She Knits Shizknits

baking:: trying a new recipe

2011-11-20T18:41:00.000-08:00

I recently checked The Bread Bible out of the library and wanted to try the Basic White Sandwich Bread -I had heard great things about this recipe so yesterday morning around 11am, I started making the sponge starter. The starter needed to sit for at least an hour (I let mine sit at room temp for about 2hrs), then I used my KitchenAid to knead the dough together for the first rise. The recipe called for three rises (!), so I knew it would take a while- but last night around 11pm I finally gave up and stuck the two partially-risen loaves into the fridge. This morning I pulled them out, let them rise one last time and then popped them into the oven to bake.

The resulting loaves were DELICIOUS! And honestly, they should be, considering the amount of work that went into them: if I only count the rising time, it was about 7 hours! Add two hours for the sponge to come together and it's an all-day process. My normal bread recipe goes from mixed to baked in about four hours with two rises.

The flavor of the Bread Bible white bread was good, but it was the crumb and the lovely chewy crust that really stood out. I took a few photos to highlight the differences between the Bread Bible recipe and my regular recipe (sorry for the awful lighting- it has been dark and stormy all day!).

Here is my regular recipe: the Amish White Bread-

Note the denseness of the crumb and the thinner crust. This bread uses just water and flour with some sugar for sweetening. I usually use 2/3 all purpose flour and 1/2 whole wheat flour with this recipe.

Here is the Bread Bible Basic White Sandwich Bread:

See how much more air there is in the crumb? This recipe also uses powdered milk and less flour to make for a wetter, more pliable dough. I also used about 1/3 (by volume) wheat flour and added some wheat germ for crunch. The crust of this bread was really nice and crisp right out of the oven.

And the two slices side by side (Bread Bible on the left, Amish White on the right)

After all the effort making the Bread Bible recipe, I was surprised that it wasn't much different in flavor than my normal recipe. The biggest difference between the two loaves was the tenderness of the crumb. I'm now wondering if I can try making a sponge for my Amish White Bread recipe....

::thrify thursday::

2011-11-17T08:03:00.001-08:00

Why is it when I go to the Goodwill to drop off donations, I always manage to come home with a little something?! It happened again a couple of days ago- I found a set of four vintage mugs for $3.99...the fun footed design caught my eye so they followed me home. I'm a sucker for the perfect coffee mug- these have a nice shape and size (I drink coffee slowly so narrow cups work well for me as they keep the coffee warm longer).

Here are the small men enjoying hot chocolate out of our "new" vintage mugs:

Evidently the pattern is called "Spice of Life" and was originally made by Corning/Pyrex:

Love the retro fruit and veg!

These are probably about 30 years old....still in amazing condition and a fun addition to our everyday glassware.

::cooking:: homemade granola bars

2011-11-16T15:16:00.000-08:00

Monkey Boy and Little Man are going to different schools this year...something I neglected to blog about simply because having two kids in two different schools means 2x the volunteer hours for me! We sent MB to a new charter school and have been super happy with how it has turned out- small class sizes and a collaborative, "21st century' approach to learning has made MB's 1st grade outstanding so far.

One of the other differences between the kids' schools is that MB's school is nut-free- no peanuts, tree nuts or any other nuts are allowed. LM's school allows nuts and has an 'allergy table' for those kids who need to avoid nuts (or other allergens) at lunch time. One of kids' favorite things to eat is granola bars, which I never had a problem sending until this year...did you know it's practically impossible to find nut-free granola bars?

I searched high and low and found gluten-free granola bars, dairy free granola bars, sugar free granola bars- but it was impossible to find nut-free bars. Of course I then turned to the internets and found a granola bar recipe that I was able to change to be completely nut-free so that both LM and MB could bring bars to school. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:
3 cups rolled (old fashioned) oats
1/2 cup wheat germ (not pictured)
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips or chunks
1/2 cup dried fruit- I use a berry medley from Trader Joe's
1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk

Preheat oven to 325

Line a 9x13 inch pan with parchment paper or heavy duty foil. Make sure the lining covers the bottom of the pan and goes up the sides part way- otherwise your bars will stick like crazy to the pan! Grease lining with cooking spray.

Mix all the ingredients in a big mixing bowl.

Pour into the prepared pan and pat down until it's evenly and firmly packed.

Bake until golden- approx 30 min. Let the pan cool on the counter till granola is firm, then use the parchment paper/foil to lift the bars from the pan.

Cut into bar shapes with a sharp knife.

Wrap individually in wax paper or plastic wrap, or store in an airtight container.

Makes approx. 16 bars.

This makes for a firm, slightly chewy granola bar that tastes a lot like a big oatmeal cookie. The kiddos love them and will eat two batches a week. It's a very versatile recipe, too, since you can use different dried fruit: I've tried a raisin medley, plain cranberries, wild blueberries, and chopped mangos in different batches and they all came out delicious.

If I let Little Man make a batch, he will add some honey or molasses for some added sweetness but I think it tastes fine without. The sweetened condensed milk not only binds the granola together, but adds a nice carmel-y flavor once it's baked.

And of course, you can add any nuts you would like...just reduce the amount of rolled oats by the amount of nuts you add. So adding 1/2 cup of almonds means you will only use 2.5 cups of rolled oats.

Enjoy!

monday funny

2011-11-14T07:51:00.000-08:00

Source: Uploaded by user via Courtney on Pinterest

Thrifty Thursday

2011-11-10T08:37:00.000-08:00

I went to lunch with the Dearest the other day and on the way home I spotted a (new to me) thrift store. Since it was *right* by the freeway entrance I needed to take to get home....well- I had to stop didn't I?!
Walking in, there was a sign that said "50% off entire store". Really?! I'm so there! It was a quick blow-through the store kind of trip (I had to get home because Little Man's school was letting out) so I went straight back to the books. I found these three in beautiful, nearly new condition:

Total cost? $1.59 for all three!

The Little Red Riding Hood book is perfect for Monkey Boy to read himself. And check out these sweet 70's illustrations!

I especially like the woodcutter's mutton chop sideburns and CHiPs 'stache:

Halloween!

2011-11-02T14:14:00.000-07:00

we carved pumpkins:

we made costumes:

we made 'mummies' at a block party:

we trick or treated:

Our Halloween was a blast!

love thursday

2011-10-13T20:40:00.000-07:00

this thursday, I'm loving the hot (95F!) weather, which spurred us to visit the beach one more time....

NONONONONO (must be Monday)

2011-10-03T16:09:00.000-07:00

Buddy!

2011-09-30T09:36:00.000-07:00

The boys caught a big fat blue belly lizard the other day and after taking it to school for show and tell, it was time to let it go. We actually have a 24hr rule regarding creatures- we only keep whatever is caught for 24hrs....that way we don't end up having to feed or take care of the many bugs, lizards and critters the small men have caught.

Monkey Boy really wanted his photo taken with "Buddy" before we let him go.

And of course Little Man had to have one, too.
After the photos it was time for Buddy to be free and we set him loose in our flowerbeds. I'm pretty sure that the boys will catch him again. Last year we caught and released the same lizard about four times!

Giant Candy Corns!

2011-09-29T16:03:00.000-07:00

Supplies:
Styrofoam cones in various sizes (5 inch to 18 inch)
Yarn in yellow, orange, and white (I used cheap Red Heart: $2.50 each giant skein)

Gather up your supplies under the watchful eyes of your supervisor:

"Get to work already!"

My styrofoam cones were green so I asked Monkey Boy to paint the tops for me. We used white acrylic craft paint. This way the very tip of the cones wouldn't show up green against the white yarn when we wrapped it.

My supervisor is making sure the yarn is all there...

Then comes the tedious part: starting at the bottom, wrap the yarn around the styrofoam cone:

It's not difficult but make sure you occasionally turn the cone to cover all the green. When you're done with the yellow, go on to the orange, and finally the white.

"Hmmm...you need to wrap more..."

I didn't use glue or anything to hold the yarn on...it sticks pretty well to the styrofoam so I just wrapped it up to the top and tucked under the last piece.
Here are the finished products:

This is a super easy project- in fact Little Man did the front piece all by himself and it turned out wonderfully.

Though....it's a much easier project if you don't have this kind of 'help'....

Library trip.... !

2011-09-26T15:32:00.000-07:00

Photo dump!

2011-09-23T19:29:00.000-07:00

Yes,I know it's been FOREVER since I posted....we were super busy with camping toward the end of August...then school started (and kids are in two different schools now)... and I have been teaching yoga a lot. All that equals very little time to blog!

So in an effort to catch up, I am going to dump a bunch of photos in the post and let them speak for themselves! (click on any photo to embiggen)

Camping in Big Sur with our good friends:

Stopping on Highway 1 to take a sunset photo

sun setting in the fog

kids on the big sur river by our campsite

Monkey Boy on the rope swing

Little Man and his pal on the floatie

Monkey Boy was fascinated by the water skaters and caught a bunch!

The kids loved jumping off this log into a pool

We camped at Big Sur for three days and then headed up the coast to Monterey, where we got to visit Cannery Row and the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

MB said his favorite fish were the sharks, and LM liked the sunfish the best.
They both enjoyed petting the batrays, too.

We got home just in time for Labor Day weekend, then it was back to school!

How did they get so big?!

LM walking to school...

Thumbs up for his new classroom

MB as a first grader!

walking into his new school...

We are finally settling into the new school year routine so hopefully I will have more time to post. There has been a lot going on in our house besides camping and school....!

homemade whipped cream is way better than storebought!

2011-09-23T19:26:00.000-07:00

<<whipped cream.jpg>>

skating fun

2011-08-22T18:36:00.001-07:00

The small men have been into skateboarding lately. Luckily, we live pretty close to the Etnies skate park. Even more luckily: the skate park is free! We headed there this morning for a little bit of skate practice while it was still cool.
Here's some video I shot of them trying out the ramps....You can see Little Man in the dark shirt and then Monkey Boy in the tie-dyed one.

The funniest thing happened while we were there: MB decided he wanted to go over and check out the "pools", which are like big empty swimming pools for skaters to do tricks on. Little Man went with him and then came back alone. I asked LM where his brother was and LM said "Oh, he's still in the pool."

When I went over to check it out, all I could see from my vantage point 20 feet away (I have to stay on the other side of the fence) was the very top of MB's head as he ran back and forth trying to get out of the pool! He was yelling "Help! Let me out!"

After some pushing and pulling from our friends and LM, Monkey Boy was set free of the pool and went off to skate more ramps. He said next time he tries a pool, he will stick with the one that has a ladder!

Wednesday Words

2011-08-17T07:50:00.001-07:00

Yogic meditation, a photo by kleio's belly on Flickr.

added to my "To-Read" list

2011-08-16T07:55:00.001-07:00

My Goodreads list keeps growing. One of the books I just added is "X-Posed: the Painful Truth Behind Yoga & Pilates". I found this post on It's All Yoga, Baby, where the author of X-Posed talks about his own views that not all yoga/pilates is safe.

This should be an interesting read, as I somewhat have to agree. With my own issues stemming from moderate scoliosis, I have learned to alter my practice to fit my body. But as a yoga teacher I regularly see people forcing their bodies into various asana on a daily basis.

One of my opening statements in every class is something along the lines of "Trust your body and your breath- don't force yourself into any pose." But it never fails that I see a student panting, red-faced and grunting as they try to get into 'that advanced asana'.

I know it's their ego taking over- I've been there myself! "I can TOTALLY get into Peacock pose!"

Uh, no, I can't...but that doesn't stop me from grunting and holding my breath and trying! At least nowadays I can usually see this ego/competitive part of my practice for what it is- and I can slow myself down to return to the practice with a more gentle mindset. Hmmm...sometimes at least!

A day at the beach and a letter to the tooth fairy

2011-08-15T08:16:00.001-07:00

We have been trying to spend more time at the beach this year. The small men are finally big enough that I feel comfortable taking them by myself. I usually make them carry their own bodyboards and sand toys, which frees my hands up for all the rest of the junk we need to carry.

Our beach of choice lately has been Strands- the boys love taking the funicular and I love the fact that there's FREE parking...a rarity among beaches. The waves break shallowly and far enough out that the kids can bodyboard without getting slammed into the sand.

The Dearest accompanied us to Strands yesterday, bringing his new fishing pole to try out. This made the boys very happy as they got to fish with daddy and dig up plenty of sand crabs as well as play in the water.

The most exciting thing that happened was Monkey Boy *finally* losing his tooth. He was biting into a sandwich and suddenly started shouting that his tooth had fallen out. This baby tooth has been hanging on for over two months, and I was even about to call the dentist to get some 'help' with pulling it out. MB was so excited that it finally came out without help!

The funny thing is, last night he wanted us to help him write a note to the tooth fairy because MB didn't want to give up the tooth! So here's the note:

"Dear Tooth Fairy,
I want to keep my tooth. You can keep your money because I want my tooth. This is for good, so come back when my next tooth falls out.
(signed) Monkey Boy"

!!!!

