In Which I Manage to Get Off My Lazy Ass...

Today was pretty slothful overall, but I did get some cupcakes baked for the bake sale at church (cookies just seemed too time consuming - what with the multiple batches to go in and out of the oven...). I frosted them after the kids were in bed and drew little hearts on each one with that gel-writer-frosting-stuff that comes in a tube.

After I finished the cupcake chore I went downstairs and forced myself to do day 6 of the Slim in 6 program (still working on the 'phase 2' workout called "Ramp it Up"). Tomorrow is my rest day - which is a good thing because I won't find much time to exercise given the fact that it's church day and Rick and I have date-night scheduled. I am finding that the evenings are the easiest time to get the exercise chore completed. And even when I'm tired and don't feel like it I find that once I get it over and done with I feel so much better. Funny how that works. ;-) So, I completed my first full week of "Ramp it Up" and if I follow the recommended schedule I am supposed to do another full week of that workout. However, I'm finding that I am actually getting through that 45-minute workout without too much difficulty at this point. After my rest day tomorrow I'm going to jump right into "Burn it Up" on Monday. It's a 60-minute program, which may very well burn my ass to smithereens, but I'm willing to give it a shot anyway. I can always revert back to "Ramp it Up" on Tuesday if I feel like it's too much, too soon.

Time to go relax on the couch with Rick and work on my knitting (still working on a pair of socks that seems to be taking forever because I am not finding much time to knit these days...).

Cool Stuff

Just a few things that have happened recently that I think are pretty neat (however, you may beg to differ...).

#1 - E has begun to communicate quite effectively using 'baby signs'. It makes life so much easier now that she can tell us some basic wants/needs. She has signs for "all done", "eat", "milk", "more", "tired/night-night" and she now consistently waves hi/bye. Exciting stuff - well, at least for me it is. I'm her mom AND I'm a self-professed speech-geek so anything remotely related to human communication is fascinating to me! I have used sign language with all three of my girls with great success. It is an awesome way to communicate with a baby before they are ready/able to form words. Hand gestures are much easier than all those complicated tongue and mouth movements and it gets the point across quite clearly once they understand that the sign has a meaning attached to it. E's receptive language (understanding what we say to her) is great but she has yet to form that true "first word" so in the meantime we are using the sign language and it reduces frustrations all around! E is a bit later than the other two at her willingness to use the signs, but in the last week or so it really clicked for her and now there is no stopping her!

#2 - R got a ton of craft-related projects for Christmas and was thrilled to get each and every one. But, the most exciting thing for me was giving her the Learn to Knit kit! I was excited to share my love of knitting with her. This past fall she kept asking about learning to knit and I knew that I was getting her the kit so I held off and told her that things were busy but once the holidays were over I teach her. So, on New Year's Day we sat on the couch with her new yarn and wooden knitting needles and I showed her the basic knit stitch. I was not actually expecting her to be able to knit after only one session - but, I'll be damned! She picked it up so quickly and now knows EXACTLY what needs to be done. All she needs to do is work on her "form" and she'll be pounding out some scarves in no time flat! Last night before bed I sat with her again and she knitted two more rows on the swatch that we started on Monday. She did 90% of the work on those two rows and the second row came off much faster than the first. She is thrilled with herself and her progress and I'm bustin' with pride for my little crafty girl!

Here's what she's accomplished so far:



And since I'm sharing cool knitting-related stuff - here's a pic of a little gift I bought myself recently:



I ordered some yarn from Knit Picks recently (good yarn - cheap!) and found this organizational bag on their site. My knitting bag was a MESS so I figured this would come in handy. I always had a hard time finding scissors and other small objects that ended up at the bottom of the bag but now I am super-organized and can find what I need in a flash! YAY for me! The yarn in the top is the start of my latest project - a baby blanket with a fairly complex (but very pretty!) diamond pattern. It's actually been a bit troublesome to work out what the heck I'm supposed to be doing and I had to create a freakin' SPREADSHEET to keep track, but so far it's working and it's a sadistically fun challenge. I just can't TALK when I am working on this blanket so it probably won't be my "travel/on the town" project. I'll reserve my simple sock projects for those occasions!

#3 Rick and I have a date night scheduled for tomorrow night! WOOHOO! My in-laws (bless them!) are going to babysit for us. They will feed them dinner and bring them back here and put them to bed for us. We were unsure what we wanted to do for our date night...and then I was sent a sign....

Which brings me to the next neat-o torpedo thing....

