Pictures from the trip

Evan was very eager to get a piece of Harry's birthday pie.

Harry blowing out the candles. We had been practicing the whole blowing out of candles and all the practice payed off. Harry managed to blow both candles out.

Harry opening out his presents.

My husband's mother blew up some balloons for the boys to play with. Harry is wearing the pants I had been knitting. I finished them on Wednesday and they fit perfectly so my next pair is going to have some growing room. The leg that I ripped out turned out great and it spiraled nicely.

We went on a hike in the redwoods before we left for home on Saturday. Harry was quite impressed with the trees.


Evan and me in a tree. It was very cold and Evan was shivering. I had forgotten to to pack a hat for Evan poor kid. Luckily the walking warmed him up.


Evan checking out one of the fallen trees.

This is Harry playing in another tree cave. He was a bit chicken to go in at first, but once we carried him in he would not leave.

Happy Turkey Day

We are heading out for our Thanksgiving festivities. We will also be celebrating Harry's second birthday (How on earth did he get so big so quickly?) since this year they are both on the same day. Here are some highlights about Harry: my first post after his birth, his birth story, an important baby milestone, his first blog entry and my extreme enjoyment of this wonderful toddler stage.

Here are some fun links to enjoy while I am gone.

• A new Harry Potter spin off
• Things to do with your cat
• An alternative to the boring Christmas trees.
• Real men knit
• A fun kid's book
• Have you ever wondered what all those acronyms mean that you see online?

Works For Me Wednesday

This is a tip that I discovered quite by accident. The massive number of pictures I had taken of the boys had clogged up our hard drive. We got an external hard drive that we then transfered all of our picture to. That left our screen saver blank as it was set to show pictures from my My Pictures file. I then decided to search Google images for animal pictures an other kid friendly pictures.

The boys love watching the pictures as they flash by. They have also learned the names of some more exotic animals that do not normally show up in kid's books. Just make sure that you remember the names of all the animals. I put an Ibex in there just for fun and almost forgot what the animal was when it popped up on the screen. Evan also knows the name of all the planets and several different kinds of celestial bodies.

You can check out more hints and tips over at Rocks in my Dryer.

Nature abhors a vacuum, but I love this one: Product Review

I am going to tell you about a super exciting product that will change your life. It will make your kids less whiny. It will do your laundry for you, folding included. It will pick up your house leaving you with lots of time to sit on the couch and eat bon bons (what ever those are). Actually this product is a bit more humble in it's claims.

The Reynolds Handi-vac will not clean your house, but it will help prevent freezer burn and keep your refrigerated foods fresher longer. We shop at Costco which makes our chest freezer a integral part of our food storage. My husband and I had been toying with the idea of getting a vacuum food storage device, but had been put off by the cost of the vacuum sealer, the amount of space the sealer takes up and the cost of the bags. According to the information included with my Handi-vac Reynolds spent years (I can just imagine scores of scientists dressed in lab coats and goggles intently researching this puzzling problem) coming up with a design for this product.

However long it took them to invent this they sure came up with a winner. The starter set is under ten bucks which includes the Handi-vac and three quart bags. You will quickly find that those three bags will only whet your appetite, so I recommend getting more bags when you buy the Handi-vac. The bags are reusable, another thing that the other sealers really can't claim. They are just like regular plastic zipper storage bags, so you can take a portion of the food out and immediately reseal the bag all with out having to cut away part of the bag to reseal it.

The most exciting thing about the Handi-vac is that it is teeny tiny compared to the other sealers. We are able to store ours in the kitchen utensil drawer with no problem. No need to use up any precious counter space. When you are using it you do have to move it around a bit to find the right position to get the air out of the bags. Over all this is one impressive product, one that I would have bought even if I had not been given one to try.

Some less domestically inclined folk may be wondering why I am so excited about removing the air from the bags in which I store my food. Well first off there is nothing cooler than seeing air being sucked out of something. I am a huge fan of space bags too. I guess it is the science nerd in me. Air is the enemy of food. It contains oxygen, which while it is great to breath it is also a very destructive element. If you look below you will see a picture of a pear that is cut up. Normally after a few days in the fridge that pear would be brown and slimy thanks to it's reaction with the air. Remove the air and it stays as nice as the moment it was cut. The same thing goes for freezing. The air in the bag will cause the frozen food to get freezer burn which changes the flavor of the food.

I highly recommend this product. Even if you decide that you hate or that is does not work well for your family you are only out a little bit of money. Go give it a try!

Your opinions requested

I have almost completed my first pair of longies. However I am having issues with the second leg. Apparently I have been more relaxed and the tension for the second leg has not been as tight so the leg is wider than the first one. My question to you is do I go back to the start of the first leg and do it over, or do I just finish and have odd legs?

