Questions

I am in Kansas right now having a blast house hunting and missing my kids. This post has been auto posted.

I am answering the questions from Ask Awesome Mom Anything in the order they were asked.

Kelly from Don Mills Diva cuts right to the chase and asks: "What was your most embarrassing moment?"

My parents are people who love to tease (which is a nice way of putting it). Over the years I have had to learn to have a rather thick skin. However when I was a teenager I was not quite so thick skinned, but I was learning.

Some back story: When I was a youngster of about 5 or 6 years of age we lived in a area that was being newly developed. There were a lot of vacant lots that were waiting for houses to be built. In one of those lots there was a massive weed. My friend told me that it was a man eating plant.

I rushed home and convinced my mom to call my dad at work to warn him of the neighborhood terror. I was rather literal minded about the idea of the man eating plant and thought it only ate men. Eventually I was convinced that it was just a weed and that my dad was safe.

Fast forward to Jr High. I hated parent teacher night with a passion. My dad was a high school teacher and I always felt that my teachers and parents were conspiring to do evil deeds to me behind my back (I was not wrong in my paranoia as you will see). I would do every thing possible to hide any kind of advertising about parent teacher night from my parents. The school was too good about getting the word out and invariable something leaked through.

The day after the parent teacher night I thought that I was home free. I was not grounded which was a good sign, or so I thought. I was sitting in band (I played trumpet at the time) warming up when it happened. The band teacher, in front of the class, asked me about the man eating plant. I wanted to die! But I oh so carefully feigned ignorance. The teacher then admitted that my parents had told him to ask me about a man eating plant. Again I told him that I had no idea what he was talking about. I am sure that I was beet red and my voice was quavering, but the band teacher then dropped the subject much to my relief. I wanted to die and at the same time obliterate my parents.

So, there you have it! That was my most embarrassing moment... so far.

Bye bye Mommy and Daddy!

House hunting

Tomorrow we fly off into the great unknown to do a bit of house hunting. We have been doing some online peeping, but this is going to be the big trip where we get to see for ourselves what the houses really are like. I have a rather nebulous idea of what I am looking for: I would like to have a bathroom off of the master bedroom, we need a fenced back yard, we are looking for a house with a basement, and I would like four bedrooms but would take three.

What are some things you like about your dwelling? What would you change about your current dwelling?

Sunday Cuteness

I have a feeling that Harry is aiming to be the next Monk.

The other day when we were at the grocery store picking up some fresh fruit and milk I decided to let the kids out of the cart to walk with me. I generally don't do this because the shopping trip will end up being five times as long as it otherwise would have been. So any way, the kids were busy being small children that had been let loose in an environment where they are normally tightly contained. I start looking at bunches of bannanas and when I turn around to check on the kids I find Harry trying to put a green pepper that had fallen from it's display back up. It was rather comical seeing this short little guy reaching as high as he could to put something away. Eventually he decided that he was not tall enough and gave the pepper to me so that I could put it away.

On nice Saturday mornings you will often find us walking in the park. It is a great way to tire the kids out so that we can have a productive afternoon at home. As Harry was ambling along in his toddler way he noticed a piece of a fallen branch. The branch still had leaves on it so he made the connection that the branch had previously been a part of a tree. He then looked at me and told me that the tree was broken. I agreed with him and tired to move on. Harry then picked up the branch and handed it to me and insisted that I fix the tree. I obviously do not have that ability, but knowing the tenacity of Harry I employed a tiny bit of trickery. I pointed out something exciting and then threw the branch into the bushed while he was not looking.

The final proof that Harry is very Monk like is his obsession with wipes. After every meal he must have his hands cleaned and every speck of dirt mush be off of them. He even requests napkins at meals and uses them.

We have two winners!

The winner of the videos is CanCan, who should also win an award for the most rambling comment of the contest (it really gave me a good laugh).

The winner of the knit stegosaurus is Joanna. Henceforth Steggie will be known as Buford. Don't ask me why, but the second I saw that name I knew that it would be the eventual winner. Buford is such a random and funny name, I think it fits much better than Steggie.

Other names that tickled me were:

• Yarnasaurus submitted by Paige. It did not win because a Yarnasauras is more of a species name to me rather than the name of an individual dinosaur. I will now consider any dino that I knit a yarnasaurus.
• Charlie submitted by Marcia. Charles is the middle name of the guy that named the stegosaurus.
• Rawr-chomp-chomp submitted by Michelle. Her two year old picked this name out. How could I not go aww over that name?
• Stella submitted by Julie D. After all how can I really know that Buford is male? Joanna may find that someday she will have a nest of eggs on her hands.

