The weather here has been so great lately! 75 degrees and sunny! And while I think this weather is a little freakish and I kinda wish it was colder, it has been nice to play outside without worrying about hats and coats and stuff!
On Saturday, the kids were starting to come down with a cold and I just couldn’t handle an entire day of cranky, whining kids at home, so Royal and I got them dressed, loaded them up, and headed to the zoo. Well, we forgot the zoo is now on winter hours, so we got there a good hour before it opened. Bummer. There was no way I was going to drive all the way home, so we went to a park and played there for an hour and then went back to the zoo when the gates were open. Wouldn’t you know it, but I forgot my camera, and Jayden got to feed the giraffes! I can’t believe I didn’t have my camera! It was sweet! He got giraffe slobber all over his hand and arm. Willow kept acting like she wanted to feed them too, so we gave her a leaf to give to the giraffe, but when his long, black tongue licked her arm while reaching for the leaf, she kinda freaked out..sad… Oh well, I have one more free coupon for giraffe feeding, so maybe we’ll try to hit it up again next time I’m at the zoo with my camera!

I managed to get a lot done this weekend as far as projects were concerned, because pretty much once we got home from the zoo, we stayed here because the kids and their colds went downhill in a hurry. :)

I finished Willow birthday cake hat! Here’s a little preview. It’s not her birthday yet!

I also made a happy birthday banner. The pattern is here!

And since I was on such a roll on completing things, why stop there?
I made Jayden a new apron because we are going to be taking a cooking class together and making gingerbread houses! I love this apron because it doesn’t have ties, so he can put it on himself. The neck strap has eleastic in it so it stretches over his head and the waist strap velcros around his back and to one side. Genius! You can find the pattern here

And last, but not least, I made a giraffe rattle because there are a ton of people I know who are pregnant and I’m going to be sending them presents and why not include a little cloth giraffe that even has a bell on the inside so it jingles when it shakes around! So, prego friends, don’t be surprised to be getting one of these in the mail!

First off, baths. We take baths over here. A lot. Baths take up a good deal of time in the evening after dinner when I feel totally overstimulated from the day and I need the kids entertained without them having to touch me for awhile. :) Thank goodness they both love baths and taking them together!

Next up, bugs. The bugs here are huge! And since it seems all our neighbors are spraying their houses for bugs, I think the really huge ones who are smart enough to get away from it, are migrating to our house. Royal found these suckers last weekend.
Nasty!

And look at this sucker! Royal actually spotted it in the grass when he was mowing it. It is HUGE!


Even with all these gigantic, nasty bugs around. I’m still not on the bandwagon of having our house sprayed. I think it’s more dangerous to expose Jayden and Willow (and poor Scooties) to the poisons and chemicals that it would take to keep the bugs away, then just having the bugs around. Plus it gives us something to check out and be gross out by.

And now for the birds! For the past few months, we have had some barn swallows make a little home on our covered porch. At first, I thought it was a little annoying having them swoop at us everytime we went outside, but then I thought it’d be pretty cool to watch them have their babies so close to us. So, we put up with the birds and eventually they got used to us and stopped throwing mud at us when we were out there. They provided great entertainment and some life lessons for Jayden. We would sit on the porch and eat lunch and watch the birds building their nest. Then sitting on their nest. Then the 5 little babies birds hatching and poking their heads out. The mom and dad birds flying off to catch bugs to feed to the birds. Although, when asked Jayden would tell you that the momma bird didn’t feed bugs to her babies. She fed them with her “great, big, birdie boobs”. Obviously my large chest has had an impact on Jayden, as well. :) We came out one morning and the bully baby bird in the nest had pushed out (well it’s my theory) 2 of the other birds, obviously the nest was getting to crowded. So we had to explain to Jayden why the birds died. Not that he hasn’t already had a ton of experience with mutilated animals on the porch thanks to Scooter. So then we watch the 3 birds left fight for food and open up their huge little mouths. And there really was a bully in the nest, I watched him climb over the other birds all the time. When they were getting fed, he’d get some, then the parent birds would fly off and the little bully bird would climb over one of his siblings and change places with it so when the parent birds came back, he got food again and the bird he climbed over didn’t get any. It’s a wonder the other little baby birds survived. I’m sure none of you will find it shocking that the little bully bird got the fattest and he was the first out of the nest and flying around. Even though all 3 of the little baby birds have flown off, they still come back at night a lot and sit under our porch, especially when it gets stormy. I love those little birdies. I actually learned quite a bit about barn swallows during this whole thing. They are federally protect, so we couldn’t destroy the nest even if we wanted to. They often come back and build a nest in the same place every year, so I might get to watch these birds have more babies next year! And while I thought the nest would be real nasty full of poop and stuff, it turns out that when the babies are tiny, the parents pick the poop up and throw it out of the nest, and the once the babies are a little bigger, they actually back themselves up over the edge of the nest and poop out of it. Smart little suckers!
Here’s the bird’s nest. The male bird always sat on our light, while the female was roosting around making the nest perfect.