So did the TF let him keep his tooth??? Yes, she did...and she gave him a $1 gold coin to boot. Probably because he's just too much of a cutie:

words from monkey boy wednesday

2011-06-15T09:49:00.000-07:00

MonkeyBoy has been a bit of a bear lately- he gets upset about something and goes from happy to crazy PO'd in 2.2 seconds. Then he's so worked up that nothing is going to get him to calm down...we've found it's best to commiserate a bit then let him have some time to himself to work it out. If we continue to stay with him, he just gets more upset.

Last night MB lost it right before dinner so I told him to go to his room and come out when he was done screaming....the rest of us sat down to eat and a few minutes later this little message came floating down the stairs:

"frum finn
to dad
to mom
can you let me out"

!!!!! We laughed SO HARD when we saw this. It was shortly followed by another paper:

"can you feed me dinner upstairs in my room?"

When we didn't reply right away (we were wiping tears of laughter from our eyes), he sent down one more:

"can you give me som bred"

Not long after we got this last message, he came downstairs and joined us for the rest of dinner...all tears gone and happy as a clam. Well, at least we know he's definitely learning how to read and write in kindergarten!

wordless wednesday: annual strawberry picking trip

2011-06-08T09:01:00.000-07:00

complete set here

date night, DIY style

2011-06-06T08:47:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend, the Dearest and I went on our first date night in a while. I had planned this date night out some time ago and didn't tell the Dearest where we were going...I just told him that it was something we'd never done before, and that he had to wear close-toed shoes. I'm sure that led to some crazy speculation on his part!

But no, we didn't go zip-lining or bungee-jumping....instead we did this:

It was a "Date Night" cooking class at the Laguna Culinary Arts Institute! When we arrived, we were given aprons and shown to our stations....

Whew, that's a professional kitchen set up, isn't it? A little bit intimidating even if you are a decent home cook.

We were joined by four other couples- it turns out each couple had one person who did most of the cooking and other one was there to learn how to cook better. In our case, I was the 'home cook' and the Dearest was the aspiring cook. Don't we look like pros?

After a short introduction on how to best handle/use the knives, Chef Anna led us in preparing the lemon curd for dessert. That required whipping egg whites over a double boiler on the stove for at least 10 minutes.....and let's just say that everyone was taking shifts because after 2-3 minutes of constant whipping our arms were getting TIRED. I don't know how the pro chefs make it look so easy when they whip something by hand. If I have to make whipped cream I always use my Kitchenaid and if I was making this recipe at home I would have been sorely tempted to use a hand mixer to do the whipping on the stove.

Once we had the curd made, we stashed it in the walk-in to chill while we worked on the rest of dinner. First course was asparagus soup - it only took about 20 minutes to make but it was SO GOOD. We all sat family-style around tables in the dining room and happily slurped up our soups. Then it was back into the kitchen to work on the side dishes.

Chef showed us how to blanch veggies and use an ice bath, then we worked on making a compound butter of lemon and tarragon. We cooked orzo, added lemon and parsley to flavor it, then moved on to preparing the salmon. First we seared the filets in a very hot pan, the moved them to the oven to finish. Check out the Dearest 'working the line':

With all the people at the stoves, there was much shoulder bumping, elbowing and jockeying of position- all in good fun! And here is the finished plate:

Seared salmon topped with lemon-tarragon butter on a bed of lemon-infused orzo and a side of sauteed spring veggies. SO YUM!

After we finished our main course, it was back into the kitchen one last time to assemble the trifle. Pound cake, lemon curd and berries were layered to create these:

And no, they weren't supposed to be overflowing but this was our final course and some of us had had 'some wine' so we got a little enthusiastic filling the cups! It was amazingly delicious-like a restaurant-quality dessert! We ate so much over the course of the class that I could barely move once we got home! And we came home with a big box of leftovers, too.

The whole night was great fun and the Dearest said he really enjoyed the surprise. We might have to take another class with friends as I can see this would be even more enjoyable with a group who know each other well.

love thursday

2011-06-02T08:56:00.000-07:00

This week I am loving:
-spring weather: not too hot and not too cold!
-little boys missing their first 'toofer':

-spray paint (10 minutes and you have a brand-new item!)
-sending the small men outside to play nerf gun wars
-caramel pecan brownies:

-upcoming date with the Dearest (it's a surprise so he doesn't know where we are going!)
-teaching yoga at a new studio...the students are amazing and I LOVE LOVE LOVE teaching!
-getting together plans for the upcoming summer
-coffee with mexican hot chocolate mixed in

What are you loving this week?

Happy Memorial Day!

2011-05-31T11:58:00.000-07:00

Little Man designed and crafted this balloon flag by himself!

Love thursday, b00b tube edition

2011-05-26T06:06:00.000-07:00

this is what you get...

2011-05-25T15:35:00.001-07:00

playing with photoshop, a photo by shizzknits on Flickr.

when you let your 6yr old use Photoshop and a tablet....

there and back again...

2011-05-15T09:01:00.000-07:00

Well, looks like after a couple of years using Typepad to publish my blog, I'm back here at Blogspot! I had originally gone to Typepad four years ago because Blogspot didn't offer enough control over templates/viewing as I liked. But things have really improved over here in Blogpsot land so I'm back... (plus the fact that Typepad raised its yearly rate to $95 and I couldn't justify that kind of outlay for what was essentially a hobby).

You can find my Typepad blog here if you still want to visit. I will probably eventually export the whole thing and maybe shut it down. We'll see...

I'm moving!!!!!!

2007-04-05T08:31:00.000-07:00

I've been blogging for over two years now...my blogversary was actually March 13th! Hard to believe, but I've got over 500 posts here.

In the past few months I've gotten more and more frustrated with Blogger & the lack of the ability to customize by blog. Basically since I switched to Blogger Beta, it's been one thing after another. A really big PITA is my inability to reply to people's comments. As any blogger knows, comments are wonderful and I love replying to them. But Blogger Beta doesn't allow me to reply through email and when I tried using Haloscan to track comments, I lost all my Blogger comments.

So I've been looking around at other blog sites and finally settled on Typepad. The switchover has been mostly painless (still figuring out some things) and so far it looks good to me.

Come on over and take a look at my new place. Let me know how it looks for you! Update your bookmarks/feed readers!!! (My new blog has a built in feed subscriber at the bottom- yay!).

This blog will stay open indefinitely but I won't be posting here any longer. I'm debating whether to transfer it over- tho it'd be a hecka lot of work.

Oh, and fittingly, Love Thursday will be the first official post over there. See ya there!

because you never know when you might need a sunshade

2007-04-04T14:08:00.001-07:00

Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing - Share Photos

become one with the frosting

2007-04-03T23:06:00.000-07:00

love thursday

2007-03-29T09:01:00.000-07:00

(a condensed version) this week I am loving....

knitting with good friends....stuffing tummies with corned beef & cabbage + boiled potatoes....hot corned beef sanniches with the leftovers....little boys playing trains together....honey in my tea and on my face. ...playdates at the park....finding my P&S camera after 'losing' it for three days....a clean, shiny sink (even if it only happens once a week)....a neatened pantry....the way Monkey Boy looks like he's dancing when he runs....finding $20 in the dryer screen when doing laundry (finders' keepers!)....Little Man holding hands with his friends as they all go 'hiking' in the bushes next to the park....laying on the lawn with LM and looking up at the blue of the sky....hearing "conjunction junction, what you funkshun" from Monkey Boy....reading books with small men before bedtime....

what are you loving this week?

convenience crafting

2007-03-27T22:08:00.000-07:00

Little Man attended a birthday party for one of his preschool friends tonight. The honoree was a girl turning five. Since I have absolutely no clue what the cool gift for girls at this age is, I asked my mother-of-three-girls-neighbor for some suggestions. A few days ago Little Man & I headed to the local Le Tar-jay and picked up some Polly Pockets based on my friend's comments and LM's ideas (he wanted something with animals in it so we got a set with dogs & cats...I think the doll is supposed to be a vet?).

I wanted to use one of my already purchased little totes for a gift bag, but it looked soooo boring as is. It needed some gussying up!

I sewed up a couple of "yo-yos" from scrap fabric pieces and added vintage buttons. Originally I was planning on embroider the little girl's initial on the bag, but after about six tries I gave up. I was attempting to put Monkey Boy down for his nap and did all the sewing in the rocking chair in his room (getting up every 10 minutes to tell him to close his eyes and go to sleep). You can probably tell how distracted I was by the somewhat wonky embroidered stems:

Whew, that's some mighty messy stitching! Oh well, I still think the bag came out pretty cute. And the project lasted long enough for Monkey Boy to finally fall asleep- how convenient!

first words

2007-03-23T14:16:00.000-07:00

Little Man's first written words
"cat"
"hat"

love thursday & a crafty FO

2007-03-22T08:40:00.000-07:00

this week I'm loving-

-the silence that befalls our house after 8pm when the small men are in bed and snoozing (can you tell that the Dearest is still out of town?)

-ice cream 'staches:

day 74 of 365

-linear thinking:

-my new foundation from Meow Cosmetics (try it, you'll like it! And samples are only $1!)

-being blessed with a funny, sweet and supportive extended family

-the local library's online catalog...I can put all my books on hold and pick them up at our local branch. No more searching thru the stacks for me!

-banana chocolate chip muffins....with the banana and some whole wheat flour, these might actually be a little healthy....right?

-my new traveling bag, made in a frantic haste the night before leaving for San Francisco (because you HAVE to have a new bag when traveling! And what possesses me to start crafting the night before I'm supposed to leave???):

the front

the back

I've been eyeing the tape measure fabric for weeks and finally purchased some not too long ago. Love the pattern, but I wasn't sure what to use it for...it turned out perfect for straps and a pocket on this little bag.

The beige twill material is some clearance linen-like stuff I had in my stash forever. It's quite thick and I think it's cotton. I tried to get a good shot of the interior of the bag, which is lined in a contrasting fabric, but the light wasn't cooperating with me. :( There are two large pockets inside- big enough for keys and a cellphone (or BART tickets and some extra change). The lining is lightly interfaced, but I probably could have done without that since the beige twill is quite heavy.

I didn't follow a pattern for the bag, just kinda threw it together. I wanted something quite deep and not too wide so things wouldn't fall out while I was walking around SF. The bag turned out perfect- my camera, wallet and phone fit perfectly with room to spare for a map and bottle of water. We even threw some sticky buns in there while walking through Chinatown.

The big button is vintage from the stash G'Ma O gave me last year. There was a funny pucker at the top when I finished topstitching the bag and I covered it up with the button...which also happens to close up the top perfectly.

I like this bag so much that I've been using is in lieu of my normal diaperbag/purse since getting back from San Francisco even tho it's a bit too small for that. I might just have to make another, bigger one for everyday use.

how i spent my weekend....the obligatory slide show

2007-03-21T01:42:00.000-07:00

For those who guessed, yes we were in San Francisco this weekend. By "we", I mean the Dearest and I...sans les enfants terribles. That's right: 24 hours in a strange city by ourselves with no schedules to worry about but our own, no having to say "leave your brother alone", no wiping noses (or butts), no diapers, no hauling a bag full of someone else's stuff around, no conversations revolving around Legos or trains....

Can I just get a big WOOOOOOOOT?!?

I missed the small men, but I was soooo happy to have some time alone with the Dearest. We haven't been on a trip together since before Little Man was born 4.5 yrs ago. The last time I was on a plane, we were flying to Europe with LM when he was one year old. I'd forgotten how much easier it is to travel when children aren't involved.

As any parent knows, vacationing with kids is NOT a vacation. It's often more trouble and headache than it's worth. The Dearest has been talking about going on a family vacation for the last couple of years. When he brings it up, I just stare bug eyed at him and think of all the work it will take for us to get on a plane...it's exhausting just thinking about flying, nevermind getting around when we land. And dealing with two active small men in a strange hotel room? Umm....yah....that sounds about relaxing as a poke in the eye.

But a few weeks ago the Dearest talked to his mother (known around here as G'ma O) and asked if she could watch the small ones for a night or two if he could arrange for me to go with him to San Francisco. G'ma O jumped at the chance to hang out with the grandkids, and the Dearest got everything together so I fly up with him early on Sunday, then fly back late Monday night. It meant only about 24 hrs together in SF, but that sounded great to me!

San Francisco has always been one of my favorite cities. I've only been there twice but loved it both times. If I ever had to live in a big city, SF would be my first choice (Amsterdam would be my 2nd). Despite the fact that cities don't generally appeal to me (too much noise and too many people), something about the atmosphere in San Francisco makes me feel comfortable. Maybe it's the fog coming off the bay or all the crazy hills...who knows?

At any rate, we dropped the small men off at G'ma O's early Sunday morning and headed off to the airport. After a quick one hour flight, we landed in Oakland and took BART across to San Francisco proper. It's amazing that we traveled so far so quickly and for only a few dollars. Gotta love that public transportation (of which Southern Cal has practically none). The BART station was literally steps from the hotel so we were able to check in and drop our bags off within an hour of stepping off the plane.

