Not some pictures

If I could get the downstairs computer to work, here’s where I’d be showing you pictures of some of the things I knitted for Christmas.  Also, there’s the small problem of I was so sick I completely forgot to take pictures of most of the things before I wrapped them.  I actually remember thinking at the time, “Oh, it’s ok – I’ll just take pictures when the person opens it, and puts it on/plays with it, etc.”

 

In other news, I at least finished some things.  A pair of lounge pants for Christopher,  and a hat for David that’s almost done.  Assuming the boys cooperate and take at least part of their naps at the same time, I can do the decrease rounds on that real quick and be done.  Just in time too – it’s finally supposed to snow this evening!

 

Actually, as I go through my projects on Ravelry, I see there are quite a few that I don’t have pictures for.  I’m thinking perhaps  photo shoot is in order.  I bet if I ask the right boy with the right bribery, I can get one of them to do it for me.  Now to just print off a list of what all I need pictures of.  And make some brownies.  Brownies make excellent bribery material, or so I hear.  Not that I’ve even done that or anything.

What are you going to try today?

“Those who try to do something and fail are infinitely better than those who try to do nothing and succeed.”
- Lloyd Jones

 

I’m going to try to eat 25 cookies and knit all day. Even if I fail by eating only 2 cookies and knitting for an hour, that’s better than nothing, right?  I mean, at least I tried…

Christmas Break goes way too fast…

Here it is, the first business day of the new year, and I realized last night that I only have 2 more days until my kids go back to school!  Is it odd that I’m sad?  Once again, there were so many things I wanted to do with them that we just never had the time to do.  We did make one gingerbread house, our practice one we called it.  Cause, frankly, it’s horrible.  I told the kids that since this kit was 4 or 5 years old, we’d practice on it, and then I’d make a batch of my mom’s sugar cookie dough and we’d make our “real” one out of that.  And there are a couple more batches of cookies that didn’t get made, and ornaments that never got crafted, and we won’t even mention the laundry that didn’t get done, or the floors that didn’t get washed, or the other chores that didn’t get done.  I gave away those presents so quickly I even forgot to get pictures of them!

 

When I look back on this Christmas, what am I going to remember?  All the stuff we didn’t get to do, or all the stuff we did get to do?  Like going down to Frisco to visit Aunt Debbie and Uncle Phil and cousins Abigail and Austin.   And the boys getting to spend Christmas with their FL grandpa (Steve’s dad) for the first time in 3 years.  Abigail and the boys making mint chocolate crinkles and getting powdered sugar ALL over the table.  Staying up until 2 am Christmas morning to finish Phil’s hat.  Driving to 2 different Toys R Us’ so that Christmas wouldn’t be ruined.  Steve leaving his phone on a cart corral outside one of them.  For an hour.  In the rain.  And panicking when we realized it was gone, calling the store, no one had turned it in, we drove back anyway, and it was gone.  Steve went inside the store and some angel had turned it in!  (Maybe now Steve’ll get a holster.)  Getting so sick on Christmas day night that I ended up throwing up in a bathtub while sitting on the toilet.  Fun times.  Watching Austin and Christopher share their toys with Nathan.  Seeing everyone play together.  Going to a Christmas Eve service all together.  Phil driving us out to see some amazing Christmas lights.  Walking around the neighborhood to see “the house Christmas threw up on.”  Abigail and the boys decorating their cookies for Santa, and eating some too.  Sprinkle overload!

 

There are so many good memories.  But for now, I’m going to try to squeeze in a few more.  Shortening and flour and sugar – here I come!

2012 Crafting Goals

Every Christmas for about the past 4, I have dug out the boys’ old Christmas stockings and thought I should knit/crochet them some instead.  The ones they have are some kind of machine knit store bought fair isle things, with loooooong stretches of yarn inside that catch every toy that Santa puts in.  And it’s even harder for the boys to get their stuff out.  I think, “Hey, it’s only the beginning of December -  I should totally be able to crank out 3 stockings amidst all the other Christmas knitting/crocheting I have to do.  And the baking.  And the decorating.  And packing, as we’ve been away from home 3 out of the last 4 years.”

And before I know it, it’s 2 am on Christmas morning, and I’m just finishing up that hat/scarf/mitten and frantically wrapping it so I can have a few hours of sleep before the kids wake me up with their joyous yells of “Santa came!!!!”  And another Christmas passes without me making them new stockings.