Here are some pictures to help you decide.

Here is a closeup of the legs.

Here is a picture of the whole project. I am not all that thrilled with how the second leg is looking color wise either. The first leg striped up nicely but the second is just looking funky to me.

Can you see the sort rows? I have a hard time seeing them and I know where to look. This time around I actually read the directions closely, so they are all where they need to be and nicely centered.

Sunday cuteness

Oy! This week has been filled with a lot of whining. Harry because of his teeth and Evan..... well I am not entirely sure why he has so many dramatic sobbing fits. Apparently it is very sad and horrible when your own beloved mother wants you to pick up the toys that you have scattered all over the living room.

We have also been fighting vermin in the house. No, I am not calling my kids vermin. We have been having issues with mice. One especially cheeky mouse has been spotted multiple times running around from the kitchen to the closet where the furnace is. That is where we think they are sneaking into the house as it has a ventilation shaft that runs outside. We have managed to trap two cheeky little buggers and are hoping that those two are the only ones that have discovered our house.

Ok now for the cuteness. Both boys love to play on my bed. One of their favorite things to do while on the bed is twirl around while I sing Ring Around the Rosies. They take great joy in collapsing onto the bed, although they generally fall long before I singe the falling part of the song.

Our attempts to nerd up Evan are working. Thanks to Netflix we got out hands on the third season of Dr Who. Evan now asks to watch the Police Box movie. Hee hee!

Check it out!

TeenyManolo is having an awesome contest. The grand prize is a $150 gift certificate to Amazon.com. I happen to be a huge fan of Teeny Manolo since Glinda is a long time blog friend of mine. Go check it out, they have a lot of fun stuff there.

Where is the time going?

I can't believe that Thanksgiving is next week. Not only is it Thanksgiving but it is also Harry's birthday. My little boy is going to be two!!! The time is going too fast.

Valerie got the closest with her guess of $280. My total ticket (which includes the fee for traffic school so that my insurance company does not find out about my lead foot) came to a whopping $300! Even though she did not guess the exact amount, I am going to give her a prize any way since I really like her. I am going to make her a set of these.

One of the many reasons I like Valerie so much is that she has started up a support group for parents of kids with heart defects. I wish we lived a little closer so it was easier to attend the meetings. I think it would be neat to meet other heart parents face to face. She has also helped several kids from South America get the surgery that they need to live a long and healthy life. She is one amazing woman!

Oh my!

This fall has turned out to be a heck of a lot more expensive that I had really anticipated and we have not yet even purchased our Christmas presents for family. I just found out today how much my speeding ticket cost. I am lucky that I was not drinking anything a the time or there would have been a spit take.

I have decided to be better with the money than I have of late. I am vowing to not step foot into a craft store for three months. I am also not going to purchase any more yarn until my stash is knitted up. Of course a glaring loophole is that I can enter a yarn store before my three month ban on craft stores is up but I just can't not have a knitting outlet available to me.

The commenter that guesses the exact amount of my speeding ticket will get a small prize.

Works For Me Wednesday

I have been wanting to do this for some time but have always forgotten until it was too late. Well, here I am finally with a tip.

Because of the way Evan holds his left arm (the one affected by his stroke) often the sleeve on that side will look huge on him and cover his hand. I tried rolling it, but it would often come undone and if he was wearing a sweater the sleeve roll would look hugely bulky. One Sunday I saw one of my hair elastics sitting on the floor which gave me an idea. I tied a small knot in it so that it would be tight enough that it would hold but not so tight that it would cut off circulation. I then put it on the sleeve right above the cuff and then folded the cuff over the hair elastic. The sleeve stayed the perfect length all day.

This could be applied any time you need to keep sleeves out of the way like at meal times. It is also helpful when your child has just changed sizes and sleeves are too long.

You can check out more hints and tips over at Rocks in my Dryer.

More Knitting Talk

Sorry if this blog seems to be turning into a knitting blog, but I want to keep track of the patterns I am trying and what I like or dislike about them. To help some people feel less bored I am including action shots at the end of the post. I don't think there is anything cuter than Harry running around in something that I knit for him.

This time around I decided to try a pattern that cost money. I was confident in my knitting skills and wanted to try some longies for the winter. After a bit of research at Diaper Swappers I found the Sheepy Pants pattern. It came with a lot of glowing recommendations and they were spot on. The pattern came with 20 pages, but that included a ton of different ways to customize your pants (or shorts) and also an appendix that explains and shows pictures of all the terms used in the pattern. It was very easy to use and I am very pleased with how they came out. I did have issues with my short rows but I am giving myself a break on that since it was my first time doing them. They also did not end up in the center of the pants where they should have been, instead I did them to one side where they are not all that useful. My leg gusset turned out great and I am thrilled that I did it so well on my first try.

