What I Did On My Blogging Vacation Part 1 (With a Contest at the end)

Here is my massive report on all the knitting I did on my blogging vacation. The first day I almost managed to finish two projects (one of which I can't show you) but I was held back from that feat because of the bind off. The second project was a hat and scarf combined and it took fooorrrreeever to bind off. I am pretty pleased at how it turned out though since I did a lot of tweaking to the pattern.

With out further ado the much altered Toasty Topper.

"Don't hate be because I am beautiful!"

When the pattern stated that "one size will fit an infant, toddler or small child." I believed them. What I failed to take into account was that the children of two parents with large heads will have large heads themselves (Harry is in the 90th percentile for head circumference). The hat when knit as written with the exact same yarn that was used by the pattern (which I oddly enough had picked out to use for a hat for Harry before I even found this pattern) was much too small for my large noggined progeny.

I altered the pattern by using only one strand of yarn, used smaller needles (for a tighter fabric as this will go under hoods), did more crown increases, bound off an entirely different number of stitches and added a ton more for the scarf part of the hat. I think I bound off too many stitches since you can see Evan's ears peeking out. I may knit an extension on to that part of the hat so that the ears get better coverage. Over all I am pretty pleased with the hat when I take into account that it was only loosely based on a pattern and mostly it came from my large brain (a big head means a bigger brain.. right?)

That bottom stripe was supposed to look less subtle. I tried to do a slip stitch rib, but it did not stand out as much as I would have liked.

Evan the monkey toed little boy

Saturday I did a lot of yarn dyeing. I found a great article that had several ways to get variegated yarn when using food coloring to dye with. I am practicing my techniques for some socks that my mom wants me to knit for her. I am very happy with how my yarn turned out. I used the hot pour method and it was super easy. I ended up with a lot fewer white spots than the author of the article, I think in part because I have a wider and shallower crock pot. That let the dye to get to more of the yarn.

My first batch I used more orange Kool-aid and less yellow. The colors seem a bit more pastel than the second skein.

I could not resist knitting up a swatch just to see how the colors looked together.

I like the colors of the second skein better. They seemed to saturate better. I used more yellow and cut back on the orange. I know it is hard to tell the subtle differences from my pictures due to my sucky camera, but trust me they are there.




I had been planning on trying the cold pour method where you pour the dye directly on to the yarn, but I chickened out due to the mess factor. I will give it a try when I can be sure that my kids will not be around to "help" me. I shudder to think of what this would do to my carpets if I spilled some of the dye.

I also managed to make good starts on two different socks, one to start a pair and one to finish a pair. No pictures again because the recipients are readers of this blog.

Now it is contest time!!! If you would like to win one of these skeins of yarn just leave a comment. Stealing from the book Emma you will have to tell me three dull things or two moderately amusing things or one very amusing thing. I will pick two winners (you have a week to enter) and if you are not a knitter, I may be able to be convinced to knit it up into something simple.... if you twist my arm hard enough and don't expect it to be a rush job. Good luck!

Kid stuff

I promise pictures of my crafting soon (cross my heart hope to die). But until I get the chance to take them with good light I am going to share some of the awesomeness of my kids.

Yesterday Evan had to have some blood drawn for some routine tests (part of having a new doctor). He amazed me! He was so good and held so still for the blood draw. He did not even cry! I think Harry was more upset about it than Evan was.

Evan has not had his blood drawn for almost 2 years (I can't believe that it has been so long!) and after it was done he asked them for juice which is something that they gave to him after he got it drawn at his other hospital. I am so amazed that he remembered that detail after such a long time.

Harry is becoming more and more amusing every day. Lately he has started saying "excuse me" which sounds more like "quse me" We were grocery shopping the other day when he turned around and yelled "excuse me!" loudly at an older man that was blocking the way. I had to try hard to keep from laughing.

Another new Harry thing is him telling you to stop something. If we are in the middle of a tickle session he will randomly tell me to stop, which I will. Then he will take my hands and put them back on his stomach for more tickling. This morning he was telling the commercials that go on before Sesame Street to "stop" sadly that did not work at all.

Eye of the storm?