So, I think, I have a year now.  I can work on them in the summer, when it’s awful hot and I’m wishing for snow, and all that.  Think that works?  Nope.  It hasn’t yet.

I’m thinking I need a new plan.  I have never done this before, but I’m giving myself crafting goals, if only to remind myself of what I’d really like to accomplish by the end of the year.  In the hopes that I will refer back to this when the call of the latest neatest coolest thing from Knitty.com is calling so loud.  Or someone brings something amazing to knitnight and I want to cast on one for me immediately.  (Not pointing any fingers, JULIE and your Friendly Gray thing that I didn’t even like until I saw yours and now I want one.  But in a different color)

 

1.) New Christmas stockings for the boys – let them pick out their colors for the body and the trim. These will be fairly plain – I’m not going all out and doing fair isle or any of that.  I may even crochet them for speed.  We’ll see.

2.) Cross stitch one tea towel from that collection I bought 3 or 4 kids ago.

3.) Work on Steve’s Bucs blanket for at least 1 hour every month.

4.) Finish up Maureen’s big black shrug.  She’s been way too patient,

5.) Ditto Dulcie’s scarf that matches the hat I already made her.

6.) Start one of my sweaters.  Whenever I want to start something for myself, I seem to always make socks.  Not that I don’t love my socks, but dang.  I actually even have the yarn for like 3 or 4 of them at least, but I just wait and wait.

7.) Finish Kristi’s purple socks

8.) Start some Christmas presents during the year, instead of waiting until December.  D’uh.

 

Something tells me that there are a couple more that escape me at the moment, but that doesn’t surprise me.  I’m going to go ahead and post this for now, and print it off and hang it near my bed as a reminder.  Don’t be surprised if you see me refer back to this or even add some too it as I come in to full brain power.

 

Happy New Year!

Happy Puppy hat makes for Happy Nathan!

Several days ago, I tested out a hat pattern.

It was a puppy hat pattern.

It was a happy puppy hat pattern.

Did I mention it was happy?

Perhaps it should be called the Very happy puppy hat.

Oh, look – ear flaps!

The pattern’s on Ravelry, right here.  It’s adorable, and comes in a kitty version as well.  Also, it’s sized for 4 different sizes, so it’s pretty well 8 total patterns between the sizing and the puppy/kitty version.  I”m thinking of making one for David.  Think he’d wear it at 13?

Yeah, me neither.

PS – awesome tie-dyed onesie by my sister.

Halloween Cookies and a new use for pockets

We decided to make some cookies during the week the boys had off for Fall Break.  I dug out Mom’s sugar cookie recipe, and hunted up my rolling pin, and Chris went to town.

 

Some of these cookie cutters belonged to my grandmother!

 

Russell working intently:

Patrick making facial features on his ghost:

Chris was very proud of his cookie:

Chris wanted to use the rolling pin, so we gave it to him:

This is the face he made when David showed him how to hold onto the handles on the end instead of the middle:

 

And now for the new use for pockets in the front of overalls – a food storage device:

Steve’s finally learning.  When he yelled upstairs, “Oh no!  Chris is putting ramen noodles in his pocket!”  I asked, “Should I get the camera?”

He answered, “YES, and hurry!”

2011 Vacation, Days 5 and 6

I think perhaps the clue was too obscure.  Is this one maybe easier?

The first pic at the end of the last post was taken at the Bennington Monument.  The last picture and this sign are at the Bennington Battlefield.  Two different places, in two different states actually.  The Battle of Bennington was fought over a storehouse of weapons and supplies in Bennington, Vermont.   The English soldiers found out about it, and thought they had better take control of it.  The Americans thought differently, and met up with them about 10 miles west of Bennington, in New York near Walloomsac.  Our forces were mostly militia and a group you may have heard of called the Green Mountain Boys.  We won, and won hard.

The boys had quite a time running all around the battlefield.  Chris did not much like the downhill part:

Since I was still sort of recovering, that was all we did that day.  We drove back to the resort, and started getting ready for the next day.

Day 6 we mostly packed and drove to Boston.  Our original plan was to leave fairly early, and get there with enough time to see Salem, the Concord Bridge, and walk about 1/2 the Freedom Trail.  As I was moving really slowly and still not wanting to quite overdo it, we got to Boston with just a little bit of daylight left, and only really had time for the bridge.