#4 I won ANOTHER movie ticket from Blingo (if you don't know what Blingo is be sure to email me and I send you an invite so you, too, can win free stuff!). I *heart* Blingo. I think I've won at least 4 movie tickets from them since I signed up. I had won a ticket (that I had forgotten all about until last night) back in November. Then last night while I was surfing for information on the web (for R's upcoming birthday party) I won ANOTHER movie ticket. So, I told Rick that since we now had two free movie tickets that it must be a sign that we should do a traditional Dinner-and-a-Movie date! At this point I'm thinking it's a toss-up between "Night at the Museum" and "Pursuit of Happyness" - I guess it depends on whether we want to see a somber and probably depressing movie that HOPEFULLY has a uplifting ending or whether we want to just laugh our butts off for nearly two hours. Probably the latter would be advised for a date night, huh? I have heard great things about both movies, so we'll see what Rick feels like seeing... Dinner is another question that is up in the air and is to be determined later.

So, that's my recent list of cool stuff. Off to the museum for story time! Catch ya later!

Insert Title Here

Hello. I'm here. I have not felt very 'chatty' or 'bloggy' or what have you. Stuff has happened but nothing truly earth-shattering - at least not in my little world. I did speak with my host families in Denmark recently and found out that two of my host sisters are pregnant! Exciting stuff on the other side of the pond! One sister is due with baby #2 in September (so she's very newly pregnant) and the other sister is due in June with her first. So, of course, I started on a sweater for one of the babies and have some yarn on order to make a blanket for the other baby. Still in obsessive knitting mode. I can't help it. I go through phases with my obsessions. Sometimes I just want to read, read, read. Other times I won't pick up a book for months but I want to do some major sewing projects like dresses for the girls or a quilt. There are times when I want to cross-stitch or bake or knit constantly. And rarely, like last fall, I'm in a frenzied state of wanting to accumulate and accomplish multiple projects at once. The quilt project I started last fall is all cut out and languishing in my sewing area right now. I will get back to it at some point but right now it's not calling my name - and if it doesn't call my name than I've learned it is best to let it lie or else I'll be feeling like it's a chore and end up making more mistakes than would be acceptable to my inner Virgo. So, there it sits while I sit out here knitting like a fiend. And if the mailman doesn't soon bring my new yarn I might be having a conniption because I might finish the sweater soon (well, not in the next day or two so I'm probably safe, but maybe in 3 or so days...it's small and I've already said I'm obsessive with the knitting lately, didn't I?).

This past weekend we went for a quick overnight to visit my family for the holidays. We arrived at noontime on Saturday and had a nice lunch with my mom, dad, my nephew Rob, his wife Lori, and their two girls who are 6 and 1. Yes, I am a great aunt. Long story short, my much older brother took off when he was a young'un of about 17 and came home approximately a year later with his girlfriend and a three-month-old baby. He had scraggly hair down to his butt (my brother, not the baby) and was practically skin and bones. They had tried to make their way to sunny, warm California but apparently had only gotten as far as Ohio where they camped out with her (half?) sister for a bit and eventually decided to just head on home again, I guess. Anyhoo - I have a nephew who is 10 years younger than I am and he is now a dad with two girls who are roughly the same age as my oldest and my youngest girls. He's in the Navy and had been stationed first in California and later in Virginia but now he is stationed close to home and is working as a recruiter. We are so happy to have him living close again!!

So, back to the weekend visit - on Saturday night we went over to my sister's house where she hosted a wine-tasting party. That was a lot of fun! We each brought a bottle of wine and an appropriate appetizer to go along with it and we pigged out on good food and (mostly) good wine! One of my favorites was the Fish Eye Chardonnay - and I usually despise Chardonnay wines so that was a surprise to me! Our entire family was there for the party so it was nice to hang out with everyone and share the evening.

Since the weather was supposed to be crappy on Monday we decided to make the trip a short one and left for home again on Sunday afternoon. But, not before we had a chance to meet up with S (of the infamous S&O fame, a familiar commenter if you read Vexed in the City) for breakfast. The Divine Ms. Vexed was supposed to join us but fell ill at the last moment and was sorely missed. (Next time, right K?) It was great to see S and I hope I get a chance to love on 'lil man O' the next time we are down visiting!!

