Oh what a tangled web we weave....

Last night, as I was drifting off to sleep, I had an idea for a hat.  It's inspired by the Stained Glass Window afghan pattern, with the overlay crochet techniques.  I was thinking how the black looks a bit like a spider web.... and Halloween is coming up... a spider web hat would be awesome.  I knew I had to get it out of my head as quickly as possible.  So, even though I am pressing myself to stay focused on the afghans I'm working on, I had to take part of this evening to work this out before it left me.

These pictures are my "first draft."  There will be some changes, and I definitely would choose a bigger contrast in color, but I couldn't find any white yarn (aside from the white in Zoe's afghan, which I don't like making hats with) and I wasn't going to use my black, since I need a ton of it for the SGW.  I found light gray and dark gray and went with that.  It's a bit like a dusty cobweb to me. 







I am going to try to put together a pattern for it. It will be a little more complicated than normal, with the overlay stitches.  I like the 3D effect of the web, though.  I could work it into a snowflake for Christmas, also.  So be on the lookout... hopefully it won't take me too long.

Linking up here:

Oh, heavens, the drama!

So, tonight I was making some Buffalo Chicken bites, per my husband's request.  My hands are all eggy and floury and Panko-y.  I hear a panicked cry and Olivia comes running into the kitchen with a half-eaten cookie and blood coming out of her mouth.  "My tooth!  My tooth!  I bit my cookie and my wiggly tooth is really wiggly now!"

This is not excitement.  This is full-on freak out.

This tooth has been loose for going on 6 months now.  I'm not exaggerating one bit.  I checked... I had made her a tooth fairy door as soon as she told me it was loose and I uploaded the picture on March 31.  But she refuses to wiggle it.  I felt it that day... it really was loose.  I'm surprised her permanent tooth hasn't come in behind it as long as this has drawn out.

I can't deal with loose teeth.  It makes me really squeamish.  I lucked out on her first two teeth.... one came out in the morning when it was just Bill to deal with it and the other fell out at school.  I won't even keep their baby teeth as keepsakes for the girls.  That just grosses me out. 

But I try to keep my cool about it.  She's flipping out enough for both of us (and then some).  I wash my hands and get her some paper towels and assess the situation.  It is really wiggly, but not to the point that I can just pull it out easily.  I asked for help on facebook and was told to do the whole tie a string on her tooth and to a doorknob and shut the door.  I can't do that.  Are you crazy?  I did try another suggestion of sticky candy... I gave her some Bit O Honey. 

She told me she forgot how to bite down.

Drama.  I'm not making this up.

She told me to call her father.  (Like he's going to rush home from work to have her not let him touch her)

She told me to call her teacher and tell her she can't come to school tomorrow.  (Oh yes, I remember "loose teeth" on the list of things to keep your kid home from school for)

I can only imagine puberty with this child.  If they make gray hair dye, I need to just go get some and get this over with.

Due to the fact that I absolutely can't bring myself to pull this tooth and the fact that she absolutely won't wiggle it, she is now in bed with all of  her teeth still in her head.  Daddy can deal with it in the morning.


They kind of look like ugly potholders right now.  =)

Busy Little Bee

Yup, that's me.



This afghan might not take me 5 months to complete!  Woo hoo!  I even got an orange round on two of them... the ugliest round of them all.  I'm not a fan of orange in the least.  And I snuck (sneaked?) in two of Zoe's squares, too.  I try to work on her blanket during lunch at work, but today I had a choice of working on the blanket while I ate my turkey Lunchable or eat Olive Garden.  Come on, is that really a choice?

I cannot type "Olive" without accidentally typing "Olivia."

My children were entirely too loud this evening.  We're talking way beyond outside voices inside.  I was yelling and couldn't hear myself.  It kind of made me wonder why on earth I am willing to add a fourth noisemaker in a few weeks....  Olivia is going to have her first overnight guest.  Her birthday is coming up and I just don't want to even think about a big party.  So I had this idea that instead of a party, I'd let her have a friend spend the night.  I haven't talked to the girl's mother, other than a note that I sent with Olivia to give to her BFF to give to her mom, but I have talked to the girl's grandmother when I picked Olivia up and she said the mom was fine with it.  I am really excited about it for them.  I didn't mention to Olivia what my plan was or what the note said, but they pretty much figured it out.  Why else would I be sending a note to the kid's mom?  So, they have the whole thing planned out already, including makeovers.  I'm sure it will be a blast (and probably sound like one too...)