We drove out there, parked, and discovered 2 very cool things.  First, just about the best climbing tree EVER:

And secondly, it was chilly.  Quite chilly.  Nathan got to try on the hat his Auntie made him out of leftovers from his blanket, which I still need to take pics of and post on here, but that’s another post entirely.

The Park was pretty cool.  I’m ashamed to admit at first I didn’t realize what the big deal was.   I took a chance and asked Steve what the bridge was, and hoped he wouldn’t go into one of his looooooooooooooong explanations.

I was lucky.  He briefly told me it was the site of “The Shot Heard Round the World” and where the first battle of the Revolutionary War took place.   “Oh, THAT bridge,” I replied.  I should have waited, ’cause this was right before the bridge (you can click on the pic to embiggen it):

The bridge itself was not that much to look at.

On the other side of the bridge though, is this:

Here’s a close-up (again, embiggen it to read):

And this:

I thought that was rather cool.

At that point, we were all getting rather hungry, and my appetite was finally returning, so we found someplace to eat, and headed back to our hotel in Boston, which was amazing, and got rested up for the next day.  Freedom Trail, here we come!

PS. – One quick note about the hotel we stayed at – it was quite modern and hip.  Very hip.  Dork that I am, I pretty much feel out of place almost anywhere I go, so perhaps you can imagine, if you click on the hotel link, how uphip I felt in there with all those 20-somethings.  That said, the rooms were awesome, the front desk folks were very helpful, and the stay was all in all very nice.  I’d totally stay there again.  But what happened was odd none the less.

At bedtime we realized that we had left a few things in the car, so I sent David down there with the keys (to get away from his brothers for a few minutes) to retrieve Christopher’s Scout and the toothbrushes.  He came back up with a weird look on his face.  I asked him if there was anything wrong, and he brushed it off.  Then we realized that we forgot something else, one of Christopher’s fuzzy blankets, so this time I went down to get it.

Now, click on that hotel link again and look at the pics of the night time lounge.  Imagine that filled with loud music, lots of people drinking pretty drinks, and me, carrying a fuzzy blanket through there.   Yeah, real hip.  If there’s one thing less hip than carrying a fuzzy blanket through a bar/lounge, it’d be if you were a 13 year old boy carrying a toothbrush and a stuffed animal through a bar/lounge.

I went and apologized to David.  Poor kid.

2011 Vacation Details, Day 3, 4, and part of 5

So, when I left off, I was alternating between hot sweaty flashes and shivering chills at the cabin at KOA.  Other than that, it was a nice cabin.  Could have used a slightly thicker mattress pad thing though.  But that’ s just me.

I forgot to include these pictures of the boys making their beds.

That’s David up there making Patrick’s bed for him.  And below is Russ making his own.  We had a pack and play thing for Chris and a little foldable bed for Nate.

I woke up feeling halfways alright, considering I hadn’t slept well at all.  Silly me, I thought I was through the worst of it.

Everyone else got up that next morning and ate breakfast outside at the little picnic table in the cabin’s front yard.  Christopher ended up falling through and banged one side of his head on the side of the table, then the other side of his head on the seat part as he fell through.  He was not at all pleased.

We loaded up the car and took off for the Berkshires.  Most of the rest of the day is sort of a blur.  I had remembered that it was WWKIP day, and one of the sock forums I belong to on Ravelry was doing a WWKIP Day Scavenger Hunt.  I participated last year, and it was quite fun.  The point is to knit on a sock during the day, and take pictures of your sock doing things or in certain situations, and you get points.  Steve offered to make a little detour up to Niagara Falls, since one of the big point-getters was to get a pic of your sock with a well-known internationally-recognizable landmark.  I just was feeling so icky by that point that I just wanted to get to the resort.  Steve keep saying, “Are you sure you don’t want to go to get a picture?”  I finally convinced him that I didn’t care, as I hadn’t even started a sock for that day yet.  You got points for actually starting that day as well, so I had waited.  I thought that if I felt better, we’d get some pics at the resort, and submit those.

Turns out we got to the resort just before some rain hit, and Nathan was hungry, so I went inside with him and fed him while the big boys ran back and forth unloading the entire car.  They finished up literally just before the storm came through.  We hadn’t had a chance to stop anywhere for groceries yet, so we thought it’d be best to order out some food.  At this point the boys were starving hungry, I had the chills so bad I was sitting on a chair, wearing a sweater jacket I brought, and was still shivering.  Steve brought me a blanket, and I was still shivering.