• Armand the Armored submitted by Frances. That is just such a smooth sounding name. I may just use that name for my next knit dino. I am sure that Armand will be quite the ladies' man (and not in a bad way, after all these are children's toys).

Patience

Harry was a very clingy infant. For the first few months of his life I could hardly put him down, it was not until he got control of his hands and could suck his thumbs that I was able to get a small measure of freedom. He was still very interested in keeping me in sight and would freak out if I left the room. Slowly I gained more and more freedom.

I am seeing some of that freedom slip away. I think that Harry is having a bit of a regression. Awhile back I read a really great child development book I learned about on Ask Moxy (which is an awesome parenting advice blog by the way). Basically it states that kids go through periods where they are doing great and moving right along and then about six months later they regress. Harry is in that crazy and frustrating regression period. If he could, he would sit on my lap all morning long (unless he found something really interesting and I mean really). Harry's legs have seemed to stop working and I find myself carrying him around a lot more. Little things seem to frustrate him more than previously.

At least I can comfort myself with the thought that this is just a phase. Hopefully I will get my lab back before long.

One of those days

When your toddler has a temper tantrum because you try a different diaper on him than normal you have to assume that things are just going to go down hill from there. I think that the high point of my day yesterday was that I thought up and planned ahead for dinner. I can't help but wonder why my kids think that putting toys into things that are not meant for toys is the height of amusement. I also have toys shoved behind every possible surface that one could shove a toy. I am seriously thinking about hiding all the toys after the move and only bring out one or two at a time. Thank heavens I only have four and a half more days until our trip.

Darn!

I guess that I will have to find another explanation for my odd behavior.

There's a 44% Chance You've Been Abducted By Aliens

Maybe you've really been abducted by aliens... but probably not. Let's face it. You're just a little weirder than most people.

What Are the Chances that You've Been Abducted by Aliens?

You know you are a cloth diapering nut when...

You research new diaper folds so that the diaper that you put on your son's anatomically correct doll does not gape around the leg areas. Yes, I know that he is not at risk for a massive poop blow out, but I just could not help it. In case you were wondering I used the jelly roll fold and the "cloth diaper" is one of the cloth wipes that Karen sent me. People I could not let Evan take the doll out in public with his goods hanging out and the diaper that came with the doll was MIA, I am not completely insane.

Even my kid's dolls have cute diapers

It's Giveaway time!!!

The enormous and massive Bloggy giveaway is here again!

I am giving away a set of three DVDs that are not getting any love in my house. We are moving to Kansas in a month (breathe deeply and try not to panic!) and I am trying to get rid of stuff that we do not use any more. You will receive a copy of Franklin and the Turtle Lake Treasure, Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Kids and Good Morning Maisy.

Because there was a sad lack of hand made goods last time I decided to make sure that I give something hand made away again. You could be the winner of a super cute stegosaurus made by yours truly. I knit it for Evan's birthday, but poor Steggie ended up being buried deeply in the stuffed animal basket never to be seen again. I think that he needs a more loving home with a kid that will appreciate him.


Now for the nuts and bolts.

• Please make sure that I have a way to contact you should you win. Make sure that if you don't have an available blogger id that you leave your email in your comment.
• Make sure to read the entire post about the prize and answer the question I ask. Any non complying entry will be deleted with extreme prejudice.
• As always this is open to all readers, even that creepy guy in Iran that goggled a rather weird term to get to my blog.
• Winners will be announced on Saturday.
  

How to enter: Come up with a better name than Steggie for the stegosaurus. Come on and make me laugh. The best name wins him and a random entrant will win the DVDs.

Sunday Cuteness- flower power

This was entirely Harry's idea. He loves to pick and carry flowers when we go on walks. He suddenly stopped during our walk yesterday and repeated pocket over and over again. I helped him put the flowers in the previously decorative leg pockets. Quite pleased he ran off to catch up with Daddy and Evan. I guess I now know why manufacturers put silly and seemingly useless pockets on boy's pants.

Caution: Knitting talk ahead

I finally bought the last of my birthday yarn yesterday. I got two cards with some money in them and decided to blow the whole wad on yarn. Like any of you were surprised by that. This may be my last big trip to my beloved local yarn store so I wanted to make sure that I would enjoy it and that meant ditching the kids. Luckily my husband often gets off early on Fridays, which oddly enough are when my trips to the local yarn store usually happen. Any whoo, I ended up buying the first yarn I touched. I have a system when going to a yarn store, I start at one side and slowly make my way around the room until I have felt all the yarn that catches my fancy. Only then do I make decisions about what to buy. This helps cut down on the crazy yarn fume purchases. I had a hard time putting this down the first time.

