Showings

We are in the process of selling our house.  We have had the “good” problem of quite a few showings so far.  We love that there is interest in the house, but it’s tough to be in out and out of it pretty frequently. It has been nice though having a constantly very clean uncluttered house – that’s a definite plus (although not easy to maintain!).

We had to leave today for several hours.  David, Davey, Buster and I piled into the truck and off we went.  There are lots of nice parks around here, so Davey and David went to the playground while I walked Buster up to the dog park.  He has an incredibly fun time there playing with other dogs.

We went to lunch (killing time involves meals, snacks and lots of frozen yogurt visits).

(Also last weekend, we went to the library and one afternoon I stayed outside with Buster while Davey and David went to the indoor waterpark at the rec center.)

After lunch today, we came back to the park by our house to read in the shade for abit.  David, Davey and I have started reading Harry Potter.  It’s our first book together without pictures!  Davey was not too interested in books without pictures yet, but then he started playing Lego Harry Potter on the Wii, and it has gotten him very interested in the story of Harry Potter.

He does not like for me to say Voldemort.  We have to call him “You-Know-Who”.  He frequently refers to Ron Weasly as “Juan Weasley”.  He tells me he prefers “Juan” to “Ron”.  He frequently declares Harry as “The Boy Who Lived!”

While he knows that Dudley Dursley is not very nice, he still did not approve of Hagrid giving Dudley a pig’s tail.  He thought that Hagrid went a little too far.  Davey was worried about the Dursleys not really celebrating Harry’s birthday, and he’s very happy that Harry is getting ready to go to Hogwart’s.

It’s a lot of fun reading it with him. I edit a little as we go, and I’m a little worried that the end might be too intense (I can’t remember exactly how the battle goes), but we can always put it away for awhile.  He’s having a lot of fun with the beginning part of the book, and I know he will enjoy Harry’s arrival to Hogwart’s.

 

The nicest part of trying to sell the house is lots of together time!

Vintage Knitted Fairy

I’ve been looking at vintage knitting patterns.  There are quite  a few on the internet, and I enjoy looking at the patterns.  I happened on a little fairy doll pattern the other day, and I thought it would be fun to try out.

This pattern came from a 1952 issue of Needlework Illustrated.  

She’s cute.  I realized that my photos doesn’t give any point of reference as to her size. She’s about 6 inches tall.

The parts of the body are knitted flat.  I enjoyed that.  I would rather knit flat and seam up these relatively short seams then try to maneuver a fairly small number of stitches on double pointed needles in the round.

The little skirt and petticoat were fun.  I love the way they look although they were a little painful on the hands to knit.  I had to increase each stitch all the way down the row and even though I am a loose knitter, the stitches got rather tight and difficult to maneuver.  But I thought it was worth the cute result.

The pattern called for sleeve and neck frills.  It was fun for me to make all these little “costume parts”.

Unfortunately, the hair ruins the whole “vintage notion”, but I am ok with that.  The pattern called for large french knots placed on the head.  I tried that, but I wasn’t thrilled with out it was looking so I went for wild fairy girl hair instead.

She had pretty wings too!

I am on the lookout for more cool vintage patterns.  It’s fun to read the instructions from these patterns and see how they differ from patterns written today.  I imagine I will learn different techniques from them as well!

“Collage” with Davey

Today Davey, Buster and I went on a picnic.  After we ate, I thought we’d draw for a little while.  We tried drawing what we saw around us.  Davey drew Buster, and then he had another idea.

“Mama.  I want to do a collage.  I’ve always wanted to do this!”  I don’t know if this is collage exactly, but it was a pretty cool idea I thought.

He wanted me to draw a tree, and then he added the details.

 

We added twigs to the bark. He told me that the dandelions are yellow apples.  The red flower is the sun!  He specified that he wanted leaves falling from the tree.  Then he added grass.  He wanted a “human” in the picture, so he found what he thought was a “human-like” weed.

