InsanKnitty

Grab a cup… this is a picture heavy post…

I haven’t been blogging…

I mean really.. did I have to say that??? It’s obvious I haven’t been blogging … but I had to acknowledge that I haven’t so you can understand why… first… it’s been beautiful outside… and I’m a dirt lover… see…

That right there… that’s our veggie and herb garden, taking over my patio. We’ve had a garden in all but 1 of the last 7 summers… and unfortunately, our yard doesn’t have the ‘right’ location for a garden in it (meaning one with the right size, space, and sunlight hours).. so we’re going to give it a go with a container garden. In all reality, we’re Salsa gardeners… tomatoes, peppers, and onions make up the majority of our veggie patch, however.. I’m the Veggie freak of the house, so I always throw in my favs (lettuce, spinach, and herbs) a few ‘new’ things to try. This year’s NEW addition is artichokes…

wish me luck..

Some of my previous new trials were hits (for example the mini watermelons and cantalope, or the broccoli of 2 years ago), and other’s were flops, (like the carrots and eggplant of 4 years ago).. and let us NEVER forget the summer 3 years ago of the attack strawberries.. those buggers took over the ENTIRE garden bed (they gave great strawberries, but sheesh, they didn’t leave room for much else!)

Some of the above plants are store bought, others are seedlings I started… All of them will surely be good!

Today, I had to run to our local nursery to pick up some cilantro plants. All of my years of starting seedlings has taught me that I am completely unsuccessful at starting my own cilantro for whatever reason… and while we were at said podunk nursery/hardware store… the little girl asked for a quarter to get a gumball. Well, of course I didn’t have one, but I had a rogue dollar bill in my wallet ( I swear I don’t have a clue where that came from,) I mean seriously..

I. never. have. cash.

My kids claim it as theirs as soon as I have any anyways…

well I handed it to the cashier and asked for quarters, to which he said, ‘you just spent $20 on plants, you can have a quarter’… I tried to refuse, but he wouldn’t have any of that.. and then he stood and watched my little one ask me for a specific purple/pinkish (kinda tye dye like) gumball. I told her that it’s the luck of the draw what you get.. and we put the quarter in and she started to turn it when the guy walked over with the keys to the machine and he opened it, picked out the ball that she’d wanted and handed it to her!… I swear.. you only get that kind of service in a small town..

What else has kept me from the computer you ask?… well.. knitting for one…

I made the completely INSANE challenge for myself to knit an afghan for my little one for Christmas… BY JUNE 30TH!!!! Holy moly?? what was I thinking. Now granted.. .this is a dishcloth afghan, so I just need to knit dishcloths… and sew them together. She loves bugs, and gardening and all things creepy crawly.. and at the same time she’s a bit of a princess… so.. I’m picking girly squares as well as gardening type squares… and while I had the idea that I’d be knitting it to fit her bed.. she just wants it to be a blanket she can snuggle under on the couch… so I think it will be significantly smaller than a twin sized afghan, which honestly is totally fine by me… here’s where we are so far…

8 squares in…

The Dragonfly

Purple crown (her favorite color)

A pretty yellow flower

Butterfly

(that strip is actually all knit together, which I’ll continue to do for the rest of the throw.. it will save me significantly on the seaming… but requires that I alter patterns to a consistent # of stitches… )

I also have the following squares which I’ll seam together later…

Fairy #1 (I think it’s called Leila), I’ll find a pattern link and put it here at some point…

Fairy #2, Tatiana

Gabe the snail

Yellow crown…

And yes… I do plan to duplicate some of the squares. Also on my list are another (different) dragonfly, another (different) Butterfly, a hummingbird, a lady bug, and one other fairy.

I’ll be sticking with these four colors.

For Mother’s day, we stayed home due to a visit from the stomach flu fairy… hubby made me a nice home cooked breakfast, and we spent much time working on transplanting our veglings… I got the cutest tee-shirt from my middle guy… he made it during school… and I did my annual, knit only for myself thing… I started a tank…

yeah.. I’ve acknowledged before that I’m a fast knitter… that’s where it stands as of yesterday afternoon.. I plan to have the neck completed tonight and perhaps seam or get blocking

Well, my in-laws just showed up… so I’ve got to get off the computer!

That right there is how to ‘teeter totter’ (which is what I always called a see saw when I was a kid)… when you have 3 children. The little girl and the middle guy weigh just a tad more than the big girl, but it works pretty well ..