Then it was off for some sightseeing. The hotel was right on Market Street, within easy walking distance of Chinatown, Nob Hill, Union Square and pretty much all the other tourist attractions.

So what did we do in San Francisco? We walked, took the trolley, walked some more, ate, drank coffee & did some uninterrupted people watching. Oh, and I also took photos (of course! LOL):

the view from our room (best viewed large)

First we headed off to Chinatown where we stumbled across an amazing park. There was a fun play structure in the shape of a pagoda and a great view of the Transamerica building (which I posted previously). Here's another shot of the building....you can see the pagoda play structure in the foreground-

And everywhere we looked, there were old Chinese aunties slapping cards and dominoes down on upended cardboard boxes...

More Chinatown shots:

"tourists welcome"

Then we started walking up Nob Hill. About halfway up, we stopped wondering why the sidewalk was so deserted (these two guys were the only people we saw the whole way).

We stopped at Grace Cathedral to catch our breath (I didn't realize that it's a replica of Notre Dame...no wonder it looked so familiar!):

Then it was down to Union Square, where our rumbly tummies reminded us that it had been quite a while since we'd eaten. Faced with a choice between Daily Grill and Lefty O'Doul's, we went with the latter when we saw the "children welcome" sign. We figured that any place serving beer and allowing kids must have decent pub food, and we weren't disappointed:

It was cafeteria style (where you grab a tray and are served from hot plates), but still pretty good and *very* filling. We wandered around some more after eating and then headed back to a coffee shop near the hotel for some cafe lattes and people watching before turning in.

Aren't city skylines pretty at night?

The next morning started with the luxury of breakfast in our room....Can I just say that I can't remember the last time I actually sat down to eat breakfast? Usually I'm rushing around so much in the morning that I feed the small men at the table and if I actually eat, it's leftovers crammed into my mouth between washing dishes and loading kids into the car. Most of the time I forget to eat and survive on coffee till lunchtime.

Sorry no photos of the delicious fruit tray and egg/sausage breakfast due to our state of undress and the fact that I was too lazy to actually move from my chair to get the camera. :)

Since we did so much walking the day before, we were determined to have the total tourist experience and ride a trolley/cable car. We got on at the Market Street/Powell stop. This is also where they have a cool roundtable to turn the trolleys around. I taped it just for Monkey Boy (who is obsessed with trains/trolleys and roundtables), but you can enjoy it too. If you turn up your volume you can hear all the background city noise.

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We headed down to Fisherman's Wharf, which is lined by dozens of amazingly ugly and colorful shops selling the same t-shirts & souvenirs. I loved the whole tacky, carnival-ish feel. We ate at Boudin: clam & corn/crab chowder in bread bowls. Yum. Perfect to warm us up on a foggy SF day. It was too foggy to see the Golden Gate Bridge (we could only see the bottom half), but Alcatraz was quite visible:

We walked down the wharf a ways...

(that's the Bay Bridge, not the Golden Gate)

And caught a streetcar to the Embarcadero. The Dearest's client is in one of these big buildings:

Finally we decided to catch one last trolley ride up California Street and back toward the hotel. Here's a typical touristy shot:

(yup, I'm hiding in there)

And finally, a shot down California Street, looking back toward the Bay...

Then the clock struck midnight and the carriage horses turned back into mice and Cinderella the Princess turned back into a maid....OOPS, I mean:

Then it was time to pack up and head back to the airport. I got back to G'ma O's house around 7:30pm and the small men were overjoyed to see me. I was pretty happy to see them too, even if I did just have a wonderful time without them!

So now we're back to our regular schedule of school, swim and housecleaning. And if you were able to stick it out through all those photos, you should go get yourself a treat!

the reason for the radio silence

2007-03-20T08:42:00.000-07:00

a long, picture heavy post upcoming....but here's just a glimpse of my weekend:

saturday sky 03.17.07

2007-03-17T13:46:00.001-07:00

blue view
Originally uploaded by shizzknits.

love thursday (see what i see edition)

2007-03-15T14:51:00.000-07:00

day 66 of 365

the party 'bot

2007-03-13T09:10:00.000-07:00

Robot, that is:

I've been seeing lots of crafty bloggers making cool tshirts with double-sided fusible web (sold here under the name "Wonderunder") and wanted to try some myself. So I pulled out the scrap basket and made Little Man a 'new' tshirt with a robot appliqued on the front.

After ironing the pieces onto the tshirt, I embroidered around the edges. Since I'm still a total noob at embroidering, it's not the neatest job but Little Man thinks it's perfect. I like the how the shirt turned out too. As soon as LM saw it, he said "That robot is wearing a party hat! It's a party robot shirt!"

I see some more projects using applique and fusible web in the future.

monday musings

2007-03-12T08:12:00.000-07:00

Bloggers are the nicest people around- I got some kind comments and emails after my whiney post yesterday. I almost feel like apologizing for whining- so many people out there have much worse problems than mine. That's why I rarely post 'bad stuff' here...not to say that my life doesn't have its ups and downs, but I try to keep looking at the upside even when I'm frustrated or out of sorts.

And just to be clear, I'm not going to get a nomination for SuperMom of the Year any time soon! There are plenty of days where I lose my temper and do my fair share of screeching at my small ones. There are days where I don't want to pull out more play-doh or paint and make another mess to clean up. There are days where I count the minutes till the afternoon naptime/quiet time, when I can have an hour of peace & no one is demanding anything of me. Days where I'm exhausted at 9am and wondering how the hell I'm going to make it to 6pm! Being a momma is hard hard hard work- 95% drudgery, 3% soul searing fear and 2% overwhelming joy.

I just try really hard to keep 'bad days' to a minimum & to make them few and far between. I try to remember how deep my blessings run and how lucky I really am. I live for that 2% of joy & hold onto it for dear life when it happens. And hopefully I'll raise some loving, confident and thoughtful human beings in the process.

Anyhew on to the crafting (which is why you're here, no?)-

Lots of good bloggy vibes were sent my way after my whine, which is probably why I was able to sit down and complete a sewing project yesterday afternoon:

It's a tote bag+pencil/sketchbook case for my newly-turned 3yr old niece, Little Red. The pencil case is based on the tute from One Red Robin. I had made the pencil case previously, but still had to complete the tote bag before the party.

Monkey Boy wasn't keen on taking a nap due to the time change so I slipped a DVD in and retreated to my room to do some super quick cutting and sewing. Here's the pencil case outside:

and inside:

I used Crayola Twisteables because they're easy for little ones to use without breaking. The sketchpad is 8x6.

The tote bag was just a simple patchwork- I only had about an hour to make it so it's not lined. Monkey Boy heard the sewing machine and came looking for me after about 20 minutes of watching the DVD. So I had a little helper- he 'pushed' the fabric through my sewing machine & pressed the button that raises the needle. Here he models the finished tote bag:

The straps were a little wonky due to Monkey Boy's 'help', but I think it still turned out ok. I put some cute little books into the bag along with the pencil case. Then we were off to the party, where we took lots of pictures, ate lots of sugary stuff and otherwise enjoyed ourselves.

I hope Little Red enjoys her tote bag and pencil case. Little Man saw the case and wanted one of his own made out of pirate fabric. So I guess I'll have to make another!

today I'm....

2007-03-11T10:00:00.000-07:00

invisible

feeling crafty urges, but feeling too blah to craft (nevermind no one to watch the littles- I dunno how other bloggers craft while their kids are underfoot)

needing my morning coffee very very badly

tired of cleaning cleaning cleaning cleaning ....and did I mention cleaning?

just plain tired

/end whine

love thursday

2007-03-08T08:14:00.000-08:00

Here we are again- has it already been a week since last Thursday?! Time flies, I guess! This week, I'm loving:

-listening to Monkey Boy & Little Man as we drive down the road at night-
MB: "Monsta! Heeeer come monsta, Ba-wai!" (Ba-wai is his word for brother)
LM: "Don't worry, I'll shot the monster with my golden pencils"
MB: "Shoot! Shoot! Me shoot!"
LM: (turns on overhead light) "This will scare the monsters away!"
MB: "Monsta go! You! Light! Monsta run!"
LM: (turns off light and makes shooting noises out the window)
MB: "Hep! Monsta coming, Ba-wai!"
LM: "Momma can drive faster than the monsters-"
MB: "Go fasta, mommy!"

They only play this little game a night in the car, and it's always started by Monkey Boy. One of these days I'll have to get the camera out to tape it.

-my new iron. We've had the same iron for probably 10 years- it was a hand me down from my dad's house when I moved out. The steam function hasn't worked in forever, and the temp control is kinda wonky (it doesn't get hot enough to press for quilting anymore). So I finally got sick of it and bought a new iron. Nothing fancy, but the new one is a lot lighter and actually produces steam. I sewed up a couple of pillowcases last night and it was so much easier to have working iron for pressing!

-fabric stash enhancement:

-watching the small men play in the local pop fountain last weekend when the temps hit 80+ degress:

-cardboard boxes

-Soulemama's new aprons/smocks

-cookies and milk for breakfast (don't tell the small men)

What are you loving this week?

blooming feet socks DONE

2007-03-05T15:10:00.000-08:00

After much ripping, some cursing and about three sets of toes, I finally finished my Blooming Feet pal's socks!

These were are a simple twisted rib from Sensational Knitted Socks. My pal had warned me that she had big feet (size 10) so I was nervous about knitting something lacy or complicated for fear that I wouldn't get done in time. The ribbing was easy enough (a two row repeat), and I jazzed it up by using some of my own handspun. The orange handspun is BFL from Dicentra Designs. I picked up the purple/orange handspun from LPK for contrast and because the completely orange sock incarnation of these was just too ORANGE.

It's really difficult to knit a pair of socks for someone when you can't get them to try the socks on as you go. I had my pal's basic foot measurements and I'm confident the socks match them, but you never really know if they're going to fit till the recipient puts them on!

I had to rip the toe of the first sock out three times, and the toe of the second sock twice due to some silly mistakes on my part. Plus I wanted the socks to be perfect because they were for someone else. If they had been for me, I would have had no problem with the mistakes I'd made....but no way was I going to send them off with 'oopsies' in them!

Now that the socks are done, I can look for some fun little surprises to throw into my pal's package before I mail them off. And I can't wait till I get my own pair of Blooming Feet socks from *my* pal!

telescope

2007-03-04T20:06:00.000-08:00

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love thursday

2007-03-01T08:55:00.000-08:00

loving-

-the call of "trash truck! trash truck!" every Thursday morning as Monkey Boy and Little Man climb up onto the top bunk to look out the window as said vehicle makes its way around our cul-de-sac

-coming out one morning and seeing this:

evidently, LM was having a 'sleepover' & MB got out his own blanket/pillow to imitate big brother.

-how Monkey Boy can pronounce lots of words really well, but still calls LM "ba-wai" (for 'brother')

-insulated coffee mugs- so I can make coffee in the AM and still drink it hot two hours later (because any mom knows how difficult it is to actually get a cup of warm coffee)

-curbside-to-go at the local restuarant (where they bring the food to your car & you don't have to get out when picking up a to-go order)

-Monkey Boy blowing kisses & laughing when I 'catch' them

-toddler toes

-concentration:

-how Little Man has to read a story out of his children's bible every night, then take the bible up into his bed with him. He sleeps with it next to his pillow!

-how Monkey Boy sees trains everywhere (he even pointed at this screen on my laptop and claimed there was a train on it)

what are you loving this Thursday?

it better not be a sign of things to come

2007-02-28T09:12:00.000-08:00

-there was no milk in the house this morning. I had a big glass last night, finishing off the gallon of milk, because I knew that there were two cartons of chocolate soymilk for the boys to have in the morning (they *must* have their choco milk in the AM). Then the Dearest drank one of the cartons last night....so this morning I only had one carton of soymilk to split between the boys. Their Majesties were not happy about that.

-while pouring the soymilk, I managed to squirt some out on the counter and all over my hands. Nice.

-we ran into an accident after dropping the Dearest off at the airport. At least the small men got to watch the airplanes take off as we sat there, not moving, for 10 minutes.

-Monkey Boy spilled a whole bottle of water inside my car on the way home. At least it was just water!

-After we got home, I glanced out an upstairs window and saw our dog running down the street, barking ferociously at some poor ladies out walking. I had to run out into the street and chase her down. She led me on quite the merry chase before I finally got a hold of her. I have NO IDEA how she got out- I thought she was in the house!

-I sat down to read some emails and heard Little Man yell, "momma, an emergency!" It turns out the dog had pooped on the carpet upstairs. Double nice. At least Monkey Boy didn't pick it up or step in it.

It just turned 9:00am when I wrote this. PLEASE tell me the day will get better from here on out!

quickly crafted

2007-02-26T15:37:00.000-08:00

The Dearest and I had tickets to the Ducks' game on Sunday night. I'm *always* freezing at hockey games, so I had a plan to make a patchwork scarf to help keep my neck warm. Remember this fabric? Saturday night was spent cutting, sewing and quilting while watching "Monster In Law". Here's the result:

I made the scarf 60 inches long so I could wrap it around my neck doubled if I wanted. It's five inches wide- just perfect to keep the back of my neck nice & warm.

