halloween costumes

Big brother was a "vampire" and little brother was a "lion cub". They made a great pair (ha!).

It was the baby's first time trick-or-treating. We walked around starting at 6pm, then halfway round the block baby and I turned back and big brother continued on with our friends. My baby could barely stay awake the short walk home. I gave him a nice bath and papa fed him his bottle. He took a few sips and went out like a light.

Big brother came home with a pillowcase full of candy. He wants to keep it all but I'll put aside most of it when he's not looking...We have enough candy to last until next Halloween.

My baby boy woke up in a much better mood today. He had a rough week, not taking his normal naps and just being cranky and clingy. Then I found the culprit: another tooth broke through his gums. Only 9 months and he already has 7 teeth!

This is how he looked when he woke up this morning. Daddy and I just cracked up at how his hair was sticking up! Too cute...I kept trying to smooth it down, but papa said he liked it that way. Silly papa.

My boy presented his book report in class today. He had to dress like a character in the story. The book he read is called "Long Arm Quarterback", and (surprise!) it's about football.

We picked up a collector Falcon's helmet at Big 5 and a plain black jersey. You can't tell in the picture, but we even painted black lines under his eyes :)

mom's wristwarmers

Here's what I've done so far on the right (or the left) wristwarmer. I think I should have did a swatch first. It doesn't seem wide enough to wrap around your wrist. I have small wrists and it seems to fit on me, but I'm not sure it will on my mom.

Once I finish this, one more to do and I can wrap the pair and put it away, until Christmas.

Yarn: Debbie Bliss, alpaca silk dk, color #26003
Needles: size 8

Here is a meme. I got this from small hands, who has a lovely blog filled with beautiful things she made herself.

Here are the rules: List five little things which make you happy/satisfied/give you pleasure. Don't go for the obvious ones like second-hand bookshops, warm baths, icecream, wanking, seeing a band live or whatever. Odd little things, which give you a little frisson and make things better, even if just for a moment.

1. When my older boy eats all his dinner and says "That was good Mom!" (he is a picky eater)
2. Being all caught up with laundry.
3. Having time to stop for coffee on the way to work
4. Picking up my baby from the sitter early.
5. Going out to breakfast.

first christmas project

Christmas is around the corner and I need to start some projects if I want to finish them in time! I am trying to think of what I should make. I really don't have time to make huge projects so I'll probably focus on scarves, hats, and other small projects. I started on a pair of wrist-warmers for my mom. Her hands bother her sometimes. I think she injured the nerves from typing on the computer too much...and with winter coming I thought I'd make her something to keep them warm. I bought a cashmere/wool blend yarn in a beautiful grey color. I started the project last night and worked on them for an hour today. I'm slow! But I'm two-thirds done with the first wrist-warmer already! I'll post pictures soon. I found the free pattern on someone's cool blog. She wrote the pattern herself and here is a picture of the pair that she made:

gourmet dinner

Mom made this wonderful pot roast for us to have for dinner tonight. I had a little of it for lunch and it was delicious. But we didn't get to have it for dinner after all--we had to eat chicken fingers instead. We have this old fridge in the garage that we put extra cold stuff that doesn't fit in the kitchen fridge. The doors don't have a great seal so you have to shut it and press it firmly to close. If you slam the door, it just pops right back open enough to let all the cold out. Well either Evan or I must have left it open on accident and the freezer thawed out :( There was a big bag of chicken fingers and a couple of other items that remained partially frozen but everything else had to get thrown out. I baked the whole bag of chicken strips so we wouldn't have to waste them, and that's what Evan and I ended up eating for dinner. Kurt didn't want chicken strips so he ran out and got some Happi House.


Dylan and Evan have so much fun together. Recently Dylan learned to toss a ball so he and Evan were playing "catch" in the living room. It is soooo cute to watch. Kurt and I wondered if he's a little advanced for his age! (I know, we're such proud parents) I mean, he's already throwing a ball at 8 months? Kurt also showed him how to throw the ball down on the floor so now he can throw and bounce the ball, too. We have either a baseball or basketball player in the making :) Here he is giving mommy a big hug after a game of catch.

No knitting tonight, again. I'm beginning to wonder if this is worthy of being called a "knitting blog".

phase 1 on the house

We're still in the early stages with the remodel. It's 10:52pm right now and Kurt is over at Joe's talking about designs for the house. He already drew up a couple preliminary plans that look really good. But it's good to keep bouncing ideas around and really get the plans down the way we want it. After looking at drawings it's funny how they all start kind of looking the same. It's also hard to look at a flat drawing on a page and envision how it's going to look when you walk through it. Kurt is really good at that. We have some great ideas from pictures we took of 2 beautiful homes. One was a house over in the Rose Garden, and the other was a house that Kurt's friend worked on. It's amazing how the little details really just make a difference on making a nice home a really beautiful home.

Dylan has been sleeping a little better. This past week he's been waking up around midnight, and then sleeping until about 5 or 6 in the morning. He wakes up in between and cries a little, but pretty much falls back to sleep on his own. Last night he seemed to backslide a bit...I think he's teething again. He's been fussy the last couple days and drooling a lot. He's already got 6 teeth! We know another little boy the same age as Dylan that doesn't even have one. But then, this little boy was scooting around a lot sooner than Dylan was. Every child develops so differently.

Poor Dylan, he fell off the bed Friday night. It was so scary. He has a little cut on his forehead and I was so worried that he got seriously hurt. But we took him to the hospital and got him checked out. Thank goodness he's ok. Everyone says that he will have plenty more falls which I'm not looking forward to. Another thing that happened this weekend is that he graduated out of his baby food! He just doesn't want it anymore! The last few days he's been refusing to eat it so I've been offering him regular food, cut up and mashed into small pieces. Last night and today he had Grandma's Dottie's pot roast with potatoes, carrots, and I steamed some broccoli to add green veggies. He loved it!

Evan has been doing great with school. He is learning to be more independant and responsible with his homework and class assignments. His teacher and I have been working closely together to help keep him on track. She sends home progress reports and a checklist of what he needs to do. Evan works on his assignments and checks them off on the daily progress report. I review the list and help him with any questions, and then sign off. It seems to be working out pretty well. He's a good boy. He played with Dylan after dinner today so I could get the dinner dishes done before our walk. Kurt ran an errand so just Evan, Dylan and I took our daily walk around the block. It was kind of later than we usually go so it was dark when we got back.