I loved this.  I wanted to draw pictures, but he wanted to create a completely different type of picture.  Creative kid.

Pre-K Graduation

We went to Davey’s  Pre-K graduation this morning.

Davey had decorated his hat with fireworks.  He told us exactly how he wanted to paint them.  We helped him, but he did most of the work.

 

 

They held the graduation outdoors at the Broomfield Commons.  It was a beautiful day for it.

 

Davey and Daddy.

 

Pre-graduation festivities included a bounce slide.  Here Davey was sliding down with his friend.

 

He grinned all the way down.

 

After the children had marched in and were seated, the parents were encouraged to come take pictures.  Unfortunately, the sun was beaming right into the kids’ faces, so there was no avoiding the squint!

 

I love watching Davey have conversations with other kids.  When I took the picture, I was wondering what they were talking about.  When I got home and downloaded the pictures, I realized that Davey’s hat was off.  Looks like they were discussing the hat.

 

Davey walked up and received his diploma from his teachers Ms. Jenny and Ms. Karen. They were awesome.

 

The diplomas were good for bopping each other.  They had a fun time with this as they waited for their classmates to receive their diplomas.

 

Afterwards we had fun post-graduation festivities.

They played on the playground.

 

Next we had a picnic.

 

So pretty outside, and we had a nice view.

 

Here’s a picture of me with the little graduate.

 

Davey finished things up by rolling down a hill with two of his friends.  They found this to be the greatest of fun.

 

Happy Pre-K graduation Davey!

 

Muffins for Moms

On Thursday, I went to Davey’s pre-k to go to “Muffins with Moms”.  It was a lot of fun. They had worked on several songs which they sang to the moms.

 

They were a little shy singing in front of everyone.  They were very proud of their songs though.

 

They decorated the tabletops with pictures they made.  Davey drew this lovely flower.

 

Then they brought us muffins and juice.  Davey was very careful transporting my muffin and then he brought me some tea.

 

They made us great little gifts too.  One of the gifts was a portfolio of their work.  It included artwork from the year, but it also had a page where they had written their name and had drawn a picture of themselves on the first day of the school.  Then their teachers had them repeat this on the last day of school.  It was really neat to see how his handwriting progressed and how his self portrait was drawn differently too.  It’s a treasure.

I took a picture of Davey with his gift, but he was more interested in getting back to his chocolate chip muffin!

 

Special day at pre-k.

I also had a couple of pictures from his half-birthday party.  He had had a lot of fun decorating the cookies.

 

I love this one of him blowing out his candle.

“Regrowth” is growing

I have been working on my “Regrowth” shawl.  It’s really hard to see how lace is going to look when it is still on the needles and unblocked, but here’s an idea. 

It’s really a fun pattern.  I am finally beginning to learn how to “read lace”.  I am no expert by any means, but I am learning to see patterns in the stitches.  This is proving to be invaluable so far on this project because it’s not a pattern where I can set stitch markers every so many stitches to keep track of where I am.  Each chart is different, and it is even different from row to row in a chart.  It makes for fun knitting because I really have to pay attention to what is coming next. Typically it would make for stressful knitting because I do have to pay such close attention, but because I can now better “see” where I am, it’s been ok.

For example, I am working on the “blossom chart” right now (which not only looks like flower blossoms, but the number of increases in this chart is making the shawl also “blossom” greatly!).  I have to take 3 stitches and increase them into 9.  The subsequent rows involve adding yarnovers to these 9 stitches, and then doing different decreases to form the blossom shapes.  So I can “read” to know where I am most of the time.  It makes for engaging knitting.  However, when I finish this chart, I am going to add a lifeline just to be safe.  I may not be able to “read” the next chart quite so successfully.

Lace was always really frustrating for me.  I’d get lost and I never thought I was going to progress.  Turns out, just like anything else, I needed practice.  And lots of it.  And I still need lots more practice!