Tomorrow we are back to the full-fledged "grind" of life. Rick has been home quite a bit between holidays and illness over the last month and tomorrow he heads back to work and both of the older girls will be back to school. So, we'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming and I'm really dreading it in a way. I know I'll find my groove again but it's been so out of whack of late that it's going to be a difficult transition for me. It is going to be hard to get the whip crackin' during morning prep - lately the mornings have been unstructured and relatively free of any need to get dressed before lunchtime but now I'm going to have to get R off on the bus and A and E ready to jump in the car moments later to get A to preschool on time. And one of the hardest things is going to be the 5:30am wake-up for my walks with my neighbor. I have been such a bed sloth the last couple of weeks - in such a way as has not been possible for many, many, many moons. Since well before E was born. Rick and I have enjoyed the luxury of staying in bed most mornings past 7am and a few times even past 8am! It's been such a treat and it has felt almost miraculous. The girls have shifted their wake-up schedule from 6:15ish to 7:15 or even later! So, back when they were getting up at 6:15, or even earlier, it didn't seem so bad to drag myself out of bed at 5:30 to go walking. Heck, the girls were going to drag my sorry butt out of bed soon anyway and this way I got a whole hour to do something just for me - and with the added bonus of chatting with my good friend! But now? Ack. The thought of voluntarily pulling back those covers in the cold, wee hours of the morning when I could conceivably get another hour and a half of sleep? That's gonna hurt. And it means that I need to get this sorry (and pounds heavier than last fall) butt into bed early tonight so that I can get the maximum amount of sleep before the alarm disturbs my restful slumber and yells at me to "get in gear"! E just went to bed and I think I will not be far behind...but perhaps I'll sneak in a few more rows of knitting before I head in that direction!

One more hat!

I was searching the internet for simple hat patterns and came upon Redthreadsblog. From the short amount of browsing I did on her site she seems like an incredibly talented knitter and she also has been kind enough to share some of her knitting expertise through patterns she has created. The hat pattern I found on her site was one that she had made for each member of a family that she nannied for in Japan. It's called the "Suits Everyone, Fits Everyone Hat". I decided to make this hat for A out of a pinky-purply yarn that I found at the local craft store.

And here it is!



And here's a pic of the recipient wearing her new fancy winterwear!



For those who are interested and for my own personal reference, I used Lion Brand Wool-Ease Worsted Weight in Dark Rose Heather for the main part of the hat. The fuzzy yarn on the brim and the pom-pom on top was made with Patons Divine in Richest Rose.

Another busy pre-Christmas weekend...

Yesterday, A had a birthday party to attend in the morning. R came along with me to drop A at the party and then we headed to the store in search of R's gift to A for Christmas. We also made a quick stop at the craft store because I wanted to look for some yarn for a hat pattern that a friend gave me. Yes, the CMAD-ness continues. And just wait until I teach R to knit! I'll have another enabler in the house! Woohoo! R had fun browsing the different yarns while I picked out what I needed. I can see her already turning into a fiber fiend like myself. I let her pick out the color of the yarn once I found one in a suitable thickness. I spent a good deal of the weekend knitting (when I should have been doing other things like laundry, washing the kitchen floor, vacuuming... but hey, that dirt will still be there for me to clean tomorrow, right?). The hats I churned out were actually very quick knits - the fiber was sooo chunky - especially considering the thickness of the sock yarns I've been dabbling in of late. So, here are the results of the one green ball of yarn that R helped me pick out:

Both hats have a tassle hanging from the top and I added the straps to Miss E's hat so that she won't be able to pull it off as easily. They both seemed pleased with the results (E walked around for at least a half an hour with hers on and she got mad if we tried to take it off) and now I need to make one more for Miss A -- but she wants hers in purple to match her new coat. I have to see what colors they have at Michael's!

In the meantime, I've also been knitting a pair of socks for R (shhhh....don't tell her - she thinks they are another pair for me). Here's the first of the two:

I'm well on my way to getting the second one done. And then I think I will try to start a pair for A so she won't feel left out! And speaking of socks, here's a shot of Miss E in her warm and fuzzy pair:

They were a bit slippy on the hardwood floors but she got used to them pretty quickly!

This weekend we also put together our gingerbread house. This is one of the things I never attempt to do from scratch. I like buying the inexpensive kits from the store complete with premade frosting-glue and plenty of colorful candy bits for decorations. This year I bought a kit made by Wilton and was impressed by the difference from last year's no-name brand kit - more candy, smoother frosting (although I had some issues with the house pieces sliding on me because the frosting did not seem to set fast enough), a plastic guide thingamagig that helped in house construction phase. It also came with gingerbread man, snowman, and two trees to decorate and place around the house.

