Ding dong the shawl is done!

Sorry about that. I'm accompanying the Wizard of Oz for a friend of mine and I'm pretty much eating and sleeping the music. EXCEPT, last night when I made the final push to finish mom's shawl. Hooray shawl! I'm rather proud of it actually. I'm afraid to say it out loud too many times, but I think it might be the first thing I've made with no goofs. Of course this means it took me FOREVER to do the 3 needle bind off. Didn't want to miss any loops like I did in mine. So, excuse another picture of my ironing board ( I really need to find a better place to block.)

A little late on the weekend blog

I apparently needed to eat round things on Sunday. I made aebleskivers for breakfast, which are a Danish breakfast thing sort of like pancakes. We used to beg my dad to make them all the time, especially during sleep overs. Then I ended up making spaghetti with meatballs, again round but the kids actually ate breakfast AND dinner so that made it worthwhile. Lizzie helped. Ok, she ate tortilla chips, but she looked very cute in her apron.

I'm almost done with Mom's cable pocket shawl, which of course means I'm now sidetracked with a baby sweater that I'm making up as I go along. We'll see how that turns out.

My Birthday!

I had a wonderful day today! John took the day off so we packed up the kids and drove up to Estes Park for the afternoon. I actually remembered the camera, but L's pictures are much more fun to look at. So here are some of the highlights of Estes Park. The bridge and the car pictures were taken by L. I bought myself a tea infuser and some loose tea to try. L got some new shoes. Poor kid's grown out of everything except her fake Crocs! And even those are a bit too small.

John also suprised me with a new Foreman Grill. Our old one took a tumble off the counter as Hurricane L ran by one day. It actually shattered. I take responsibility for leaving the cord hanging off the side of the counter, though. She felt so bad. So did I. Anyway, now we have the new, improved, autographed George Foreman Grill. Actually I'm super excited about it because they fixed everything I ever complained about on the old one. You can now select the temperature instead of just all the way on and all the way off. No more chicken jerky with raw centers! Also the plates come off for easier cleaning. Hooray!

The Pursuit of the Perfect Coffee Cup

If you have children, pets, are slightly clumsy, or, are all of the above like me, then you appreciate the existence of spill proof coffee mugs. I actually use mine more in the house then I do in the car. The downside to most coffee mugs is that they have two settings: open and closed. If you don't remember to switch it to closed in between sips then you may as well be using a wide mouth bowl as far as spilling is concerned. After many tries with mugs of various sizes and shapes, I finally found what I was looking for. Enter the Contigo mug with Autoseal (sounds like something that should be on a car, no?) I found it at Target and it defaults to the "off" position. Hooray! You have to push a blue button on it to open the valve so you can drink and then it neatly snaps shut. And it was on sale too! It was meant to be mine!

L-Lo and J and the 3 Bs.

Random pictures today. L in her styling new sunglasses.

J will only go to bed if he has his 3 B's. Blanket, Binky, and Bob the Bear. Too bad he won't stay in bed. Ah well, someday I will get a whole night's sleep.

On a knitting note, I did finish the first half of Mom's Cable Pocket Shawl. This time it's Knitpicks Wool of the Andes Handdyed in Yukon. It's funny but the colors make a sort of diamond like pattern that I only noticed once I took the pictures.

Some days it's just hard to find the words

Unfortunately I have no pictures of the following events.

1) After carrying J inside WalMart, I realize that he has barfed sour milk all over his pants. Which is now on me as well. Now when I say barf, there are really two kinds. (Three if you're still in college.) One kind is the stomach flu; the take-the-kid-home and strip him naked in the bathtub because more is a-coming kind of barf. Number two, which his was, is the too much phlegm kind that means if you can get him cleaned up enough, you can still take him places without fear of infecting the masses. (If you can't think of the cause of #3, you've been out of college too long.) So, since we were in WalMart, a place where you can buy both guns and butter at the same time, I got him a 3 dollar pair of shorts, more wipees and bottle of Febreeze and we were good to go. Until I get back to the car and realize that his car seat reeks of booger milk barf (sorry to the people with weak stomachs!). I'm not looking forward to taking that apart. So I use the rest of the wipes to clean it out and spray the heck out of it with the Febreeze which I then realized made it really wet. So I found a blanket for him to sit on, strapped him in and went to

2) Target, where we shopped rather uneventfully for a birthday gift for their Grams. As an incentive for good behavior, I dangle the free cookie "carrot", which they earned. Of course it is frosted.
Yellow. J looked like Blinky the clown. I bought another thing of wipes and again wiped the boy down before we made it home. Proctor and Gamble made a mint off of me today.

3) I think that things seem to be settling down as I went to check my email. J is down for his nap and L is watering our yard watering can by watering can. Or so I thought. I see a flash of white out of the corner of my eye. And No! I am not seeing things. My 4 year old daughter is streaking across the deck in the backyard au naturel! We have had oh so many talks about how it is considered unseemly to run around in the buff but apparently we need to have more. So I bring in the mud child (yes! Mud!) and toss her in the bathtub.

I was relating all this to a friend of mine who was very sympathetic to the day I had. Then I realized. Today was not a weird day. In fact, as my days go, it was relatively normal.

I think I shall be calling DH and asking him to pick up some beer on the way home.

Welcome to Quarantine!

One of the reasons I've been able to get so much knitting done is that the whole family has been sick for pretty much all of the month of February. And there doesn't seem to be an end in sight. Poor L has bronchiolitis now (along with the entire state of Colorado I think.) The other night, she woke up after being bed for about an hour and wanted to cuddle. How can I refuse? So she sat on my lap and sleepily said, "Mama, I'm not your little baby girl any more." I agreed with her and then she said, looking at me with those big blue eyes and a very serious tone, "I'm your Snorty McSnort Snort." Which then gave us the giggles and the poor girl had a another coughing fit. Snorty McSnort Snort is the silly name we use when we're all stuffed up. Anyway, doc says she's contagious pretty much as long as she's still coughing, so we're probably quaratined at least through next Wednesday. Hmm. Maybe I'll finish the first side of Mom's cable pocket shawl.

Cable Pocket Shawl

So I blocked my cable pocket shawl today, and I do think it looks better. Of course, now my house smells like a wet dog. Note to self, don't wear shawl in the rain.

On a lighter note, I asked L to let the dog out, and in typical 4 year old fashion she was taking her time. Thinking this was a teachable moment, I reminded her that Chloe going outside was her time to go the bathroom and how would L feel if someone wouldn't let her go the bathroom when she needed to. In her best 4 going on 14 year old voice she answered, "Mom. I'm not a dog." Ah. So much for the empathy training today.

J, on the other hand, is running around playing Rainbow Smurf fairy, sporting one of my very first attempts at a 2x2 rib hat. Amusingly enough, I thought I was making an adult hat at the time.

Hair today, Gone Tomorrow

I finally came up with a slightly clever title to my blog. I do mostly knit English (throwing), but I did teach myself how to knit continental (picking) just recently. My tension is way off though and since most of my knitting right now is for other people, I think I'll stick with throwing so it looks nice.

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Her Most Noble Lady Nicole the Toothsome of Lower Beanthrop in the Hedge Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

Not knitting, but I thought it was funny.

Also not knitting, but I've sort of given up on my yahoo blog because it's just not very user friendly. If you want to add more than one picture, you have to understand html, and frankly, I'm just not that versed.

Got the kids haircuts today, a real haircut for J and a trim for L. I just get a kick out of what a big boy J's getting to be. His stylin' 'do also makes him look less baby like, I think. And of course he's running around with a Santa hat over his eyes now. Where's the camera?