Devin's new look!

This is what Devin looked like on the night of her birthday: And this is what she looks like now (can you tell she has a thing for PINK?!?!):

She donated her hair, for the second time in her little 8-year-old life, to Locks of Love. She's such a sweetie! In her hand is the hampster Georgie gother for her birthday. She's deciding on a name for it tomorrow, but she's between *Cutie* and *Angel*. For some odd reason she can't wait to clean out the cage. Nut! LOL! Tomorrow is her birthday party, so I can't wait to see what her little friends say when they see her new look! As for my new look... I've only lost 9 pounds towards my *Green Dress Goal* so far :-( I really have to step it up & try harder.....

beachy goodness

We wanted to go sailing today, so the kids & I dropped George of at the boat & went to the beach to wait for his call saying he was on his way to the dock to pick us up.

Georgie played in the sand:

Devin made silly faces by the water:

They looked for *treasure* by the water:

They looked adorable walking down the edge of the water together:
And they played on the playground:
In the end it started to rain, so we didn't get on the boat. But we had fun, so it was ok.

And if you're wondering what that thing is on Devin's hand, it's a fingerless mitten. I was making a pair of mittens to gift & I had her try them on & she complained about every aspect of the mitten, this is too tight, that feels funny.... So I stopped where I was, bound off, tied some waste yarn to the thumb & put it aside. Devin picked it up, put it on & said *I love this!!! Can you make the other one for me tonight & leave it on my pillow while I'm sleeping?* What??? She said it felt different when it had the needles in it & she made a mistake when she said the ribbing was too tight. She's a nut!!! She's been wearing it all day though & even wore it to bed, so I think I may switch my original plan from mittens to fingless gloves since the giftee is Devin's age & I'm hoping she'll like them as much as Devin does!

Nothing much new

So, not much knitting or spinning has been going on around here lately. I finally finished the new HP book, but I still haven't been getting much done. It's too freaking hot and humid to want to do much of anything around here. I don't have air conditioning, so during the times that I would usually be knitting I find I just want to lay on the couch with the lights out! I did get a few rows knit on my *something warmers*- which Devin has requested that I make into knee high socks for her, and I did a few rows on the Morehouse Farms Contessa Shawl. Oh, and George found the reversable cable scarf that I made him! Yeah! I'll have to force him or one of the kids to model it for a picture, as I only have *in-progress* pix. Georgie's rattle snake scarf continues to be missing :-(


Onto the pix.


Devin modeling what I thought was going to be leg warmers, but now may not be. No soap was used in the production of these pictures, so please excuse the messy house & dirty kids!




The beginnings of the Contessa Shawl. I'm only on row 20.



And my main man in his football gear.

Long Weekend

I took a long weekend to go see Juli graduate. Yeah! The best part was when I was in the bathroom at the graduation with the kids & I told them to hurry up b/c I didn't want to miss Aunt Juli get called up to get her fake diploma, and some woman said all snotty *They don't do that at this school* and I got to say *For the PhD graduates they do* Hahahaha!!! This is the best picture I have of the actual ceremony, taken by Devin:

Apparently this was taken when Juli was up on the stage, but I can neither confirm nor deny that.

The kids got pretty restless, so we went outside to play while we were waiting for the cermony to end. Georgie found the PERFECT climbing tree. Can you find him in it?

My parents were less than thrilled that I let him climg so high up. There were tons of branches to slow him down if he fell, so he would have survived a fall!! Anyway, trees like that were made for climbing!

This is a picture of me, Juli & Gloria with Devin & Georgie:

And Juli with her hubby Josh, who got home from Iraq about a week before the graduation. Yeah! He sent me home with some yummy mead that G & I had last night. I must get more. It was good.

This is what I was planning on giving Juli for a graduation gift (yes, Juli, it's a mustard yellow, not green!!) but it didn't get finished on time. So I gave it to her then took it back to finish. It will be a shawl when it grows up & she can wear it to geeky Dr. Scientist things. I made two pretty bis mistakes, but I'm not sure how to go back & fix them. Oops. There's a missing Yarn Over in one spot in the lace pattern & one of the bars in the double helix is knit when it should have ben purled, so the bar part is only one row thick in that spot instead of two. I did get a mini skein of yarn spun that I forgot to take a picture of that I gave her for her B-day, which was the day before graduation, so I felt like I got something accomplished.

The yarn is a Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk & it's SUPER soft.

Now I'm on a kick that I MUST get a spinning wheel b/c the drop spindle just isn't fast enough. And it doesn't hold very much yarn before it starts spinning all lopsided. I think I'll get a bottom whirl spindle & see if it's any better- one of those navajo spindles I think it's called, when you wrap it into a center pull ball as you spin- to hold me over til I can afford a wheel. George will be SO pissed if I get a wheel, so I need one I can fit in the closet when I'm not using it. I had to miss the NH fiber festival b/c I was taking an exam that weekend, so I think I'll have to wait til Reinbeck to check out wheels. At least I can research on the internet in the mean time.

Onto kid news. Georgie got the *official* ADHD diagnosis yesterday from the Neurologist. He started Adderall today, which was a REALLY difficult decision for me to make. I really don't want to medicate him, but I encourage my clients to take their meds b/c they have chemical imbalances in their brains that they need their meds to counter act. Of course with my clients they hear voices and talk to themselves when they don't take meds, Georgie only acts like a maniac. Bottom line is that I don't want to send him into first grade next year getting frustrated b/c he can't pay attention to the teacher when he sees a leaf blowing on a tree outside, or hears someone walking down the hall or whatever, so we're trying the meds for a bit & seeing how it works. He came home & said he did better in school today & was able to pay attention better. then he asked to take some more. Uhoh.... It IS a controlled substance....

Good kid news: I spoke with both of the speech teachers today & both kids are screened out of speech therapy for next year! Yeah!! Lil G still has a lot of articulation errors, but they're age appropriate, so he'll be re-screened mid way through 1st grade, when the sounds should be emerging, to make sure he's still on track. Devin's therapist said she has made great progress & has all the appropriate sounds emerging, even with a gaping hole in the front of her mouth. She'll get re-screened after her teeth grow back in.

And I think that's all the news I have for now :-)