Happy Mother's Day

This post may be a day late, but it's never to late to tell your Mom you love her.

I Love You Mom!  Thanks for all that you've done for me!

Mom & I circa 1969

The Trip

Did you think that I fell off the face of the earth?  Almost, but not quite.  We took a quick trip to Universal Studios in Orlando, FL.  Two 12 hour trips (there and back) with two kids in the car.  Oh boy.  Made for a long, long ride.  Thank goodness for portable dvd players and headphones!

It was me and the Eldest that actually went to the park, everyone else crashed at my brother's pad.  The Eldest has been desperate to go see the Harry Potter part of the park so we hit there first.  Unfortunately, the only camera I have was on my crappy phone.  It has a very poor excuse for a camera, but I did get a few fuzzy pics for ya.

Here's the Hogwart's train, the Eldest and two old folks we didn't know but were captured in our memory forever:

The Castle and a really odd smile from the Eldest:

The highlight of the Harry Potter stuff was in Ollivander's Wand Shop.  We stood in line for an hour to finally be ushered in the door with about 20 other people.  The shops are all tiny and you have to stand in line just to get into the gift shops.  It's utterly ridiculous.  I don't care if it's supposed to be true to the size of the shops in the books, it was poor planning for an amusement park.  Anyway, once in the shop, the kids were told to go to the front.  Ollivander came down the steps and welcomed the crowd and then began studying the children.  Only one child is chosen per group to be "measured" for a wand.  He made a beeline for the Eldest.  It was so much fun to watch.

He made him hold out his "wand arm" and the Eldest did so while the guy carried on teaching the crowd how a wand chooses it's owner.  Every time the Eldest's arm started to droop down the guy would stop what he was saying and just stare at the poor kid until the arm came back up.  It was so funny.  Then he gave the Eldest a wand and had him perform a spell to move a ladder.  Drawers opened instead.  Not the right wand.  He picked another for the Eldest to try.  This time he was supposed to make one bell ring.  Tons of bells rung.  The guy said, "Obviously not the right wand, but we're getting closer!"    When the Eldest took the last wand, light started streaming down on him and a chorus of angels started singing.  It was very well done and it totally made the kid's day.  The only drawback was they made us pay for the wand, but we can't have everything, can we?  :)

The Eldest was ready to leave the park right then.  I could have wrung his little neck.  We paid that much for tickets and he didn't want to see anything else?  Good thing I'm a mean Mommy or we wouldn't have got this pic:

Or this one:

Or this one:

It really was a lot of fun. 

Little Black Rain Cloud

Do you ever feel like you've got Charlie Brown's Black Rain Cloud following you?  That's exactly how I feel right about now. 

 

First there was my trip to the ER on the 3rd, then my son's trip to the ER on the 9th.  My parents both got sick and then my father went to the ER last week too for a stricture in his throat.  

THEN,  I got a call today from my Mom.  Dad drove himself to the ER again for chest pains.  This is not the first time that he's had heart problems, so he knows the warning signs.  They've admitted him and given him a room for monitoring.  It's two hours away and I have no one who can watch the kids so I can't just take off and go sit with or spell Mom at the hospital.  

Oh, and also, my husband has a nasty cold / flu bug right now too.

Is it just me, or is there a little black rain cloud following my family around?  Aaaaagh!

Birthday Boy

Tomorrow is my baby brother's birthday!  I just thought I'd give a shout out to the 35 year old young man.  :)

Here's a pic of one of his birthdays "way back when."  Notice the cake that my mother made and decorated:

All together now!  "Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww!"

Have a great holiday weekend everyone!

Little Pirates are Gross

"Gentlemen; m'lady. This is the day you will always remember as the day that you almost caught Captain Jack Sparrow!"

This boy is a natural born pirate.  He does way more work coming up with imaginative ways to get out of trouble and work than if he just did what he had been told to do in the first place.

Case in point:

We thought we had gotten past all the woes of potty training a while ago, but a new issue has cropped up.  The boy has been stopping up the toilet by using wads and wads of toilet paper.  I threatened to start deducting from his allowance if he did it again.  Lo and behold, there was no more stoppage of the plumbing.  I patted myself on the back on a parenting job well done.  Yeah.

How he got around it:

We found the trash can full of (used) toilet paper.  The little pirate filled the trash can with copious amounts of the toilet paper.  Icky, but at least the plumbing is not stopped up anymore.  Little pirates are gross. 

I am so going to use this blog as blackmail later on when he starts dating.  Mommies can use Pirate Ethics too!

Warning: Out Of The Mouths Of Babes

I felt like crawling under a rock this weekend.    The Eldest and his Dad went camping, so The Youngest and I took off to the lake to visit family. 