Oh, and remember that snowman I made when we were out playing in the first real snow of the season? He didn't last very long. The next day R looked out the window to check on him and found this sad (yet funny) sight:

Spike managed to hang on to his hair for quite a while there but he was looking flat out tired here, don't you think? The following day there was not a sign of him to be found. Hopefully we'll see him again later this season...

Ok, time to check on laundry and then head to bed. Once, long ago, I put a load of laundry in before going to bed and the damn machine malfunctioned. Water flowed into the machine and the mechanism that tells it to stop filling didn't do it's job so the water ran over the top of the washer and onto the basement floor ALL NIGHT LONG. What a mess! From that day forward I swore never to leave a load of laundry unattended overnight again.

Lastly, if you can spare any get well vibes send them to Rick. He is suffering from another cold (sinus infection and chest congestion)... poor guy. He's in bed already and he is planning on staying home tomorrow. He spent most of the day on the couch and since he never really complained that he was bored I know he's feeling like crap. Usually I can't keep him still for very long! He's always busy with one project or another!

Laundry-check time and then some sleep - I need to get a good nights' sleep if I hope to be up walking at 6am with my neighbor!

Snow news is good news...

Now it really seems like Christmas is on its way...and that global warming has not yet turned New England into an ideal climate for palm trees and pink flamingos. Today we had our first noticable snowfall. There were snow squalls on the way to drop A off at preschool and the roads were pretty slick given the subfreezing temps out there. When I walked at 6am it was barely 20 degrees and by the time I got A off to school the temps had risen...but only to about 30 degrees. Nice icy roads weather what with the precipitation and all. But, I managed to get home in one piece and the snow did look beauitful falling down so gracefully and soundlessly. White, crisp, clean, peaceful.



After lunch A was itching to put on her snow boots and get out in the small amount of snow that had accumulated. Annoying side note: how can it be that I had to actually go out and buy A and E some new snow boots this year? I feel like I have a basement FULL of hand-me-downs...and yet...I went downstairs this morning to look in the storage closet. I easily found the box marked "boots" and do you think there was a pair that would fit either of them? Of course not! A is a size 12 right now and I had an 11 and a 1 but nothing in a 12 or even a 13 which might've worked with an extra pair of scoks. And I have a size 6 but E is in a 5 right now and those new walkers have a hard enough time walking in boots as it is! So, I had to run out to Target this morning and I did find boots for both girls at a reasonable price. I bought A's in size 13 so that she has some growing room to get her through the winter and I think it was the smart thing to do since they don't seem all that big. Man, these kids grow fast.

So, anyway, I got A and E bundled up in snow gear and we headed out back to muck around in what snow was out there. E was quite intrigued by the very cold white stuff and I got a few fun pics of them out there enjoying the season's first snow - as you can see there really isn't much there, but they still had plenty of fun!

E managed to walk in her new snow boots on the uneven terrain pretty darn well...



I love her expression in this one...



The snow as actually VERY nice packing snow. The likes of which we rarely saw at all last winter...

So, I figured I just HAD to make my first snowman of the season. I think I'll call him Spike.

About half an hour after we came in I noticed that he was looking a bit droopy already. At least he survived long enough for R to get a look at him before he took a leap off the grill to his untimely demise...

In other, completely unrelated news...I finished my very first pair of socks! They fit fairly well but I still need to do some pattern tweaking to make them a perfect fit for me. I got a good start on a matching pair for E and should have a pic of those teeny little lookalikes in the near future but for now here's a shot of my toasty toes up on the coffee table while I admire our tree!

*************************UPDATE**************************

I finished E's socks last night! Are they not the CUTEST THING in the world?

Well, maybe not THE cutest, but you have to admit that their cuteness quotient is pretty high. And do they not make my socks look like they belong to Bigfoot Incarnate?

R has been hinting (rather blatently) about wanting a pair for herself after seeing how my first pair came out. It was actually rather cute - she picked one up and checked it out and said "Wow, Mom! It looks just like a sock you could buy at the store!" I think she is going to have a blast learning how to knit. I bought a great "Learn to Knit" kit at TJ Maxx to go under the tree!! Let's just hope I am patient enough to be successful at teaching her the basics. I think she's ready and she's definitely willing so it should be a fun mom/daughter project for us this winter. Her first project will be a simple scarf, though. And I'm hoping to find the time in the evenings after she is in bed to make her (and maybe A) a pair of socks for Christmas. E's pair knitted up very quickly and their socks will take a bit longer, but not nearly as long as for my gargantuan feet!