The Sunday before last we had an interesting Relief Society lesson about dealing with tough times. Different kinds of trials were compared to different natural disasters. Evan's birth and the discovery of his heart defect was like an earth quake, sudden and not something that you could really anticipate or prepare for. Our recent move was like a hurricane, something that you could see looming over the horizon and something that can be very life altering. Right now we are in the process of discovering if the point in time we are at right now is the end of the storm or merely the eye of the storm.

While I was on my blog break we found out that the long anticipated promotion that my husband had been working for and hoping to get before the move had gone through and before the end of the year he would be moving up in rank. The problem is that this assignment is for his current rank and there are no slots for the rank up. That means we may have to move yet again next summer. There are some options that are too complicated to explain here so there is a chance that we will be staying. The idea that we could be moving again almost makes me physically ill.

Another stressful thing that happened today was that we finally had an appointment with Evan's new cardiologist. She is nice but it was a seriously long appointment. I had not been really prepared for the length of time that we ended up spending there. We got there on time for the 10:00 appointment (which means we were 15 min early) and did not leave until 12:45. They did an echo and she decided she wanted him to have a Holter monitor on (so I get the fun of trying to keep him from pulling off his leads for 24 hours) and we have to go back and get some blood work done. Both boys were generally well behaved, but by the end we were all going nuts.

The practice seems nice enough, it is great that she had clinic so close to our house. Something that gives me pause is that they don't have anyone in the practice that does heart catheterizations. We are also being sent to another cardiologist that specializes in pacemakers. It really was nice to have the one stop shopping of Evan's previous Cardiologist. There was someone that did the cath lab and his cardiologist was able to take care of his basic pacemaker needs.

All this has drained me a bit. I will post all my exciting crafting pictures later, even though I did not get as much done as I had wanted. Most of my knitting will not be posted due to the fact that the recipiants are readers of my blog, which is a shame because that is where I made the most progress.

Crafting break

I have decided to take a week off of blogging to spend the time that I would spend on the internet making really fun crafts. Chelle got me hooked on the idea of felt food (I knew it was out there, but I never realized how easy it would be to make) and I am going to attempt my own. I also have some knitting projects that I want to finish up and I have some yarn that I want to dye, so I think I will manage to keep busy. Oh, and my husband's 30th birthday is this Saturday and I have to plan for that as well.

When I come back I am going to have some fun things to give away!

I heart garage sales

Here in Kansas garage sales are hard core. You can find plenty of them starting as early as Thursday. I haven't been to too many, I am trying to keep the amount of clutter in our house to a minimum, but I still can't resist going to Craig's List and scoping out the yard sales for the week. This week I found something that I had been wanting to get for my boys for some time now.

Yes I got my boys a play kitchen for a mere $5. I had been eyeing a really nice wooden one at Target, but they girled it up and changed the color scheme from neutral to pink. In fact most of the previously gender neutral play food there was pinked up. That makes me rather grumpy!

"Look maw I am playing in a gender neutral kitchen!"

"I love my kitchen!"

Now all I need to do I get them some fun wooden or felt play food and wee dishes. Maybe that is a job for grandparents for Christmas ... hint hint.

Awwww

Sometimes it is pretty easy to get ground under with all the thankless stuff that you have to do as a parent. Today I actually got a bit of appreciation.

I was making the kids lunch and had made them stay downstairs so that they would not harass me while I was working in the kitchen. Part way through the lunch preparation I hear Evan say "Good job making lunch Mommy" and then later he actually thanked me for making him lunch. This was repeated at dinner time.

I replied with a "You are welcome" but it also made me feel a bit bad that I had been kind of grumpy with him. He can be such a trying child at times and sometimes I would love to sell him just so I could have a few moments of peace. When he is not annoying the crap out of me, he is a very sweet and loving child. I feel so lucky to be his mom.

Woah!

I can't believe that it is already Friday! Having a three day weekend really messes with my perception of time.

Do you have anything fun planned for the weekend? We don't have much but I am excited that my husband will (fingers crossed) be installing a plant shelf in our dining room. I am tired of the kids picking the leaves off my plants (the little monkeys are getting way too tall). I have a grow light (hee hee!) that I will also be installing so that my plants will be able to have the amount of light that they need to actually thrive. I will post pictures when it is done.

I ain't lion

Harry was quite a hit with the lions at the zoo today. I really am kicking myself for not bringing my camera.

