Preschool Program

This morning was Adam's preschool program at Merry Go Round preschool. He played a cookie, and got to sing "Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar" with two other children. He did great, and didn't even have any stage fright!

Adam preparing for his big role

Singing "Who stole the cookie" with Cullen and Abbi

Adam with his best friend, Sophia. These two are inseparable! And adorable, her mother and I agree. They exchanged "digits" today, so hopefully they'll get to have a playdate over Christmas vacation.

Doggie

Here's Mason petting our poor gimp-leg doggie. It seems K-dogg has a torn cruciate. He's going to get Xrays next week to make sure it isn't anything else. If it is a cruciate tear, then he's in for some surgery. He has been an angel since his appointment yesterday, it's as though he's thinking that if he behaves extra-special good, we won't take him back there.

Sorry!

I'm such a bad blogger. Below are some cute pictures by which to redeem myself. Meanwhile, look - our chorus has a website now! And no, I'm not in any of the pictures because they're too old. We had our Christmas concert last weekend; next up is Evening on Broadway in January!


Here are the two older boys at their birthday party:



Here is Mason attempting to blow out his candles on his birthday in October:



And here is Mason cuddling with Pilchard:


I hope everyone who reads this has a wonderful Christmas, and I hope I have some great pictures to post afterwards. Maybe even one with ME IN IT! Imagine that.

Halloween 2006

I know I haven't posted in a while, and I have a ton of pictures to share. But I'll save that for later. Right now, here are the kids in their costumes. DJ was Mario, Adam was Luigi, and Mason was a ghost.


I have more, but blogger's giving me trouble, so I'll share later!

Wedding

Today, my cousin Christine got married! My middle son, Adam, was one of the two ringbearers, so I took advantage of the photo session at the Capitol grounds this afternoon.

The entire wedding party

Bride, Groom, and kids

The bride with the kids

As Darien called her, "the beautiful bride, Christine". He kept saying "This is such a great wedding" and "Christine looks so beautiful!"

"Mama, I'm tired, can I sit on your lap?" One of the bridesmaids caught the photo op.

It was a great wedding! I got to sing a couple of tunes during the ceremony, the kids behaved perfectly, the food was good. We didn't stay long enough for the dance, because the kiddos (Adam especially) had a long day, and everyone needed to get home and into bed. Congratulations to Chris and Christine! When you guys have babies, I so owe you a million nights of babysitting.

P.S. - if the babysitter gets married, does that mean we can no longer ask her to babysit??

Friday

I love Fridays. We have homemade pizza, I usually have a drink of some sort, Dan sometimes comes home early, and we're all just happy and relaxed. Today has been a rough day for Mason, he fell asleep in the car at noon, which means he didn't get his usual 2-hour snooze between lunch and picking up Darien from school. I put him down after we got home, and he woke up an hour later, crying. I put him back down and now I need to go wake him because it's 5:30 pm and I don't want him up until midnight tonight.

I couldn't choose between these two pictures, so I posted them both:

Big Kid!

Tuesday was a momentous day - Adam started preschool! We took some pictures to commemorate the occasion.

This is Adam's reaction to us saying, "You're at school! Look excited!

Finding his name under the coat/bag hooks...

Mason and Adam playing Little People with Mrs. Sievers

And this is what happens after a long morning at preschool. I stepped out of the shower this afternoon, and here is what I saw:

How cute is that???

I'm too nice.

Today's entry is simply a link to my husband's blog entry. Oh, and a quick picture of the kids and I. Fresh outta bed, and cuddling on the loveseat! After that is a picture of all three boys playing with one of their favorite toys.

Dan's oh-so-funny blog entry

When Friends Move

The pictures Justin & Michelle posted just made me miss them. I hate it when people move away. Here's a picture tribute.. we'll miss you guys!



And yes, he took the picture while he was driving. He's kinda stoopid that way. We hope it's humid and miserable in Florida.

Shoes

Mason being uber-fashionable!

So the others don't feel left out

The results of a photo session with Adam for his preschool "All About Me" worksheet:




And a quick pic of Mason enjoying some of Uncle Mike's cucumbers:

Now We Are Six

I had to quote a Pooh book by a.a. milne for my sweet not-so-little boy, who turned six years old today! Here are some pictures of him in sequence...

Age 2

Age 4

Age almost-6

Happy Birthday, Darien! I can't believe you start first grade in less than two weeks. What will I do without you for 7 hours every day? Will you miss your mom? Will you make friends? Will you figure out how to buy milk to have with your lunch? You still seem too young to be away from me for 1/3 of your day.

Decorating

We bought a few items of furniture from our down-the-street neighbors who are, sadly for us, moving to Florida in a couple of months. On the bright side, they wanted to get rid of some of their stuff, so we took advantage. Most of it was basement furniture, but I did get a lovely corner unit out of the deal. I decided to find some decor for it today, and this is what I came home with:


I picked up the stuff on the top two shelves at Hobby Lobby. Yeah, I know I said I was never going to shop there again after The Shopping Cart Incident. But anyway, there are three vases, and the dark-looking thing on the right is a tiny wine-colored lampshade with little beads hanging off it. I fell in love with it, but they didn't have any stands there! So I have to buy one somewhere else. I hope I find one, or I'll have to return the adorable little thing. The middle shelf is just three candles, I think I need something else there, too. The bottom shelf contains two of my favorite cookbooks, and two bottles of wine. I had to choose those two because every other bottle we have, although much prettier to look at, is too tall for that shelf.

