going to make some crinolines/petticoats for under her dress and for the other girls. I was thinking of buying some, but to buy them online with shipping costs/time/etc, I'd be worried that they wouldn't fit, or other stuff would go wrong. Then I thought of renting them from a bridal store, but they want $50 each to rent them!!!!! Yikes! So, I'm going to make them. It's very, very hard to find patterns for crinolines. Unless you know where to look. There's one discontinued Butterick pattern that you can buy from their website, and I saw one on ebay. That's it. So, I looked through the costume patterns and finally, thankfully, found one that will work and will be simple to make (cheap too). And the fabric store had a special on, so the pattern only cost me $2.99! YAY!!!!! I'll go get the fabric one day when both kids are at school...

I've been on vacation!

Yes, that's why there hasn't been anything new for the last couple of weeks. However, I have some really great pictures and stuff, so I will be posting again soon. :D

A walk in the park

We went for a lovely walk at Tynehead Park. The kids remember going last summer (I don't know why I don't take them more often.) and were very happy to walk along the path and look at the plants and wildlife. We also found some huckleberries which are my favorite berry, perhaps more for the memories than for their own merits.

We live in the Pacific Northwest in Canada, and our climate is Pacific Coast Rainforest. As expected, that means we get lots of rain. Even in the dryest part of the summer (ie. now), it is very green.

Unfortunately I didn't notice that the camera focussed on the trunk, not the canopy, but I like this picture anyways.
This one just shows the 'greeness' so well. The kind of light you get under a canopy of leaves is so neat. It makes you feel cool, even on a warm day.

Flowers and stuff...

I've been trying to take pictures of my yard as the flowers have been coming out, but I keep not posting them. So, here's a recap of the flowers in July.



The first summer blooming Anemone in July. There were lots more after this, but I forgot to take pictures, and then it got hot and dry and now they look a bit shrivelled....maybe I should have watered them more.

The first lily from my sister-in-law to open. Here it is just starting to open. It was such a lovely creamy colour with lots of fragrance.

Here is one of my 'fancy' sunflowers. I planted two different batches of mixed colour ornamental sunflowers and some old seed of the giant plain kind. I got quite a few different flower types out of that and I think I'll expand the garden a bit next year. I didn't fertilize or water as much as I should have, so they didn't get as big or as tall as they might have.

Here is one of the roses in my 'rose garden'. I love the contrast of the pink rose against the old gray fence behind it. I worked a lot more in this garden than I have in other years. My reward is the roses are doing really well and giving me many beautiful blooms.

This is my hydrangea. Usually it is covered in blue, but this year it was covered in Morning Glory. The nasty, invasive, suffocating weed kind. I've ripped out what I could and I'll have to go in and do it again soon. I really, really, really don't like it. My hydrangea's okay, though.

More adventures of Kitten...

...at least I got most of the clean dishes out of it before he climbed in.

Still here.....and craft update

Yeah, no motivation....whatever. That's why I haven't posted for so long.

Anyways, I do have stuff to blog about. I do. Really.

But my pictures are still on the camera. In the other room. And there's that lack of motivation thing. (grin)

I have pictures of lilies and sunflowers in my yard, and some pretty trees from a walk in Tynehead Park near where we live.

Craft stuff:
I've managed to complete the crochet part of the cardigan for monkey-girl! Just over month after my goal, but I'm okay with that. I was kind of sick of that project for a while after ripping the whole thing out and instead of working on it, I knit a winter hat for TKHubband. And then I bought some yarn from KnitPicks (which I am VERY happy with) and the new Options Needles set (which I also am very happy with) and have started a cute summer wrap top from the Garnstudio/DROPS website (so very cool how many free patterns they have!) with my KnitPicks Shine Worsted in Green Apple and Wave. It's so soft and slides super on my new needles! I've also started a pair of socks for me with the Parade yarn in Daffodil (sale!). I love that it's sport weight as it's going so quickly! Also, the colours are quite a bit prettier in person than on a computer screen. I have the "Learn to Knit Socks" book from the American School of Needlework and I'm just making the "Basic Socks" this time. All the patterns in this book use sport weight yarn, so I'd like to find more sport weight wool/nylon to make some of the other socks in it. Of course, my collection of sock yarn (fingering) has grown, so I should just use some of that up before I buy more.