As an FIY yeah I know they are purple but I wanted to try the pattern out with yarn that I did not really care about. Somehow I had a skien of purple in my stash so I used it up. If I have a reader that has a girl about Harry's size that cloth diapers they are more than welcome to email me if they want it. I don't think that my husband really wants me dressing my son in purple from some odd reason.

Sunday cuteness addendum

I forgot this fun little tidbit in the original post.

Evan's physical therapist has been working on getting him to crawl. It s a great way to get him to use his left hand and it is beneficial for his brain wiring too. She used to have to hold his legs so that he could not turn into his butt scoot, but now he is getting what she wants. Even though he gets what she wants he is often a stinker and needs bribing on occasion.

During one session she was having trouble figuring out a way to motivate him to crawl. The usual food offerings were being snubbed but he had been showing some interest in the box that we keep all the small matchbox type cars in. The therapist announced out loud that if the car box was to be opened that crawling was needed. Harry immediately gets on all fours and crawls right to the therapist who is laughing by now. You can tell which one of the boys is th better listener right now.

Harry has been a clingy little boy of late and I have figured out why. His second set of molars is coming in. Now that I know this and am giving him medication for the pain he is much happier and so am I.

Sunday cuteness

I was cleaning out our third bedroom which is our guest room, Harry's nap room (when Evan is also napping which he actually does about every three days despite my premature thoughts about it's demise), the library and my craft room. As I was organizing the scrapbooking stuff I decided to show the boys all my hard work. They were entranced and loved listening to me tell about what was going on in the pictures. They even recognized some of the people in the pictures. It was a bit strange showing Evan the pictures of him in the hospital after his surgeries and telling him about it. It was the first time that I had really talked about it in depth with him and I am sure it will not be the last time either.

The bedspread on my bed is one of my super cool thrift store finds. I got the bedspread and the pillow cases for $24. It is in awesome condition and I adore the colors. It was nice to get a room update with out having to spend an arm and a leg.

Remember the wool that I dyed with Kool-aid? Well here is the soaker I made with it. I am pretty pleased with how it turned out. The wool started to felt a tiny bit so the stitches are not quite as perfectly even as I would have liked, but it is going to be covered most of the time so no biggie. I also need to work on my Kitchener stitching, but I am sure that practice will help that. That was only the second time I had attempted it and it is a whole lot less ugly than my first attempt. Harry has a soaker that is made from brown and green variegated yarn. With the addition of this orange one he is ready for bow hunting and rifle hunting. He is the perfectly accessorized child.

Three-year-olds

Three-year-olds can be the most frustrating creatures. Evan is going through this phase where no matter what I am telling him to do (even if it is something that he has asked to do) he will suggest a multitude of alternative activities. Breakfast time is greeted with a request to go lay on the couch, a request for a hug and possibly even a demand for his nose to be wiped (even though his cold is long gone). He had a sobbing fit tonight at dinner when he was faced with being cruelly asked to eat his favorite meal of all times (dinosaur chicken nuggets, if you were wondering).

When we were rummaging around in the freezer to find an item for dinner last night a Costco sized package of them was left out of the freezer accidentally. My lovely husband had offered to find the dinner item after I had started the hunt by pulling some things out, but in the process he forgot to replace what I had pulled out. So now we have a large bag of thawed nuggets that need to be used up before too long or they will go bad. Normally I would rather poke my eyes out than serve chicken nuggets for dinner. It is usually my nicest meal of the day and I like to make it something more adult.

Yet, the boy can be so persuasive it is amazing. I told that the local quilting store was now also selling yarn, so I decided to have a look around. You know, just to look, no buying at all honest. My husband was off work early so I was able to go while Harry was napping. In a crazy fit of madness I decided to take Evan with me. After purchasing some super yummy yarn (I got some soft Alpaca/wool blend and some amazing hand dyed super wash merino, in case you were interested) I took Evan to look at the fish tank that is in the mall where the store was located. One thing led to another and suddenly I was in the toy store that has a cool train table. Next thing I know I am buying Evan a toy car.

I am not sure how that kid does it. He can go from making me want to tear my hair out to a super persuasive and cute little boy. When he really wants something it is so hard to not give in sometimes. His eyes emit a hypnotizing ray that turns my brain off. He even used those powers to get me to allow him to take the car to bed with him. Harry took advantage of my lapse in judgment and went to bed with two cars (I guess he needed one for each hand). I am going to have to work on my mental defenses or I am toast when they get to be teenagers.

Addiction anyone?

You know you shop at Target too much when your bored three-year-old tries to get out of the house by asking to go shopping at Target.