I just could not resist this sock yarn. The colors and softness won me over. It is made by Misti Alpaca and is mostly alpaca (go figure!) with some wool, silk and nylon to give it structure, shine and strength.


I wish my photography skills were better, because this yarn has amazing colors. The bits with several different shades of purple that are not showing up very well and are looking gray. There is a nice chatty lady that works at the store (I wish we were going to be here longer because I totally want to be her friend). She saw I was buying two skeins and commented that I would only need one skien for a pair of socks. I laughed and told her that I loved this yarn so much that I had to have two skeins. She said I was a woman after her own heart.

Karen received her socks last Saturday(like a true blogger she documented it) and it has taken me this long to even show you all more pictures of them. I am a bad knitting blogger. Oh well, at least my cute kids make up for the lack of finished knitting projects.

First up, the leg of the sock. Finding a pattern for this sock was rather tricky. I had wanted to try a short row heel, but trying something new when you are also trying to be perfect in a new technique can really work out well or it can blow up in your face. The short row heel blew up in my face and I ended up with massive holes in my heel. So back to the drawing board I went.

I was browsing on my favorite knitting website Ravelry and found that someone had written a pattern for this very yarn and very colorway. I was thrilled! And then I was crushed when I realized that I did not have the needles that the pattern called for (which were tricky to find so there was no real good excuse to hunt for them). So I went up a size and cut out four stitches from the pattern. To compensate for the different number of stitches I used an entirely different pattern with the same number of stitches for the bottom part of the sock.

With the leg I did do an new technique, cabling. I had been wanting to try cables out after seeing them done on a knitting show that the kids sometimes allow me to watch. They make a neat patten of Xs and Os in the leg of this sock. I had been so intimidated by cables and confident that my short rows would turn out perfect. Who knew that it would turn out the opposite of what I would have thought. I know that more cables are in my future.

Hugs and kisses!

I love this heel, it kind of looks Fair Isleish.

An overview of the whole sock.

It certainly was different knitting something for someone else who had active input in the project. Most of the time I knit something that pleases me and then I decide who is the most deserving to recieve the item. I also enjoyed knitting up a yarn that I might not have otherwise tried. Lorna's Laces has some amazing colorways and the yarn really knits up nicely. It was hard to give these up.

Warm weather

The weather has been pretty crazy here of late. Things seem to be swinging wildly between winter and summer missing spring entirely. I still have not put away the long sleeved shirts and am debating if I should get the shorts out full time. Because of the sometimes nice weather we have been getting reacquainted with the parks in the area. It is kind of fun coming back to them after such a long time away, although I know that after a few weeks of this I am going to be tired of them all again.

Does anyone have any tips on curing the afternoon grumpies? Harry has been awful in the afternoons for some time now. It is frustrating to say the least. It is almost like he needs a longer nap, but he just will not go back to sleep once he is up. I have tried snacks in the hopes that it was a hunger issue, but it did not help a bit. I just want to be able to make dinner in peace with out having a sobbing two year old at my feet.

We had a pretty exciting moment yesterday evening. We have metal doors to the outside, so I have all sorts of magnets on them and treat them as extensions of the fridge when it comes to art work. They boys had been coloring and I asked them if they wanted to put their pictures up on the door. All on his own Evan held the picture against the door with his left arm (the one affected by the stroke) and used his right hand to put the magnet on the picture to hold it up. It was so exciting to see him on his own with out any sort of prompting from me use his affected hand in such a constructive way. It gives me hope that maybe some day he will be able to do a lot more with his hand.

"I see you!"

"You want me to what?"

"Tee hee!

"I am the coolest kid on this playground."

Mmmm... Mac-n-cheese

I have to share this recipe with you. It is for the most amazing macaroni and cheese ever. Evan frequently asks to have it and when we do he always eats a lot of it. I add hot dogs to it, but you have to use really good hot dogs or the flavor of the recipe is ruined. I prefer the kosher hot dogs that you can get at Costco, they are to die for. We also use regular mustard instead of the Dijon. Harry does not like mustard very much and the Dijon was just too much for him. The milder yellow mustard adds the nice flavor, but is not so strong.