Here’s the first bird out of the nest. The little fat bully bird. They pretty much let me get close enough I could of grabbed it if I wanted to.

And now for the backyard! Well actually, just the kids in the backyard.
I won this little bubble blower contraption at StrollerFit. I can hold a plank position like it’s nobodies business. Nice to know I still am a little competitive.

Little Willow. 8 months old now!

And this is what I did while sitting in the backyard. Working on a pink pumpkin hat!

Who doesn’t want to see some little chubby legs sticking out of the top of these boots?

I’m not sure why I continue to try and make felted slippers/boots or anything felted that goes on the feet, it is usually a big disaster, yet still I do it again and again. I saw these little felted snugs and the kit was on sale, so I bought it without thinking. They are wool on the outside, yet lined with alpaca wool on the inside (super soft!), and the picture just looked so darn cute. Then I started knitting them, and I started having doubts, because felting slippers or boots for me has never worked out, they never shrink like I think they will and usually end up huge. I even had a pair try and kill my dad by throwing him down the stairs. Poor dad, he’ll put on anything I knit him, no matter what, gigantic felted slippers, slippers that look more like feet condoms, anything I try and experiment with, he’ll be my guinea pig (sorry dad, these won’t fit you). So, I knit these in the smallest size (0-8 months) figuring that even if they end up too big, maybe Jayden could wear them. I knit them up easily while watching the Olympics the last couple nights and my gauge was right on, I mean if Michael Phelps can win gold all the time and break world records, why couldn’t I have one pair of felted slippers work out? So I felt confident when I put them in the washing machine to felt today. Well, one felted up pretty darn good, the other one struggled a bit (the one that struggled must of been the one I knit while watching the US women gymnastics fall off the balance beam and jump out of bounds). I left it in the washer to see if I could felt it a little more, but alas, it had had enough and wasn’t going to cooperate (silver medal for that sucker, I give it a 4.0 for execution, 9.0 for presentation, I mean it is cute). So, I have one boot that’s a little looser than the other, but at least they shrunk down, not as much as I wanted them too, they are basically one size bigger than they should be, but that’s not bad, this new baby should grow into them sometime, hopefully not in the summer… Anyway, I decided to spruce them up a bit and add some polka dots, so after they spent the afternoon drying in the 90 degree sun outside, this evening I needle felted on some color. I only poked and made my fingers bleed 3 times with the little barbed needle used for needle felting. Guess I’m not ready to watch the Olympics and needle felt at the same time…or maybe I should of tried to make my fingers bleed like 8 times, since that’s supposedly the lucky number for the Olympics this year. Hmmmm, I don’t think so, my bloody finger tips hurt.

I’ve decided that despite the heat, I’m preparing for winter, as I am told winter here is just as extreme as summer. (yipee…) Now, I just need to make it to the yarn store and get some blue yarn so I can make Jayden a matching set. Yes, even with a boy and (perhaps) a girl, I am totally making them matching stuff. (If this child pops out a boy, I’ll just have to add all this purple and pink stuff to my already big pile of girl things I have knit up and wait for the first girl to show up. :) )

So, I have about 5 days left to pack up the rest of the house before the moving truck gets here. I’m not actually flying out to Wichita until the 18th, but sadly most everything needs to be in boxes by Saturday. Big, strong men, a.k.a Royal and friends, will be here Sunday to load up most everything. Fireball (Royal’s dad) will be here to help, and as his nickname is Fireball, I will spend the majority of the time trying to reign him in and stop him from throwing boxes all over the place and putting all my breakable stuff on the bottom of an 8 foot pile and then putting a couch on top of that. Because his life moto is to get it done as quickly as possible, there usually isn’t a whole lot of planning that goes into things.
So, while I should of been packing, I’ve been knitting instead. I figure if my hands are busy, then I don’t feel quite so bad about not packing. And it’s worked! Sadly though, I have just finished my last knitting project that I will ever do in our little house here, and I can’t start another because I’ve already packed up all my yarn. Guess that means more boxes and packing tape for me.

My last project is this new, cute little diaper bag. I’m hoping I can convince someone I know with a sewing machine to line it for me. :)

Here it is pre-felted, all loose, ginormous, and floppy.