Is it weird...

... that I want to frame one of my Stained Glass Window squares?

I pinned my finished square on the wall and I don't want to take it down.  It's going to be so hard to give this afghan away.

When I was working on the squares last week, I was missing one of them.  So I just started another one.  Then I found it yesterday.  So I caught it up with the other 11.  Now I have 12 in progress and the finished one.  I'm keeping one.  It's just too pretty.  I can't help it.  I may never make another full afghan from the pattern, so I want something other than pictures of it.

My book is falling apart now... I've been using it so much.  If you ever spend money on an afghan pattern book, I can't recommend this enough.  The pattern for Zoe's afghan is in there as well as the Stained Glass Window afghan.  There are quite a few others in the book that I would like to make.   I don't normally buy pattern books... there just aren't usually enough patterns in them that I like to justify the cost, especially when you can find so many great patterns online for free. 

Source: amazon.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

Did you know that today (Monday 9/12) was International Crochet Day?  I didn't until tonight.  I definitely celebrated.  I crocheted my way into a headache, I crocheted so much. And that was after cleaning.  I'm being super productive lately.  We better enjoy this while it lasts.  ;)

Saturday Family Fun Day

This was our next-to-last Saturday Family Fun Day.  *pouty face*  Next Saturday is Bill's last Saturday off.  They are switching his days off to Sunday and Monday.  So we'll have to start having Sunday Family Fun Days.  *happy face*

Of course, this means I'm going to have to get into a new routine.  Right now, Sunday is my big laundry day.  No matter how hard I try, I can't get into the habit of doing a load a day, and even when I do, there's still several to do at the end of the week.  I swear, sometimes I feel like there are more than 5  people in this family on laundry day.  So I'm going to have to get into the habit of doing laundry on Saturday so that I don't have that hanging over my head on Sunday.  I'm not a big fan of changing my routine. 

And I liked that the two nights a week that I can stay up late and don't have the extra tasks of getting things ready for the next day were the same nights that my hubby is home.  Sometimes I really dislike my husband's bosses.  OK, most of the time.  The man never calls in, always comes in when asked, actually takes being on call seriously, spends his own free time taking certification tests and whatnot... yet he's always the one that gets uprooted and thrown around when people quit.  Because he'll do it without making a fuss.  I just hate that the people who are the most difficult to work with always get their way... just because it's easiest. 

Enough complaining...  let's get back to the topic at hand.  =)

Bill had been planning our Fun Day all week.  Or at least the first part of it... going to an antique tractor show.  He loves tractors, having practically been raised on a dairy farm.  He can tell you just about anything you'd want to know about any kind of farm tractor.  So we took a little drive out to Scott, AR to look at some tractors...



They had a little plot of cotton planted.  I don't think I've ever been up close to cotton plants before, but I've heard my dad talk about having to pick it before...



It's actually quite pretty, I think.



Little cotton balls =)







There is a cypress swamp in the area... I think it's quite pretty, too.

We left there and had lunch at a new burger place that everyone keeps raving about.  I wasn't that impressed.  In fact, I had a bit of a tummy ache afterwards.  I had mentioned earlier that there was a new walking bridge that had opened recently, so we decided to check it out. 



Now, ever since I was little, I thought that the land that this bridge connects to was an island and I always wanted to go on this island.  It's actually just a little peninsula, but it was still really exciting to be able to just go walk over to it now. 





There is a walking trail once you get over the bridge.  It's actually a part of a huge trail system in the area.  We didn't make it to the end of this particular part of the trail, but I think we were close because we were seeing people coming back that had passed us (because we were sloooooow.)



The reason we were slow.  Short little legs and short little patience.  This was when we decided to turn around.



And this was when we got near the end.  Poor little Dodo was not happy.  It sucks to be the littlest person.  She told me several times that we should have brought the stroller or wagon.  And maybe I would have if we had actually planned that part of the trip, but it was kind of a "what can we do now?" decision.

