See, Mom?  I TOLD you I could do it myself…

7:06 am – wake up to screams of “Mommy!!!!!!!!”

8:45 – drop David off at the high school for a dodge-ball tourney

10:30 – leave the house again for Patrick’s soccer game at 11

Noon – pick up lunch at McD’s

1 pm – put Nathan and Chris down for naps

1:10 – sit at the computer for a few minutes to jot down rest of schedule for the day

1:13 – hear Nathan yelling; go settle him in again

1:45 – leave the house again for Russell’s soccer game at 2:15

2:05 – Arrive at soccer game to find that Russ has brought the wrong jersey, and have to drive back home to get it.

2:45 – Get back onto interstate to see big wreck, and have to pull over 2 times to let rescue vehicles pass by.

3:00 – Get to soccer game and watch Russ play the second half.

2:45 – stop at Hy-Vee on the way home to take advantage of sale ad stuff

3:30 – Game ends late, and also running out of gas due to extra trip back home.  Stop for gas and then on to Hy-Vee

4 – start dinner – taco’s

4:30 – Get home to realize that I never loaded up the dishwasher, so I don’t have a big pot to cook the taco meat in.  Figures.

7 pm – start baths/showers for whoever needs them.

7:45 pm – take David over to friend’s house.

8 pm – put Chris and Nathan in bed.

8:30 – put Patrick and Russ in bed.

11 pm – go pick up David from friend’s house.

11:15 – Collapse in bed, and try to focus on getting everybody up and ready for church in the morning.  Oh, and Russ has another soccer game.  Right after church.

Somewhere in there remind myself that it is truly a blessing to have kids who want to be so active, and to not project my “need to be a hermit all the time” introvert-ness  on them

8:45 – drop David off at the high school for a dodge-ball tourney

10:30 – leave the house again for Patrick’s soccer game at 11

Noon – pick up lunch at McD’s

1 pm – put Nathan and Chris down for naps

1:10 – sit at the computer for a few minutes to jot down rest of schedule for the day

1:13 – hear Nathan yelling; go settle him in again

1:45 – leave the house again for Russell’s soccer game at 2:15

2:45 – stop at Hy-Vee on the way home to take advantage of sale ad stuff

4 – start dinner – taco’s

7 pm – start baths/showers for whoever needs them.

Somewhere in there remind myself that it is truly a blessing to have kids who want to be so active, and to not project my “need to be a hermit all the time” introvert-ness  on them

Once again, Steve humored me by taking a few pictures of me finishing it up.

Funny thing – the ball rolled towards the water, and I was all “Steve, get a picture of that – it’s hilarious!  I bet there’s never been a ball of yarn on Castaway Cay’s beach before!”

Steve was all “It’s alright everyone – IT’S SUPERWASH.”

And here I am, blanket complete.  Then Steve went and bought me a pina colada.  Well, 2 of them actually.

And for those of you reminiscing, here’s the start of the blanket:

Now, what am I going to do for Nathan’s baby blanket?

Here’s the birthday boy and Daddy sticking the candles on.  And yes, we’re still in pj’s.

Look at that smile – isn’t he gorgeous?

And the blow-out:

I completely forgot to get any pictures of him opening up presents, so that’s it.  Stay tuned for Christmas…

Today’s 12-31-12, and it snowed.  It’s still snowing.  This is quite possibly the best New Year’s Eve ever.  I can smell the snow.  The boys played outside for well over an hour, and no one cried.  David only came in cause the 3rd layer of snowman fell apart when he tried to put it on top, and he needed a break.   Here’s some pics of layer #1, and random snow pics of my backyard.

David as King of the Mountain:

Patrick as King of the Mountain or the top of a snowman:

Russell as King of the Mountain:

I told them to jump off, and managed to get these cool shots:

Someone even built Chris a mini-snowman, and he tried to add on another head or something…

Here’s the second layer of snowman:

And here’s the back ramp/stairs that David built to get it up there:

My little engineer.  Snort.  Little my aunt fanny.  He’s gonna be 15 in 21 days, and he’s already 5′ 7 1/2″.  I think my dad’s 5′ 6″.  Nevermind that.  I’ll just focus on all of them wearing hats and mittens that I knit.  Cause I’m awesome.

Next up…Russell’s birthday, Christmas, cookie decorating, and Thanksgiving pictures.  Most likely in that order.

I wonder how much knitting/crocheting I could actually get done if I’d stop looking at more patterns on Ravelry.  I swear, I’ve added like 15 or 20 to my queue in the last couple of days, and that’s not even counting the things I’ve seen for my sister that I haven’t queued yet in case she goes on and queue-stalks me.

What on earth makes me think that if I haven’t finished the things I’ve been working on for a while for people for Christmas that I can go ahead and, say, for example, knit her a pair of awesome mittens too?

Oh, and get them done in time to mail up there.

And I sit here typing this out while the boys are sleeping.  Am I working on something?  Nope.  Just sitting here going through emails.  And looking at Ravelry.  Found a cool afghan pattern on Lion – it was on an email.  It starts out as a square, and I’m guessing you could just totally do this whatever size you want, and I can see making this either crochet or knit.  Sort of reminds me of a log cabin style thing, but cooler somehow.  And now I want to make one of those too.  But not for Christmas.  I’m not THAT insane.

Yet.

 
I’ve never been to Rhinebeck, but I’m thinking this may be the same thing as those people who think they can knit a new sweater in a week to wear there.

Well, perhaps I’ll quote a card I saw congratulating the new parents on their baby.  The inside said “Sleep is for sissy’s.”

I finished up my Camp Loopy project #2 the other day, and blocked it yesterday on our bed:

There’s Russ helping take out the pins from blocking.

And here’s a close-up of the center:

And a close-up of the side and border:

Hanging on the deck railing in the morning sun:

And back-lit in the morning sun on the deck railing:

And one of the artist, taken by Son #2.  I think this is fair-worthy.  The shawl, not the photo.

The details are on my project page.  Let me just say that Malabrigo Lace is quite possibly softer than baby angel kitten butts.

How about a little peek?

Oh, look!  There’s a Kindle in there!

I made a flap thing sort of like those fold over sandwich baggies, and David loves it.

Which really, is all that matters.  Cause pleasing a 14 year old boy is hard.