All of the fabrics are from Amy Butler's line. The backing is yellow chenille...nice and cozy against the skin.

I didn't really follow a pattern for this- the original inspiration was the patchwork scarf in Denise Schmidt's book. But I made mine up as I went along. The only thing I should have done was pay more attention to how the fabrics were lining up at the ends. Not too happy with how they are a bit too matchy matchy.

The scarf worked really well to keep me warm during the game. We were sitting way up in the nosebleed seats, but it was still fun.

do the fondue

2007-02-23T01:23:00.000-08:00

Did you know that chocolate fondue is a full immersion experience? Witness:

By the time dinner was over, Monkey Boy looked like he'd been mud wrestling. All his clothes went straight into the washing machine, and he went straight into the bath.

Little Man was a tad more tidy (but check out the choco-stache):

day 52 of 365

Have I mentioned yet how much I love this new kitchen gadget? Because I do! We've used it three times in the last week and I can't wait to use it again. The kids love it, and it's so easy to set up and use.

The Dearest agrees:

love thursday

2007-02-22T14:17:00.000-08:00

loving-

-tomato soup & grilled cheese sandwiches

-small men crafting:

-going to Disneyland in the middle of the week

-watching Little Man picking out his reward Lego set after he finished his chore chart (two weeks' worth of stickers were required for the reward!). He was so excited to go to the Lego store and have his pick of the sets there.

-my new fondue pot- so far we've done cheese fondue and shabu shabu....next on the list is chocolate fondue

-Little Man's skill with chopsticks- he can actually pick up noodles and peas now! Pretty good for a not quite 5yr old.

-Monkey Boy's instant attachment to his new quilt

-the color commentary coming from the backseat, courtesy of Monkey Boy: "biiiig truck!" "bus! bus!" "faster faster" "biiiiig truck!"

what are you loving this week?

crafty FO

2007-02-21T20:40:00.000-08:00

Monkey Boy's train-themed quilt is finished:

I ended up using 6 inch squares sewn together with green and yellow borders. Since Monkey Boy really likes to play with the tags on his 'lovey' blanket, I sewed a couple tags into this quilt as well.

These are placed at the top, near his head so he can find them easily. I also sewed one smaller tag into the foot of the quilt just for fun. I also wanted to personalize it, so I got daring and tried some embroidery for the first time:

It's not quite that wonky in real life- I promise! LOL Everything went together really well- the only problem I ran into was mis-measuring the green border fabric. I ended up not cutting enough and not having enough fabric to go all the way around the edges (I was barely 6 inches too short- ughhh). After thinking about how to salvage the border, I came up with adding small patchwork squares so they would be the right length.

day 51 of 365

I'm sure that the more experienced quilters out there are rolling their eyes at my noob mistake- but I was pretty happy that I was able to solve the short borders pieces without too much gnashing of teeth on my part. And the result turned out quite cute IMO.

Monkey Boy was really excited to get his train 'pinkie' and wanted to use it right away so I guess it is a hit!

fat tuesday

2007-02-20T22:07:00.000-08:00

Eat those pancakes while you can: Lent is starting tomorrow!

We're a household of lapsed Catholics- both the Dearest and I were raised in the religion, but neither of us are currently part of a church. However, the Catholic guilt is strong and long-lasting and tends to make itself known during the big Christian holidays such as Christmas and Easter. After 10+ years of Catholic school (back in the day when real nuns ruled the classrooms with iron fists) there's no way I'd forget that Lent is starting soon.

Since today was Fat Tuesday (also known as Shrove Tuesday), I decided we should have the traditional pancakes for dinner. When I told Little Man my plan, he was shocked: "Pancakes? For dinner?"

I used a simple recipe & made the pancakes from scratch...after resting in the fridge for 20 minutes they were ready for the griddle.

And of course you can't sully from-scratch pancakes with store-bought syrup. So I found a recipe for homemade syrup and gave it a try. It turned out quite yummy- not too sweet and a little thicker than real maple syrup.

day 50 of 365

Now we're ready to face Lent!

how a grumpy monkey wakes up

2007-02-16T19:04:00.000-08:00

love thursday

2007-02-14T14:42:00.000-08:00

loving-

this quote:
"Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that will never be again And what do we teach our children? We teach them that two and two make four, and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we also teach them what they are? We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you. Your legs, your arms, your clever fingers, the way you move. You may become a Shakespeare, a Michaelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel. And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is, like you, a marvel? You must work, we must all work, to make the world worthy of its children. " Pablo Casals

-the feel of freshly washed quilting fabrics out of the dryer; folding them just so and sliding them into place in the stash:

-new crafty fun:

-chocolate

-peanut butter n chocolate

-soaking in the bath with one of these

-seeing Little Man in the preschool newsletter

-crafty fingers:

what are you loving this Thursday?

have a happy Valentine's Day!

2007-02-14T08:38:00.000-08:00

day 44 of 365

Red roses from the Dearest for V-Day. Chocos were included, but they are currently being eaten.

A sweet and happy Valentine's Day to you all!

v-day crafting

2007-02-13T00:18:00.000-08:00

::valentine card crafting::
day 43 of 365

Little Man's preschool class has their V-Day party tomorrow. We made a baker's dozen of these cards/cookie holders for him to hand out (original idea from Norththreads via Kiddley). Little Man stamped the cards & punched out the circles for the tags. I glued the tags & flower punch outs together. He stuffed the CD cases with candy hearts and we slid the cookies in (we had to put the cookies in small plastic bags because they were 'bleeding' grease thru the paper). The backs of the CD slipcases are stamped with his name and more hearts. Luckily we only had to make 13 of these.

And thanks everyone for the birthday wishes. Today was the Dearest's birthday and we went out to our fave sushi restaurant with his parents. Neither of us got a cake for our birthdays this year, so I am probably going to run out and get one tomorrow. Better late cake than no cake, I always say!

birth day

2007-02-11T22:31:00.000-08:00

-Saturday night dinner with the Dearest, followed by a massage at the local chi-chi day spa (heavenly)

-not having to do the dishes AT ALL- for one whole day

-uninterrupted craft time so I could cut and arrange this:

-wearing my new Noro Silk Garden Light socks while knitting with good friends at LPK:

-smooches and tickles from Monkey Boy (who is finally feeling much better).

-"birthday gift flowers" picked by Little Man himself:

All in all, a nice way to spend a birthday!

day 40 of 365

2007-02-09T22:13:00.000-08:00

::waiting::

Our babysitter came to watch the small men today & I was able to spend a couple of hours with the Dearest. He had to run a quick consulting call in Laguna so I took my knitting, ready to hang out in the car & wait.

It turned out that there was a lovely little path into the canyon right next to where we parked, so I went exploring. A few minutes later I found a small weatherbeaten bench to sit on. It was a little chilly, but I was able to start a sock and enjoy the silence of the canyon for a while.

one of these is not like the other

2007-02-09T09:20:00.000-08:00

The Dearest on the left, Monkey Boy on the right. Hmm....is there some sort of family resemblance going on?

love thursday

2007-02-08T08:39:00.000-08:00

Oh what a week it's been! Both the small men are sick with some kind of pre-school borne plague. Yesterday we got a notice home from school that pink-eye is running rampant thru the student body (what kids are left after being hit with the current round of illnesses). I've been rubbing my eyes constantly since getting that notice. ugh

Things are looking up, though! Monkey Boy's fever is down under 100F and he's eating and drinking again. Little Man sounds less like an old Ford engine turning over when he coughs. Our household might actually be climbing out of the well of used tissues, 2am wake up calls and requests for sippy cups full of Gatorade.

In that vein, here's what I'm loving this week:

- my new box of goodies from Rebecca in Belgium (sorry for the lackluster pic, this is all I could get with Monkey Boy being so clingy yesterday):

This is all from the Yarn Aboard swap. Lots of fun fiber (including some from a special breed of sheep called the Ossuem (sp?)). Rebecca had the roving in the plastic bag dyed especially for me by Hello Yarn. Sweet! There were also some lovely stitch markers (already being used) and a bar of delicious handmilled soap (also already in use), as well as a tube of yummy smelling hand cream. A little pink notebook completed the package. Thanks, Rebecca! And thanks again to Amanda for running the swap.

- the rovings sweet Chelle gave me for my upcoming birthday. Also the fact that Chelle remembered it was my birthday (cuz I had pretty much forgotten! LOL), and brought cupcakes to LPK last night for everyone.

- my new Chocolate Fatale soap from WyldeIvy. It's like showering with a big bar of chocolate....yuuuuum.

- finally getting my sewing desk in order (almost). I might actually be able to put my sewing machine on top today. yay!

- the Dearest, just because.

the face of misery

2007-02-07T21:22:00.000-08:00

fever+croupy cough= up all night with momma

got your sunglasses handy?

2007-02-05T22:28:00.000-08:00

Today passed in a blur; both the small men are sick (low grade fever & croupy cough, but that's it- they're still running around) and I am just tired for no reason whatsoever. Ok, maybe sitting up with Monkey Boy for half the night might have tired me out some, but I really was useless today. The only chore I got done around the house was managing to get the dishes out of the sink & into the dishwasher. Some days you just have to take what you can get.

I should have laid down for a nap this afternoon, but I was sidetracked by the arrival of this:

An assortment of train-ish fat quarters from Bear Paw Quilting. Aren't they cute? I know they're super busy and I'm not sure how I'm going to deal with all the busy-ness.... But the important thing is that Monkey Boy LOVES them all. He pet them and kept saying "pinkie? pinkie?" (his version of "blankie").

After playing with the fat quarters and the fabrics I bought previously, I came up with two possible combinations for the quilt. The first uses yellow as a binding & the second uses red for the binding:

Right now I'm leaning toward the yellow binding; the spotted fabric will be combined with blocks of the train fabrics for the center of the quilt. Not sure yet if I'm going to do actual pieced blocks or just strips.

And just to complete the overall busy-ness of this quilt, check out the backing fleece I found:

Are your eyes bleeding yet?

quilt-y potential and a visit with granny

2007-02-04T20:51:00.000-08:00

Material Possessions, a local quilt shop, has a Superbowl weekend sale every year. They mark all fabric 20% off, then have a special selection of fabrics that are $3 & $4 a yard. This sale is usually controlled chaos- lots of ladies wearing appliqued sweatshirts jostling each other to browse the special selection fabrics. It all starts when the shop opens at 10am on Saturday and I heard that the line to get in the door was at least half a block long this year.

Luckily I didn't show up till 10:30am...so I was able to walk in and the whole selection/cutting/paying process was actually fairly painless. I was looking for some fabric for a train quilt I want to make for Monkey Boy. I found all of these in the $4/yd pile:

They might not all be used, but at $4/yd, I figured I could always make something else out of them if they didn't end up in the quilt.

Then I spotted some gorgeous 30's reproduction fabrics also at $4/yd. I wandered around some more and look at what I came up with:

The top four fabrics were $4/yd and the bottom one was 20% off $7/yd. I am seriously thinking of making a quilt out of these because I love the red and blue so much.

These will hopefully turn into a lovely chenille & patchwork scarf (similar to the one in Denise Schmidt's quilt book):

And somehow I couldn't pass up this sweet color combination:

day 35 of 365

After shouldering my way out of the store (it was like being a salmon fighting its way upstream!), I met with the Dearest and my Mom for lunch with the small men. My Mom loves hanging out with them, and she spoils them rotten (isn't that what grannies are for?). Just a couple of images of the afternoon:

(more photos here if you're interested)

All in all, a great way to spend a lovely Saturday!

a crafter's still life

2007-02-02T23:37:00.000-08:00

When I took photography in college (back when dinosaurs ruled the earth, gas was under $2/gal., and cameras actually used FILM), we often had assignments where we had to shoot still life images.

Back then my still lifes were usually of fruit, or kitschy little displays of plates & cups from my dad's kitchen. What I liked about still life images is that they often told a story- it was interesting to see what objects other students would pick, and see how the same objects could be perceived in completely different ways.

Here's my recent 'crafter's still life':

day 33 of 365

fabric: Flea Market Fancy fat quarters (been sitting on these for nearly six months and still haven't been inspired...but I'm beginning to feel like sewing again so maybe they'll turn into something very soon)

black vintage button: from my mother in law's button collection, which was recently gifted to me

yarn: my own handspun; 100% Blue Face Leicester, two ply

minibook: memories from Little Man's first trip to the punkin patch (he was 18mos in that photo). the book is 4inx4in, and bound with ribbon

wooden tray: from a Melissa & Doug wooden farmhouse set that I got for Little Man when he was a wee one

I look at this image and it tells a story- one of a sometimes harried momma to two wonderous boys. A momma who aspires to crafty goodness and sometimes actually makes it!

the right time of year to visit D-Land

2007-02-01T23:05:00.000-08:00

It has been raining for the past couple of days and it looked like rain again this morning. So what did we do? We played hooky from school and work and went to Disneyland, because we locals know that crappy weather = the shortest lines & best times.