It definitely got me wanting to take more walks, even with all the whining.  I love trails.  Walking trails, nature trails, walking bridges.  It's one of my favorite parts of where we live, so many trails.  =)

Can you hear the angels singing?

I got a lot of crocheting finished while we had company.  I finished the sixth row of Zoe's afghan, which is the halfway point (not counting the border).  And I worked all 12 of my Stained Glass Window squares to the point where I needed new colors. 

Darn it all, had to go to Hobby Lobby.  What torture.  =)

I decided to just grab the 3 remaining colors and more black all at once.  No more stressing over my color choices.  Just get it and be done.  And since I had all the colors, I thought I'd finish a square completely to see if what I made would even look like what is in the book.

Want to see?  Do you?  Do you?

Here it is... 



I am not going to lie.  This is a very challenging pattern.  But it is fun.  On one hand, I'm thinking "I have to make 11 more of these?", but the fun factor makes it not so daunting.

It's also huge.  It's about 10 inches... I think.  I couldn't find anything to measure it with, but it was about as tall as my 8x10 picture close to it. 

When I had the center of it finished with all the colors, I was not sure I liked it at all.  The yellowish color just seemed "off" to me.  But then I got the corner motifs on and it looked so much better... it just tied it together perfectly.  I completely love it.  This is going to be such an amazing afghan.  It will be so hard to give it away.

The Hostess With The Mostest...

... Mostest what, I don't know.  =)

My sister-in-law decided to move back to Massachusetts from California.  My father-in-law flew out there to help her with the moving and the drive, and they decided to make a little pit stop here to visit us along the way.  We haven't seen them in about two years.  It's just such a huge undertaking to take all 5 of us on a trip that big and we, unfortunately, don't get to make it very often.  So we were so excited that they were coming to visit.

Now, it's very rare that we have overnight company.  I don't think we have had anyone here since Isabelle was born 5 years ago.  So I spent last weekend in a cleaning frenzy, totally stressed out to the point that I spent Labor Day with a migraine.  It was totally silly of me, but I just wanted things to be nice for them.  Plus, Bill wasn't able to get any time off of work so it would be just me and the girls to entertain them most of the time.  And, just in case you missed the bulletin, I'm so not a social creature.  Not that I didn't enjoy their company... don't get me wrong, I do like them immensely.  We had a great time.  But I can't lie and say that the anticipation of playing hostess didn't weigh heavily on me. 

The main reason that Bill wasn't able to get time off was that we weren't exactly sure when they'd arrive.  They ended up leaving a day later than they planned and had some late starts.  Originally they thought they'd be here Monday, or Tuesday at the latest.  It was actually Wednesday evening when they got here.  The girls were just out of their heads with excitement. 



They had their Papa on book duty pretty quickly.  That was pretty much the only time they weren't running full speed, giving the tour of the house, worrying over my sister-in-law's cat, showing off toys and pillows and blankets.  They wore me out just watching.

The next day, I did have to go to work myself, but only for a few hours and I was home by the time everyone was getting up for the day.  The girls were much calmer and really well-behaved.



Olivia even asked to do the dishes for me.  =)



Days of driving wears an Aunt Mandy out and Zoe was more than happy to join her in a nap.



They had a lot of fun taking pictures and just acting goofy.



Aunt Mandy taught the girls how to play Angry Birds and Papa taught Olivia how to do Sodoku puzzles.  And she was actually getting it... I can't even do Sodoku.

Amanda and I had a few long conversations and that was really nice.  I don't think we've really ever had the chance to just chit chat... just the two of us.  So, I wasn't all that antisocial.  I did get a lot of crocheting done, though.  It's just easier for me to talk with my hands busy.

They only were able to stay two nights and had to leave while I was at work.  It was a real bummer that they had to go.  It really sucks living so far away from part of the family.  But Bill has already mentioned making the trip to visit next summer and I'm excited!  I tried to plan a trip this summer and we weren't able to make it work.  I'm going to work extra hard to make it happen next year though.  There are many, many more people to see, but it was so great to see two of them at least.