It is quite chilly today so I thought it would be fun to get out and make out weekly zoo trip. I hate going when it is super hot so I usually schedule it on a cloudy day. Today we had to wear pants and jackets!

The animals were much more active this morning. Usually they sit there listlessly ignoring the puny humans that are peering at them. The lion display has a see through fence and a path that leads to a cave where you can look at the lions through thick glass. There were some older kids running from one part of the display to another and the male lion was running along side them. He stopped and stared when he saw Harry who was wearing a red jacket.

When we went to the cave there was a female lion near the window and she got quite excited when she saw Harry. She started pawing at the window right where Harry was standing to look in. The male lion came by a bit later and started doing the same thing.

One of the moms there asked me if I was freaked out that my son seemed so attractive to the lions. I just shrugged. I would have been more worried if Harry had been upset by all the attention, but he thought it was funny that they were trying to get to him. I also felt that the zoo would not want to get sued so they would make darn sure that the animal enclosures were up to snuff.

Sunday Cuteness: Harry edition

Harry's bracelets. They are from a stacking toy and he originally had them shoved all the way up past his elbow. He came to me crying that they were stuck so I helped and then he was all smiles.

Harry adores stuffing things into bags.

My husband likes playing video games from his youth. We own a Nintendo 64 and this fun little controller that has Sonic games on them. Harry kept saying "Harry turn, Harry turn" and then when he was given the controller he proceeded to hold it and stare at the tv. He did not manage to move the character all that much, but he was excited when he did. I am sure we have a future gamer on our hands. Playing Sonic is a lot of fun when you take thumb sucking breaks.

Old

You know you are old when you hear the Sesame Street version of a song before you hear it out in real life. I was doing a summer clearance crawl getting some clothing for Evan to use next summer when I heard a familiar tune. It was a song that I had heard on Sesame Street, but it was the real version and not actually about counting. I actually liked the Sesame Street version a lot better.

Here is my all time favorite Sesame Street song.

Insulted

We had a roasted chicken last night for dinner. I like to get them now and then because it is nice to have precooked chicken for recipes. Evan adores them and will often eat up more than his fair share. I also made mashed potatoes and gravy which is more for the adults than the kids since both kids gag on them when we convince them to take bites of the potatoes.

Harry was picking at his serving of the chicken and had hardly eaten anything. I thought I would entice him to eat more through the grand old toddler trick of offering him something to dip it in. I poured some gravy on his plate and encouraged him to dip his chicken in it. He did and then looked at the chicken like it was some wort of science experiment. He then tentatively licked the chicken and gravy combo. "Yucky" was his response. I guess I have a food critic on my hands now.

Shhhh

I have been a bit silent of late. Why? The weather here has been so fan-freaking-tastic that we have been enjoying that rather than sitting in front of a boring old computer. It has felt more like spring than the horribly hot and oppressive weather that happened when my family came to visit. I love having a back yard!

Sunday Cuteness

Evan hit a very important milestone this week, he learned how to put on his pants all by himself. Some people may wonder why this is something worth noting but others will get it. Evan has no use of his left hand making simple things like dressing a much bigger challenge. The great thing about this accomplishment is that he did it all on his own, neither I or his previous physical therapist had been working all that much on dressing skills.

During the day he generally runs around in his underwear. It is easier for him to use the bathroom that way and when he is done I will help him put his undies back on. He prefers to be fully dressed and gets cranky at me when I take his shorts off after we are done running errands. Finally I told him that if he wanted to wear his shorts he would have put them on himself (never even thinking that he would actually do it). The next thing I know he is out of his room smiling up a storm and wearing his shorts.


Of course they were backwards, but we will work on that.


Harry is also constantly growing and changing. He has started using "I" to refer to himself. Evan still refers to himself in the third person. Harry is cutest when I am trying to get him to eat something new and unfamiliar. I just pretend that I am going to eat something off of his plate and he will yell "I eat, I eat!" and then gobble it down. I know that trick will only work for a little while, but is pretty darn cute while it lasts.

The Blue Room

When we were walking through our house for the first time I thought it was charming that there were colored walls. Growing up my parents were firmly in the white wall camp and then once I was married we lived in rentals with boring white walls. I was so over white walls.

