There's something in the air

For the past three days, I have been feeling under the weather. Nothing has fully developed - just tired, achy and a monster headache. I left church after the first hour, came home and had a quick lunch, put the baby to bed and slept for four hours. If anyone has any clue what this is that seems to be going around, let me know. But despite these aches, which I'm not sure are a legitimate virus, therefore I keep trying to stay busy, Ryan and I have managed to get some things done on the house.

The ceiling fan in the kids' room - it wasn't as bad as expected, though it was still terrible to install.

Friday morning, I risked my life and went into the dark hole that is our crawl space to secure some water pipes to the floor joist. No more banging pipes here. I did a thorough sweep for rodents, spiders and other scary things and then went to work. As I was working, I did my best to not look around or look what I was sitting on.

The hole - or as William says, the scary place down there

Ryan also managed to hook up our ice maker, requiring lots of drilling of holes, screaming up to me from under the house to do this and that and turning the water on and off, over and over. Good times. While our list of home repair/improvement projects is getting smaller, our general thought is: why did we wait so long to do this? Our quest to get this place ready to sell continues - now we just have to figure out where we're going next; any suggestions?

Mischevious

Now that Rose has been crawling and pulling up for over a month now, we are starting to really see her personality. For those of you who know her, she is very quiet and sweet; she doesn't "talk" or fuss much. She just quietly crawls around the house, getting into everything. It's very unpredictable what she will choose to get into. Her favorites are my knitting, the toilet, William's CD player and Claire's My Little Ponies. We'll find her in a dark room, eating paper out of the trash or dancing to heavy metal music she's found on the radio. Though she does attempt to eat any paper product she can find (used tissue, junk mail, toilet paper, newspaper, etc.) and I'm always fishing carpet fibers out of her mouth, it is a lot of fun to watch her explore her house and enjoy her new found freedom.

She likes to put her thumb in any hole she can find.

Like a naughty kitty

Pushing buttons on the VCR

This blue blanket sits on our brick fireplace hearth to keep Rose from bumping her head...you can see here how effective it is as she has pulled it off, curled up in it and gone to sleep.

She is always making goofy faces, this is a frequent one

Last night, after the kids were in bed, Ryan and I heard the tinkling of piano keys coming from the living room. Sure enough, there was Rose...

And this morning, back to her favorite spot.

This girl is going to be trouble.

End of Summer Vacation

I have not taken any new pictures lately, so I'll use some I got from my in-laws from our trip. We've been busy; I've been keeping house, running errands, sewing and knitting. Ryan has been on a yogurt-making spree and the kids have been reveling in Spongebob cartoons.

We're not big TV people, but I do enjoy a good show while I'm paying bills, folding clothes, etc. So when our digital converter ceased to pick up all but four lousy channels, enough was enough. I called and had a dish installed, allowing me to watch more channels than I know what to do with. But the kids love having some cartoons again, seeing how one of the channels we lost was the only one with cartoons.

We have had a major storm blow in and I'm worried about losing power, so I had better wrap this up.

Check out my sweet ride - oh yeah.

Me, the baby seat with a stroller, Ryan in his rabbit hat with the trailer; we are one hip family.

Here we are again at Mt. St. Helen's - it was an awesome view.

The lights are flickering - more later!

Secrets

Last night at 9pm, I had the sudden urge to sew myself a new tote bag. I had some fabric I had bought at IKEA and I wasn't sure what to do with it - but it was a good, sturdy canvas; perfect for a bag. So in no time at all, I whipped up a tote and now the next thing to do would be to show a picture of it here, but I'm keeping it a secret because I have some close people with birthdays coming up and I want to make each of them one. So as to not spoil the surprise for them, I'll post a picture another day. I was also able to knit a hat for Ryan out of the same green yarn I made William's, but I'm tucking that away for a Christmas gift. Now I'm making a green scarf for William.

Because I have no pictures of my latest projects to share, I will include a few photos of William's birthday cake. William had requested a chocolate cake, then his Aunt Birgitte got him hooked on the idea that he wanted a garbage truck cake. Her mistake! Because of my total lack of skill in cake decorating, it was up to her (since she put the idea into his head, after all) to come up with a cake. Well, she did and it was wonderful. Thanks Birgitte!


It was a hit and he was so excited. The wheels were made gluten free for those allergic to wheat. Nice touch!

The Knit Wits

If any of you are looking for something hilarious and clean (for the most part) to watch, check out a Canadian sitcom called "Corner Gas". We got seasons 1-4 from Netflix and the rest we're watching on youtube. So funny.

Anyway, I have once again been keeping busy with some projects. Photographed below are the patches the kids picked out for their new school backpacks. The licenced ones are so ugly, that we went with the inexpensive and simple version from Target and then personalized with a patch. The kids love them.

Movie pillows for the kids, made from funky fabric I bought on sale at IKEA. My kids love to lay on the floor to watch movies and cartoons.

A new winter hat I knitted for William from yarn he picked out. Though he was not excited to model it for me.

Claire knitted this hat - she picked out the yarn and did all by herself - I just helped with dropped stitches and tangles. She is very pleased with herself.

