Sad face

Something awful happened today.  I was sitting in Zoe's classroom at school, waiting to go on her field trip to the pumpkin patch, when tragedy struck.  I had my precious Nikon D80, snapped a picture and

it died.

The screen went blank, the viewfinder went dark, dead.

There is something about going on field trips with Zoe.   It's the second field trip that I've brought my camera on and had to put it away because it wouldn't work.

I turned it off and back on.  Nothing.  I took out the battery and put it back in.  Nothing.  The battery wasn't dead, I checked it before I left.  It wasn't fully charged, but it was enough for the day.

I am willing to admit that I abuse it.  I hardly ever put it in its cushy bag.  The kids have banged their heads into it more times than I can count while it's around my neck.  I've had it at least 3 years and have never had it cleaned.  I've been meaning to since our trip to the beach, just in case it got some sand or saltwater in it despite my efforts to protect it.  But I didn't.

And now it's dead.

I don't know what to do.  I can't really afford to replace it at the moment.  Who knows how much it would cost to repair?  And the store's website where we got it said it would take 6-8 WEEKS for most repairs.  What am I supposed to do without a camera for two months?  Go crazy, that's what.

So, for now all my pictures will be cell phone pics.  I'm disappointed because I have something to show you and the pictures suck.  Boo.   I'm such a spoiled brat.

Toasty legs

I finally got a picture of Liv in her legwarmers.  She says she loves them and has thanked me repeatedly for them, but I can't seem to get her to wear them for more than 10 minutes.  Of course, it's still fairly warm around here.  Maybe once it gets colder.  She says she can't wear them to school, but I don't see why not.  I didn't see anything in the dress code against them and if that chick I saw yesterday wearing knee-high "Beiber Fever" socks was any indication, they aren't picky about leg-wear.


A picture of her looking like a little girl!!!

I'm very, very excited.  I am this close to being finished with the body of the Daisy afghan.  I cold have finished it up last night but I decided to go to bed before 11pm for a change.  I just  have to attach the last row.  That's it.  Then on to the border.  I need more yarn for the border... I didn't anticipate being ready for it until the weekend.  And now that I'm here, I can't stop.  I must finish it.  It's going to make me insane otherwise.  So I'll have to make a run to get some at lunch.

So excited.

I can't think of a title...

Well, I survived our first ever sleepover.  It wasn't too bad.  They didn't stay up very late... my kids are usually in bed at 7:30pm, so they're kind of lightweights in the staying up department.  Olivia was asking when they could go to bed about 9pm, and who am I to argue?  The morning was a bit of a test of patience since I'm generally a pretty cranky person first thing in the morning and I didn't want to leave the poor child with the impression that I'm Monster Momma.  Olivia wasn't the best hostess ever.  I had to remind her several times that she needed to play with her friend.  Luckily, the other two were more than willing to step in.  Olivia would either get caught up in the television or go off to play alone. 

We have a tentative reciprocal sleepover in two weeks.  The girl's grandfather invited her to come stay the night, but I want to confirm it with her grandmother first.  Make sure everyone's on the same page. 

I was thinking about it and I don't think Olivia has ever spent the night away from us other than when Isabelle was born.  My parents aren't up to keeping the kids overnight and Bill's family is too far away.  It'll be so weird for her to not be here.

With the kids occupied with their visitor, I had a chance to put in some good progress on the Daisy afghan. 


I'm kind of chilly right now, so that looks so cozy to me.

I'm thinking I'll have it all finished and put together by the end of the week and then I can start the border.  That won't take long, I wouldn't think.

I need to pick up my neglected SGW.  I haven't touched it in two weeks or more.  I actually brought it out to work on it last night and got distracted by the book I was reading.  I hit that point in the book where I had  to finish it.  Now I'm bookless for a few days.  I hate that.

Seven

Is it just me or do kids age exponentially?  I mean, 7 seems years older than 6, not just 365 days.


6 year old Olivia

So much changes in a year. 


7 year old Olivia

So much stays the same. 

She's still so dramatic, which is good and bad.  She loves to find a corner to play in with a few stuffed animals and you can overhear the tragic and fantastic tales she spins.  But she doesn't even remember her imaginary Grandmother.  Man, I miss those stories.  Grandmudder was awesome.  She is still a little couch potato, although her taste in television has evolved from Maggie and the Ferocious Beast to iCarly. She's interested in music more.  Still sharp as a tack. 

It's nearly impossible to get a picture of her looking like a little girl.  Now she looks like a miniature teenager. 



She loves her doll.  She named her Lilly Blain.  She was pretty sure I had made her a doll (since she did ask for one) and was planning the name on our ride home.  Everything is named Lilly around here.  And everyone's middle name is Blain to them (actually, only Zoe's middle name is Blain, but they can't pronounce Izzy's middle name so they have replaced it... which led to them just assuming it's everyone's middle name).

I finished the legwarmers, but she won't get them until Sunday.  I'll take pictures of them then.  Legwarmers just are better modeled. 

I can't believe my first born is 7.  Such a big number. 

Olivia Grace, Happy Birthday!  It's going to be a great year, I know it.

The Doll

 

I finished Olivia's birthday present last night.  I spent more than three, yes three, hours knotting hair into this doll's head.

You know when you get an idea and think it's a great idea until you are halfway through it and then you realize that it was the stupidest idea ever?  That was me about 2 hours into the hair.  Originally I wanted to crochet corkscrew curls for her hair, but I decided that there would be no way I'd get it done in time.  For once, I was realistic.  But I did want her to have a nice, full head of hair.  Well... she definitely has that.  I used probably more yarn on just her hair than the rest of the doll.  Insanity, I tell you.