For background, The Youngest is a skinny little four year old boy.  His grandfather likes to kid around with him, talking about how "heavy" and "fat" he is.  I think my Dad forgets that children are very literal creatures and they, at that young of an age, also do not understand what the word facetious means or the definition of tact. 

Back to the weekend.  We met up with some of my first cousins and their children.  One of those kids and her Mom are a bit heavy set.  The girl has just turned fifteen and still has some of the baby fat on her that will disappear in a couple of years.  She is going to be gorgeous too.  Her Mom has diabetes and several other health problems.  Neither one are what I would call obese by any means. 

Can ya guess what happened?  The Youngest, trying to be funny, looked at the girl and said, "You don't have to be so fat."  He had absolutely no clue what he was saying.  I, on the other hand, did.  So did the girl and her Mom.  I could have crawled under a very tiny rock at that point and been content to live there for the rest of my natural born days.  I could also have knocked my Dad into next week.

A warning for those who have babies or at some point expect to have a baby:

A child may be cute as a button, but beware, the child's mouth is a loaded gun that can and will go off at the most inconvenient of times.  You, the parent, just think you're in control.  There is no controlling a young child's mouth.  You never, ever, know what will come out of it. 

Anyone else have something like this happen to them?

Father's Day Gifts

I have to get real crafty in June.  There are three Father's Day gifts to do, two family birthdays and one best friend birthday, so June can get kind of pricey.  Therefore, the boys and I started working on their Father's Day Gifts yesterday. 

This is such an easy (if the kids feel like cooperating - which mine didn't quite do) project.  All three of the Dads in question spend tons of time wearing what we around here refer to as lounge(y) pants.  None of them spend tons of time wearing t-shirts.  So purchased three pairs of plain gray pants ($8 a piece from Wallyworld) and some fabric paints.

We laid them flat on a giant drop cloth.  Then I had the boys dip their feet in fabric paint and place them on the pants.  I used some stencils and fabric markers to spell out "My kids walk all over me" for their Dad and "My grandkids walk all over me" for the granddads. 

What's funny is that when you live with the kids, their growth always takes you by surprise.  When I envisioned this project, for some reason my mind expected their feet to be much smaller.  Hah!  The Eldest's foot size is the same as mine!  I really knew this, but I didn't "Know This" in a crafty sense.  The Youngest took me by surprise in this as well. 

I ended up with huge gaping holes to fill in between their foot prints.  So off to JoAnn to look at little foot stamps to fill in the blanks.  I don't stamp that often and had some major sticker shock when I saw the prices.  Nope, I wasn't going to pay that.  I decided to look in the stencils section.  No deal, they didn't have a stencil for that.

What I ended up doing (it was my Mom's idea) was to ball up my fist.  Then I dipped the side of my fist (pinky side) into the fabric print and place that on the cloth.  I then dipped my index finger and made finger print toes over the little foot imprint that I made with the side of my fist.  It worked perfectly!

Here's how they turned out:

Cute huh?  I didn't do the back of the pants, I started way too late to even think about those.   And honestly?  I came close to sending my kids to Siberia over this project.  I don't think I want to tackle another side.  Their listening skills are sub-par and there was one pair of little jean shorts ruined in the making of these.  I should have had them strip all nekkid for this project.  As it was, it was probably quite amusing for the neighbors to see us walking all around our house to get to the outside hose.  We had rainbow feet, hands and legs before it was all over.

Have a Great Father's Day Weekend!

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Theater

While the Eldest is in Cub Scout Day Camp this week, the Youngest and I decided to head out to the Regal Cinemas Free Movies this morning.  While driving, we began playing the "I love you more than" game.  It's simple and keeps a four year old very entertained while stuck in the car seat.  It began years ago with the Eldest and the tradition has carried onto his younger sibling. 

Here's how you play:

1.  You begin every sentence with "I love you more than..." and then fill in the blank.  You can start out all sweet and sappy if you want with something like "I love you more than strawberries."  That's always a good one. Then you wait and let the child say one of his own sentences. 
2.  You continue number one for a while, swapping back and forth, and then change your fill in the blank answer into something a little weird such as "I love you more than chocolate covered corn on the cob."  (We typically stick with food items, you'll see why in a sec.) By this time the kid's getting the giggles.
3.  Continue number two for a while and then the fun starts.  Now you get to get all four year old yourself and come up with some really disgusting stuff.  Here's a few examples of what was said today:

"I love you more than worm pie." 
"I love you more than dirty sock soup."
"I love you more than snail souffle." 