I failed to take into account that sometimes some colors are just not meant to be plastered all over a wall and that when you have to look at that color all day long it can get to be a bit too much. This is what happened to the "Yellow Room" (named by Evan). The yellow that was haphazardly slapped on the walls of the room burned the eyes if you spent more than a little time in it. So we changed it to blue.

My husband was at first put off by the intense blue but has since warmed to it. I think that the color is perfect for a little boy's Thomas the Train themed room. We kept the original yellow color on the trim to add a bit of pizazz to the room.

Here we are entering the room. The shorter set of curtains are from their room in California. I had been planning on sewing patches to the jean curtains that you see on the left, but I can't seem to find the Thomas fabric that I had been saving for a time when I desperately needed Thomas fabric. As you can see Evan is now on the floor like Harry was in Cali. We are looking for some bunk beds for the boys and hope to be able to put them in real beds before too long.

The wall art is a clock from the old room and a puzzle that I covered in Modge Podge and my husband made a quick wood frame for. On the ceiling you will notice a model of the solar system. That was a gift from my parents and the boys love being able to look at it. Once we scare up some rechargeable C batteries it will even light up and move. There was a hideous light fixture up there that we removed and replaced with something less dangley and ugly.

Here is a shot of the closet. You will also notice a potty that Evan loves to use (yeah potty training). The closets in the house are all very roomy and nice. I love that I can have plenty of room for both kid's clothing plus ample storage space. The dresser is one that was handed down to me. I believe that my father used it when he was a kid. On the wall you will see the moon. That was part of the solar system package and makes a great night light. It will cycle through the different phases of the lunar cycle and turn off after about a quarter of an hour.


Turning around we see the door. Note that there is another door in the room. That leads to the bathroom. It is like a hall way between the two rooms. I am not super fond of this setup because it means that if any guests need to use the bathroom they will have to enter into someone's bedroom to do so. Plus if we have someone crashing on our couches then that person would have to run the risk of waking someone up if they needed to use the bathroom in the middle of the night.

Harry chilling on his bed.

Evan chilling on his bed.

This is one of my all time favorite garage sale finds. The Thomas trash cans that are being sold now are cheap plastic and ugly. This one is a nice solid metal and has cute pictures all around it. Too bad the boys love to put things in it that are not actually supposed to be in it. It also makes a great drum.

A closeup of the solar system.

Just a friendly warning. When curtain shopping make sure that you buy both the same length. I just grabbed the last two jean panels and did not even think to check the sizes. Oh and make sure that the metal curtain rods that you put up are able to handle the weight of the jean curtains and won't bend and threaten to collapse onto the guests you have staying in there. We now have sturdy and thick wooden curtain rods.


Here is a closeup of the super cute vinyl wall stickers. There is a whole line of them along the wall above Harry's bed. The picture showing that ended up being blurry and the kids are asleep right this second so this is what you get. This wall is where the theoretical bunk beds will go.

Saddened

For some time now I have been following the heart journey of Tommy. The poor little guy had things a lot tougher than Evan since he had many more issues to overcome. It looked like things were going well, he was about to loose his trach and be able to breath all on his own through his nose when things took a turn for the worse. Sadly he passed away last night. Go over to his blog and leave his family some love, I am sure they could use it right about now.

A Ravelympic update

Announcer 1: We return now to Awesome Mom. She has been knitting up a storm and making great headway on her projects despite her setbacks.

Announcer 2: Yes, she finished the wool soaker used for covering cloth diapers late Saturday evening. It looks like it turned out nice. I hope she is happy with her effort. The judges seem to like it, she got very high marks for it.

Announcer 1: She did not have much left on the sock and she managed a very good save when her son Harry pulled the metal knitting needles out of the socks.

Announcer 2: Metal needles and slippery alpaca yarn just do not go well together. She should have used wooden needles which would have prevented them from being as easily slipped out.

Announcer 1: I don't know if even knitting needles made out of Velcro could have stopped a very determined Harry. He is a little monkey.

Announcer 2: It looks like Awesome Mom has just weaved in her last loose end. Yes, she is finished! She made it to the finish line with plenty of time to spare.

Announcer 1: We will now interview Awesome Mom about her amazing finish.

Announcer 2: Awesome Mom you have overcome so many obstacles and completed your projects. How does that make you feel.