The weather is typical of the northeast for spring… we go from gorgeous sunny days, to rain and/or cold ones.. but this is much more of a Spring to us than it was when we were living in NC. There you get 70 for maybe a week, which was usually rainy, and then… 80’s followed soon with humidity… oh the fun!

I’m definitely enjoying this weather. What it means for my blogging though is.. on those gorgeous days, we’re outside, shooting hoops, hula hooping, catching bugs, hunting fairies, maybe if I’m lucky I get to sit and knit in my camp chair… but… lately it’s been more like… games of Dinner with the wolf (I think that’s what it’s called, it’s sort of a red light green light thing that ends in a chase/game of tag)… and soccer…

I’ll probably only be intermittently posting here in the next few weeks.. dependent on the weather… actually saying that is even a tad premature as we’re expecting rain for the next several days… and then cooler temps again early next week… but you never know.. my kiddos are all about saving the worms from their suicide drownings in our puddle at the bottom of the driveway… I’m sure you can picture it.. all three in their rain coats and boots, and me holding the umbrella while they sift the wiggly little buggers out of the puddle..

oh the fun! (I totally am serious)

I have been knitting though.. I’m working on a Knitty submission… sorry, that’s about all I can say here, and I’m working on a Q2 challenge knitting project (an afghan) for one of my kiddos for Christmas next year. I need to take photos of the squares I’ve knit so far… (not nearly enough of them… )

Let’s see…

Birthday number one… Check

Birthday number two… Check

First Communion… Check

Now what do I do??? how about KNIT!

I’m participating in the Year Long Gift Along blog.. .and made a challenge to do one of the dishcloth afghans the kids have asked for… so.. I’ll be working on that mostly, and a project for Knitty as well So.. off I go! have a great day folks, I plan to run to the playground with the Little girl in the jogger.. get some exercise and relaxation in at the same time! I need it after all we’ve had going on around here!

We’ve undergone another rite of passage, and as the Mother of the child growing up…

well it was a bit tearful..

I kept seeing her there as if she were in her Baptismal gown instead of her First Eucharist dress… I will admit that the tears formed but didn’t drop as we sang along and renewed our Baptismal Vows… and finally as she took her first communion… Lately (based on the whole birthday thing).. I have been finding myself saying over and over again.. where has the time gone???

Here’s our day in photos…

Oh yeah… the cake…

And now… it’s blocking

And a side note.. I dont’ know what’s going on with WordPress.. but NOTHING is working like it’s supposed to today… I’m starting to strongly dislike WordPress these days.. how sad because I really loved it up till this last update…ggrrrr

My shawl work is crawling along…

Here’s where I’m at….

The pattern calls for 16 repeats of two charts, but this is for a child instead of an adult… so I thought I’d go with 8 repeats.  Then after bouncing that idea of the shawl queen Grace, I was going to do 6 repeats… well… this morning with 5 complete, I measured it on the big girl.. and I am going to stay right here at 5.  The picture of course is in it’s unblocked state and looks like  it will be a circle instead of a rectangle.. but we pulled it out this morning and stretched her long.. and she will definitely be a rectangle… a really wide one for a little girl (oh the lessons learned on my first true lace project)…  but the big girl really loves it and can’t wait to see it all pinned out tonight!

Thank you so much Grace for being an ear and listening!

Now.. back to my knitting and prepping my house for 7 visitors this evening! EEEGADS!

Last night we had a ‘hair’ practice session…. yeah, you may laugh, but a 9am First communion??  We need to get the Big girl up pretty early to get her fed and dressed with enough time… oh…and yeah, there’s 7 people who’ll be staying in our house, vying for shower time!

Ok, I get that teary eyed feeling when I see her all put together.. I know I sound like every emotional mom out there when I say this, but it’s so true… I can’t believe how grown up she’s getting… 8 years has just FLOWN by!

and this photo… SOOOO her

I might not be around much this week… I still have a shawl to finish knitting and yet another cake to decorate.. and this one I need to ‘learn’ something for (I’ve never made flowers and she wants flowers… so I have been reviewing the Wilton instructions)

Wish me luck!

Our weekend started with the blossoming of our tulips! Yay.. spring is really here (though this mornings chilly 46 F at the bus stop was a bit frightful!) As new home owners it’s been fun to see what the previous owner had planted in the yard, and what I want to add for next year… (yes the dork in me already has a notebook started of what to plant and where)…

there are some other tulips that didn’t bloom until Sunday, so I didn’t get their photo just yet…

Also this weekend the first of our veggies started poking through… no photos yet.. but big girl and I are pumped that our Artichokes are already taking root!

