Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad!

My parents celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary this weekend. Having parents that are still happily married seems like such a rarity these days. I feel so very blessed to have such loving parents and even more blessed that they love each other so much. Anyway, here is a picture of my parents from their wedding reception.


I love this picture. I love the way my mom and dad are looking at each other with such love and joy. I love that that they have their drinks in hand and are ready to party. This picture just captures the essence of my parents and that makes me happy.

My parents have taught me so much about life and how to live it. Many of those things are related to how to treat others and how to love and support someone.

B and I will celebrate our 11th anniversary this August. I feel so blessed to have him. I can't wait to celebrate 40 years with him. I'm hoping we'll get to celebrate 50 and 60 years too.

Anyway, thinking of my parents tonight just makes me feel very blessed. Thanks, Mom and Dad, for all that you do. Oh, and be ready to party in ten years because there will be a party to celebrate your 50th!

Movie Monday Redo: In case you were wanting more...

More swimming movies. :)

J diving for rings:


He's gotten so confident with his diving skills!

J swimming:



Hasn't he improved a lot even since the last video? So proud of my J!

And, last, but not least, N and J swimming. Yes, N started swimming on his own yesterday.



It's just the early stages, but I am SO proud of my little 3 year-old.

And, now, I promise to not post anymore swimming videos--at least not for a week or so :).

Movie Monday: Swinging Edition

A short movie of the boys enjoying our new swingset on Friday night. J has gotten to the point where he can sit down, start pumping his legs and get himself really high all on his own. He LOVES it. If you get N started, he can do some pumping and keep himself going. Life is good!

Meanwhile, I set my beer down to make the video and Pepper knocked it over and spilled it. Then she started rolling around in the spilled beer. I got a video of the end of her antics.



I love how she starts licking the beer spot in the end. Nice!

Hope you all had a lovely weekend!

Bad Words

J has recently gotten back into a PBS show called Wild Kratts--a pretty cool show as children's television goes. Two brothers go around learning about and rescuing wild animals. An amazing female inventor helps them by making creature power suits that help them use the same powers animals have. J's learned a lot about animals and loves to pretend to be Chris or Martin with "creature powers."

Anyway, he was doing this yesterday and decided he really needed some creature power disks. I looked on the Wild Kratts website, but couldn't find anything so I did what any smart mom does--I googled "Wild Kratts coloring pages." As I browsed through the results, I saw it--a Draco creature power disk. Perfect! I clicked on the image and all hell broke loose on my computer. Some program started running, messages with scary words appeared and my computer started scanning itself. The last virus we got that almost killed our whole computer pretended to be a program scanning for viruses so I freaked out and turned off the computer. When I went to start it back up (trying to find the "go back and boot up from previous date option"), my computer started scanning drives and I freaked out again and just turned it back off. Now I'm working from the laptop I bought B for Christmas when he switched jobs before the-move-that-never-was.

Anyway, so that's my excitement these days. Needless to say I wanted to say many bad words, but amazingly only said "crap" a number of times. I guess this whole motherhood thing is starting to help clean up my potty mouth ;).

I was going to blog about my twisted stitch boatneck tank I'm designing and knitting, but I won't be able to upload pics. I am knitting bottom up and have about 6 inches done so far. Not the fastest progress, but not bad either. Hope to get some pics up soon.

Hope your life is going a little more smoothly than mine these days. Take care and happy Thursday. TGIAF! (Thank Goodness It's Almost Friday!)

More Family Fun!

Last weekend B's sister and her husband and children came to visit from Oregon. We had SO much fun! Here are some (a LOT) of pics.

My sweet niece Isla (who just turned 2) at our neighborhood splashpad:

My sweet nephew Oscar (almost 4) enjoying N's watering can:

Uncle Chris spraying N (sorry this one is blurry as Chris's expression is priceless):
My swimmer, J:

Isla LOVED the splashpad:

Walking home:

On Friday, we went to the Dallas Zoo.

Isla:

N checking out the Galapagos tortoises and a squirrel:
N picked out his own outfit today. He said he wanted to be a rainbow. :)

We checked out SOAR, the new bird show at the zoo. It was really fun.

Chris, Isla and N watching the penguins:

A hawk! One of the many birds who soared right over our heads:

Chris and Isla watching the children's favorite bird--the parrot who sang Old MacDonald:

We actually got a decent photo of all four children!:

Oscar and J outside of the African Savanna:

N checking out a lion outside of the Serengeti Grill:

Isla and the lions:

J pretending to be a lion:

Feeding the giraffes!:



Isla and a cheetah:

On Friday night, we went to Randy White's Barbecue (actually really good and very family friendly) and DQ for ice cream.