Awesome Mom (breathless): I feel great! It was tough eeking out the time that I needed to finish the projects with such a time constraint. I think I put out a pretty good effort although next time I will pick more familiar projects. You want to go out there and wow the judges but you also don't want to make mistakes.

The alpaca yarn was very slippery and there were a lot of dropped stitches and it was hard to work with using metal needles. I also made the toes different from each other which, if I had been giving these socks away, would have meant that the judges would have docked me points.

Announcer 1: What made you decide to make such a risky move?

Awesome Mom: Well when I knit the first sock I followed the pattern exactly and it said to keep ribbing the top of the sock while doing the decrease for the toe. It was very hard to do the decreases and keep in pattern so I decided that for the second sock I would just knit plain on the top which is how most socks are knit.

Announcer 2: Thank you for your time Awesome Mom. Congratulations on a job well done.

Awesome Mom: Thanks!

Moronic Monday Madness

The Gremlin Wrangler has challenged us to show off our Mondays. Here is a peek at mine.

My laundry pile. This is not including a pile of kid's stuff that I need to get put away.

My saintly husband did a bunch of dishes yesterday, so the pile is not as bad as it usually would be on a Monday. I hate dishes and I wish there was an environmentally good way to use disposable dishes.

Here is a shot of the spare room. We finished painting and decorating the other bedroom and moved the boys in this weekend. That left this one a mess. The pile of clothing in the pack is the previously mentioned kid's clothing that I need to get put away. I will post pictures of the newly decorated room later. I think it turned out quite cute.

More random junk from the room move.

Sunday Cuteness: Silly boys

This is Evan playing nap. He actually asked me if he could lay down on the couch and be tucked in.

Harry loves to have me take his picture and then show it to him. Here is one of the many random pictures that I have on my camera.

Almost there

All that is left is the ribbing for the legs and a drawstring. It is amazing how much progress you can make on a project when you actually knit on it.

Strange

I had an odd dream dream this morning. I had not slept well last night so when the kids were watching Sesame Street I was laying on the couch trying to wake up, only I ended up falling asleep again. In this dream the kids were downstairs watching tv. I suddenly remembered that we had a parrot in our garage that we had found and taken home. I realized that I had not fed it for several days. Upset I tried to get up and feed the parrot only I couldn't because I was really asleep. I managed to wake up but it still took me awhile to realize that we did not actually have a parrot nor did we rescue one.

If I was going to analyze this dream I would decide that it was representational of my feelings about the many and ever expanding responsibilities that I have in my life. I have so much stuff to do every day to keep the house running smoothly and yet there is also time I want to spend with the kids and my husband plus there is me time that I want to spend knitting or reading a good book. I fell like I am dropping the ball at times and things have been slipping mostly in the house cleaning department (my kitchen floor is crying out for me to mop it). But I am not going to analyze it, not today.

What have you been dreaming about?

How Evan and Harry like to start the morning

I am not sure how well Harry can even see the TV considering that he was right behind Evan, but since he was not complaining I didn't say anything.

Woo!

I am making some progress on the soaker. I managed to make up for lost ground pretty quickly. It seems funny but every time I have to frog a project it seems like I go faster the second time around. Maybe it is because of practice. I have about an inch more before I have to start the leg shaping and other fun stuff. The constant stockinette is making my hands tired but I am plugging along.

I am coming down with a cold that my children decided to share with me. I am hoping that if I pretend that I am not sick the cold will decide to not take a firm hold in my body. Go away bad cold! No one wants you hanging around!

Boo!

I hate Mondays. I have a massive pile of laundry and a pile of dishes in the sink. All I want to do is go back to bed and sleep some more. I managed to get some laundry done by bribing the kids with play dough if they left me alone long enough to finish folding a few loads. They like to help out with the stuffing of the washer and dryer. The fools think it is a fun game and who am I to deny them the fun of helping out with the laundry?

My husband and I were called (email me if you get confused by my LDS terminology, I don't mind explaining) to teach the Valiant 12 boys. Yeah we get to teach preteen boys. I am teaching the lessons and my husband is covering the scouting aspect of it. He gets that duty since he is a whole lot more familiar with scouting being that he is an Eagle Scout. The boys are pretty nice and not as rowdy as I had feared they would be. They managed to answer most of the questions I asked even though they tried to get all tangential on me. I am used to that since when I was teaching Young Women that was a favorite ploy of theirs.