You get the idea.  I really thought I was winning this one today and coming up with some great gross stuff until the Youngest ended the whole thing with:

"I love you more than poop waffles."   At that point it became time to change both the game and the subject. He won that round, but you just wait until next time!



Oh, and the stole?  It's still growing:

Aren't the colors pretty?

Milestones of A Four Year Old Boy

Today's been an eventful day around here.

First there was a yard sale where The Youngest found something that was right up his alley.  He's into vampires, ghosts, skeletons, anything macabre really.  He's weird.  He's also heavily into Mickey Mouse and friends.  So what does he find at a yardsale for .37 cents?  A 12 inch tall Vampire Mickey!

Then, The Youngest sold his soul to the devil.  We made an agreement.  For his entire life he's been dependent on a pacifier.  Over the past several months I've been helping him work towards getting off of it.  Scaled down for a child, it's akin to an adult giving up cigarettes.  His breathing quickens, his hands clench, his stress level soars and he starts shaking.  It's been incredibly traumatic for him, but the "papper" has to go.  It's disgusting and germy and I refuse to buy him another.  He's past the age of consent here.

Don't think I've been heartless over it.  It's been rough on all of us and watching him go through it has driven me to tears several times.  It's heartbreaking to watch your child go through something like this.

But he made a big decision today.  He decided (through some sneaky bribery on my part) to throw it away for a new toy.   He went through this:

To get this:

A real milestone for the little guy.

The Great Toy Purge of 2010

The children's consignment sale at my church is next weekend.  I, however, being on the committee, must have everything labeled, tagged and delivered by Monday.  I'll be working all weekend towards that goal.  Here's just a sampling of what I'm getting rid of:

I could start a toy store all by my lonesome.  You should see what is left up in the playroom!  I'm trying to get rid of the Youngest for a few hours tomorrow so that I do more purging.  The problem with having the kids here while I'm doing it is that I hear "But Mom, I love that toy!" even when they haven't played with it in over a year.  It kinda makes it hard to get rid of the overwhelming amount of toys that have come into our house over the years.  Stuff comes in and never goes out.  It must go!

Here's something rare that never happens around here.  I almost had a heart attack when I saw it because they really don't get along nine tenths of the time:

I Took A Trip To Disney And All I Got Was These Really Weird Pictures

I seem to have survived my trip to Florida even though I didn't think I was going to last night after driving about 10 hours.  I was walking around like a zombie at that point.  Just for the record, a four year old stuck in a car that long is not a fun person to be around.

While on my trip, I finished my first draft of my fingerless mitt pattern.  I'll show you the results tomorrow.   I found one thing in particular that I want to tweak, but I'm pretty happy with it.

We went to Disney for one day and stuck with just the Magic Kingdom park.  In between the long, long lines and the fussing about sore feet, I think the Youngest enjoyed it.  I know the Eldest did.  I enjoyed it a little less thanks to having to carry the Youngest for most of the day.  He's still a little young to handle that much walking and has zero patience for waiting around before getting on the rides.

I got some great pics and some that are funny, but can't necessarily be classified as great.  Classic maybe.  Does anybody else have a member of a family that behaves like this when a camera is pointed at them?


Like this?

And this?

Or this?

Is it really that difficult to face your Mom (whose holding a camera) and smile?  Am I doomed to have every picture of him for the rest of my life look like this?  If so, at least I'll be laughing when I look back on them!

Sick kid

The Youngest has been sick for about two weeks now.  I  thought it was just a normal preschool cold, but it started getting worse.  There's no way I'm walking all over Disney with a sick kid.  Talk about a downer.

So we went to the doctor today.  We spent 30 minutes in the waiting room, 10 minutes waiting for the doc to come into the little room where the left us, all for a 2 minute prognosis.  Know what they said?  "Yep, he's sick.  Here's some antibiotics."  That was it.  Way to get technical there, doc!

A Pirate Birthday Party

Ever wondered how to have a successful Pirate Birthday Party for a pre-schooler?   I think I might have just figured it out this weekend.  The party was a super hit with the little guys and some of their older siblings.

When all the little pirates arrived they were told that they weren't really pirates yet, they just thought they were.  They were told that they would have to earn the right to be called a Pirate.  They thought this was really funny and couldn't wait to do it.

First task:  Every pirate must have a pirate chest.  I mean, you can't be a pirate without one can you?  I found some little wood chests for the kids to paint with tempera paints and covered the table with aluminum foil to protect it.

Second Task:  By finishing the chests, the Pirates earned the right to decorate their own pirate hat.  I made the hats out of black foam sheets (12 x 18) and had the kids decorate them.