Isla:

N and J:
Oscar:

Can you tell that I am a little smitten with Isla? She was just so photogenic this weekend.

We are so thankful that our family ventured all this way just to spend a long weekend with us. SO MUCH FUN!

Movie Monday: Swim Lesson Edition

Last week J and N were doing swim lessons. It is AMAZING how much progress they have made in one week. Just had to share some videos from their lesson on Friday.











and a bonus video of N jumping to B:



and I can't resist including this photo because it cracks me up:

Knitting Update

I finished knitting my mother-in-law's Peacock Tail and Leaf scarf a few weeks ago. Blocked it about a week ago and wove in the ends today. This is the second time I knitted this pattern and it's a relatively simple one if you are comfortable with lace. This one went quickly with very few errors to correct along the way. There is something to be said for knitting a scarf you have already knit before.


Pattern: Peacock Tail and Leaf Scarf by Nancy Bush
Yarn: 2 skeins of Schulana Kid-Seta in Color #13 (70% Kid-Mohair/30% Silk/ 25g/ 210m/ laceweight)
Needles: Size 3
Modifications: Added two repeats of middle lace pattern for a little additional length.


Then I decided to knit this hat.

The pattern is called Courtyard and I spotted it on Ravelry a while back and fell in love with the twisted stitch pattern. I want to make a boatneck shell featuring this stitch pattern and thought that knitting the hat would be good prep for that. I really wanted to do a bright marigold yellow and white (inspired by one of the hats on the Ravelry page). The only yarn I found that I liked in these colors was full o' sheep yarn by Stitch Nation. Although this yarn worked fine for the hat, it was too itchy for a shell. I like the way this yarn looks--and the colors are lovely--but I didn't really enjoy knitting with this yarn. Can't tell you exactly why.


Pattern: Courtyard by Melissa Thomson
Yarn: Stitch Nation by Debbie Stoller Full o' Sheep (100% Peruvian Wool/ 100g/ 155yd/ 142m) One skein of Little Lamb (white) and one skein of Honeycomb (yellow). Had between 1/2 and 1/3 of each skein leftover.
Size: Larger size. Probably could have gotten away with smaller size for my pea head.
Needles: Size 6 for ribbing. Size 7 for rest of hat.
Modifications: None.


Since I didn't love the yarn I used for the hat, I went to my local yarn shop and looked through the tons and tons of yarn options. After much debate, I decided to go a different route. I chose a 4ply in a white and a pale blue. I think it will be a much subtler combination, but nice all the same. The yarn is very soft--baby cashmere merino silk--and will feel nice next to my skin. Here's a picture of my swatch.


It's a 14" circle that is about 4 inches tall. I knit it in the round since I plan to knit my boatneck shell in the round. This will be my first real design project so wish me luck. I'm going to try and work out the numbers tonight. Can't wait to cast on!

Best Visit EVER!

Sorry for the blogging absence, but life has been too busy to blog. My sister and her two children and my mom just came for a week long visit and it was WONDERFUL! My sister and her children hadn't been here in two years and it was so exciting to have them back. We just had so much fun. Her son is 7 (almost 8) and her daughter just turned 6. The boys love hanging out with them. We spent lots of time at the pool, a morning at Build-a-Bear in honor of Lizzie's birthday and a day at the zoo. I didn't get a lot of pictures because I kept forgetting my camera--oh well. Trust me, we had a blast. To top off the awesomeness, I got to spend a decent amount of time knitting with both my sister and my mom. Can we say "little piece of heaven"? I think we can.

Here a few pictures to show off the adorable children.

Everyone coloring their Build-a-Bear "houses:"

Sorry I didn't take a picture of the actual animals. N built a Dalmatian complete with a button that played the Star Wars theme in his hand and a set of Cars 2-themed pajamas. He named him Spot. J built a panda bear with a button that played the Star Wars theme and a Darth Vader costume. He named him Pandy. Michael built a camouflage-colored bear that played the Star Wars theme and had a Jedi warrior costume. He named him Camo. Lizzie built a pink daisy print bunny with a button that said "I love you." She picked out a cute top and skirt, Hello Kitty underpants and pink jelly sandals for her bunny. She named her Daisy Bunny.

Mooma and four of her grandchildren at the pool:

J jumping in the water: He just decided yesterday that he liked jumping in on his own and did it over and over.

Michael jumping in the pool:
Love this photo and this little boy!

And a bonus photo:Cat and I knitting together. Heaven!