But I kind of like it now that I'm not in the process of making a billion knots. And her hair isn't fluffed out or anything, there's just that much of it.  I have pretty thick hair myself and I'm jealous of this doll.

It was a labor of love.  A week and a half of my nights devoted to this doll.  It's a great pattern... I'd never used a chart like that before and I think I kind of prefer it.  In fact, when I am copying a pattern down from the internet (I don't have a printer at home and sometimes I'm too impatient to wait until I get to work to print something), I often abbreviate things down to just stitch counts for a row anyway.  It's not like most amigurumi patterns have complicated stitch patterns.  It's all sc, inc, and dec for the most part.



I did make the shoes, but forgot to put them on.  They won't stay on unless I sew them onto her so they'll be lost in no time anyway.  No big deal, I think she looks fine without them.



I did go off on my own a little bit with the dress.  It's by the pattern for the most part, but I was tired and ended up just lacing up the back and carrying the yarn over to make skinny straps instead of crocheting them and sewing on buttons.  I like it though.  She's a tad goth-looking with the gray and dark red and black.  Working on the Daisy afghan, I'm a little burned out on pastels and I had these colors on hand.  I gotta mix it up.

I've decided I might crochet amigurumi a bit too tight.  I hardly ever use my G hook, but I pulled it out for the dress.  I had last used my G hook on a different (and unfinished) ami project.... and it was warped.  I bent my hook crocheting.  So maybe I go a bit overboard on the tension.  Just a little.

I see two more doll requests in my future, so I'm already scoping out other patterns.  I can't make the same pattern over and over.  Here are two options I'm looking at:

Source: ravelry.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

I'm not overly fond of the head... I might make it rounder.

Source: ravelry.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

She looks like a Lalaloopsy doll =)  And that's the hair I wanted to do...

I still have to finish up the legwarmers.... I have one leg finished and about 1/4 of the other.  I am thinking it might not happen tonight, so she probably won't get them until Sunday when we have our family birthday celebration.  They are also using more yarn than I anticipated, so it's debatable if I even have enough yarn!  I'm a horrible judge of these things.

Awesome weekend

I love October.  After December, it's my favorite month.  We always have so much going on in October that it's hard to fit it all in... the State Fair, pumpkin patch, Liv's birthday, Halloween.  It's usually my biggest photo-taking month. 

This month is looking like it will be no different.  It's only two days into the month and I've snapped over 300 photos, and none of our big events has even happened yet.  I'm so excited to see what the rest of the month will bring.

On Saturday, my best friend invited us to come join his family at the park.  I oh-so-reluctantly abandoned my laundry ;) and threw the girls into the van.  We went to a park we had never been to before.  It was really neat.  It's an older park, with tire swings, lots of slides, tunnels, odd looking swings with handlebars.... the girls were just in awe.



How bizarre is that?  It made me nervous because it was blacktop underneath, but the girls weren't really big enough to get them going so they lost interest quickly.  (Zoe was being pushed in that picture)



Isabelle and Abby... they are three weeks apart, Abby is older.  She's Zoe's size, though.  Little bitty thing.



The tunnels were fun, especially when they wanted to escape us and go to the other side of the park and us adults had to walk the long way around.



They found some sidewalk chalk and started decorating the tunnels.



You know how people always marry off their kids to their friends' kids?  These two are like that.  He's the sweetest kid and they've always been super great friends.  Olivia loves her some Gabe.

Today was our Family Fun Day.  They opened up a new pedestrian bridge this weekend at the Clinton Presidential Library.  I've always wanted to take the girls there because they have the most awesome little park full of steep hills.  So we went to go check out the bridge and do some hill-rolling.



The new bridge is an old railroad bridge that has been renovated and converted into a walking bridge.  There are 4 (I think) pedestrian bridges crossing the river now.  I'm loving them.



View from the bridge... that's downtown Little Rock.  It was a perfect day, if you can't tell. 



Izzy wasn't too keen on crossing the bridge, so I had to promise her a trip to the fountain in front of the library.



And then much rolling....



And belly-sliding on the steeper hills, was had by all (well, the kids anyway).

Little Obsession

There is a potholder pattern that I've been wanting to adapt into a beanie for a good little while now...

Stir Me Up Potholder

The past few days, for some reason it became a little bit of an obsession.  When I'm working on something with a deadline I seem to always need a quick project to break up the monotony.  Plus, I can't work on Olivia's presents while she's awake and I also needed an afghan break.  I love these afghans, but making squares can get a tad boring at times.

So, I dug into my yarn tote and picked out some colors and set to work.


Not entirely thrilled with the color combo, but it was just an experiment.
 
Making swirls is pretty fun.  Starting out is extremely fiddly and I don't have any stitch markers (I use scrap yarn to mark rows in amigurumi), but I managed without them.  Working with four strands of color meant that I had to be really careful to avoid a massive tangle-up and it was kind of annoying when my yellow yarn kept trying to run away from me, but the girls were nice enough to chase the ball and bring it back.  It's was like having a cat!  ;)

I want to make a candy cane colored one for Christmas, and maybe then I'll work up a pattern, but basically all you do is follow the potholder pattern until you feel it's big enough, then stop the increases and keep swirling away until it fits.  It makes me want to find other circular potholder patterns to see if I can turn them into hats.

It worked up really fast, but it's too small for my kids.  It took me a minute to get the math right in my head to figure out where I made my mistake, but I did, so I'll be able to make them one that will fit.  This one will probably go to the children's hospital or some other charity.

Luckily, one of the girls' teddy bears was willing to help me out as a model.


I was told it reminded someone of a hacky sack.
 


Thank you Pink Fuzzy Bear (if the stuffed animals around here have names, no one has let it slip around me) for your assistance.  You have been, by far, the easiest model.