I tried

I tried, I really did. I wanted to like it but it just did not compare. The new Kiera Knightly version of Pride and Prejudice just did not measure up to the perfection that is the A&E miniseries of Pride and Prejudice.

One of the things that bothered me the most was the pace of the movie. I enjoy the slower pace of the miniseries, it fits with the slower pace of the book. You are allowed to get to know the characters a lot better. The miniseries was also a lot truer to the book. Some of the edits seemed just too contrived for my taste.

Matthew Macfadyen is can't hold a candle to Colin Firth's portrayal of Mr. Darcy. Colin Firth has a wonderful range as an actor and can show many layers of emotion all at once. I heart Colin Firth, I even watched Bridget Jones' Diary just to see him. Matthew Macfadyen merely looked sullen and grouchy for most of the movie. My heart did not pitter patter at all, there was no moment of joy when Mr Darcey and Elizabeth finally declare their love for each other.

The movie version was not all bad. Some of the other characters were not all that horridly portrayed, so it was not torture to watch the movie version. The sisters were better in the movie than in the miniseries. The time was not entirely wasted as I got to do a lot of knitting and annoy my husband by watching a chick flick.

Sunday, oh wait Tuesday Cuteness

We were trying out a homemade fajita recipe for dinner last night. Evan was doing his normal playing around with his food because it looks strange and different routine. Suddenly he picked up one of the red bell pepper slices and exclaimed "Three!" The peppers had been cut such that they appeared to be in the shape of a three. Sadly that did not entice him to eat them. We had to enforce the one bite rule so that he could have Family Home Evening treat.

Harry is such a busy little guy. He always seems to have some important business that he is attending to. One of his greatest joys is putting things in the right place. This is often hit and miss, as my floor can attest, but when Harry is on a roll he is amazing.

Yesterday we had a quick appointment with the pediatrician to get some booster shots for the boys. I brought a piece of Halloween candy for the boys to help curtail the post shot hysterics. It worked like a charm, nary a tear was seen. While I was getting Evan's pants back on, Harry found an infinitesimal part of the wrapper that I had torn off the candy wrapper to open it. He then picked it up and went right to the trash can. It was one of those step cans, but he used both hands to lift the lid and get that piece of trash into the can.

Later that same morning I was changing the boy's diapers. I noticed that Evan's was bone dry so I dropped the clean one I had in my hand and the one he had been wearing on the floor and got that boy on the toilet, hoping that he would use that instead. While Evan was on the potty I went to the kitchen to put the dinosaur chicken nuggets (which are the only kind worth eating apparently) in. When I came back Harry had put all the diapers and every bit of stray clothing into the diaper pail in the bathroom. I really hope that his zeal for cleaning and putting things to right continues to strengthen, but I am not going to hold my breath.

Round and round we go

It seems that my experience with Evan and all of his issues has been very cyclical in nature. Some issue will be there driving me bonkers. I will worry and obsess about it while trying to just wait and see how it goes with out overreacting. Then suddenly when I am finally thinking about giving up on it things will suddenly improve.

I think that now we have hit an improvement stage in something that has been worrying me off and on for awhile now, Evan's speech. I have been holding off on pushing speech therapy for some time now(I have various reasons for holding off but I will not go into that now). Evan was a late talker which was due to his brain not receiving the oxygen it needed thanks to his heart defect. After his last surgery his vocabulary exploded and he added word after word to it. He is still behind his peers although he is starting to catch up.

Being the secret worrier than I am (thanks mom!) I have been second guessing my decision lately. I was just about to act on my worries when Evan asked me "What's that noise?" last night. He had never used a complete and clear phrase like that before. Maybe a two word phrase when he really meant something a bit more complex. It was great to hear him express a full thought in a full sentence. It was reassuring to hear evidence of his verbal progress at a time when I was questioning my choices as a mom.

We have a winner!

The winner of my giveaway is LindaSS. From reading her profile she sounds like a really neat lady and I am sad that she does not have a blog that I can read.

Lady Luck has been smiling down on me lately. In the mail today I received a prize that I had won a little while ago from Damselfly at Growing A Life. It was a new Little Einsteins movie. Evan was (and still is to a lesser extent) a huge fan of the Baby Einstein so I was excited to get this. He has one of the Little Einsteins show that a friend of mine *cough cough* burned on a DVD for us. She had found out that Evan was really into planets so she used her DVR to get us a copy of the show on planets which Evan really enjoyed. He could hardly wait to get through lunch so that he could watch the "rocket movie". I am glad that we have another fine addition to our video library since the ones we have I have already memorized a long time ago. Thanks Damselfly!!