The biggest plans for the weekend though were the Middle Guy’s birthday party at the skate rink… and the trip to Philly for the circus with grandma and grandpa.

The middle guys party was a hit… to the bottom for some, but most actually were upset about having to leave at the end of the day…

here’s a few select shots…

The finished cake turned out great and everyone loved the whipped cream topping… much yummier cake when it doesn’t have the heaviness of the butter cream frosting on it..

Little girl did quite well once we switched her to these skates…

These however were much too ‘rolly’… the wheels spun too freely for her to even stand alone on the skate rink floor!

Big girl had a friend (sibling to one of the Middle Guys school friends) who was there too so she had a nice time visiting with her!

Eventually he was out there on his own… he had a ball.. in fact he fell asleep on a 5 minute drive to the park after the party had ended!

Cake time!

6!?!?! Where has the time gone?

After surviving the roller rink with 13 kids… we moved onto the Circus. My Father in law works in Philly and his company had discounted tickets to the circus. This is the first time I’ve been in I don’t know how long… at least 25 years! There were protest signs at the entry area about animal cruelty… which is always a concern for me.. however I have to say I was impressed with Barnum and Bailey’s new (to me) ‘information’ about animal protection and conservation. Talk is cheap though, so I will be doing more investigating. The show was SENSATIONAL to be honest.. I had as good a time as the kids, or maybe even better! What a fun time! They had performers on the floor for a pre-show and you could get autographs and watch acts from up close. The clowns were hilarious, the acrobats strong and amazing, and the elephant beautiful! we didn’t take many pictures because our seats were up high… we did get some from the pre-show though and I’ll share with you a taste of today’s ‘Over the Top’ Barnum and Bailey’s show. They offer a variety of shows now and ‘Over the Top’ was fabulous!

This first set of photos is of the Chinese acrobats. First off.. the strength these men have was just phenomenal.. however.. some of the unusual positions they were in had me mildly worried for a future family for them! I didn’t photograph ALL of their acts.. but there were a few that were really quite odd.. Flinging themselves off a swing onto a bar which they ‘caught’ between their legs? OUCH during many a practice session I’m certain!

A quick shot of part of the Elephant show

The finale

Each child had a favorite part… the Mama loved the agility dogs (yes they had a dog section!  Sooo cool).. motorcycles and contortionists… the clowns are also always a favorite with their various antics… The big guy loved the motorcycles in the ball and the acrobats,  the Middle guy loved those bouncy ‘wheels’ you see in the above photo… he even asked for one for Christmas (now that birthdays are over they’re already asking for Christmas… ugh)… the Big Girl loved the Tigers, the little girl was mesmerized by everything.. she slept for the second half but really enjoyed all that she saw in the first half! The Grandma and Grandpa really had a great time as well, they were most awed by the cost of cotton candy ($12) and coffee ($3.50) and it wasn’t Starbucks folks!

My black food marker is failing me… grrrr I’ll let it ‘rest’ for now and try to finish the dots and Wii and little squares later this afternoon… but here’s my progress..

Now.. I’m off to run to the park with the little girl for some swinging and soccer fun!

No.. not yet…

Today I’ll be working in chocolate to create this…

I will only make the ‘front’ view, not the sides or top or bottom. I mean really. it doesn’t have to be an exact replica.. but there will need to be 2… at least that’s the request I’ve got!

The cake will be our standard whipped creamed frosted Cookies and Cream cake….

Other than that I’ve got a mountain of laundry (which is what happens when you spend THE birthday week running from here to there non-stop… it’s all clean, it just needs to be folded and put away.. thank goodness the actual birthday party isn’t until tomorrow and isn’t at our home! Wahoo!

Last night we partied it up in our typical children’s favorite style… a la Red Robin…

The big girl kept saying ‘Monkey wants my burger’… (any of y’all seen that commercial.. hilarious!)

The birthday boy by the end of the meal was complaining of a tummy ache… a milk shake, corn dog, and ice cream sundae can do that to ya!

But he got over it fast enough for a trip to Toys R Us to pick up his big present…

And the big girl got a special ‘Sit n Knit’ night with Mommy and her (finally) knitting group… we’ve been working to put this group together for a bit more than a month now, and we’re growing slowly but surely

Gail and Ann

Carolyn and Felicia

The rest of the gang picked us up at Barnes and Noble when they were done shopping at Toys R Us…

The kids provided much more chaos than I’d have liked during knit night, but at least I got to go for a little while… Next week I promise to come alone and stay late!