So, I will update this with pictures (hopefully soon) so things won't be quite so boring around here!

S-S-S-S-SMOKIN'!!!!!!!

Hot, that is. We're having a heat wave ("...a tropical heat wave...") here and we're so obviously not used to it. We don't have air conditioning because, in general, we only need it for 2-4 weeks each summer. (I love our mild climate!!!!) And what's the point spending a bunch of money for something we don't really NEED.

Anyways, we're going to look at window air conditioning units this morning...the house cooled down to a toasty 27 degrees Celsius last night (that's 81 F) and we did not sleep well.

Soggy day...

So, it's been raining most of the day. Nice of it to wait until after we went to the "veggie-store" this morning. It's such a change from the weather we have been having this summer. We've had weeks of hot and dry. The rain is good for the grass and trees and might even help out the water reservoirs a bit. They're still in the 'normal' range, but we're a little twitchy about the water levels after the summer of 2004 when the levels were very low (okay, really, I'm just a geek and want to know where the level is at). The rain is also good for dampening the forests a bit.

I have yummy chilli simmering on the stove and the monkey-children are playing nice (for now). Guess I'll set the table and then sit down and put my feet up until TKHubband gets home. :)

Closing in on 500 visits

I have a sitemeter on my site that tells me how many people have visited. We're closing in on 500, probably by the end of the week. That's pretty amazing for me because I haven't really been posting much for quite a while.

My intent with this blog was to keep family and friends updated with what's been going on here. However, more people that aren't related to me read this than people that are. Hmmm, maybe those who know me don't want to know more? ;) Just kidding. I'm also not very good at self-promotion. I don't want to nag people to visit my site, especially when I haven't updated it!

Anyways, I'm going to change my site meter settings to show the number of visits instead of being just the logo. At the beginning, I thought it looked funny when it said "27 visits". :)

Happy Canada Day!

July 1. The day we celebrate our country, and how truly blessed we are to live in it.

Just last night I was chatting with some friends of ours about how good we have it here and how there are many people who are completely oblivious to how spoiled we are.

I haven't travelled a lot, but I went to Croatia twice on short term missions trips not long after the Balkan war. My world view changed on those trips. People are the same everywhere. God chose to put me in Canada, but I could have grown up in Croatia instead. What different experiences I would have had by this point in my life.

Imagine waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of tanks and guns and explosions, and grabbing a couple of things and running out your back door and running for your life. Praying that you and your family will survive.

Imagine not being able to take your children to the playground because they haven't swept it for land mines yet, and just last week, a child from down the street lost both their legs from stepping on a land mine in a field.

Imagine your spouse leaving and taking your child because suddenly, their cultural identity put them on the opposite side of the war from you.

-- I just can't imagine that happening here.

Am I just sheltered? Have I lived a fairytale life where those kinds of things just don't happen? I guess so. I grew up in Canada.

Just look around. Look at the shopping malls and the grocery stores and the many, many nice vehicles driving around. Look at all the things we take for granted: street lights that work; wide roads with smooth pavement; vast forests, huge mountains, many rivers with plenty of wildlife (have you looked at a map of Canada and noticed how much is wilderness?); phones that work all the time; fresh clean water from our taps; freedom to meet together and worship the God who created us. There are so many things that we consider 'normal', that simply aren't normal for a great number of people in this world.

No, I'm not saying Canada's perfect. There are many things wrong with our country as with all places. But, today, on Canada Day, we should be thinking of all that's good and strong and right about our country. We should put away the complaining and whining and count our many blessings. After all, if you don't like it here, there are plenty of other places that will take you.

And many, many people who want to be here.

That Will Never Happen

"Oh no, Daddy, the ball went near the kitten!"

"Well, just go get it, Sweetie."

"No, the kitten will claw me."

"What if he claws ME?"

"He wouldn't. He knows you're the big boss."

"Oh, I'm the big boss? So I get to boss people around?"

"Well, me and [monkey-boy]."

"Ok. What if I told you to go get the ball?"

"That will never happen."

She took it really well...