Then I stuck it in the washing machine, and like magic about 20 mins later, I got this! Well, it wasn’t exactly magic. My handles were constantly tying themselves in knots, which have to be undone, or you get just big felted knots which will never come apart. Then, one of my handles got stuck under the middle part of the machine and ripped part of it off. Luckily it was just a small part of it, so I didn’t have to make another handle, which would of been bad because I used up all my green yarn. Now, all I have to dois wait for it to dry and I guess I can add it to my pile of things to put in boxes.

Royal, Jayden, and I drove down to Kelso Saturday morning to attend a couple birthday parties.  We decided we would spend the night down there so Royal could get some much needed fishing time in.  It also allowed me to spend some much needed time at the yarn store.  I happened to have an entire skein of yarn left over from the ruby river sweater I made, so I took it back to La Favorites to exchange it for something else.  And what other kind of yarn have I been obsessed with?  That’s right, I exchanged it for some more baby cashmirino.  I have a few more hats to make out of my new favorite baby hat book, and it just so happened that Jayden’s girlfriend, Mikalah, had a cold head.  So, lucky for her, she got to keep my first little party hat.  Sadly, Mikalah had to leave before I had the hat completely done, so I didn’t get to take a picture of her in it, but here is what the finished hat looks like!

And miracle of all miracles, Royal’s fishing trip was a success!!!  He actually caught a fish!  Yipee!!  A Spring Chinook that I am so eating tomorrow!

Jayden was pretty pumped about it too!  We’ll see how he feels when it’s sitting on his plate for dinner…

Welcome to the world of, ‘Yes I CAN knit anything’.  One of Joanna’s friends has been having to wear an eye patch, and why would anybody want to wear one of those boring black ones.  Especially when you can have a designer one!  This one was made out of some left over Ruby River, I might make another, just so I have a matching eye patch to wear with my new sweater.  The only other eye patch I’ve made was for Joanna, because right before she gets a migraine, one of her eyes gets all dialated and it’s freaky to look at, so I knit her up an eye patch so the rest of the world didn’t have to look at an entirely black eye (you’re welcome).  I told Joanna it was so she could have something to apply a little pressure to her sore dialated eye, but really it was because it’s easier to look at a cute yarn eye patch than a freakishly large pupil.

Jayden and I have both had a nasty little cold this week.  This is what Jayden was doing while I knit up the eye patch.  Looks comfy, huh?

The Ruby River experiment is now over.  I have finished my sweater, which at first I was hesitant to start since spring and sunshine were right around the corner.  But, with it snowing like it has the past couple days, it’s obvious that there is still plenty of sweater wearing time left!

 

Maybe one day I’ll be able to post a picture of me wearing it, but right now, it’s just me and Jayden at home, and the pictures he takes tend to be of his toys and turn out with half a finger over the lens.

 

Coming up next…an eye patch…don’t believe me?  Just wait and see…

Yesterday, we decided that it was time to convert Jayden’s crib into a daybed.  He’s been real close to bailing out over the side of his crib for awhile and instead of waiting to hear the dreaded ‘thud’, or maybe a cracking sound as his head hits the chair on the way down, Jayden and I spent part of the morning rebuilding his bed.  Jayden pulled the door stopper off the wall and was using that to screw in the screws with.  He was a real help! 

Here is the finished product.  Jayden was real excited about his new bed!

This is what he promised me he would do in it.

We’ll see, I’m expecting more of this…

I ran out of time yesterday, so I wasn’t able to go out and get the bedrail I was planning on using.  So, I figured that we’d see how he would do in the bed without one side.  He made it through his nap without falling out, so I thought I’d press my luck at night.  I’m not afraid to admit it, it was a bad-parent-kind-of-a-risky move.  And low and behold, he managed to fall out of the bed, not once, but twice last night.  Ooops!  So, this morning we went out and got the bedrail and now he should be safe from rolling out onto the floor while sleeping!

Oh!  And I made this hat!

Well, I did it.  I went to the yarn store and I spent ALL of my gift certificates. 

This is what I got.  It’s a hand painted yarn from Mountain Colors called Ruby River.  Hand painted yarns are always real expensive, but thanks to gift certificates, it was free to me!!! I’m going to knit up a sweater with it.  It’s going to be fantastic!!  People will probably say to me, ‘wow, that sweater looks like it’s been dipped in the ruby river’.  We’ll see how it turns out, hopefully not ugly.  If it is ugly, it will just go in the dressor drawer full of lots of other ugly things I’ve done.   I should put a label on the drawer that says, ‘nothing but ugly in here, do not open’.  That way they are hidden away and everyone thinks that I make nothing but beautiful things.

And then of course, I got more yarn for making baby stuff.  Debbie Bliss’ baby cashmerino is one of my favs.  More baby hats on the way.  There are way more patterns in the Itty Bitty hats book that need to come to life!