The pizza place we had a brochure for offered a little bit of everything, so he got a pizza for the boys, a lasagne for him, and I got a cheese calzone and a bowl of French onion soup, thinking that the broth would warm me up.  Steve ran out real quick to go pick it up, and it was good.  I could only eat about 1/2 the bowl of soup though.  The boys inhaled the pizza, Steve ate about 1/2 his ginormous lasagne, and my entire calzone went in the fridge for later.  And we all went to bed.

The next morning, Day 4 of the vacation, I woke up feeling like death.  I just felt awful – shivering, a fever of 102 (I took my temp at some point, using the thermometer I brought in case one of the kids got sick – ha!), sweats, chills, thirsty, but the gatorade made me throw up.  It was too sicky sweet.  Most of the day was a blur.  I didn’t leave the bed but to go to the bathroom a few times.  Steve would bring Nate in to me to feed, I’d nurse him, and Steve would take him back out again.  At some point, he got Chris down for a nap, and took the older boys out to get some groceries, leaving Nate on the bed so I could reach him if he woke up.

A while later, he came home with the groceries, and then went on to fix supper for us all.  By suppertime, I managed to eat for the first time that day: about 3 bites of chicken, 1/2 of  a new red potato, and 1 baby carrot.  Then I went back to bed.

Turns out the boys had pretty much spent the day watching a Cake Boss marathon.  This information will explain what happened on day 10.  What a fun way to start your summer vacation, right?

By Monday, day 5, I started to feel human again, except for a little case of cabin fever.  I wanted to go somewhere, but no where that would involve me seeing anyone, cause I wasn’t in the mood to put any make up on.  And I’m one of those girls who takes about 2 1/2 minutes to do my makeup too.  Steve suggested we go to this yarn shop he found.  I said no.

Read that again.  I said no to yarn shopping.  I think that’s perhaps when how sick I was really hit him.  Not that he thought I was faking or anything, but dang, how sick do I have to be to not want to go yarn shopping?

Here’s 2 pictures of where we ended up going.  See if you can figure out where we went.  No cheating by looking back at the itinerary either.

The next post will give you the answer…

2011 Vacation Details, Days 1 and 2

So, per what is now the norm for this family, and it drives me nuts, but I can’t seem to get it under control either, we left late.  Waaaaaaaaaaaay late.  Steve had been trying to leave work early, but also didn’t want to leave the new guy hung out in the wind.  He got home around 5 maybe, and since the boys and I had everything waiting by the door, Steve super-quickly attached the car-top carrier, threw his clothes in a bag, and started loading up the car.  We left by about 6 pm.

No worries though – we only needed to make it to the outskirts of Chicago.  That’s 8 hours, folks.  I had asked my dad if he could take the older 3 boys for the night so that we could only get 1 hotel room, and he said sure.  I called him to let him know that we’d be getting in at crap o’clock so that he could go to bed early and sleep for a little while before they came, but he said he’d wait up.

We got to Dad’s about 2 am, and bless his heart, he walked right out to meet us.  I had a small overnight bag packed with a change of clothes and swim trunks for the boys, so they took that in and we were off.  Our hotel was only 15 or 20 minutes away, so we were checked in my 2:30 and we both passed out.  Thankfully, our hotel already had the crib in the room and it was set up so we just stuck Christopher right in there with his fuzzy blankets and Scout and he was gone.  Nathan slept fairly well, and I ended up waking up in a puddle of leaked milk because of it.  Good times.

Chris woke up around 7 maybe, and I had just fed Nathan, so I took Chris down to the lobby area where the free breakfast stuff was so that Steve could sleep a little longer.  We stayed down there for quite a while, me thinking he could use all the sleep he could get, and I came back up to the room to find Nate screaming in Steve’s arms.  So much for sleep.  I took Nate and Steve ran down to get breakfast for himself, then we checked out and ran over to Woodman’s for some provisions.

We wanted to grab some of this Kettlemania stuff we can’t get in our stores anymore, and some Aerobars, and of course I forgot to pack my shampoo, conditioner, and toothbrush.  I packed toothpaste, but no toothbrush.  We got over to my dad’s about 11, and stayed until about 2.

My sister and her hubs came over as well.  A couple days before, they had to have one of their cats put to sleep.  The cats had been part of their family for 16+ years, and my sister was taking it really hard.  So, through a non-discussed mutually agreed upon sister telepathy thing, I didn’t mention a thing.  She looked like if I said anything, she’d burst into tears.  So I just gave her Nathan and let her bathe in the baby snuggles.  It helped I think.