"What?" you ask. "Who?" you ask.

Monkey-girl is repeating Kindergarten. We've known it was a possibility since November. She's just kind of 'young'. (Her birthday is in the middle of October, and she's always been a bit 'young' for her age.) The problem isn't academic, it's maturity/resilience/coping/whatever you want to call it. We made the decision to go with the teacher's recommendation a few weeks ago, but I hadn't yet figured out how to tell her. I was quite sure she would take it quite badly.

Well, she took it very well. Very, very well. She was very calm, listened to us explain that she was going to do Kindergarten again, smiled when we said she'd be like a special helper to help the new kids...I am amazed. I asked her if she wanted the same teacher/class or the other one, and she thought about it for a bit and decided to go with the other teacher/class for next year. (That is what I expected her to do.)

I've been holding a lot of stress inside worrying about this since November. (A lot of things have just been pushed aside mentally, as I couldn't deal with them.) Now that it's finally decided and she knows, I can let it go. I still have concern for her having to deal with unthinkingly cruel remarks, but we can take care of that when/if it happens.

Back to life!

More crafting progress...sort of ***UPDATED***

Oh, you don't want to know...

...I started a couple more projects. Bad me!

But first! I finally finished up a couple of doll dresses I had made quite a while ago. All I had left to do was the weaving in ends and attaching ribbon and sewing on buttons.
















Then..........Monkey-girl needs a white summer cardigan (and it's hard to find nice ones in the stores that will go with all her summer dresses). And Monkey-boy needs a new blanket because his is...well, it's falling apart.

Yeah, lame excuses for someone who hasn't finished any more of her huge list of 'works in progress' (WIPs).

What's worse is that I had crocheted the back, both fronts and both sleeves of her cardigan and realized when I was trying to sew them together, that my guage was wonky...much tighter for the sleeves than for the rest. (ACK!) AND I had remembered her measurements wrong, so the one I was making would probably only fit her for a couple of months and then be too small! So, I ripped it all out. That was hard. I'm starting over and paying more attention to my tension this time so that hopefully I'll at least be able to block the pieces to the right size. My goal is to finish it by the end of June.

For Monkey-boy's blanket, I let him pick out the yarn as he wanted a 'rainbow blanket'. Well, do you think I can find the orange yarn in the same brand as the other colours? Of course not! The yarn companies make it, the stores just don't stock it! Bah! I tried using a different brand, but it's quite a bit thinner (even though it's labelled worsted weight), so it's just not going to work. Of course, it's the orange I need, and I started with the red, so the blanket's on hold until I can find orange yarn that will work.

Then, the fabric store within walking distance from my house lost it's lease and had a closing out sale with fabric 70% off. You know I was bad! I let Monkey-boy pick out some fabric for some shirts as he's become SUPER-picky about his clothes (he's not quite 4). I picked up some cute stuff to make Monkey-girl a summer dress. And, of course, I bought some nice twill for some slacks and skirts/skorts for me. Woo hoo!

Then I came home and used stash fabric to make Monkey-girl a pair of shorts and a (very cute) skort. Stash fabric! Well, maybe I can say I was just making room for the new stuff...yeah, right.




(Isn't this fabric great!?!? I love it. It was in my Grannie's stash and was just a small piece. Just the perfect size to make these shorts. And I might get a barbie skirt out of what's left. :) )

Then I went to the Fabricland in Langley with my mother-in-law and went a little nuts on the flannel. I love to make baby blankets for new babies in my circle of aquaintances and friends. The blankets are about a metre square with two layers of flannel. They're the perfect size for bundling a baby even once they get quite big, and I found them to be SO practical when my monkeys were babies (very absorbent too!) Two ladies I know have just had babies and two others are pregnant, so this wasn't a completely selfish shopping spree. Of course, I did buy some more fabric for monkey-boy. It's a really nice blue with little race cars on it- my boy LOVES cars!

Once I get some of these projects done, I'll post more pictures. And if you are still reading this, I'm amazed! ;)

The hair cut...

So, since Monkey-girl decided to cut her hair, I had to try to even it up. So, here are before and after pictures.