I was very proud of her - she loves to sew and knit and requests that we having knitting time together. Sweet girl - after my own heart. Maybe we'll try a matching scarf next. Oh and good news; our dryer is fixed, so now I'll have clean underwear for tomorrow! I tried the clothes line, but it is so muggy here that nothing will completely dry. Gotta love that Illinois humidity.

Guess What??

That's right! More vacation pictures. But before you go, take a quick glance at the beautiful scenery we were blessed to be surrounded by for a couple of hours. I have so many pictures of our trip, that I'm a little concerned for myself. What am I going to do with all of them? I can't seem to make myself delete any of them, yet printing them out would cost a month's wages and then I would still have to find somewhere to put them. But that's for another day. In the mean time, take a look at these - what an amazingly beautiful beach.

Ryan and his sisters catching some waves in the freezing water. Seriously, this water touched my feet and it actually hurt.

There was a cool mist blowing off the water, making the place seem unreal. Luckily, there was a warm pool of water trapped by the low tide that allowed the kids a place to play without fear of being washed out to sea or getting hypothermia. It was also great for skim-boarding, which I was horrible at.

Ryan and sister Kirsten about to hit the water; brave souls.

I loved the beach, until I got wet sand on me!

Claire, my bathing beauty, loves the beach - she was made for a life of leisure

The girls
Rose had a great time in the water, crawling and splashing around until the water got into a little cut on her leg - ouch.

Claire and I are working on knitting some winter hats for ourselves. I made one for Rose, but she won't wear it right now and I'm afraid that if she keeps growing at this rate, she won't fit into it by the time it gets cold. So lucky for all of you, I am finally getting back into projects, so you won't have to keep looking at my vacation pictures - but at least I make sure to have people in them if I can. There's nothing worse than looking at vacation pictures of scenery years later only to wonder, why did I take a picture of this, where were the people? I've been there and made that mistake. But wasn't that beach wonderfully unreal?

A Rose for a Rose (and stinky goat hands)

Rose and her Papa

We spent an afternoon at the International Rose Garden in Portland. It is an absolutely beautiful garden - too much to take in on one trip. And a wonderful spot for pictures!

Rose tasting Rose petals

They may smell sweet - but apparently, they don't taste sweet

My beautiful girl

A few Williamisms:

Mom, I need to wash my hands because they smell like goat poo? I have stinky goat hands?
(I have no clue what that was about)

Claire and William were getting undressed for their bath...
Claire: Hey! William called me stupid.
William struggling to get his clothes off: No! I didn't call you stupid, I called my underwear stupid!

something old, something new, something broken, and something's on fire...

When I was in Texas, we went to a gigantic flea market called First Monday in Canton, just a few miles from my parent's farm. This was my first time to go and I had no idea just how enormous this thing was. There was everything you could possibly imagine there. Inside the giant hangers, most of the booths were selling new items or expensive antiques. There were beautiful things inside, but not was I was looking for. Outside, among the trees were row upon row of booths selling rusty old junk - just what I was looking for! This was not "garage sale" type of stuff (clothes and lot of broken kid's things), but pure flea market junk. It was like going on a giant treasure hunt. Ryan and I had so much fun, despite the heat and temp of 104. We bought all sorts of fun things and loaded it all up on the wagon. My poor mom and sister went with us for hours - they were good sports. Here are a few of my finds:

I use this for storing my sewing notions, scissors, needles, etc. It works great on my work table!

A much needed spice rack - made from an old tool box organizer - the wood is super old and really beautiful. No more cursing as spices come tumbling out every time I open my cabinet.

An old hand-stitched pillow case I plan on turning into a dress for Rose for next summer.

My boots - both vintage and VERY nice (Larry Mahan's and Prada). I can't wait till it gets cooler so I can wear them!

There were a few other items, but I don't have pictures of them yet. Another post.

The week before we went to Oregon, Ryan and I worked like mad to put in a new patio. It is mostly done - we just have to finish one edge and reseed the grass around it. We bought a patio cover and some furniture (end of summer is a great time for patio sales!) for it. My dream patio would have a wood arbor with climbing pants and cool, old second-hand furniture, but in order to enjoy the patio now, before the end of summer, we had to move quick. While the mosquito netting is ugly, it is an absolute must in Illinois. We have the meanest mosquitoes - they will bite through your clothes. We LOVE LOVE LOVE the patio and eat dinner outside every evening.

My new recycling bins from the city, it only took them two years to get them to us!

A sad accident. While we were gone, an animal (I'm guessing a raccoon) tore apart our bird feeder to get at the sunflower seeds.

And lastly, my sad dryer. It apparently caught on fire last night while I was drying a load. Luckily, there were no flames (that we know of) and all that happened was a melted cord. So after a visit from a repairman and $45 later, he will come out next week and put in a new terminal and cord.

So until then, we will be using nature to dry our clothes. I should be doing that again anyway. What is it with fire and my house? There is something about that garage, I tell you...

Happy Birthday to my Boy!

It's hard to believe how much he has grown in four years. William was such a handsome baby - very manly from day one. We are so lucky to have him in our family - he adds so much fun and joy to our lives. We love his funny sayings said in his funny, deep voice. So though his birthday was last week, I still had to dedicate a short post to my sweet boy.

Brother and big Sister