 

5.5

Davey had his half birthday yesterday.  We don’t celebrate hugely, but we did get him a couple of things and we made some cookies.  Our day got away from us so we didn’t get to decorate the cookies yesterday.  That’s the plan for this afternoon.

Davey has been majorly into Batman Lego so we got him some batman lego things.  He also likes the game on the Wii and has been playing that some.  Just set the timer to bring an end to this play session!

Here’s the 5 and 1/2 year old!

 

This morning we had soccer.  He had a great day.  He’d been a little discouraged with soccer because several of the other boys have gotten really into it and have become pretty competitive.  He really wasn’t ready to charge in after the ball.  He likes to check on his friends and follow along.  He always hustled, but he didn’t want to jump into the fray.  Today though, he really began to focus and was all of a sudden ready to jump in and get the ball.  He made a beautiful goal where he ran the ball down the field and did a great kick!  He was so proud, and David might have been even more excited than Davey.  :)

Fun day with the 5.5 year old.  Now to close out of Batman Lego, and we are off to decorate his birthday cookies!

Waiting for snow?!? and a short story

We are preparing for another snowstorm.  Really.  May 1st.  They are predicting around 6 inches.  It should melt pretty fast as it was 80 degrees yesterday.  Crazy weather, but it’s always interesting!

I have a short story I want to record into my blog.  But first – I’m actually working on Blurb.com to turn my blog into a book.  I like the idea of having a hard copy to keep just in case something ever happened to my blog.  So far I am working on 2012 and it’s going to be at least 135 pages alone.  Blurb is awesome for this.  It imports the blog – pictures and all.  They call it “slurping” which I think is kinda hilarious.  I still have to go through it page by page though and do some formatting.  I am thoroughly enjoying it because I get to read back over my blog.  I read about things that I had already almost forgotten about.

So anyway, a couple of weeks ago we flew to Seattle.  We got to the Denver airport and started going through the security process.  That’s really an experience these days.  I haven’t flown much in the last several years.  In March, I actually flew for the first time since Davey was born.  There’s lots of putting shoes and other things into totes.  So they put my suitcase through the x-ray thing.  As it passed through, I heard one of the security people say “Bag Check”.  It did not even occur to me though that they would be referring to my bag, but over came a lady to check the bag out.  Sure enough they were referring to my bag. She said that she was going to have to inspect it.  I said sure, and I told her that the only things in the bag were my clothes and hairdryer.

She told me that once she started going through my bag I should not touch or even approach it.  Then she went through it all very thoroughly.  She had a piece of cloth that she used to wipe around the inside – looking for explosives I guess?

I thought she was done, but then she unzipped the outer compartment on the front of the suitcase.  From this compartment she pulled out not one, not two, but three pocketknives.  I felt like my jaw hit the floor when I observed this.  I was just a little embarrassed.  Three knives?  Why would I have three knives?

Apparently David had stowed the knives there when we moved at some point.  I hadn’t used that bag in a long time.

They confiscated a pocketknife from David the last time he was at the airport.  We are now down four knives.

The guard was very nice about the whole thing.  I kept apologizing.

That’s my story.  I guess I won’t forget it, but I wanted to get it down in my blog anyway!

How about a picture to end with?  Davey is graduating from preschool in two weeks.  Today they sent the kids home with their graduation caps which they are supposed to decorate.  I’m not sure how to decorate a boy’s hat; I’m going to be looking to pinterest for guidance!

Arm Warmers, Socks and Pre-k

I’ve had a chance to do more knitting lately.  yay for that.  I just finished up my first arm warmers and another pair of socks.  I’ve been working quite abit on the Regrowth shawl, but it’s not evening time tv knitting.  I’ve learned this the hard way.  Twice now.  So in order to avoid tinking back entire rows, I am not allowing the shawl in front of the tv.