I was also very lucky in the Fall Y'all giveaway. I have won three prizes!!! I won a gift certificate to a cute kid's store called Apples'n'Oranges. I won a mini retreat spa kit from Monkey Giggles to help me get nice an relaxed while all the craziness of the holidays swirls around me. I also won a beautiful sculpture of two elephants made in India from AnneK (Just About Anything). Our pediatrician is from India, so it will be a nice reminder of all the help he has provided during our time here in California. Thanks everyone!!

When the winter giveaway comes around I am planning on coming up with something super cool and really neat, stay tuned!!

It's Fall y'all

I was bummed when I thought I would miss out on being able to participate in the huge Fall giveaway going on. If I had realized it would have started so soon after my knit dishrag giveaway I would have just saved it for the big giveaway. When I checked the mail this evening I found a surprise that has allowed me to participate. I was sent an extra set of the Febreze To Go Fabric Refresher. You will get a 2.8 ounce bottle and a super nifty insulated travel mug. All you have to do is comment and tell me how awesome and beautiful I am or how amazingly cute my kids are to win. I am not sure about shipping regulations for liquids overseas, so I will have to restrict this to the US only. I will choose a winner on Sunday November 4th.

More Halloween please!

This morning Evan wanted to go Halloween shopping again. After dinner he got excited thinking that it was time to go trick or treating again. I think that we should do this more often, I know Evan would like that.

Happy Halloween!

We took the boys to a trunk or treat at the church. Harry had his usual before a big event meltdown and Evan was not thrilled with the costume parade, he just wanted to go get the candy. Enjoy the pictures!

Harry the Garden Gnome. I ruined a lot of good felt trying to get that hat right and ended up making an emergency craft store run for a pattern and some more fabric.

Evan the skeleton. The top was bought by Auntie Pompom at Target and I did the leg bones myself with glow in the dark fabric paint. I thought I did a pretty accurate rendition of the leg bones if I do say so myself. There was no pale face makeup because I knew Evan would smear it (I learned my lesson from last years whiskers debacle).

Awesome Mom as a Scottish Lass. This was supposed to be my costume last year. The bodice ended up being too small and I am not skilled enough to fix that on my own so I just skipped it. I need to get stronger elastic in the skit and hem it. I kept walking over it all evening and almost lost it a few times (good thing I was wearing a long slip under it).

Product Review

My car is not so new any more. Two kids (one of whom was a puker as an infant) and have a way of wiping out that new car smell. I was thrilled to have a chance to try out the Febreze To Go Fabric Refresher(after out trip to Utah the car was getting downright funky). It comes in a cute 2.8 travel size.

I have used Febreze in the past. I accidentally bought something off of eBay that was from the home of a smoker. I needed to get the stink out of the item and fast. It worked great but the scent of the bottle that I had grabbed was overwhelming. We still had to air out the room after spraying it on. The To Go formula claimed to only leave behind a "light, freshing scent". Upon using it in the car I still found the scent to be overwhelming especially in such a small space. The scent lingered for days.

Once the scent dissipated (after a few days) the car funk was gone. I would use this again but sparingly, the scent is just a wee bit too strong to endure frequently but I do love the funk free car. I am going to be keeping this handy in my car. Here is a link to a way to get a $2 off coupon.

Sunday cuteness

This is a picture of Harry doing his fish lips. I never taught him to do it, he just started doing it one day all on his own.

When Harry was not busy driving me insane hopping up and down off my lap in Sacrament meeting today in church he was chock full of cuteness. I stuck his thumb in my mouth just for a bit of fun and Harry decided that he could indeed share his thumb with mommy. He kept putting it in my mouth even after the cuteness of the act had worn off for me.

Since the boys have been infants we have been helping them "lead" the church hymns. They thought it was funny and it got a smile out of the people sitting near us. Now Harry is able to do it on his own but he still insists that a parent hold his hand to "lead" the hymns. He takes your hand and puts it on his.


Here is a video of Evan at my parent's house. He is "taking a nap" while playing with an alarm clock that was in my parent's living room.

And the winner is.....

Jessica! Thanks everyone for playing along. The ninja pumpkin (number one) was designed by my husband and I designed the second one.

If you enjoyed this contest and are into knitting there is a great blog called WiKnit that features knitting related contests.

Go dye!

Don't forget to enter my contest.

I have officially taken another step into knitting madness, I have dyed my own yarn. It was a lot less scary than I thought it would be. I took the plunge because I was getting tired of the limited selection of wool colors that I was finding at the craft store. I am an artist at heart and love to work with varied and beautiful colors. I used Kool-aid and it was so simple to do, there are a lot of websites out there with instructions but I found this one to be the easiest to follow.

I picked orange for my first attempt. Here it is stewing away on the stove top.

This is the yarn after the first time around. I decided it was not dark enough so I did another round with more orange. The second orange left the yarn darker but I felt a little something else was needed.