Here's how I made the hats:

1.  Take one (12 x 18) sheet:

2.  Cut the sheet in two lengthwise:

3.  Stack both sheets, one on top of the other.  Then, trace the outline of a pirate captain hat and cut it out.  Don't get rid of your scraps though!  I'll show you why in a second.

4.  Staple the hat together as shown.  This hat fit every one of the kids and did not need adjusting. 

 

5.  Decorate!  I just this set of foam stickers that I found on clearance at Hobby Lobby, but you could have pirate stickers or stamp them with paint.

6.  What to do with the scraps?  Make shark fins!

I made a small cut at the bottom and then folded the flaps as shown.  Tape the flaps to the floor and you've got an ocean full of sharks!

Third Task:   The pirates earned their eyepatches and earrings by learning the Pirate jargon.  I googled "how to talk like a pirate" and came up with a fun list.

Fourth Task:  They earned their loot and telescopes by playing games.  I googled a couple of games and this is what I used:  (these are not my games and I don't take credit for them, but they were lots of fun)

First game:  This is to teach the new pirates how to avoid being detected by the enemy:  Throw a balloon in the air.  While it's still in the air they have to laugh like pirates by saying "Yo-Ho-Ho!"  When it lands on the ground they have to be silent.  If not, they had to  Walk the Plank!  Guess who was one of the first ones to walk the plank?

Notice the sharks on the floor?

Second Game: The kids were given orders to follow like this:

If I said:   Port!   They all had to run to the left side of the room.

If I said:  Starboard!  They had to run to the right side of the room.

If I said:  Captains Coming!  They had to stand at attention and salute.

If I said:  Climb the rigging!  They pretended to be climbing a rope.

If I said:  Mess Deck!  They sat down with legs crossed.

If I said:  Submarine!  Everyone had to lay down on the floor and pretend to be a sub.

This one was so much fun!  I don't have pics for you of this one, there was too much movement and they all came out blurry.

The kids were now officially pirates and got to have the cake:

I'm pretty proud of how my cake turned out!  I used a Wilton's pan that I got from Hobby Lobby.  One day I might even take a class or two on how to decorate cakes.  Just imagine how dangerous I'd be then.  Ace of Cakes, here I come!

Here's a better pic of it:

We even had a chest for the forks:

Of course, no Pirate party would be complete without Pirate Swords.  I set out a bucket of swords on the hearth.  These were a huge hit and the adults had to all duck quickly before they were skewered:

The Youngest was incredibly pleased with his party and the kids all had a blast with the games and crafts.  Everyone took home lost of pirate loot and the Youngest went to bed with a huge smile on his face!

My GrandMa Says...

I think my favorite ages of children are the years 3, 4 and 5.  They are loose cannons at this age and you never know what they'll say or do.  It's fun to watch them process information and come up with answers.  Unfortunately, before they can process the information, they have to as "Why?" over one hundred times a minute.  The Youngest has reached the "Why?" stage and it's driving me nuts.   Of course my standard reply to this, like most Moms reply, is with "because I said so."  He then looks up at me and says "How?"  At that point I usually grit my teeth and walk away before I commit violence.

He's also started quoting his GrandMa.  Except, most of these supposed quotes, never came out of her mouth!  Let me give you a couple of examples:

1.  Lately, if I raise my voice in anger, he'll look right at me and say, "My GrandMa says to Relax."
2.  If I tell him that he can't have something, like bubble gum he'll say, "My GrandMa says I can have bubble gum."

Evidently, the only conclusion is that GrandMa is the fount of all wisdom.

Today I mentioned that we might go to McDonald's.  Wanna know what unpredictable thing he said then?

"Then," he said very dramatically, "maybe McDonald's will turn into a Magic Vampire House!"  See?  Unpredictable with a capital U.

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I've put up a few new items (stitch markers and jewelry)  in the Etsy store and you can see a few of them if you scroll down and look on the right side of your screen.

My Little Fairy

Our family can be odd at times, but then, whose isn't really?  But this past holiday, they really proved it they're loons.  It all started with the pink fairy wings that my Mom bought and brought to her house. 

The Youngest loves Tinkerbell and couldn't wait to put them on.  I'm loving the phase he's in right now.  He's completely gender neutral in regard to toys.  All toys are fun to him, even fairy wings and magic wands.  I'm saving this pic for blackmail later on when he starts bringing the girlfriends home:

Then my silly nephew got in on the act:

Then my second cousin combined the fairy wings with some Hulk hands:

We got my 80 year old Uncle in on the fun (he was such a good sport):

Even the dog got in on the act:

Remember the phase I told you the Youngest was going through?  Yeah, he asked Santa for a Daisy Duck this Christmas.  Ya know what?  He got it:

More blackmail for later!