Today could not have been more perfect. First, the monorail (or "Spencer train" as Monkey Boy calls it) was finally operating again. So the small men were quite happy and so were the Dearest and I since that means we don't have to walk all the way thru Downtown Disney, or put up with the lines at the entrance. Woot!

The park was so empty that we basically walked onto every ride. The most we waited was about 10 minutes. Plus the employees/cast members were really easy going today. There was a lot of "Oh, you don't have get to get off when we're done. Go ahead and go again." The musical bands were out in force, too. I think we counted three bands in one circuit of Main Street!

Little Man was very interested in going on all the boat-ish rides: the ferry to Tom Sawyer's island was a hit. We spent quite some time on TSI, running over the bridges and into the caves. (LM wanted to know if the caves were haunted. When I assured him that they weren't, he was finally willing to go in.) Then Monkey Boy and LM saw the big Mark Twain steampship and wanted to go on that.

Because they weren't at all busy, we were able to go up to the wheelhouse! The small men were super excited to be '' the way up high". I think Monkey Boy's day was made when he was allowed to pull the whistle. Check out the short video clip:

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We hit a couple of more rides after that and then headed on home as it was getting late. We're already hoping for more gray and gloomy weather soon so we can go back in the next week or two.

And for this week's love thursday, may I present the photo edition:

::brothers::concentration::joy::

What are you loving this week?

obesssion

2007-01-30T22:44:00.000-08:00

day 30 of 365

the great yarn crawl of 2007 (LaLa Land episode)

2007-01-28T22:25:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, Chelle mentioned that she wanted to do a Mom's Day Out (where we mommas do something fun that doesn't involve the littles). Her plan was to get a bunch of us knitting/fibery types together and break through the Orange Curtain to visit some yarn shops in LA. She really wanted to visit the Black Sheep Knittery (and get away from the small ones for the day).

It turned out that the other ladies who wanted to attend couldn't make it for various reasons. So just Chelle and I jumped into the car for the trip to La La Land. She had directions to three different stores in the heart of LA, all within a few miles of each other. Our plan was to hit each store, have lunch at some point during the all the yarn-y goodness and then head on home. So here's my capsule review of the day:

Black Sheep Knittery: Located in the shadow of the Capitol Records building with some metered parking out front. Unfortunately we had a difficult time finding parking and ended up with a metered spot about a block away. The neighborhood is a mix of residential and small storefronts, so not much else was open.

The BSK is long and narrow, with a big table in the middle for classes or knitting meets. Yarn is in cubbies on two walls, with some placed in baskets or hung in the display windows. They also have a loft in the very back of the store...I didn't notice it till we had been inside for a while. We were greeted by a nice young lady as soon as we entered (tho she didn't introduce herself or ask if we needed any help). Yarn is organized by brand and somewhat by type. The two walls of cubbies held lots of wool and wool mixes: Debbie Bliss Cashmerino, Rowan Yarns, GGH, Blue Sky, Noro etc. They had a pretty nice selection of Koigu KPPPM and Lorna's Laces. Some yarns I hadn't seen before: Rio De Las Plata, a new Noro with sparklies (don't know the name), a twisted tape/rope Noro in a DKish weight, Blue Sky Organic Cottons.

Upstairs in the loft, there was a small couch and a big blue fluffy rug as well as most of the needles, knitting accessories and a small wall of cotton yarns. Patterns and pattern books were spread throughout the store. They have a 50% off clearance table next to the cash register with patterns, needles, older magazines and assorted small bags of yarn. There was a pretty large stack of sweater kits next to the stairs. I ended up buying Louisa Harding's Winter Muse Classics pattern book (like I need more pattern books, but I couldn't resist!).

Overall, the prices were fair, the store was pretty easy to navigate and they had a good selection of workhorse yarns, as well as some more expensive stuff like angora and cashmere. The shopgirl was very helpful as we were paying and even cheerily broke a $10 for some meter change (anyone who lives/works in the city knows how unusual that is).

Next we headed over to Suss Designs:
The store is located in a tonier section of LA, on Beverly Boulevard. There was a lot more retail here, so more foot traffic. Metered parking is available on the street in front of the shop, but we had to park around the corner in a residential street (free parking for 2hrs, no parking after 6pm without a permit).

A big, airy space with exposed brick walls and lots of yarn cubbies. Suss carries her own yarn line which includes merino wool, alpaca, cotton, and several blends. All of them were priced very competitively (for example: approx 200yds of nice alpaca in natural colors for $9.00). Books and patterns were placed in a central area & organized so it was easy to look through them. There are comfy chairs & couches in the main display area, a back room with a big table (for classes, I'm sure), and what looked like a coffee or wine bar in the back of the store.

Yarn was organized by type/brand and easy to browse through. Lots of sample swatches were tucked into the cubbies with the corresponding yarns. Needles and notions were all on one wall toward the back of the store. I saw: some Blue Sky Alpaca, Debbie Bliss, Lamb's Pride bulky & worsted, a big basket of Artyarns Supermerino, etc.. Yarns I hadn't seen before: Suss' entire line, the Artyarns, some GGH yarns. I'm not sure that I spotted any Noro, but it might have been there.

About a third of the store is dedicated to Suss' own line of knitted goods and fashion. Some of the sweaters were interesting, but I didn't really browse through the racks since that wasn't why I was there.

The only employee in the store was a very friendly and knowledgeable shopguy. Chelle was looking for yarn to match some handspun she had been gifted with, and the shopguy was helpful without being annoying. I was also impressed by his ability to help three people at once without getting flustered. Kudos to the shopguy for being so on the ball.

Finally we headed over to Knit Cafe, which is in another tony part of LA, very near the Beverly Center. Metered street parking is available (we parked about 1/2 a block away).

The store itself was quite small, but very charming. The shopgirl had a sweet (French?) accent & was helpful without being too pushy. There were some comfy chairs located in the center of the stores (they seemed to have a small sit n knit going when we got there), as well as a table in the front. There was a coffee bar in the rear of the store & another larger table in a back room.

Yarn in the cubbies included Colinette, Rowan, GGH, etc.. Needles & accessories were in a central spot on one wall. Pattern books and mags mostly clustered in near a shelf. I saw quite a few purse handles and buttons.

They had a lot of crocheted and knitted items out- I loved the tiny little crocheted cowboy boots and knitted cupcakes. Some of the yarn was displayed in old 50's style wooden cabinets. There was a small but decent selection of sock yarns (Regia Cotton Surf, Regia Crazy Color, etc.). I found a small stash of Colinette sock yarn and one of them said "Buy me", so I did. Prices overall were reasonable/competitive.

And that wrapped up our yarn crawl for the day. Since we were right near the Beverly Center, we headed over there to get some lunch and rest our wallets.

The only other eventful thing we saw today:

day 28 of 365

That's right: this is the only photo I took all day and it's of Bobby Trendy's 'shoppe' in LA. And let me tell you, I felt like quite the tourist holding my camera out of the sunroof for some drive-by photography. (I know I'm one sick puppy, but as soon as I saw the sign, I couldn't resist!)

So, that was our Mom's Day Out/Yarn Crawl. Thanks to Chelle for the great idea and we'll definitely have to do something like this again!

how to cause and cure a migraine

2007-01-28T00:08:00.000-08:00

Little Man is nearly five and somehow we have managed to prevent him from visiting Hell On Earth (aka Chuck E. Cheese). He's occasionally seen commercials about HOE/CEC, and now that he's in preschool some of his friends have told him about it. In the past few months he has asked several times if we could go to HOE/CEC for lunch so he can play games. I've always told him no, mostly because my one visit to HOE/CEC many years ago gave me an almost instant headache. I remember the place as being very dark, dingy, loud and dirty. So my motivation to go inside the local HOE/CEC was minimal.

But then we received a couple of birthday invites from some children in Little Man's preschool class. Both of them were for parties at HOE/CEC...one on Saturday (today) and one on Monday. Luckily my neighbor's daughter is in the same class so she was also invited, making it easy for us to swap watching the kids at the party. I took Little Man and Blondie to the party today, and my neighbor will take them on Monday.

I had braced myself for a repeat of my last HOE/CEC experience (this time including the fun of running after Monkey Boy, Little Man and Blondie). However, it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. The local HOE/CEC is actually very clean, well lit and has a huge bank of windows to let in lots of natural light. They had all kind of arcade games, including skee ball (remember that?):

And of course Monkey Boy loooooved the train/trolley (he probably spent 25 tokens just on this ride):

While Little Man greatly enjoyed this contraption:

All in all, the experience wasn't as bad I thought it was going to be. Unfortunately after about half an hour I started getting a nasty headache. By the time we left, I had a nice little souvenir: a migraine. ugh

Luckily the boys crashed when we got home and I was able to take a short nap. When the Dearest arrived home from his workout, we decided to head to our favorite Shabu Shabu restaurant for dinner so I wouldn't have to cook.

Shabu Shabu is a lot of fun: they give you a big plate of very thinly sliced meat, another big plate of raw veggies and a pot of hot water. You swish the veggies and meat around in the water to cook them, dip them in ponzu sauce and eat up.

day 27 of 365

The small men always love Shabu Shabu- even if they don't get to do any swishing themselves. Tonight Little Man was putting pieces of carrot on his chopsticks and "warming" them over the pot like he was roasting marshmallows.

Monkey Boy's favorite part of the meal is the 'ndoodless' or noodles. He's gotten pretty good at slurping them up:

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The Shabu Shabu was good enough to cure my migraine and I'm feeling ever so much better now. :) Off to bed, because tomorrow I'm doing a yarn crawl with the lovely Ms. Chelle. Maybe I'll even take some photos (ya think?).

new hair and housekeeping

2007-01-26T19:45:00.000-08:00

I went for a long overdue cut & color today. The ends of my hair were soooo fried from previous colorings and all the extremely low humidity we have had lately. So off when the dried, fried ends and in went some layers. I also got some very slight, wispy bangs.

I like it, but we'll see how it wears since I don't have time to blow my hair out daily.

#26 of 365

Now, onto the housekeeping:

Comments: I try really hard to reply to people's comments, but since I migrated to the new Blogger, I'm no longer receiving commenters' email addys. This means that unless the commenter has a *public* Blogger profile with a valid email addy, I can't reply. This is one of the reasons I wanted to install Haloscan for comments. Unfortunately, Haloscan does not play well with the new Blogger so we're back to missing email addys.

So in the meantime, if you would like a reply to one of your comments, please try to leave a valid email address.

And here are some answers to comments that I couldn't reply to via email:

hunny asked about tips for taking 'better photos', and what camera I use. I have two cameras- a small point & shoot (Canon a540) that I keep in my bag, and my work camera (Canon Digital Rebel) which is a DSLR. The P&S is what I use for snapshots, while most of my FO report photos are done with the DReb.

I personally do not believe that an expensive camera = better photos. There are things you can do with a DSLR & good lenses that you can't do with a point & shoot....but bigger megapixels and more $$ do not guarantee good photos. Most of good photography is understanding the light and how to make the best out of the light you have.

There are tons of books out there that will help: Understanding Exposure is a great, easy to read book. There is also The Digital Photography Book or The Betterphoto Guide to Better Digital Photography. All of these would be a good start.

And then there are the myriad photo sites on the web: Betterphoto, ILP, DpReview are just three of them. Flickr is home to some of the best photographers around...and there are plenty of forums to learn in.

Other than that, my biggest tip is start taking photos. Seriously! Take your camera out of "Auto" mode and put it in AV or TV. Turn off the flash (99% of my photos are taken with only natural light). Find a well lit window (no direct sunlight) and start taking photos of something that doesn't move. Have fun! Play with your camera settings and see what happens. A lot of learning to be a good photographer is about just taking pictures. Like so much else in life, a little practice will really help.

Ween wanted to know the yarn requirements for a size 4 Pirate Sweater from Zoe Mellor's book. The pattern calls for :
-4 (50g/94yd) balls of Rowan Handknit DK in main color (navy blue)
-2 balls each of A (red) and B (ecru) Rowan Handknit DK
-You also need a pair of US5 and US6 needles.

I don't much care for cotton, so I'm using Cascade 220 Superwash (220yds per 100g): 2 balls of the navy and one ball each of the other colors. The 220 is a worsted weight yarn so I'm also using bigger needles (US6 and US7).

LizK wanted to know what I think of the Swish Superwash I used for the small men's Drive Thru sweaters. So here is my Swish Superwash Review:

IMO Swish is pretty good stuff- it's softer than the Cascade 220 superwash I'm using right now. The price is about the same if you consider that the 220 comes in 100g balls and the Swish is in 50g balls. The only reason I went with the 220 for LittleMan's new pirate sweater is because the Swish doesn't have a white/offwhite color.

Both of the boys' sweaters have held up exceptionally well. I've washed LM's sweater at least six or seven times now and it still looks really good with minimal pilling. There has been a bit of felting around the cuffs and neck edges, but nothing too bad.