By the time we were getting ready to leave, I developed a raging headache.  I thought it was just not getting very much sleep the night before, possibly not drinking enough water, something that I would be able to fix easily.   By the time we got to the KOA in Ohio, it was so way worse.  And I was coughing.

I got the sheets out and had the boys make up their beds, and David starts freaking out cause there’s a WASP.  It was all I could do not to completely break down.  Russ is allergic to bee stings, but this one was nothing to be feared.  It was barely flying, like someone had sprayed bug killer in the cabin already.  Chris ended up stepping on it and killing it.  That’s my boy.

At some point Steve went out to a store to get me some Zicam stuff and some other provisions for breakfast, and by the time he got back, the boys were all in bed.  I tossed and turned all night and kept waking up either soaked in sweat or shivering like mad.  And that was just the beginning of the vacation.

 

To be continued…

Shute Colonial America Tour of 2011 Itinerary

I thought I’d start the vacation entries with the itinerary.  As I get time, I plan on actually writing more detailed blog posts about some of the days, at which point I’ll put in links to that post as well as links to some of the historical sites.  At the time of posting, I have very few links up, so I apologize for that now.  Check back in a few days and I may have something up.

So then, here goes.  The original plan is in normal type, what we actually did on that day if different is in bold.  Feel free to laugh at what we thought we’d do.

Day 1 – Thursday the 9th- Driving day to IL.   Got into Montgomery about 2AM – dropped off the kids at PoPo’s and arrived at our hotel in Naperville about 2:30.

Day 2 – Friday the 10th- AM – hang out at Dad’s.  PM – drive to KOA in Streetsboro, Ohio.

Day 3 – Saturday the 11th – Driving day to Vacation Villas at the Berkshires resort in W. Massachusetts.

Day 4 – Sunday the 12th- Rest day (laundry?)  My sick day

Day 5 – Monday the 13th – short trip to Vermont/Bennington Battlefield.

Day 6 – Tuesday the 14th – drive up to Boston, see Salem and walk 1/2 of the Freedom Trail.  I was still feeling slightly icky and didn’t want to over-do it, so we left later than planned and only got a chance to go to Concord Bridge.

Day 7 – Wednesday the 15th – still in Boston, other half of the Freedom Trail, Plymouth, and return to Berkshires for the night.  Walked the entire Freedom Trail.  I was feeling way better this day.

Day 8 – Thursday the 16th – at the villas, rest/laundry day.   Stayed around the resort – Steve took the kids to the swimming pool for a while so that I could get some rest after the exhausting day yesterday.

Day 9 – Friday the 17th – at villas, short trip to Albany.   Went to the top of Mount Greylock (highest point in Mass), then took a trip into Vermont to go yarn hunting at a local yarn shop.

Day 10 – Saturday the 18th – drive to Valley Forge via Morristown National Historical Park and Philly.   At Patrick’s passionate request, stopped at Carlo’s Bakery in Hoboken, NJ (of “Cake Boss” fame) on the way!

Day 11 – Sunday the 19th – Valley Forge, Philly, travel to Williamsburg / Greensprings Vacation Resort.

Day 12 – Monday the 20th – at resort, laundry, tour of colonial settlement? Stayed at resort.

Day 13 – Tuesday the 21st – Drive to DC, Smithsonian museums, spend the night in DC.

Day 14 – Wednesday the 22nd – DC monuments/memorials, Capitol, Nat’l Archives, Library of Congress?

Day 15 – Thursday the 23rd – Our 20th Anniversary!  Mt Vernon or Monticello?   Went to Jamestown Settlement instead – made the decision to hold off on Monticello until Sunday.

Day 16 – Friday the 24th – Jamestown/Yorktown?   Neither – we went to Colonial Williamsburg for our first day there.

Day 17 – Saturday the 25th – rest day/laundry.   Yorktown, plus Day 2 at Williamsburg (and a stop to pick up some soap and a William & Mary T-Shirt) – we were all about ready for the vacation to end at this point.

Day 18 – Sunday the 26th – Check out of Greensprings, drive to KOA Natural Bridge, VA.  And a pretty awesome stop at Monticello in between.

Day 19 – Monday the 27th – Leave VA, drive home.   16 straight hours.  Oh joy.