The New Year

Hi!

I've enjoyed taking some time away from the time (I am barely) here to enjoy the holidays.

We did enjoy them too.  At least we did once the Christmas stomach flu was past us.  I remember telling Reagan how we will laugh next year when we remember how he got sick on his presents and under the tree.  Yuck.


Our holidays first started with Aunty Jane visiting and Ryan visiting via Google Talk.  We've had more than one Christmas like this.

From there we traveled to Nathan's parents and had 3 different Christmas celebrations.

Our family came home on Christmas Eve so Santa would not be confused on where to go.  With my oldest having the flu (after the medium boy got over it) we didn't make it to church.  We just had to improvise and probably had a more meaningful and enjoyable "service" at home.


Christmas morning started with someone getting sick and then immediately asking if Santa made it.  Logan was very excited he got a sucker from the big man.

The homemade gift was proudly given (a butterfly box) then off to our next destination. We wish we would have known how sick Reagan was going to be.  It was not pleasant for him.  A lot of TV was watched.  There were a lot of Star Wars questions asked by the medium boy to my youngest brother.  He is a very cool Uncle.

Once finally home and waiting to ring in the New Year, everyone got better.  I only had the flu for one night.
Lego's were the theme this year and since then there has been Lego this and that everywhere.  Even little Logan, ever the copy cat, is into them.

We rang in the New Year with friends at a pool party that was lots of fun.

We also rang the year in with a little paint.  Soft yellow paint.  It is bright and happy now.  Pink is now involved too.  It is becoming more of a "mommy" room - hopefully happy and bright. 

I did a lot of knitting over the break. I tried to catch up on knitting hexipuffs for my Bee Keepers Quilt.  I think I did around 20.  I also finished a shawl for a friend.  It was fun to do.  I'm tickled to do it for her.

We didn't make any resolutions this year.  We did make some rules though (more on that later).


I'm not good at resolutions.  I don't do well with promising myself anything - unless it is more yarn :)


I hope to do a lot of things better.  One is to be here more in this space and share my little monsters and our lives with family and friends whom we don't often see.  Another would be to show more of what I make.  Also, I'd like to "make" more with those aforementioned monsters.  We've gotten away from it lately.  And style and my lack there of or do I have one?  Hard to say.  That too is a goal. And lots of knitting.  I've got a mission to minimize that massive amount of scraps in the top of the closet.  Get ready to gets some hats next Christmas. 


We are looking forward to a fun and challenging year.  We hope you are too.

Technicolor Boy

My medium boy is quite the original. He is very talkative. He can also be quite a wall flower.  Very Cancerian.  He is really challenging in a very different way than our other two.

Our afternoons are usually filled with adventure play, heroes, dragons, super powers, The Force and the like. On days he feels like painting, he makes a canvas full of slashes and swoops of bright, happy colors.

It shouldn't have surprised me then when we went yarn shopping for a new vest that he would choose this wild comnination.

I tried to lead him in a direction that would look good and soft on him. Heathered blues, oatmeal, winter green. No, he wanted a technicolored dream vest. If there was sparkly yarn there (thank God he didn't see it) he would have had to have that.

"I must have this mommy. This is what I was thinking about. I want to see this!" He carried those skeins around the store making sure they were "squishy".  He placed them in the order he would like to see them. 

It is really all my fault. One of those previous afternoons he wanted to paint some yarn "mommy green" since he knows it is my favorite color. Since we keep our house pretty cool (65), the medium boy and are on "team cold" (the husband and boy #1 are team hot, #3 boy is just overdressed)  and he thought he needed a cushy sweater. Being happy to oblige him in this, I made him a Fisherman's Pullover. Being a sleek framed 4 1/2 year old, he isn't a size 4 or a size 5 and my estimates on how he would like it to fit were off. Now the oldest boy has a sweater and the medium boy will have it next year.

Thus, the Technicolor Dream Vest was born.

It does look cute on him (despite the terrible yarn - must work on his yarn snobbery). It does look like him. Happy. Colorful. With pockets.

This Moment

Inspired by Soulemama - {this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Yarn Along

Linking up with Ginny at Small Things...

I've been knitting and knitting lately.  I have one more special something to make for Christmas then I'm all caught up!  It seems that the more things I need to do, the more things I start to cast on just to 'do'.  Right now I've got three (soon to be four) projects going on.

Hexipuffs are never ending and always addicting.  I think I'm up to the high 90's  now.  I'll have to make my 5 year old count them out for me.  I love that they are such a great manipulative for him.  He loves to make patterns and there is enough now to make pretty fun combinations. 

I need another pair of legwarmers so I've got those going now.  I have a pair now that I wear almost every day and every night.  Another pair will be nice to add to the mix.

Lastly I've got a shawl on the needles too.  It is pretty mindless right now which is what I need during this holiday season.  I secretly hope that I have it magically done by the New Year.  Maybe with our holiday drives to here and there I'll get it finished.  I've done so many triangular shawls that it is nice to mix it up with a crescent shaped one.

I've picked up Organized Simplicity again and have been reading it when I get a chance.  This book is motivating enough to really work through it thus I've been slow to actually finish it.  Reorganizing and simplifying during the holiday season is actually really good for me.  I always feel that Christmas is what starts the year off and I hope I have a more organized year in 2012.   Preparing for the new toy additions for three little kids already has me stressed and pretty motivated to really think about what is liked and loved in the play room.  With three little boys 5 and under, it is hard to weed out what isn't used and what won't be used.  If my 21 month old could actually talk and tell me what he would like to play with in the next few years, it would be a lot easier for me.

This Moment

Inspired by Soulemama - {this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

 

crossed eyed and hiding

I feel how Mason looks...crossed eyed and hiding.

-I can't seem to sit down and blog about anything. I do actually have things I could blog about too.

-Thanksgiving came and went.  It was nice to see family and have the boys play on the farm. They needed the farm air.  They enjoyed getting in the muck with some cows. 

-Decorations are up.  Many are down thanks to the red armed bandit.  Our tree is sad looking with all of the ornaments on the top. 

-Most of my Christmas knitting is done.  Actually all of my "scheduled" gift knitting is.  I'm sure I'll panic and think of something else I'll have to frantically do.

-My good camera is still at the Nikon shop. No word on how long. My not-so-good Point and Shoot is missing.  So are two of my doll rods in my yarn winding wheel.  I fear the red armed bandit has struck again.  The house has been totally torn apart looking for both of them.  I fear the trash. 

-The big boys and I had a date on Saturday to see Puss In Boots.  It was fun.  I was reminded of why I don't see movies -gosh that was expensive!  I was also reminded why I'm shopping local, Etsy, or Amazon.  The people were not in the Christmas mood.  I'm pretty sure of the gestures the boys saw were not in celebration of the upcoming special day.

-We rode the Santa Train yesterday.  It was fun.  It was cramped. The big boys couldn't think of what to tell Santa they wanted.  It was very scary for the red armed bandit. 

-The red armed bandit will be The Red Armed Bandit no more tomorrow.  The smelly cast will come off.  He'll just be the bandit then.  One less weapon in his arsenal. 

-It hasn't slowed down since before Thanksgiving.  My list is so long  I'm not sure where to begin. 

If I could only find my camera...

Inspired by Soulemama - {this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.