Before:

After:

I took at least 6 inches off. It's still a bit wet in this picture, so once it dries, it looks a little shorter. There are still some short bits on the left side (shoulder length), but I couldn't bring myself to cut all her hair that short!

Stay tuned...

...more posts coming.

I have a few things to post on, but haven't pushed myself to the computer to do it. :(


...and now the kids say there are 'kitty-yuckies' by the stairs...guess I'd better grab the paper towel and take care of them.

Why must children try to cut their own hair????

"I only did three cuts on each side..."
(The HotWheels sized car is there for scale.)

I guess we'll be having a hair cut day today. (sigh)

Bye bye tree

I will miss your piles of leaves for the kids to play in.
I will NOT miss your piles of leaves plugging the gutters.

This picture is when they've just started to take the lower branches off. (Sorry it's blurry. The camera focused on the truck and I didn't notice.)
Now, what to do with the newly available space? Hmmmm. Maybe monkey-girl's apple tree (she started it from a seed), or a raised bed, or some Rhododendrons or some combination. There's actually quite a lot of space without the crazy tree in the way. Oh!!!! I know!!!!! A Secret Garden. Now I have to get the graph paper out and start planning!

(It was planted WAY too close to the house by the previous owner. He probably didn't realize how big it would get. I hated to get it taken down, but it was just so impractical. I couldn't bear the thought of trimming it every year and cleaning the gutters multiple times each year. I was also a bit worried about roots into the foundation - ours and our neighbour's.)

Monday, Monday (bah da, bah da da da)...

Oof. I'm tired.
And it's Monday.
And "Monday, Monday" from The Mamas and the Papas is going through my head. (Just the chorus, really.)

Maybe I'll put the CD on and see if that improves my mood.

Ugggh!

How can your own children make you so crazy?

Halloooooo.....

Yes, I'm still here.

It's been a couple of weeks. I know.

Well, what has happened in the last two weeks?

A friend's child got chicken pox (and I wasn't sure if my kids were going to get it - they haven't).

Monkey-girl's school had their spring fair.

Friends' little guy had a birthday party.

This: (The house settling caused a nail to puncture a copper pipe...who puts a nail where there's a copper pipe????)

Kitten's eye started watering (he's fine now - vet gave him some eye-drops). We think he must have got dust in it (or something) after spending the night in the crawl space under the house.

Monkey-girl got her dance photos taken.

Mother's Day.

And yesterday, TKHubband was rear-ended on his way to work. (He's okay....a bit sore, but okay. We'll find out about the car today.)

So, I haven't been sitting around eating bon-bons all this time, I've been unmotivated to blog because life has been, well, life. I finally decided I'd better get some of this posted or soon it will be a month with no posts. And that wouldn't be good.

Crafting Progress

Here's an update:

Knit Ballet Wrap Cardigan: Back and both fronts DONE! So, maybe 60% done. Sleeves, tie and assembly to go.

First pair of knit socks: DONE! I made them for monkey-girl.









Paton's Bohemian Vest (oh, so soft!): Cast on plus 2 rows. Now, before I get in trouble for starting yet another project while I have so many on the 'in progress' list, I have a reasonable explanation. This is my 'take with me' project. It requires little thought, so it is great for doing while I wait for stuff (kids' music/dance classes, doctor offices, etc). Most of my other on-going projects are a little too large or complicated to just pick up and do whenever with limited time and space. (I'm using 11110 Indigo Indulgence.)

Everything else....ah whatever, it's spring, I have to play outside whenever it isn't raining!

Spring!

I love spring.

(Yes, I know, I love fall too....get over it.)

My lilacs are just starting to bloom and it's definitely a good year for lilacs. They're covered.

The one in the backyard gets completely neglected by me (poor thing). I prune it only so we can walk past and to give flower bunches to friends. But look at the flowers on it! (Sorry for the bad picture, it was early in the morning and the lighting isn't as good as it could be.)

The one in the front yard gets more attention because, well, everyone sees it and I don't like my gutters full of leaves.

I also have lilies coming up! (You can just see some of them under the lilac in the front yard.) I've never grown lilies before! My sister-in-law gave me lily bulbs for my birthday in March, and I didn't procrastinate (much) before I planted them, so now they're coming up! I'm very excited.