I also noticed that the yarn shrank a bit when I washed it the first time. SaunShine has an extensive review on her blog that talks about the actual amounts of shrinkage she experienced with Swish. The shrinking on my sweaters wasn't quite as severe**, and even with the shrinkage I'm not too concerned about the long-term wear of the yarn. It has held up quite nicely against all the abuse (and food) two little boys can dish out.

I would't hesitate to use Swish again for another project. I just wish Knitpicks would come out with better colors!

So, that's all the housekeeping for now....I'm off to enjoy some hot cocoa and my new hair.

**I think some of the differences in our experiences can be attributed to different washing machines, different water hardness & washing methods, etc.. We have a front load washing machine that requires very little water & detergent. It is also very gentle on clothing, which is probably why my sweaters didn't shrink as much as SaunShine's, and why they haven't pilled at all.

the start of something new & love thursday

2007-01-25T22:57:00.000-08:00

Another sweater for LittleMan:

A pirate sweater to match LM's Pirate Hat (click photo to see more info)

...and love thursday (better late than never)... loving:

-the GIANT bubbler I found at le Target:

day 24 of 365

Monkey Boy can finally make his own bubbles without making a mess all over me or himself. Plus this thing is so huge that it holds a whole bottle of bubbles- less time spent re-filling. It's about the size of a 1 gallon paint can!

-when the small men hold hands and walk together (I need a pic of this)

-the anticipation of *finally* getting my hair cut tomorrow

-good, runny, stinky cheese + crackers

-homemade minestrone soup

-handcrafted soaps (you gotta try the beer & honey or the java orange mint)

-hearing LittleMan ask for "hot chocolate & marshmallows, please" before bed

And what are you loving this week?

bubble-licious

2007-01-23T22:37:00.000-08:00

day 23 of 365

hang in there

2007-01-21T22:10:00.000-08:00

just a fyi- I'm wrestling with Blogger beta, which doesn't seem to like the changes I made to my previous template. I also tried installing Haloscan for comments, but now I can't get to any of the archived comments in Blogger.

*bangs head on desk*

Can y'all help a girl out and leave me a comment to make sure this damn thing is working? Does the blog layout look alright? I have Firefox and just want to make sure that all my tinkering didn't totally screw up the html for other browsers.

thank you much and we'll return you to your regularly scheduled program asap.

ps: LittleMan wanted me to 'put this on the computer', so here it is:

#21 of 365

ETA: Haloscan has been disabled until they figure out a way to install onto Blogger Beta without removing the exisiting comments.

a picture of someone else's dinner

2007-01-20T21:40:00.000-08:00

Super-knitter (blogless) Joyce told me the other night that she laughed to see photos of my dinner on my blog.

In her honor, I present a photo of someone else's dinner:

just step away from the mom jeans

2007-01-19T19:12:00.000-08:00

day#19 of 365

I've been feeling kinda dowdy lately. Like I'm wearing the same tshirts and jeans all.the.time. I've never been much of a fashionista, but the mommy uniform was starting to get me down.

After Christmas sales were a good place to pick up some fun boots, a couple of nice new jackets and accessories. But I was still looking for a good pair of jeans. Something in a darker denim so they could be dressed up if need be. Since the small men were hanging out with the babysitter today, I headed off to be the local mall to be Gapped, Nordstromed, and Hollistered to within an inch of my life.

Normally I buy my jeans at Old Navy (along with 90% of my wardrobe). Today I decided that I was NOT going to buy jeans at ON. So that meant I tried oh, about six THOUSAND pairs of jeans at practically every place in the mall that sold jeans. I finally found the perfect pair at Gap (it only took about three hours). Yay me!

Then I headed over to Nordstrom's lingerie department for some new bras, another item I was badly in need of updating. It's been about 4 yrs since I wore anything but nursing or soft cup bras. Let's just say that the 'girls' were not quite as perky as they should be after two pregnancies and nearly four years of nursing.

Nordstrom's always has the best Lingerie Ladies. They *really* know their stuff. As soon as I walked into the racks of lingerie, three LLs descended on me like a pack of tiny, impeccably dressed sparrows armed with measuring tapes. Twittering at me in soft, Eastern-European accented voices, they measured, poked and prodded, then led me into a dressing room. Half an hour later, after trying on a multitude of undewire, cross yer heart, padded, gelled and 'air-foamed' (wth?) undergarments, I emerged with The Perfect Bra.

The Perfect Bra cost almost as much as my first car, but it put the 'girls' back where they belong -above my navel. With the 'girls' in the right spot, I looked like I had lost 10lbs! In fact I looked so much better that I ended up wearing TPB out of Nordies. The Lingerie Ladies just nodded sagely and threw my tattered old bra straight into the trash. They'd seen it before.

sometimes the first cut isn't the cruelest

2007-01-19T09:09:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I took MonkeyBoy to have his hair cut for the first time. The Dearest has been after me (in a nice way) to do it, but I've been resisting. LittleMan got his first hair cut when he was only 18 mos. old, but he had very straight, fine hair that was growing out all spikey on his head. Since MB's hair is so curly, it was hard to see how long it was growing till just recently.

We've had super low humidity (along with record near freezing temps) for the past week, resulting in some crazy MonkeyBoy hair:

He kept running around, pushing his hair out of his eyes and saying "hair-cut? hair-cut?". The other day my neighbor (who has 3 girls) offered me a barrette to hold MB's back. We had a good laugh over that one, but I realized that he really did need a trim at least.

So off to the local kids' salon we went. MB did *great*. He's seen big brother get several haircuts, so MB was excited that it was finally his turn. He really enjoyed sitting in the car/chair, but once the cutting started he wasn't so sure about the whole thing. No tears, just some very concerned faces:

I told the stylist that I didn't want all the curls taken off. Just a trim to neaten things up. She seemed to know exactly what I was talking about and we're all happy with the finished product:

Stilly my curly-top...still my little baby!

love thursday

2007-01-18T09:04:00.000-08:00

First off, I had several people asking me about my opinions on the Swish superwash yarn I used to make the Drive Thru sweaters for the small men. I'm working on a real review-like post for that, so keep an eye out.

Now onto the things I'm loving this Thursday:

-warm basil beer bread, pungent with Welcome Ale and spread with Plugra

-Monkey Boy's trouble-making ways:

(he was busy "washing his hair" with a bottle of gel while I was trying to take the photos of Veste Everest. No wonder he was so quiet!)

-my new necklace from Little Put Books :

-Top Chef

-sleepy little men:

-watching Little Man set up a bunch of child-sized lounge chairs so he and all his friends could relax:

-time spent with my small men (how can I love them so much?)

-vegging in front of the TV and having the Dearest appear with a Drumstick for me (he's psychic like that)

-sipping hot vanilla creme coffee with milk

-stealing the Dearest's sweater to wear and feeling like he's hugging me all day because the sweater smells yummy like him

-new books to share with the small men

So, what are you loving this Thursday?

FO report- Veste Everest

2007-01-17T20:41:00.000-08:00

FO Report: "Veste Everest"
Started 03/06, finished 01/16/07
Pattern: "Veste Everest" (size 40in) by Veronik Avery in Fall 2005 IK
Yarn: My own handspun; Brown Alpaca and silk plied with Chocolate Cherries roving handdyed by Lori Lawson (alpaca, silk & merino). Approx 850yds of light worsted weight yarn.
Needles: Addi Turbos for the body, Knitpicks Options for the neck and arm bindings
Pattern Talk: Like most Interweave patterns, this one was well written and easy to follow. The cable was a simple series of repeats. I had no problems following the pattern, or making modifications to it.

My Mods: I lengthened the body by about 2 inches by doing extra repeats of the cable pattern on the front. The pattern calls for cabling on the back, but I figured that would be waste of time & effort (plus I'd have to spin more yarn) because no one looks at the back of a piece. So instead I did a simple 6x2 ribbing across the back. I fudged the math a little to make the back the same size as the front, but it all worked out. Since I changed the back, it took me *forever* to finish- I had to do more math to make the neck and shoulders fit the front correctly. I'm so math-adverse that I put the work aside for months instead of just jumping in and finishing it. If I'd done that, the vest would have been completed within a couple of months of starting it, instead of taking nearly a year to finish.

Overall, I'm really pleased with the way the vest fits. The cables look great in my handspun, too.

With all the silk and alpaca, this vest is super warm. I don't know if I'll be wearing it with any long sleeved shirts any time soon! I do like the finished product a lot, though, and it's really cool to have produced a complete garment from my handspun.

FO report- Visiting the Drive Thru again

2007-01-15T19:07:00.000-08:00

FO Report: "Drive Thru, aka Quicko Cheapo" sweater from Wendy at Knit and Tonic
Started 01/02/07, finished 01/15/07
Pattern: "Drive-Thru" sweater by Wendy at Knit & Tonic, Size 2yrs
Yarn: Swish superwash in Sand Dune, Jade, Aloe and Dublin
Needles: Clover dpns for the sleeves and collar, Knitpicks Options circ for the body

I've knit this sweater once already, so most of the info regarding modifications and pattern talk can be found here.

The only real difference between this sweater and the one I made for Little Man is the collar: I didn't rib this collar at all. Instead, I did the short rows on the back and then finished it off in stockinette so it rolls a bit:

Also, I had some difficulty with mattress-stitching the armholes shut. For some reason, there was a lot of puckering around the armholes this time. I didn't run into that with Little Man's sweater. When I was trying to fix the first armhole, I accidentally unknit part of the sweater (woops!). My 'repair' is kinda ugly, but it's on the backside of the sweater so I'm not going to stress about it too much. If it really bugs me while Monkey Boy is wearing it, I might end up tearing out the ugly grafting I did and reknit the area. But I have a feeling that MB will outgrow this sweater before I get too worked up about the patch.

ETA: More photos of Monkey Boy actually wearing the sweater. I couldn't pick just one cuz he's just too cute LOL

fits perfectly!

other views:

in which a monkey rides a bike

2007-01-14T21:27:00.000-08:00

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(keep in mind, this kiddo just turned two. the little bugger is keeping me on my toes! also, did you catch those train noises!? LOL can you say "train obsession?)

And thanks to all the lurkers who posted comments or emailed. :) It's nice to know you're all out there!

love thursday & a request

2007-01-11T09:05:00.000-08:00

this thursday, I'm loving:

-coming home to the smell of fresh baked choco chip cookies, especially if I didn't have to make them! (thanks, Dearest!)

-cool winter weather

-Little Man coming home from a playdate with the little neighbor girl, covered in glittery makeup (neighbor girl got play makeup for Christmas!). Hearing LittleMan tell me about how they played dress up and he was dressed 'like a regular person'.

-finding great books by reading other blogs. The small men are loving "Poetry Speaks to Children" and so am I. The illustrations are great fun and there are some rollicking poems in the book. We haven't even listened to the CD yet and the book has already become a favorite.

-on-line shopping! I hit all the great on line stores for after-Christmas sales and got some cool deals. The UPS guy is at my house practically every day now, as the packages roll in. On-line shopping: I can do it while the small men play, in the comfort of my own home and not have to drag them out to the mall. Throw in great deals and free shipping: What *isn't* there to love?

-finishing a project (Little Man's Pirate Hat) and starting another (socks for me). Love that feeling of expectation and excitement when I'm casting on.

-feeling not-sick after a month and a half of everyone being ill

-lunch out with the small men...they are getting big enough now that I can take them both to a restaurant and half-way enjoy a meal.

-playing trains with Monkey Boy:

photo #10 of 365

-the anticipation of an upcoming date night with the Dearest

What are you loving this week?

Oh, and in case you haven't hit an announcement about National Delurking Week anywhere else, here's mine:

(graphic courtesy of Life with 4 Kids)

So you lurkers out there, leave me a comment! No more lurking! At least not for the rest of this week. :)

dinner out

2007-01-09T21:43:00.000-08:00

first day back on the school schedule
first day back with swimming lessons
still cleaning up from the party
4pm and no idea what to make for dinner
I polled the men and they voted for Spaghetti Factory
so we had dinner out:

FO report- Pirates Hat!

2007-01-08T18:46:00.000-08:00

Little Man is really into pirates. He has a bunch of Playmobil pirates and a pirate ship that he plays with on a daily basis. The dialogue he makes up for the pirates is always fun to listen to- one pirate is usually a bad guy and another pirate is the good guy. They swordfight, swing from the ropes of the ship and eventually make friends so they can dig for the treasure together.

With LM's interest in pirates, I knew I had to make this hat as soon as I saw the pattern:

FO Report:
Pattern: "We Call Them Pirates" by Helloyarn, one size
started 12/15/06, finished 01/08/07
Yarn: Knitpicks' Telemark in black (master color) and cream (contrast color), one ball of each
Needles: Knitpicks' Options, size 3 circ. Balene size 3 DPNs
My Take: This was my first ever colorwork piece. It was actually pretty easy once I got the hang of knitting with the master color in my right hand & the contrast color in my left. I normally knit English, btw. It was difficult in the beginning to know how much yarn to leave for the floats on the back of the work. Plus my tension when knitting Continental is pretty wonky. So there are some pucker-y parts....but I think it looks alright anyway.