This is the yarn after I added some red to it. It is now a nice deep orange, more pumpkiny. I can't wait to knit with it!

A contest

I thought it would be fun to have another contest to liven things up a bit. This one will be simple and quick. Guess which pumpkin I designed and with one was designed by my husband. Leave a comment by midnight Friday and you can win four hand knit dish rags. I was trying out some different patterns for a blanket I am knitting so I made a smaller version first. I will draw a random winner from all the correct answers. Good luck!

Pumpkin number one

Pumpkin number two

The prize!

No whine please

Ok seriously I think that I will explode if I hear any more whining from Evan. I am tired of the sobbing and crying because he is not getting exactly what he wants. I am tired of the repeated demands for things that he does not need to demand. He does not need to ask me if he can lay on the couch, just go and lay on the freaking couch already. I am tired of him seeing Harry with a toy and having him demand that I give him the toy "back". No I will not take it from him and give it to you. Get over it and stop the weeping.

Sunday err Monday cuteness

When we got back from the pumpkin patch and washed all the shoes and pumpkins off webrought the pumpkins in for the boys to look at. This is the very first thing that Evan did with his. He was saying "Pumpkin drive"

Harry is a hardcore thumbsucker. He has calluses on both thumbs and has sucked so hard he has caused blisters on his thumbs. One even got a small infection after a blister burst so I had to tape a sock over his hand to keep him from sucking that thumb. He has taken his thumb sucking to a new level. The other day I saw him trying to suck both thumbs at once!

Pumpkin patch

We are a bit later than normal but we finally made our trek to one of the many wonderful pumpkin patches in the area (one perk of living in a semi rural area). Evan is starting to realize that something exciting will be happening soon although since I doubt that he remembers anything from last year he is not totally sure what will happen. I have told him all about trick or treating and he is excited about the candy. Harry is in love with pumpkins and calls them puh-kins. We have plastic pumpkins with handles on them that the boys fight over (even though we have two). They love to carry them around. Enjoy the pictures, they are a bit blurry because I forgot to clean the lens off after Evan stuck his finger on it while I was trying to get a video of him doing something cute.

Harry was quite impressed with the farm animals. He had never seen a cow so close up before. He kept trying to feed the animals the bits of muddy straw that were around the pens. When we went to the zoo on our vacation in Utah he was the most interested in lingering to look at the animals. I think he may have inherited my interest in animals.

A naughty passerby found a bale of hay and started tossing handfuls in to the horses pen (I am always reluctant to feed another person's animal willy nilly like that since I know too much about feeding farm animals to ruin their diet with my ignorance). I did not allow the boys to do that, but they did watch with great interest.

A small portion of the pumpkin patch. It was massive! The ad said that they had about 30 acres of pumpkins. I liked it a lot better than the one that we went to for the last few years. There was more stuff going on for the kids. Sadly the field was super muddy thanks to a couple days of rain. We had to scrub the sticky muddy clay off of our shoes when we got home.

Harry and his pumpkin. When going to a pumpkin patch I always try and steer the kids to the pumpkins that are actually grown in the patch. Sometimes they will ship them in which I feel is cheating. Evan is not in as many of the pictures this time around because he spent a lot of the time in the field whining to my husband. He didn't like having to walk in the mud at all.

Bitten hard

Now I know that I have been bitten hard by the knitting bug. I have been up for hours past my bedtime because I am reworking the side seams on the soakers I have knit. The pattern was knit flat instead of in the round like most soaker patterns. I liked the ease of using the pattern but was not liking the awful side seams that I was making. I got to poking around an awesome knitting website and found an awesome way to make strongr and more invisible seams. I just had to go back and rework all the soakers. I can't see straight right now and I need to get to bed. You have to check that website out if you are the least bit interested in knitting because it has videos of how to do different things which helps so much more than just looking at pictures.

Knitting fool

If I have seemed to be different with my blogging it is because I have been on a knitting spree. I got tired of waiting for wool soakers to fall into my lap and was too poor to buy them. I got to it and started knitting up a storm. I know have a nice pile of diaper covers but the bug has bitten me hard and I am now tinkering with the patterns. I wish there was a way to knit and blog at the same time, heck I would take being able to knit and read a book at the same time. Sadly all I can do is watch TV and knit at the same time. I am catching up on a great tv show called Heros thanks to the Watch It Now feature on Netflix.

Here is an action shot of one of the soakers. This was made from the wool that I bought in Utah. It is a super neat color, each strand is a different color and then it is twisted into one big strand to knit with. It looks like there is a lot of green but the big strand is actually only made with one strand of green, the rest is differing shades of blue. I loved the yarn because it reminded me of the ocean.