Evan is grossly overusing the potty card to get out of things he does not want to do. I am getting very tempted to just put him on a potty schedule and not deviate from that. I have been frequently asking him if he needs to go potty and now need is a part of his vocabulary. He "needs" to go outside right now. He "needs" to have a cookie. He "needs" go into the blue room (which is in the final stages of being painted and is currently off limits to small children).

Here is some eye candy for my relatives that read my blog.

The boys in the rain forest exhibit at the zoo. They were so authentic that there was a cockroach running around. The boys of course loved it. I was freaking out.

Harry peeking in on the lions.

Peek-a-boo!

A goose hoping for some food. The geese at the petting part of the zoo are very cheeky and grabby. We never feed them for fear of getting nipped.

Evan trying to do a headstand on a bridge. Harry is trying to peek through the slats into the water below.

Competition

Announcer 1: We now go live to WIPs Wrestling. Competing right now is Awesome Mom. She is a relative newcomer to the sport of knitting having only been knitting seriously for about a year. She has come a long way and is a very promising rookie.

Announcer 2: Awesome Mom has a lot to overcome in this competition. She has two small children that really cut into her knitting time and can also distract her which is the biggest cause of pattern mistakes.

Announcer 1: The pattern she has chosen for this round of competition is a pattern with a low level of difficulty. In order to please the judges she has added a few twists to it by adding in some ribbed cuffing and adapting the rise of the soaker to meet Parker's special cloth diapering needs.

Announcer 2: I really like the color she has picked out for this project... Wait! What is going on here? It looks like she is frogging back her project! Yes, she is!

Announcer 1: It seems like Awesome Mom was putting the short rows in the wrong spot on the garment and her last short row was showing a big hole. I think she is going to have to choose another short row technique since this one does not seem to be working well for her.

Announcer 2: This is a big blow to Team Knitting Bloggers. They have already been handicapped by injury. The team captain cut her thumb only a few days before competition started.

Announcer 1: Will Awesome Mom be able to make up her lost ground? We will just have to wait and see. We now turn to the Sockput.

It is Olympics time

I am so excited! Last night we had an Enrichment activity and the woman that was sitting next to me pulled out some knitting and started working on it. I was thrilled to be able to talk knitting with her. We even chatted about Ravelry and the Ravolympics (squee! I am so excited to have a knitting buddy in my ward).

I joined team Knitting Bloggers (Go knitting bloggers!!!) for the Ravolympics and am entered in the WIPs (works in progress) Wrestling. I have some things that I have stopped working on and that I wanted to get finished, so I thought this would be the best event. Don't worry, I am not planning on knitting in a singlet. Here are the projects I want to finish (I really need to stop starting so many projects!).


Here is another soaker for Parker. It has been languishing in my knitting bag ever since our house hunting trip to Kansas last April. I have pulled out a few times to knit on, but did not make significant progress. It really should be done and on Parker's designer bum right now.

Here is another leftover from the house hunting trip. I finished the first one here in Kansas but second sock syndrome has been beating me silly. I just have a few more inches on the foot and then I need to add in the heel and I will be done.



This is an unofficial entry and will only be brought out when I am done with the other two. It is a lace stole so I have a ton more to do still. I didn't want to make it the main WIP because I knew I would be hard pressed to finish it in 17 days.

Also in my knitting bag is my pay it forward projects. I have two started with major progress made on both and I have another one that I have yet to even cast on for. But for now I will be concentrating on finishing my older projects.

Thumbs up!

I was insanely nervous about meeting our new primary care doctor today. I tend to work myself up about meeting new people, doctors in particular even though I have read a great many blogs by doctors and I know that they are people just like me. Added to my freak out about the appointment was that the office was in the middle of nowhere (which to be fair most of the towns in Kansas are in the middle of nowhere) and complicated to get to. I really freak out about getting lost and being late and when you combine the possibility of both happening at once I can become a basket case.

Any way I managed to pull it all together and we arrived safely and early (but not too early) the internet directions clutched in my sweaty hands. The doctor turned out to be a very nice guy that was a lot younger looking than I had expected. The facilities were very nice and spacious. Our former pediatrician shared his facilities with his physical therapist wife and they were on the cramped side.