The pattern itself is well written. It calls for a provisional cast on at the brim, then you knit in 1x1 rib for a bit, then start the colorwork. Decreases (k2tog and ssk) are done in pattern at the top. After the hat is completed, you pick up the live sts on the provisional cast on and knit a lining on smaller size needles, which is finally tacked to the inside of the hat.
My only complaint is that the colorwork chart is SUPER confusing since it is in black and white: the master color is shown as white squares and the contrast color is shown as black squares. Unfortunately the MC I used is black, & the CC was white....so it was totally opposite of the chart (when I saw white squares, I needed to use black yarn). There was a lot of cussing before I finally decided to scan in the chart, reverse the colors and reprint it so white was white and black was black. MUCH better.

My Mods: Different yarn. Decided that the provisional cast on /lining was a lot of extra work & not really needed in So.Cal. (never gets that cold here anyways). Instead I did a cable cast on, knit in 1x1 rib for an inch or so and then started the colorwork.

I was running out of black/master color by the time I got to the top and so I had to skip the in-pattern decreases. Adding a few rows of plain white/contrast color enabled me to finish the hat with about one foot of black yarn to spare!

Originally I thought I'd have to felt the hat a bit to make it fit Little Man's head, but he has such a huge noggin that it fits just fine as is. It's quite stretchy and even fits Monkey Boy (tho it has a bit of a conehead effect):

All in all, a fun and pretty quick knit. This pattern is a great introduction to two color knitting, and it's easy enough for any intermediate knitter to follow. If you don't know how to knit with one color in each hand, this would be the perfect pattern to learn on.

we survived!

2007-01-06T19:12:00.000-08:00

the mega-birthday party, that is.

I woke up at 7:30 this morning and immediately got to work. I had a little list of things to do (start crockpot meatballs [which take 3hrs to cook], tidy the kitchen, decorate the cakes, pre-heat the oven, take a shower, etc. etc. The party didn't start till 10:30am so I thought three hours would be enough time.

Boy, was I wrong!

First off, I received a phone call from my dad's ex-girlfriend-who-is-marrying-someone-else-but-still-his-roomie/caretaker (don't ask) exactly three minutes after I rolled out of bed. She proceeded to talk my ear off for nearly 45 minutes. Without going into a bunch of really boring and depressing family stuff, suffice it to say that it was a highly aggravating phone call. Not the way I would like to start the day- especially since I wasted 45 precious minutes!

After peeling my ear from the phone and doing some deep breathing to calm myself down, I started decorating the cakes. I ended up making two complete trains, one that I made "girly" for Ms. Izzy:

The other one I made "boy-ey" for Monkey Boy:

I think they turned out pretty good, considering I've never taken a cake decorating class (tho that might be something I'm going to sign up for shortly). The first set of cakes I baked last night were waaaay too sticky and wouldn't come out of the pan. I learned my lesson and made sure to spray the pan liberally with baking spray; the second set of trains popped out perfectly formed. Woot!

It was actually a lot of fun decorating the cakes. For Ms. Izzy's cake, I used lots of pink sprinkles, different colors of icing, strips of rainbow sour candy, and homemade buttercream icing to hold it all together. Monkey Boy's cake included Twizzlers, rainbow sprinkles, black licorice and more buttercream icing. I was really happy to find rock candy sticks for the funnels, too. The largest rectangular trays I had weren't big enough for the trains so I ended up using circular ones. The white stuff is shredded coconut; the tracks are made out of green sour candy.

Decorating the cakes took a longer than I thought- especially since I had 'helpers'. The small men had to taste test all the candy, try sticking their fingers in the icing and climb up on my stool every time I stood up to get something. At one point Monkey Boy tried running away with one of the half decorated train cars.

In fact I was so busy that I was shocked to look at the clock and see "9:47am". Yikes! The Dearest was occupied blowing up balloons and playing with the small men. I was was still unshowered, had to vacuum up all the sprinkles Monkey Boy had spilled on the kitchen floor, and clean up the kitchen.

Luckily, Chelle (Miss Izzy's mom) showed up and was able to do some of the cleaning for me so I could actually be presentable when the guests started arriving. Thanks to her & the Dearest, everything was taken care of by the time I came back downstairs with my face on.

Guests started arriving, and then suddenly the entertainment showed up:
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The kids really enjoyed riding on the train. It went around our neighborhood about 50 times- and a couple of the grownups jumped aboard too. Every time the train stopped, all the kids would jump out and run to another car so they could sit in a different seat. It was hilarious. Monkey Boy loved, loved, loved the train- he was sad to see it go but we distracted him with the offer of cake. It was time to blow out some candles:

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So the kids ate the train cakes and we big people had cookies & cream cheesecake with a garnish of cream puffs for dessert. Yummmmm.

People started leaving after dessert, which was perfect because it was time for Monkey Boy's nap. Lots of photos were taken, everyone laughed and the kids played together without too much fighting. All in all, a great party and a really fun day.

I'm glad we went 'all out' for this party, since I failed to celebrate Monkey Boy's first birthday at all (I know, I know: bad mommy!). He might even remember this party- when I was rocking with him tonight, he kept telling me about "Thom-y" and "ride" "train" "fast" and "Gwam-ma"...in other words- "Riding the Thomas the train fast with Grandma." I have a feeling he'll be dreaming about it tonight, too.

doing, doing, done?

2007-01-05T22:12:00.000-08:00

doing:

#5 of 365/photo a day

Tomorrow we are having a birthday party for two precious little ones: our Monkey Boy and his cousin, I. Monkey Boy will be celebrating his 2nd birthday; I. will be turning 1 year old. Because their birthdays are very close together, we decided to throw them a combined party.

Since MB is obsessed with trains and dinosaurs, that's our theme. The above image is the new cake pan I got from Williams Sonoma, along with a photo of what the cake will eventually look like (I hope!). Wish me luck!

doing:

Playing with my new moo cards. I lurrrve these cute little cards and can't wait to start handing them out to people. I was surprised at how nice and thick the cardstock is, as well as how great the images look on the cards. They are just gorgeous and this photo above doesn't do them justice.

My cards include some work photos, some yarny photos and some photos of the small men. I'm planning on using them as business cards & calling cards to hand out at playdates or whenever someone asks for my # or email addy. They are so cool that I made a little collage out of them for the front of our fridge. I had to use removable scrapbooking adhesive since our fridge is stainless steel and magnets don't stick. It's fun to catch a glimpse of some of my favorite things every time I open the door.

done:
upgrading to the 'new' blogger!
This is my first post with the upgraded blogger- hopefully all is going to continue working well. Let me know if you all have any problems. I'm going to start playing with the template again, so don't be surprised if things look different around here!

Now....off to get some sleep so I can wake up bright and early to decorate cakes, clean house, cook appetizers and get ready for the arrival of the guests tomorrow. G'night!

love thursday

2007-01-04T09:14:00.000-08:00

Today is cold and dreary....looks like rain but I doubt there will actually be any. Weather aside, here's what's I'm loving this week:

-recipes off the internet; I've found so many great, yummy recipes by consulting the great Google god. With such a huge variety of recipes to choose from and an almost instant way to sort them, I've pretty much given up on using my cookbooks. Yesterday in a fit of purging, I cleaned off the bookshelf in the kitchen, boxing up all the cookbooks except one or two favorites. Boy there those books dusty. I guess it's been a while since I've used them!

-purging our stuff. It feels great to look over a formerly cluttered shelf and see it clean & organized. Our house will never be model clean, but I prefer 'homey' over 'musuem-like' any day.

-homemade buttermilk biscuits, warm from the oven & spread with Plugra.

-playdates

-taking the boys to get our 'popcorn popped' aka going to the chiropractor. Monkey Boy always laughs and laughs when he's getting adjusted- he says it "twickels". Little Man claims that he is taller when he leaves the chiro's office.

-fresh blueberries

-warm sheets out of the dryer; even better is pulling on a warm pair of jeans out of the dryer!

-listening to Little Man count as he gives me 15 kisses in a row

-my "little helper"; LM has been taking the ornaments off the tree and putting them in a pile to 'help' me clean up:

-hanging out with friends at LPK on Wednesday nights. Great conversations, funny ladies and lots of laughs. The uninterrupted knitting time is a bonus.

-Monkey Boy's fascination with big shoes:

What are you loving this thursday?

things i want to do

2007-01-02T09:11:00.005-08:00

I've never been one for making New Year's resolutions...I find it silly to resolve to do something when you know that you won't be able to keep the resolution longer than a few weeks (or days, even!). But I do think about the things I'd like to change in the new year, and here are mine for Aught Seven:

-take a photo a day. The results will be posted on my Flickr stream since I doubt most of you will want to see a photo every day here.

-get more creative with my photography. Take the time to stop and catch images that I normally don't. Alot of this has to do with the fact that I always have the small men with me. It's really hard to pull over, jump out of the car and take photos when the kiddos are screaming in the back. Kinda kills the inspiration, y'know? But I want to make the effort this year.

-spin more. My poor spinning wheel hasn't been touched in at least four months. She looks pretty forlorn sitting in the corner of the office. I have some really lovely rovings that are just dying to be spun up so I need to start spinning again.

-get rid of some of the clutter in my life. It seems like every surface in our house is covered with stuff, most of which is never going to be used. I've already started purging the toys and it feels good to see all the empty shelves.

-knit a lace shawl. The Dearest got me Victorian Lace Today for Christmas. It's so inspiring to look through the book and see all the gorgeous shawls & scarves. I really want to knit at least one project from this book.

Those are the biggest things I'd like to get done this year. No really resolutions, more like good intentions.

What are your good intnentions this year?

more from NYE 2006

2007-01-01T15:11:00.000-08:00

For NYE, we attended the annual neighborhood progressive party and ate waaaay too much delicious food. There were three stops: appetizers, main dishes, and desserts. By the time I got to main dishes, I was already full from all the scrumptious appetizers. I managed to shovel in a bit more yummy tortellini....and of course I was able to find a bit more room for the desserts.

A couple more snaps from the party...

my little party goer

this photo cracks me up because R is holding both sippies AND booze

desserts YUM

watching the ball drop in NYC at 9pm local time (perfect for the kiddos)

more 'snow'!

more pics here if you're interested.

And what did we do on the first day of 2007?

cleaned the kitchen

took down the lights

played

I think this evening will involve dinner, playtime with the kiddos and maybe even some knitting. Hope your first day of 2007 is wonderful, too.

happy new year!

2006-12-31T22:39:00.000-08:00

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Snow on New Years Eve? in Southern California? Yup!

all the fam-damily

2006-12-30T22:37:00.000-08:00

We visited with the Dearest's side of the family today....he comes from a rather large Irish Catholic clan (he's #9 of 10 kids). When they get together, it is always a loud, fun and exhausting day. There were easily 30 adults at the party, at least six or seven teens and a whole passel of little kids.

Little Man and Monkey Boy loved playing with all their cousins. It's interesting to watch the older kids showing the young ones how to play....

Also fun to see the teenager who is 'too cool' take the time to blow bubbles for the littles....

There were cupcakes, gifts for the birthday girl, and lots of running around. I'm sure SIL's house is a sticky mess, but it was worth it to see everyone having so much fun. Thanks, A, for having us all over!

Finally, a photo of Little Man and Monkey Boy on their favorite toy of the day, a red plastic slide...

Some more photos here.

happy birthday to the monkey

2006-12-29T23:10:00.000-08:00

newborn monkey:

2yr old monkey:

happy happy day to my littlest monkey man!!!

love thursday (the holiday edition)

2006-12-28T09:48:00.000-08:00

loving-

- making cookies with the boys for gift giving

-listening to Little Man explain to Monkey Boy how the gears on the train set work

-the sweet, luscious smell of top of Monkey Boy's head when I'm rocking him to sleep

-gift cards (new boots for free! woot!)

-being lucky enough to have a wonderful MIL (mother in law) who will watch the small men for a couple of hours so I can hit the mall for after-Christmas shopping

-my new jacket

-the smell of bread baking

-hearing the wind and rain on the windows while I'm snuggled under a quilt with my knitting, watching a Law & Order, CI marathon

-my lil' photog:

-the Dearest (who uncomplainingly put up with my crazy family all year long)

-clean kitchen counters (we'll see how long that lasts)

-my new iPod dock for the van- thanks to the Dearest who was probably tired of hearing me complain about not being able to use my iPod while driving. Love it- now I can listen to audiobooks in the car, too.

And what are you loving this thursday?