I also have bought a couple of trays of bedding plants for my planters on the deck and for the garden beds. I know I'll need more, but I want to know what I want/need before I buy too much of anything (like normal).

AND I dug all the weeds out of the 'rose garden' that was here when we moved here almost 10 years ago and I'm going to put in a bunch of freesia bulbs and other pretty things. (Yeah, it didn't happen last weekend as planned.)

Oof! Long post, I'd better stop before I break something! :)

All shiny and new!

Look at that! Look. At. It. It's a beautiful thing!
It's a fence, you say.
But look! It's standing up! All together! Not falling over and apart!

Our neighbour with whom we share just those 2 pieces of fence got it redone last week. The fence around their entire yard had completely disintegrated over the last couple of years (except for the section along our other neighbour who has a big dog). And they had come around last summer/fall to find out if all the neighbours who share the fence (I think 5 of us because of the layout) would pay 1/2 of the shared parts. We've been letting it just fall apart over the last 6 months or so because we knew it was going to get done.

Now, the rest of our fence looks bad.....

Why are fences so expensive?

Betta Betta Bo-betta...

So, here's the latest saga of the Betta fish....

Too much algae.

Turns out I was feeding him too much (and I know not to feed fish too much!) He needs 3 freeze-dried red grubs per feeding...it would be nice if the fish food manufacturers would put that on the label...course they wouldn't sell as much fish food then.

Once I get the water tested I'm going to get a small algae eating fish (I don't remember the name right now) and maybe a couple of other little fish that do well with Bettas. Once everything gets established, I'll post a picture.

It's Friday, it's Friday!

And the weather is going to be lovely this weekend! I'm going to plant the rest of my spring bulbs (freesias, I LOVE freesias, and some anemones), some bedding plants I already picked up and some seeds because it's just cool to watch plants grow from next to nothing. :)

I'm also going to a "Creative Loop" seminar at our church tomorrow morning where I'm going to a workshop on vocal harmonies. I'm pretty excited about this as I love to sing harmony, but I think I have a mental block on how to do it. (I understand the technical aspects and can harmonize to hymns, but can't seem to figure it out 'on-the-fly' with modern songs.)

Right now, I'm smelling a lovely pork roast cooking away in my oven. YUM! I'll have to finish this off and hurry up and make the apple sauce and mashed potatoes. That's a rule, you know. If you make a pork roast, you must make apple sauce and mashed potatoes and gravy. :)

My favorite salsa

1 medium-large tomato (or 2-3 Roma tomatoes)
1 sweet pepper (red, orange, yellow or green)
2-3 green onions
1 handful cilantro (or to taste)
1/4-1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1-3 Tbsp lemon juice
cayenne to taste

Cut up the tomato and pepper in 1/4 inch dice. Slice the green onions and roughly chop the cilantro. Combine all together in a bowl. Add the salt, black pepper, lemon juice and cayenne and stir well. Serve with tortilla chips.

If you're making this ahead of time, leave the salt out until just before serving, it tends to pull all the water out of the tomatoes and makes a lot more juice.

When I make this, I don't measure. I just sprinkle on the salt and cayenne and drizzle with lemon juice. Then I adjust to taste. Once in a while (if I have very not-sweet peppers) I will add a pinch or two of sugar.

If you want, add a hot pepper as well. (I don't anymore because my body has issues with day-old jalepenos.)

My son will eat this with a spoon (he's 3 1/2) it's so good!

I'm a Blog-Mom!!!!!

I can't believe it! I only have about 3 people that read my blog on a regular basis, and I have blog-offspring!

Mylifeonablog is my friend LM's blog that she just started! I can't wait to see what she writes!

Go on over and give her a warm welcome!

I heart Winners (the store)

Or maybe, I should just stay away from them before I spend all our money.

Today I went to Winners to find a birthday gift for a little girl in Monkey-girl's class. I've always found good things at the store nearest me whether kids clothes or toys for good prices. My store has rearranged a bit, and now (and I don't know how they did this) there is even more good stuff in there!