Harry had a freak out about the scale. He did not like it one bit that it wiggled under his feet. There was even a handle bar to hold on to but he was not having any of it. The nurse put him in the infant one which had a seat. Don't ask me how tall my kids are or now much they weigh. That kind of information slips out of my mind the second I hear it. Unless I write it down I can't seem to remember it.

Something that was a huge hit with the boys was that they had crayons so they could color on the paper that covered the exam table. Sadly the exam table was no wide enough for both boys and a shoving match ensued until I put an end to it. Evan also had to add the doctor's office to his List of Public Bathrooms That Evan Has Visited. At least he actually went this time. Harry got a bit of one on one time with the doctor while this was happening and he did not freak out which is what he normally does whenever I have to leave the room suddenly. I guess the doctor is just that good when it comes to a bedside manner.

I got lost on the way home thanks to all the confusing turns and freeway and tollway changes I had to do. I am so taking another more direct route next time. I don't care that I will save a little time since I ended up loosing a lot of time when I was wandering around lost. We made it home (obviously) and I was wiped out by all the excitement and goings ons.

Over all I think this doc is a keeper. He is so efficient that I got a call later in the afternoon from his office letting me know that they had set up appointments with a pediatric cardiologist, pediatric neurologist and a physical therapy evaluation. I had thought I would have to do all that calling once all the authorizations came in and what not. It was nice not to have to, since calling people in #1 hard for me to do because the kids freak out (seriously, they could have been playing nicely for hours before I have to make a phone and the second I tough the phone a fight breaks out that will not end until I end the call) every time I even think about talking to someone on the phone and #2 I have a crazy phone phobia about calling people. I can talk on the phone all day if someone calls me, but if I have to call someone it some how becomes hard for me to do it. I am always worried that I am bothering them or interrupting some vastly important task. I have to have a real and pressing need to call someone before I can do it.

Well enough now about my neuroses. How about them (insert local sports team)?

Whew

My family came for a bit of an impromptu visit to see our new home. It was a crazy but fun (and super hot) weekend. My dad and husband stayed inside in the cool working on house projects while my mom, sister and I took the kids out and about in the heat. I think my husband and father picked the better of the two choices.

The boys now have a new lighting fixture in their room to be (we are painting and decorating the spare room for them to move into) and they have a model of the solar system on the ceiling. We now have a light switch in the unfinished portion of our basement. Previous to that we had to walk to the middle of the room to yank the pull chain that worked the light, tripping on things if they had been moved since the last time we were in the room. I find it a vast improvement. We had some of our mail "mysteriously" come up missing on two days in a row that I uncharacteristically was out late running errands and was not home when the mail came. This necessitated that we get a more secure mailbox which was another of the projects that got finished when my family was over.

We have some very good news about potty training. It has been more days than I can count since any accidents (knock on wood). Evan has been transitioning from the "little potty" to the "big potty". I have to help him a lot with getting up and properly positioned on the "big potty". He has been pretty hesitant to poop on the "big potty" but in the last four days has managed to do it twice. I bought some handle bars to put up on the wall near the toilet which I hope will help him become more independent.

I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants

If you want a very amusing way to spend some time online go Yearbook Yourself. Thanks to Darren at Clare's Dad I laughed so hard I almost wet my pants.

This is Evan in the 50's

Evan in the 70's He really rocks those sideburns and that super wide tie.

This is Harry in the 50s

A ghostly Harry rocks the 80s

Older is not always better

Sometimes I can't help but feel envy for Harry's firm convictions about how things should be. Did you know for instance that humans can not eat crab or octopus? Flies can eat poop and garbage. Rabbits eat grass and carrots.

I seem to be frequently amazed at Harry's developments. It has been fun watching him grow and it is fun to finally be able to have conversations with him. I think that part of the reason I am caught off guard with Harry is that certain aspects of Evan's growth have not come easy and have happened rather slowly. With Harry, he has almost effortlessly added new skills.

One thing that has come about with no effort at all is their excellent skills in whining. Right now Harry is having a fit because I let him play with a toy sheep that he was asking about. I also dared try to give him the hug he asked for. Evan is whining because we are staying home to do a bit of cleaning instead of going out shopping (where he will end up whining when I stop the shopping cart to look at anything and then will whine when we only stop at one store).

Where is my cheese? Humans can eat that too you know.