And I decided to do something useful with my yarn stash instead of having it take up space in my closet. See below:


Cute huh?

nano nano

No, it's not Mork. Check out what my wonderful, amazing, thoughtful, and generous husband bought for me last night!


It's a 2GB iPod nano!!!! It holds 500 songs and 25,000 pictures. I already have 75 songs on it, and I can tell that unless I decide to be more discerning, I actually won't have enough space on it. I got an armband for it, so if it ever gets below 100F, I can go for walks and have music! Imagine that.

There's something I never knew before until just now. There's a really weird gross sound in the song "Pump It" by the Black Eyed Peas. If you've heard it, let me know in the comments.

We have a BBQ to attend tonight with some friends from Dan's work (all the cool people! I feel so popular!), and then tomorrow night is the family picnic for Moms Club. Yes, in this heat.

Progress

I'm overdue for some knitting progress pictures, so here you go! The first is Pomatomus, knitted in Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in Seaside. It's very slow-going, I've finished the leg and just started the heel.


And this is my progress so far on Tempting II, which I'm knitting in TLC's Cotton Plus in Spruce. It's for the Sexy Knitters Club knitalong. It's supposed to be stretchy, but right now it looks impossibly tiny, I'm not sure it's ever going to fit me. So far I have 9 inches of the body, I need to knit 7 more inches before I can start the sleeves. It seems like it's taking me forever, but I need to remind myself that it's knit in the round. Every sweater I've made so far has been knit in pieces, so you knit the whole front, then the whole back, which get sewn together later.


Today I ordered yarn for the Big Sack Sweater from Stitch 'n Bitch. It calls for Rowanspun Chunky, which is discontinued, but I found it on ebay for a great price. I got the Fern shade, which is a deep olive green - yummy!

Neglectful

Sorry, I haven't blogged recently. Lots of stuff going on, clients etc. but things seem to be slowing down now! I thought I'd post a quick picture. This is me and Mason (on the left) posing with my oldest friend Shana and her daughter Elise. Mason and Elise are about three weeks apart in age - her first, my third. Our moms were best friends growing up, how wacky is that? My mom is her godmother and her mom is mine.



This picture was taken at my grandma's 80th birthday party on Memorial Day weekend in Minnesota. We were just about to leave and go back home, Mason was at the end of his rope, so I'm surprised he wasn't screaming!

Not quite right

This is what the fourth of July is supposed to be like. But instead, it's eerily quiet. It doesn't feel like Independence day at all, actually. We're under a burn ban, and this year because of the drought, it extends to fireworks and charcoal grills. What's the 4th without fireworks and BBQ? This is the first year in a long time that we didn't buy a bunch of fireworks for the kids. Usually we brag about how we can shoot them off right in our own driveway because we're not in city limits. But not this year - there's not a pop to be heard anywhere.

Sunset

This is what the sunset looks like over my world:



I submitted it to the local news, we'll see if the meteorologist puts it on the news. We get a great view of storm clouds moving in, which I've submitted in the past, and he has used them. I wish the fiery red of the sun was more obvious in the picture, but you'll just have to take my word for it. That's the Hawktree golf club over on the right.

Summer

What is there to do in the summertime? Some knitters quit knitting when the temperature rises, but not I! Instead, I knit lacy socks. This is Pomotamus from Knitty, I'm knitting it on Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in Seaside. I've been super busy with work (thanks, Tammie) so it's going pathetically slow. There are three pattern repeats in the leg, and I haven't even finished the first one.


And this is what happens on a hot afternoon when grandma takes the kids, and mom decides to hit the produce store while she's a little bit hungry:

I went a little hog-wild, but at least it's all healthy, right? I also bought a new blender so I can make smoothies. What the heck am I going to do with an entire watermelon?? Can you make watermelon smoothies? Watermelon daiquiris? Hmm... And there WERE more cherries and strawberries, but the boys and I basically ate them for dinner last night. Dan has been in Denver, and was supposed to be home by now, but his flight got cancelled, so now they're driving back. I expect him home around midnight, instead of 12:30 this afternoon. Bah.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Here are some pictures from our weekend trip to western North Dakota. We stayed in Medora and visited the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. These are some general pictures of the park:





Those are wild horses. We also saw one buffalo, some Elk and about 400,000 prairie dogs in a prairie dog urban sprawl ("town" doesn't do it justice - it even has suburbs). We decided it was the NYC of prairie dog towns.

Photo Deluge

My first harvest! Cherry Belle radishes. We ate some last night.

Darien all geared up for soccer. Obviously.

Running the ball down the field...

And back.

He had a great time, and can't wait for Wednesday night!