The arm warmers are from a Berroco pattern called Radius.  Very simple pattern, but it was fun.  I used Cascade Heritage sock yarn (I’m almost positive).  I got David to take a couple of pictures for me.

 

The pattern is plain stockinette with the ribbed cuffs.  There is no additional thumb work required. I like the way the thumb (or lack thereof) looks though.

 

I also just finished the first sock in the basic “How I make my sock” pattern that I always use from Susan Anderson.

 

This is Tofutsie yarn that I bought back in Arkadelphia. I don’t know why I hadn’t used it before.  It’s great yarn.  It’s made out of a blend of superwash wool, soy silk (made from soybeans), cotton and chitin (chitin is made from shrimp and crab shells!). The yarn has a silk feel to it and knits up so pretty.

These are going to be end of the year gifts for Davey’s preschool teachers.  I can’t say enough how happy I’ve been with his “first school experience”.  He has been going to preschool at our rec center.  I just by chance learned of its existence from another mom on his soccer team.  On registration day, I had to arrive early, wait in line, and cross my fingers that I was in time.

Fortunately, we got in. He has two awesome teachers.  The lead teacher is about my age, and she has just been the greatest with them.  He is in a class with eleven other kids, and they are this little unit who all play together and get along really well.  They are nice kids, but I give lots of credit to the teachers too for teaching them how to work so well together.  Pre-k just meets two days a week, but he’s learned so much and he absolutely loves to go to school.  That’s what makes me the happiest I think – that he has had such a positive early experience with school and is ready for more!

Pavlovas!

So I just finished an excellent book called The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe.  I really like to read books about people writing about books they love.  I learn about new books, and I often gain new perspectives on books that I have also read.  This book was more than that though.  It was also about the relationship the author had with his mother, and it’s also a tribute to his mother.  They began this book club after she was diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer, but throughout the book I also learned about her life.  She’s very inspiring.  She worked in refugee camps in several places around the world.  A very important cause to her was also establishing a library in Afghanistan (she successfully did this).

So anyway, I really enjoyed it, and I was curious to learn more about the author.  He’d been a book editor and in the book he describes how he left that work to start a website called cookstr.com.  It’s a fun site with lots of great recipes.  So all that to explain how I discovered that the national dessert of Australia and New Zealand is the Pavlova. I’d never heard of this dessert before.  I read about it, learned that it was very low fat, and so decided to try it out.

cookstr had a recipe for individual pavlovas.  It’s kinda like strawberry shortcake, but the base is not cake, instead it is a baked meringue.  You shape the meringue into disks and then bake it.  My disks do not look nearly as tall and nice as the ones pictured on the website.   This may be a combination of my altitude challenge here in Colorado, and perhaps I am also somewhat meringue challenged, as I’ve not made it many times.

However, I think I succeeded in capturing what the bases were supposed to taste like.  The base is just eggwhites, sugar, vanilla, cornstarch and a pinch of salt.

Here’s the finished pavlova.

 

Once you bake the meringues, you just layer whipped cream and berries on top.  Very easy.

David took one bite of the meringue base and his first comment was “Strange”.  Not exactly what you want to hear. But it is unlike anything I’ve ever made.  It is kinda chewy and sort of reminds me of a more solid cotton candy.  It is very sweet and I wouldn’t want to eat it by itself, but I thought it was really good combined with the whipped cream and berries.  I didn’t actually use whipped cream this time.  I used Cool Whip.  David loves cool whip and we were trying to keep the dessert low fat and low calorie.  Next time though I’d love to try it with real whipped cream.

Despite David’s initial “Strange” reaction, I think the dessert grew on him.  He was ready to have another one today.

Davey wanted to try one too (without the fruit).

He looks a little unsure here.

 

He wasn’t too thrilled.  I wish he’d tried it with the fruit as well!

So in summary this was a great book that led me to a good website where I found and tried what I think is a pretty fun dessert!