FO Report

2006-12-27T09:31:00.000-08:00

FO Report: Monkey Boy's Christmas Eve Sweater
started Dec. 12, 2006, finished Dec. 22, 2006
Pattern: from Mrs. Bea's Rainy Day, size 2yrs
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Cashmerino (5.5 balls)
Needles: Addi Turbos (US7), Crystal Palace Bamboo (US8), Crystal Palace Bamboo DPNs (US8), cable needle
Pattern talk: This is an easy pattern that produces a lovely sweater. The pattern calls for cabling on the front, back and sleeves. Each main cable is bracketed by a purled diamond repeat:

The pattern is really well written and they provide a chart that's color coded for each size (red is size 2, blue is size 4, etc.). I used stitch markers to make sure I didn't get off on my count, but the repeat is very easy to remember and at the end I wasn't looking at the chart nor the pattern.

The front, back and sleeves are all knit separately. The shoulder seams are joined with a three-needle bindoff on the public side, creating a decorative ridge a the shoulder. Sleeves are set in and seamed, then the sides are seamed. Finally, the neck is picked up and knitted.

My Changes: I decided not to cable the back of the sweater (who looks at the back?). I also didn't rib the neckline. I just followed the pattern on the front and let it curl. Though if I had to do it again, I would probably rib the neck so it doesn't curl over.

I'm super happy with how the sweater turned out. It was a quick, fun knit and I like the way the Cashmerino cabled so nicely. One ball of yarn had a knot in the middle (urgh), which is crazy annoying, especially since Cashmerino isn't cheap! I ended up having to join yarn in the middle of the row and you can see that if you look closely at the photos above. Check out the left shoulder-ish area, near the sleeve seam. I washed the sweater again after these photos and the yarn relaxed a bit so it's not nearly so visible now. Other than that, I'm really pleased with the FO!

the madness descends (an epic post)

2006-12-26T15:00:00.000-08:00

As the child of divorced parents, I spent most of my teen and early adult years celebrating two Christmases: my mom would do Christmas Eve and we'd have Christmas day with my dad. Things got hecka more complicated when the Dearest and I got married- I remember one year we were at my Mom's on C.Eve till midnight, then up at 9am to go to my Dad's, then we hit the In-Law's house at 2pm. It was all a bit much.

Once we had kids, we tried scaling things back. We still did C. Eve at my mom's and at least one Christmas Day celebration with family. One year we did my Dad's house, the next year we went to the In-Laws'. But as Little Man got older (and we added Monkey Boy to the mix), it got harder and harder for us to make it out of the house on Christmas Day. The kids really didn't want to leave their new toys behind to be dragged to someone else's house for a turkey dinner.

So we decided that we'd still to Christmas Eve with my mom and we'd spend Christmas Day at our home, making our own traditions as a family. The Dearest's parents are very understanding of this and don't expect us to make it on Christmas Day (tho we will be attending a huge family gathering later this week involving all the out-laws....probably 30-40 people).

My Dad, on the other hand, is another matter. His health is getting progressively worse and he hasn't had a driver's license in at least 5 yrs. We always make the effort to include him in our Christmas Day, but he often pulls his passive-aggressive act and refuses to play along. Some years we can talk him into attending and some years he begs off. When he does attend, it involves the Dearest going to pick him up & drop him off....a trip of nearly an hour each way. Bless the Dearest- he never complains about my crazy relatives!

All of this is a long-winded explanation of why I have so many photos to share. So here goes:

Christmas Eve:
We had a visit from "Santa" (aka our neighbor Frank). All of the neighborhood kids were gathered at one home and Santa rang the doorbell....

yummy cupcakes and Christmas decor

little man enjoys a cupcake

monkey boy meets Santa (photo courtesy of Jen)

Then it was off to Grandma P's house for a traditional turkey dinner and much gifting:

"it was a hit and we didn't even take it out of the box"

monkey boy's favorite gift

Back home for a late night....boys wanted to play with their new toys! So they were up till 10:30pm. Monkey Boy did NOT want to go to bed without his train & ended up falling asleep with the train in his arms.

Christmas morning was filled with fun surprises, including seeing Santa's footprints in front of the fireplace. Little Man said we should be very careful that we didn't get any of the magic powder on our feet because it would make us fly like Santa's reindeer.

And this:

was very quickly reduced to a pile of torn paper and empty boxes. (more Christmas photos here) Monkey Boy's favorite gift involves his trainset:

While Little Man is really enjoying his new Leapster games:

The small men were quite spoiled but loved every minute of it and so did I! Christmas is ever so much more fun with little ones.

ETA: I will be posting a FO report on Monkey Boy's sweater tomorrow (or maybe tonight if I get to it).

all aboard the cookie train

2006-12-25T18:56:00.000-08:00

lots & lots of photos from Christmas Eve & Christmas day. An epic photo post upcoming. Another FO report on Monkey Boy's sweater upcoming.

This for now:

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do you hear what i hear?

2006-12-24T21:25:00.000-08:00

small men in handknit sweaters
ready for christmas eve at grandma's house

merry christmas to all!

merry christmas from the two hyperactive elves

2006-12-22T20:00:00.000-08:00

truth in advertising

2006-12-21T18:03:00.000-08:00

Wendy over at Knit & Tonic has a cool pattern for kids called the "Drive-Thru" sweater. The pattern says it's a quick & easy knit- something that's great for kids because they grow so fast. I really liked the intarsia-ish yoke because it's not too girly but still provides some fun color. So I bought the pattern and the yarn and after about a week of knitting, produced this:

(the serious pose)

FO Report:
Started 12/08/06, finished 12/19/06
Pattern: "Drive-Thru" sweater by Wendy at Knit & Tonic, Size 6yrs
Yarn: Swish superwash in Copper, Baby Blue, Capri and Deep Ocean
Needles: Clover dpns for the sleeves and collar, Knitpicks Options circ for the body

My mods: I pretty much followed the pattern as written. It's knit from the waist up, then you knit each sleeve and add them onto the body (leaving a hole at the 'armpit' area that is later mattress stitched together). The colorwork is super easy and the most fun part of the whole sweater. Luckily I know how to knit both Continental and English at the same time, allowing me to knit with one color in each hand so the colorwork went very quickly. But even if you don't know how to knit with two colors, there's only a few rows of color knitting involved so it's not that difficult.
Had a couple of issues with my short rows on the back- I'm never good at short row-ing on the purlside of a garment. There were some pretty ugly holes that I was convinced I'd have to duplicate stitch over, but somehow they disappeared when the whole thing was washed. Yay!

The only difficulty I really had was binding off loosely enough for the sweater to fit over Little Man's enormous noggin. My first try at binding off (done with a needle two sizes bigger than the one called for) was way too tight. So I tried again with an even bigger needles and leaving lots of yarn with each cast off stitch. That seemed to work and it fit snuggly over LM's head. I went ahead and washed the sweater last night. Then, when I tried to get it on LM this morning for the photos, it wouldn't come anywhere close to fitting. Evidently it had shrunk a bit in the wash. While he was away at school, I picked out the cast off edge (and noted that Swish, even tho it's superwash, still felted a bit at the CO...it was quite a chore to pick out) and cast off a third time with the lace castoff. This gave me a very stretchy bind off and it fit with no problems over my small man's huge blockhead (he takes after me in the big-headedness dept.). Wendy's pattern does say that one should bind off "very loosely"....and she means it!

All in all, a great pattern and I'm already working on a second sweater for Monkey Boy in different colors. The Swish yarn is great- I love that it's superwash. It's quite soft and it hasn't pilled or fuzzed after two washes (I partially machine dried the sweater then laid it out to dry completely). Little Man says he really likes wearing it, too. It's "soft, not itchy":

This is going to be his Christmas Eve sweater....I'm still working on Monkey Boy's (stuck on sleeve island LOL). If I get MB's done in time, I'll post the photos of the small men wearing them together.

thanks for all the good wishes

2006-12-20T22:22:00.000-08:00

I am feeling ever so much better.

Not 100% yet, but today is a vast improvement over yesterday. The Dearest said he knew I was feeling bad yesterday when I called him around noon and begged him to come home early.

I've been taking it easy today....the only thing I really had to do was carpool the kids to school. That wasn't too bad, and I was able to rest most of the day. Unfortunately the house has really suffered- I shudder every time I go down to the kitchen. Sometimes I don't know what's worse- being sick or having to clean up the mess after I've been sick? I'm putting off the big cleanup till tomorrow.

Plus there's still the issue of Christmas gifts to make. I have three more tote bags to throw together for the neighborhood kids. I'm hoping to make those tomorrow night when I have a little more energy. Other than that, my Christmas shopping is done. Tho I will have to hit the local big-box store on Friday for last minute supplies (I don't even want to go near that place Saturday or Sunday). Maybe I'll be recovered enough by then to brave the crowds.

And thank you for all the get well wishes I got thru comments and emails....I thinkthat good energy has definitely helped me get better faster.

sick

2006-12-19T13:32:00.000-08:00

teeth hurt from sinus pressure
monkey boy has croup - woke me up at 1am (right after i fell asleep in little man's room) with that lovely croupy cough. spent 20 minutes in the steamy bathroom and put him back to bed with the humidfier on high
woke up at 7:30am and spent the entire morning on the couch while the small men watched massive amounts of tv
slept fitfully to the tune of Lazy Town and Maisy
woke up at 11am, realizing that little man has lunch bunch today and needed a lunch so he could leave at 11am
crammed together a lunch and took little man to the neighbors while wearing my pjs
monkey boy followed behind wearing one shoe and his footie pjs
spent another hour & half sleeping while monkey boy watched Polar Express
gave mb crackers & choco milk for lunch
just put mb down and realized i have so. much. to. do. and no energy to do it
going back to bed

wake me up with i'm well.

kids' christmas crafty-ness

2006-12-16T13:32:00.000-08:00

Have you been to visit Kiddley yet? I've been subscribed to the feed for months now and am always inspired by their crafting projects. December has been filled with one great crafty idea after another.

When I saw these 'dolls', I knew the small men would enjoy making some. I printed them out, two to a sheet, and put out some cut up scraps of Christmas themed paper, yarn, glitter glue and markers. Little Man spent quite some time cutting and gluing pieces of paper to his 'doll'- he had to get the 'clothes' to fit just right. Monkey Boy was more interested in eating the glue sticks & using his scissors to cut little flaps of paper, but the project held their attention for over an hour. Here are LM's finished ornaments:

(unfortunately, MB cut his little doll up so we don't have a FO to show for him!)

The boys crafted long enough for me to stamp and address all our Christmas cards, as well as start some bread in the bread machine. We've had our bread machine for years; when we first got it, I used it all the time. But after the little ones came along I pretty much stopped baking. However, I've been having the craving for freshly made bread lately so I broke out the bread machine, dusted it off and threw in some ingredients. MB was quite interested in the whole process...

bread success!

2006-12-16T13:12:00.000-08:00

Well, my bread machine failed me today. The loaf of bread it produced was shaped like a bowling ball and just as dense. Not so much toothsome as toothbreaking! I think the machine waaay over kneaded the dough so it didn't rise much.

I was so disappointed with the outcome that I went online and found a recipe for Crusty White Bread and started another loaf right away. I used my Kitchenaid stand mixer instead of the bread machine to do the dough. After rising and being baked,the bread turned out perfectly:

The recipe I used was pretty good- the bread is nice and crusty with a soft interior. It's quite tasty, too (some white bread recipes are sooooo bland!). We'll see if the loaf makes it to the morning so I can find out how it tastes the next day. If it's still good, I might end up making a couple of loaves every week for sandwiches and such.

love thursday, one day late...

2006-12-15T10:27:00.000-08:00

loving:

-cool Fall days and foggy nights

-rainy evenings

-Wendy's Drive Thru pattern (I'll post photos of the WIP later)

-the sound of laughter as the small men chase each other through the hallway

-handknit socks

-finishing my Christmas shopping online (now all I have to do is sit back and wait for the packages to roll in...much better than fighting the crowds)

-Trader Joe's fish sticks & homemade tartar sauce

-how the Dearest bathes the small men every night so I can clean up the kitchen and get some 'me' time

-exuberance:

more photos here

-finding the small men engrossed in their Leapsters after I get out of the shower:

Yarn ahoy!

2006-12-14T09:14:00.000-08:00

Ahoy! Intrepid Yarn Aboard2 explorers Lewis and Clark showed up at my doorstep yesterday, bearing many goodies from the wonderful Margene at Zeneedle. There were so many goodies that I can't believe the box actually shut! So here is the haul-

beautifully packaged with a little card

a cute little fabric pocket stuffed with a noepad, fun post-its,
yummy mints and a Yarn Aboard-themed file from Carolina Homespun
(Margene, how did you know that I'm always looking for a nail file?)

cuticle cream (my cuticles definitely needed this!) and bath salts

sweetly decorated candies (I had to hide from the small men) and a fun
sheepy ornament (already hanging on the tree)

beautiful fabrics for the stash

Christmas-y lollies for the small men
(they were eaten within moments of this photo being taken)

and the grande finale:

a skein of Socks that Rock in Dutch Canyon- luscious colors and the yarn is so soft!
Can't wait to get knitting on this!

Margene, thanks again for all the wonderful goodies!!! And thanks to Amanda for making this swap possible!

Now, my turn to pack Lewis & Clark up and send them on their way....who will they visit next?