I Don't Understand!

The Youngest came up to me a few minutes ago and graciously told me that I "could be his servant."  That's funny, I thought I already was...

Then he handed me a drum stick and told me that I could be a Slockin.  "What is a Slockin?" I asked.  I was told it's a man that says (in a bad guy voice of course) "I want my guitar!"    Well.  That explains that, doesn't it?

Goodbye

There are four less feet clicking on our floors today at my house.  One less gentle loving friend to greet us at the door.  It's heart breaking.

Jette was 13.5 years old and suffered from hip and knee problems.  Her body just couldn't keep up anymore.  We're going to miss her dearly.  A more gentle, psychotic looking dog you've never met.  She was the best alarm system that we could have had and a wonderful playmate.   She was our first baby and is the first to go of our four footed children. 

It's been difficult to explain to the Youngest.  When he asks where Jette is, we just tell him that "She's at God's house."  He asked us after that if the baby was hugging her and we said, "Yes, Baby Jesus is hugging her."  It's only the truth.


Happy Thanksgiving everyone, I'll see you on Monday.

Moving Issues and Sweaters

Yikes!  I just realized that I haven't mentioned yarn or knitting kinda stuff since October.  Wow.  Can you tell that I've had other stuff going on?  My interests are wide and varied and I seem to have the attention span of a flea lately. 

There is a reason that the attention span is so tiny right now.  Remember me telling you about the hubby losing his job?  Well, another has come along.  We're not thrilled about it, but we're going to have to take it.  He has sent out a bazillion resumes and nobody is calling for interviews.  I mean, Atlanta is a big place.  Isn't there somebody hiring around here?  So, the new job.  It's in Raleigh, NC.  He starts in December and will be there by himself for a good while. 

See, we've got numerous things that have to be done to our house before we can sell it, we have rental property to deal with and the kids are still in school.  The housing market still sucks so it looks like we'll end up losing money and then still not be able to get a loan for a new house in NC cause we won't have any cash to roll over into a new house.  Sucks huh?  On top of that, he's not going to be getting paid very much. 

At this point, we're not even sure that we'll be able to survive even with the new job because of the moving issues!  See, I told ya there was a lot on my mind right now!


However, this is a knitting blog and there should occasionally be knitting to look at right?  Here's where the sweater stands at the moment:

I have finished the front and back and I've begun the first sleeve.  I started that while on the school bus rides to and from the Ga Aquarium yesterday.  The kids were so funny about it too.  Is that hard?  Why are you doing that?  Do you take that everywhere you go?  They were so fascinated that someone would be knitting on the bus.

Does this happen at anyone else's house?

There's a young boy child that's racing around the house, buck naked and holding his underwear in his little hands.  He's running and yelling "I'm naked!" as fast as he can while giggling maniacally.  Of course, his elder brother is mortified at this behavior and telling him to stop running around naked, which just encourages the little rascal more.  His father and I are just sitting here watching the show.  Does this happen to anyone else?

Happy Anniversary To Me!

Today's a big day around here.  It's the first anniversary of my 39th birthday!   Woohoo!

At this point in my life, I have decreed that there will be no further birthdays, just anniversaries.  I am stopping at 39.  I want my (eventual) obituary to read something like "Shea, passed away today.  She had just celebrated the 51st anniversary of her 39th birthday."

Yep, that's what it's going to say.  I plan on being in total denial for the rest of my life. And, barring something totally catastrophic, it could very well say that.  I have grandparents and other ancestors that lived well into their late 90's!  So, that means I haven't even hit the halfway point yet.  That deserves a big Woohoo! in my book.  :)

Just wait until you see what my boys picked out for me for my birt  anniversary!  We have a tradition around here of letting the boys pick out the gifts for people.  It's way more entertaining that way.  One year, for mother's day, the Eldest picked out these plates that had a summer Hawaiian theme.  He gave me a hint that he had gotten me some "Mexican eatin' thingies."  It's been an endless source of amusement for my mother.

Today's gift was just about as good.  I got a six pack of Snickers candy bars and these lovely skull and cross bone orange-black-gray argyle slippers:

I've been wearing them over my green Wicked socks that my Sis In Law gave me for my "anniversary".  She's in denial too.  She just celebrated the same "anniversary" as me, just 25 days sooner, which makes her older than me.  Ha!

But don't they look lovely together?

Edited to add:  When I wrote this earlier today, in my little obit section I put 49th instead of 39th.  Gee, senility sets in early when you hit the big 39 + 1, doesn't it?