I easily found a present for the birthday girl and a couple of must-buys for my monkeys, though they'll have to wait to play with them (probably just until Easter). And I saw some really cute green summer shoes, and some other ones and a couple of cute tops I'd like to try on. AND they now have their Petite sizes very clearly marked in their own section!!!!! I'm short and can NOT buy 'normal' sizes...this is a really big deal for me. :)

Luckily for our bank account, I can't clothes shop with the monkeys in tow, and it's the start of a long weekend.


sniff

Kids and mud

Why must kids muck in the mud?

Okay, I was a child once, I remember playing in mud as a kid. I remember making mud pies; mixing stuff together to make 'cake', etc. But I NEVER smeared mud on my friends and had it smeared on me. Never. Yucky. Besides, I had long hair and the thought of getting mud in my hair was . . . (shudder).

TKHubband feels quite the same way about mud.

How then, did we get a child who was easily coerced by her dear friend C (a boy) to have a 'mud war'? Yes, Monkey-girl, not Monkey-boy was the one smearing mud and being smeared with mud. There was more mud on C than on her...which means she was doing much more smearing, but still....

...the water ran black when I washed her hair.

A bunch of blogs

I've found a fair number of new blogs that I've recently started reading regularly. (I need to update my sidebar lists.)

Most of them are crafting blogs because craft stuff is what I do to relax.

(Weird thing about me, I find that I'm too perfectionist to use music - playing piano, singing - to relax. If I hit wrong notes and stuff, I have to work at it to get it 'right', so while it is an outlet for my emotions, I don't necessarily relax doing it. Also, Monkey-boy still freaks out when I sing or try to play the piano: "No Mommy! No Singing! No Mommy! No play piano! No!" while he physically pushes me off the piano bench. Obviously I'm not playing or singing enough!)

Anyway, what I'm trying to get at is there are some very creative people out there with blogs (yes, I already knew that). Right now, my favorite new read is whipup.net. They have several contributors that cover all topics related to crafting. From art to needlecrafts to functional items, they've got it all. I have to check it everyday to see what new crazy/wonderful thing they've found.

More later....

Busy, busy, busy

Why is life so busy?
(No answer required)

Anyways, I'm going to try to update here more frequently; I've been a bit lazy about it the last while. I'm finding it easier/simpler to read others' blogs, so I don't bother updating my own. Even though I have lots of stuff going on that makes good blog fodder. ;)

So, check back later....there may actually be something to read.

Love and marriage

Monkey-girl: Mommy, are you supposed to marry someone you love?

TKHousewife: Yes.

Monkey-girl: Oh, well, I don't love N, but I still want to marry him.
(N is our next door neighbour, a year younger than Monkey-girl.)

TKHousewife: Why do you want to marry him?

Monkey-girl: Because he's a boy.



Should I be worried?

Lack of posts for the next week...

...not because I'm not posting (like normal), but because I'm off to visit my folks on Vancouver Island! Yay!!!!

I'm going to convince them to take me and the monkey-kids up a mountain so we can play in the snow a bit. We haven't had much snow here this winter, and the sled I bought 2 years ago still hasn't been used.

TKHubband is staying home and working...he doesn't get spring break, though he does get a break from us! :)

More adventures of Kitten

So Kitten likes the garage. Maybe it gives him a sense of adventure to wander around in it. Fuels his instincts to hunt spiders or styrofoam peanuts in the wild unheated depths.

Of course, after a couple of hours, he's waiting by the door to come in when we open it. Kind of the "Okay, I'm done now, let me in, I'm freezing" waiting.

It's amazing what a little medicine will do!

Due to many late nights in a row, the cold bug I had mostly fought off returned with a vengence. :(

I was wandering around here feeling so 'poor me' yucky. Then I decided to take a decongestant.

Now, I don't feel too bad at all!

Decongestants are my friend.