Family

My mom encouraged me to write this post. She has a blog too but no one else reads it and she wants the internets to know what a jerk my Grandfather and my Uncle are. They did not give my sister a wedding gift and yet the night before the wedding spent three hundred dollars each on new shoes. She wanted a me to burn them with words and howl in indignation.

Honestly I could not muster up more than a bit of sympathy for my sister for being cheated out of a much needed household item. You see both my Uncle and my Grandfather are essentially strangers to me. Before the wedding I had not seen my Uncle in over 15 years (maybe longer since I can't remember the last time I did see him) and my Grandfather in 10 years. Even when they were in my life they were never really in my life.

It sucks that things are the way they are. I would love to have a much closer extended family. It would be nice for my kids to have a closer relationship with a great grandparent, like they can on my husband's side of the family, but they made choices that destroyed that. They chose to value things of the world over family. My Uncle made his priorities clear when he stated, in my presence, that he feels that if you are married and have three kids before you are 30 you have ruined your life. I guess because I am only 28 and have a mere two kids I should consider my life not quite ruined just yet.

I guess it is easy when you don't believe in any sort of life after death to try and make the most of this life, but even then I feel that they have lived rather empty lives. My grandfather will leave behind some kids (some of whom managed to have happy marriages despite his example) who will possibly miss him a tiny bit but my Uncle will not leave behind much at all except some debt and a large house that he hardly uses. They have lived such hollow lives.

It was strange meeting them again after so long. I felt so different because I was now an adult. I could see them with different eyes. I am no longer an adoring grandchild. I don't have to fear the harsh words spoken in annoyance because I was being a child and that annoyed them. I am a confident woman who pities them. My kids will know me. My grandchildren will be spoiled by me. My family will know who I am and will not regard me as a stranger. I hope that my loving example will be passed on through the generations like the examples of my parents, who are shaping how I raise the boys even now.

Time zone fun

The shape of the Earth is a great thing, a round planet is a planet that makes sense and is great to live on. The funny thing about the fact that the planet is round is that the sun does not hit all of the Earth all at once. There are parts of it where it is dark right now. Man has artifically created a thing called the time zone to help keep people on track and on time. Most people seem to get this concept and are able to easily incorporate it into their daily life.

Some people, however, are not as aware of the concept of time zones. I got a call from one such person this morning at 6:30. The company that provides Evan with his INR testing strips was calling to see if we needed a refill. I give them points for being proactive and calling me but the timing really sucked. They are located in Florida so there is a three hour time difference between them and me. They thought they were calling at a perfectly reasonable 9:30. The gal apologized and put a note in the file to be more aware of the time difference. I should have asked for some free test strips but I was half asleep and not very coherent.

The hair

I hope you people realize how annoying you are. The nerve of you, harassing me to post a picture of my new hair cut. Who do you think you are?

This is not a super clear picture of myself, but it is the best I have right now. It is normally a bit more curly but for the wedding it was blown straight, which showed off my gray hairs quite nicely.

Spam!

And I am not talking about the vile lunch "meat". Somehow my family and friends email address has gotten out (I have one that I give out on forms and the like so that my other addresses can remain spam freeish) and in the last few days I have had a deluge of spam sent to that address. The filter catches the majority of it, but more than I really like are slipping through. It is frustrating that people are emailing junk like this and even more frustrating that people are stupid enough to fall for it which only encourages the spammers. Do people really think that the junk they are trying to sell is really legit? What is this world coming to?

Boo hoo!

While I was away on vacation I got my hair cut. I have a hard time remembering to schedule hair appointments so I often let my hair get longer than I really like. The last time I had my hair cut was when we were in Utah for out last visit almost two years ago. I decided to chop my hair off because I was getting tired of the wads of shed hair that were appearing in odd places. I got six inches of hair cut off and this Sunday none of my friends even seemed to notice it! I am heartbroken and depressed. I think I am going to become a hermit and shun the fickle company of my so called friends (I am so just kidding!).

I am loving my new short hair and like every time I get it cut I am vowing to keep the shortness up. It is nice to not have to use handfuls of shampoo and conditioner. It dries curly if I wash it at night and let it air dry. I love that my head feels so much lighter.

The down side is that I can't put my hair into a pony tail when I am having a bad hair day. They boys also love to play with my hair and I would drape it over the arm of the couch while I lay down and read so that they could tug on it as they wished. It is also a lot harder to shake it onto their faces to tickle them. Over all though the cons are not enough to out weigh the pros.

Home again, home again, lickety split

We made it home safely with no puking and no speeding tickets (my husband drove the whole way home just to be sure). It is pouring down rain which is a nice change and I am enjoying the moist air. Utah really dries a person out. We just stocked up at Costco and we now have food in the house again.

Here are some more pictures from the trip.

Here are the boys at the Tracy Aviary. We did not get to see too many of the birds but we did get to see some pink flamingos.