I made some last night for dinner and was going to take pictures, but it did not last long enough.

Pet Peeve

When it comes to movies I have a hard time swallowing gross inaccuracies. My husband just got The Bee movie from Netflix and it was just awful! All the plants withered up and died just because the bees stopped pollinating. Yeah right! The worst that would happed is that plants would not reproduce (never mind that not every plant in the world is pollinated by honey bees). They would be bad for us and our food chain, but the plants would not die because of that. Even worse was that they "saved" the world by using rose pollen to pollinate all the dying plants, because as we all know, roses are the universal pollinator.

Years ago there was a movie (that was also a cartoon) about cattle. Every time I saw the advertisement for it I wanted to throw a brick at the TV. Why? The main characters, which were male, had udders! Udders on a bull!!! I understand why they did not draw an anatomically correct bull, but come on people! My husband thought I was nuts for yelling at the tv, but I just could not help it. Udders on a bull!!!!

I think it is a good thing that we have stopped watching regular TV. It is better for my anger management. Now if I could just get my husband to be more discerning in his movie rentals I would be a happy woman.

What are some of your pet peeves?

Who knew?

When I started cloth diapering so long ago, I never realized how it would change my life. It sounds kooky, I know, but it is very true. Pre cloth diapering I was a mere dabbler in knitting. Now I am obsessed. I am now renewing my rocky, on again, off again relationship with my sewing machine thanks to cloth diapering. Look at what cloth diapering has driven me to:


Yes ladies and gentlemen, I made that with my very basic sewing machine. My husband asked me if I had bought that cover. It felt pretty good to tell him that I had made it all by myself. I found a really awesome free fleece soaker pattern and have been sewing up a storm. I needed (well wanted) some more soakers for the boys. The shorties that I had been making all winter do not do to well under shorts. This is soo much faster than knitting them, I can make one in about a half hour (if there are no kids bugging me). The yellow fleece was actually part of one of the million blankets that we were given as baby gifts.

I think I need to have another baby soon, because I have also been eyeing these websites. I am trying not to go too nuts with the boys, because I am hoping (fingers crossed) to potty train them both after the move (another reason I did not want to knit more soakers), but my fingers are itching to make more cute things than my kids could possible wear. I blame Diaper Swappers and it's craft forum!

Eating good

I am a person that likes to stock up on items. I think that a big part of this behavior comes from being LDS. We are frequently reminded that we should have food stored up in case of emergency. Due to our upcoming move we have switched from stocking up mode to eating mode. I did a big stock up on chicken and ground beef early in March but since then our grocery shopping has been limited to milk, fresh fruit and other perishable items.

It has been a very interesting experiment to see how well we could eat off our food storage and I am quite pleased by how well we are eating. I think I may have over done it a bit on the chicken, but Evan and Harry love eating chicken. They will frequently eat more than I will and Evan often asks to have chicken for dinner. It is nice to know that my food storage practices are working and that should something happen we would be able to eat pretty normally for a time.

Now that I have quality down I will have to work on quantity. We don't even have close to a year's supply of food, but then I am not going to sweat that one too much. With all of our moving around it really is not too practical to have a massive food storage.

Par-tay!

Today I am turning 29 for the first time* and I thought that to celebrate I would shower you with pictures of my cute kids.

Yesterday we went to the park and had some fun in the super warm weather.

Evan loves to dig!

This is the first time that Harry wanted to be on the big kid swings. I have attempted to get him to swing on them before, but he would always let go and fall off. I think that seeing Daddy swinging motivated him to give them another try.

Every one in the house took naps yesterday. Harry and I slept in beds, but Evan and my husband fell asleep while watching some tv.

A blackmail picture. We are going to a birthday party for a girl on Monday and I thought it would be fun to make her a simple princess skirt. I needed Evan to help fit the skirt properly since they are similar sizes. In this picture he is helping me adjust the hem of the skirt.

Here is a video from the park. I think that Harry is a soccer star in the making.



This is one of Evan's latest tricks. He can go right to our mail box and open it right up.



*I was younger I never knew how old my mom really was because she kept telling us that she was 29.

Knitting goodness

Which looks better pompoms or no pompoms?





Here is a shot of the pattern. It was so much fun to have so many color changes and to not have to worry about weaving in ends.


Lookie what came in the mail today from my parents. Some hand spun from Tama! Mmmmm....

Routine

I know that kids thrive on routine, but two straight months of oatmeal would drive me insane. Every morning that is what Evan asks for. At least it is easy to make.