Project status

Way back here in November, I listed out some of my 'current' craft projects and mentioned that maybe I wasn't being realistic. Well, I thought I should update my list:

Projects in progress:
* Monkey-girl's needlepoint stocking (stitching 90% completed)
* Homespun crocheted shawl - DONE!!!!
* Seed-stitch knit chenille kerchief - ripped out
* Crocheted ribbon purse - DONE!!!!
* Needlepoint sampler I forgot I started 10 years ago (80% completed)
* Crocheted doll dress - DONE!!!! (plus another one)
* Beautiful cross-stitch tree sampler for me (20% completed)
* Christmas presents (40% completed, decided to gift them whenever)
* Funky knit socks (5% completed)
* Stunning black layered wrap skirt for me (I have all the stuff I need)

Future projects:
* two baby blankets for new babies I know - DONE!!!!
* knit cropped sweater for me
* knit wrap sweater for me (35% completed)
* cuddly knit sweater for monkey-girl
* monkey-girl's crocheted afghan for her bed
* oodles of cross-stitch kits hiding in my closet
* snazzy pants I bought a pattern for
* snazzy wrap top I bought a pattern for

Plus, I've returned to working on my wedding scrapbook...it's only been 10+ years... ;)

So, all-in-all, I've actually accomplished quite a lot in the last three months!

Our cat, the packrat

We have a 5 year old girl with long hair. Thus, the normal state of our house is that there are hair elastics ("ponies") everywhere.
During the last 6 months, or 9 months or year, whatever, the ponies have been disappearing. It's getting to the point that I can't find the colour pony I want to match Monkey-girl's outfit. (And she used to have a LOT of ponies).

We know where the ponies have gone.

The psycho cat (Kitten) steals them and piles them into his food dish. What's up with that?

(He also likes pipe cleaners and pom-poms.)

Internal Monologue

But Monkey-boy, that was going to be my bagel.
Hmpf. Now do I make another for me, or should I just wait for him to not eat his?
Because, I don't really want to eat two! I am, after all, trying to cut down on the 'extra' eating.
And I'm hungry...I don't want to wait.
Sigh. I guess I can just wrap his up if he doesn't eat it all.

But I don't like to clean...

You are Dishcloth Cotton.You are a very hard worker, most at home when
you're at home. You are thrifty and seemingly
born to clean. You are considered to be a
Plain Jane, but you are too practical to
notice.

What kind of yarn are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

We're ba-a-ack! **UPDATED**

We had a great time at Disneyland!

We got there Saturday night, and checked in to our hotel just in time to watch the top of the fireworks from our room door.

On Sunday, we got up and zipped over to the park right away. It was crazy-busy! Apparently, the secret got out that Superbowl Sunday is a slow day. Even though it was our longest day, we didn't do as much as the next two days, just because of all the people. Monkey-girl got her face painted as a butterfly and it turned out really cute. I'll try to post pictures later. We watched the Fantasmic show Sunday night, and though it was pretty cool, it wasn't really worth the crowds in my opinion. If we had a better view of it, it probably would have been better. Then we tried to get over to Main Street to watch the fireworks. After all, Fantasmic and the fireworks are the only reasons to go on a weekend on the off season. The wind was so calm, the smoke didn't blow away, so the top half of the show was completely blocked. We were glad to have seen it the night before.

Monday and Tuesday were excellent! I don't like crowds, so that is why we like going in February on week days. The weather was hot (for us) and even though there was some smoke and ash from the fire on the Anaheim hills, we had a great time.

On Tuesday, TKHubband's parents took the kids for part of the day, so us big kids could go on some big kid rides. We did Space Mountain twice, Thunder Mountain twice, both sides of the Matterhorn, Indiana Jones and Splash Mountain (yes, I sat in the front and we got soaked).

Monkey-girl decided she loved Jessie (from Toy Story 2) this trip and we got a couple of great pictures when we found the Jessie character by Thunder Mountain.

Monkey-boy (who loves flying rides and spaceships) decided he loved Star Tours and we took him on it three times! If anyone mentions "Light Speed", he says, "Where's my space ship?" and then runs around the room with it yelling, "Wight speed!"

Both kids also adored the Buzz Lightyear ride. (Okay, all of us loved it!) And I got the best score of any of us - picture to follow. It's great that they have computers there for you to e-mail your pictures home (with a record of your score)...they just need a few more of them. Even in the slow times when there was no line-up to get on the ride, there was a line-up at the computers.

UPDATE: I won't mention who is with me in the spaceship for her own protection. ;)


We got home Wednesday night just after 8pm and now things are mostly back to normal. Monkey-boy said to me yesterday, "Mom, I want to go to Disneyland and go on the space ship ride!"