Here is the bride getting her hair touched up. The woman doing her hair is a long time family friend that also did my wedding hair. Every time I go to Utah I have her cut my hair.

Auntie Pompom making a funny face for the camera.

Harry sniffing his candle. He snagged it while his Aunties were walking them around the reception hall while I was getting my hair touched up. He loves that silly thing and is still carrying it around.

This may look like snow but it is actually salt. We stopped at the Salt Flats rest stop to let the boys run around for a bit. You have to wash off your shoes after or you take home nasty dirty salt in your car.

Review of the big day

I am so exhausted right now but I know that if I don't write this I will be blogging in my head all night. Here are some of my impressions for the day.

• The ceremony was everything it should have been. It was very beautiful and it made me cry good tears. Good thing I wore waterproof mascera.
• If I ever hint that I want to wear high heels again someone come over and knock me to my senses. My feet are killing me!!!
• My 80 something grandpa still has an eye for the young pretty women. It was very amusing seeing him trying to hit on girls that had no idea what this old geezer was doing even talking to them.
• My uncle may be a bit of a jerk but he makes an amusing dinner companion.
• We had meltdown city with the boys. There are going to be some funny pictures in the wedding album thanks to Harry and his temper tanturms at the temple.
• If you are going to have a big fancy reception it is very handy to have it in a park with a play structure a few feet away. It made the reception a lot nicer for us and the boys.
• Glitter is a very evil substance. It got everywhere!!! I am covered in it right now.
• I am so very tired that I can hadrdly think straight. We have a long drive tomorrow.

Whee!

A trip to a yarn store soothed my crankies away. I could have spent hours there just looking at and touching the yarn. I got some yummy super soft cotton yarn that I am planning on knitting into a baby blanket. Who I will give the blanket to I am not sure, but I just could not resist it. I also bought some really fun wool for some diaper covers for the boys. The yarn has been a saving grace now that more of the crazy relatives have come into town for the wedding. It lets me bliss out while the world goes crazy around me.

Tomorrow is the big day and people are sill running last second errands for my sister, after all why do things ahead of time when you can run around like a crazy person the day before. The bride's maid's dresses are still not completely done. It makes me glad that my wedding was a heck of a lot simpler and that it was six years ago.

Yargh!

This weekend was General Conference for my church. I had been anticipating the chance to watch it on TV (one of the perks of being in Utah for conference). I had hoped to enjoy a spiritual weekend and also get a lot of knitting done. Sadly this was not what ended up happening.

The boys went nuts!!! It was so frustrating to have to listen to Evan whining because he wanted to be anywhere else. It was not like I expected all that much out of them. I just wanted them to be in the same room and to be somewhat quiet. By the end I was ready to scream in frustration.

I have a feeling that Evan is trying to make it look like we beat him up. Since we have been here he has scraped his chin two separate times. He has also fallen down the stairs even though he was not actually walking on the stairs. He was just walking past them and then randomly took a tumble. Yesterday while we were eating dinner at my husband's sister's house he bonked his lip and ended up with a nasty fat lip. I saw the entire thing and no one bumped or touched him at all. It is a good thing we are leaving in a few days, if we stay much longer Evan will be unrecognizable.

Fun times

It has been so much fun visiting my parents. The boys are finally old enough that they can appreciate more of the many fun activities that this area has to offer. We have been going places every day.

Our first stop was Temple Square. Evan was delighted that we rode the Trax train up. Harry was not as impressed and I had a hard time keeping him in his seat. He wanted to wander around the train.

The next day we went to Liberty Park and afterwords visited Auntie Pom pom at her new house. She has rats which were a huge hit with the boys. Evan kept trying to feed them grass because in his mind all animals eat grass.

Today we went to the zoo. Harry was more into the animals but both boys went wild in the small animal and reptile display. Evan loved the snakes the best and would hiss at them. They are building some new displays at the zoo and the digging machines drew a very big crowd too.

We are here!

We made it safe and sound after getting a speeding ticket ( I am a speed demon on the freeways and totally got busted even though everyone else around me was speeding) and Evan puking in the car all before we even left California.

Fun stuff

We are on the road again and I will be a tad busy with driving and road tripping so I thought you might enjoy some fun links. Try not to trash my blog while I am gone. No parties or anything like that!

• If you are worried that you could be attacked by bandits while you are sleeping here is the perfect nightstand for you.
• There are some fun and creative artists out there
• Do you know everything there is to know about my favorite hair style of all time?
  
• These are adorable and a lot less fattening than the real thing.
• Have you wondered how to use your light saber when you are not in battle?
• A little something for the ladies *wink, wink, nudge, nudge*
• A very amusing comic. I laughed my head off (not really but it is still very funny).