It will probably be a while before we go back again, so we're planning to make a collage of pictures of the trip for their room. That will help them remember the trip better as they get older.

Evening out

Last night I went to a women's dessert night at our church about Becoming Alive Inside. We had an interior designer talk about basic design principles (which I was happy to find I knew most of them) and then we had a talk from Debbie Fortnum. What a wonderful woman. She talked of how many (most?) women are dead inside (spiritually), and what we haven't realized is that we have lost hope. We need to connect or reconnect to God, who is the source of hope. (She put it much better than me.)

Of course, I had to buy a couple of her music CDs...she wrote a song based on Jeremiah 29:11 which happens to be my favorite verse. "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." I had heard this song on our 'local' Christian radio station but had never realized she lived here in the Lower Mainland.

She also has talks on CD available from her website and check out her biography.

Mmmmmm....Cinnamon Buns

I'm making cinnamon buns, and pan buns and a loaf of bread. Yay me!

I love home-made cinnamon buns. Almost all the 'bought' ones I have had are way too sweet. The exception to this is the IKEA ones. Those are heavenly with their cream cheese icing.

My favorite ones are just like my mom made when I was growing up. Regular bread dough (she used to make all our bread and buns by hand each week as her mom did), rolled out, buttered, brown-sugared, cinnamoned, rolled-up, cut and placed in 9x13 dish to rise and then bake.

We used to unroll them and put a little extra butter along the cinnamon part as we ate them.

Mmmmmmm....I can't wait until these ones are done!

Another beautiful painting...

at Anywhere But Here.

I might have to buy this one too!

Finished Objects (FOs) - Updated

Update - here's a picture with bad lighting.

Yesterday was a day of finishing stuff...

I finished a doll dress I had been (putting off) working on for quite a while. I made the doll, too, so she's been nekkid for too long. I still need to add the ribbons and buttons.

I finished the back of my wrap sweater (Yay me!), so now I can start the fronts (Yay!).

Ummmm.....

I finished sweeping the floor (does that count?)

I finished the fringe on the shawl for my Gramma....it's more like an extra wide scarf than a shawl...(okay, I finished that today, not yesterday, but I started finishing it yesterday)

I'll have to take some pictures and then update this later.

The sun is shining!

Quick!
Go outside!
Jump up and down!

(We've had 25 consecutive days of rain here...we're a little stir crazy.)

We're going to Disneyland!

Yay!

I have to admit, I love Disneyland. The first time I went was 10 years ago as part of our honeymoon. It truly is a happy place. :)

TKHubband is booking our holiday with the travel agent as I type!

Wheeee!

I just bought some art!

I bought an original watercolour painting from Kris at Anywhere But Here. She's trying to make some money to buy herself some music equipment.

Go, look!

Grief and music

This evening at worship practice, we did the song, "Blessed Be Your Name" by Matt Redman. This song always makes me think of my good friends' mom who passed away a little over a year ago. We started singing this song in church and small group while she was sick with cancer. I found it very difficult for quite a while to sing the bridge, "You give and take away, You give and take away, my heart will choose to say, Lord, blessed be Your name". It was hard to sing it before she passed away, and it was impossible for me to sing that part after she passed away. Not because I didn't trust that God knows what He is doing and His timing is perfect, but because it hurt to think of her not being here with us anymore.

Over the last year, it has gradually become easier to sing. I still think of her every time.

Oh! That's my hand!

TKHubband and I love this story. It makes me giggle every time I think about it.

Last year in the summer, TKHubband heard the following through the baby monitor in the kids room.

monkey-boy: Aaaaaaaa! It's a spider!
monkey-girl: Where? Where's the spider?
monkey-boy: Right there! There's a spider!
monkey-girl: Where?
monkey-boy: Right there!
monkey-girl: Where?
monkey-boy: Right there!

(pause as monkey-girl gets out of bed and goes over to monkey-boy's bed)

monkey-girl: Show me. Show me where the spider is.
monkey-boy: Right there! Right there!

(pause)

monkey- girl: Monkey-boy. That's not a spider. That's your hand.

(pause)

monkey-boy: ...ooooh! That's my hand!