They're Arriving!

All my seed catalogs, that is. Happy, happy, joy, joy!

Pajama Day at the Library!

Just when I thought the kids couldn't get more excited about our weekly visit to the library for story time, the library hosts Pajama Day! The kids have been squealing with glee over the fact that they are going to wear their pajamas to the library. I don't know why, but that cracks me up! We love story time with Miss Jane.

White Christmas w/ the Family

The kids and I drove to Flower Mound to spend Christmas with my family. My brother and SIL graciously opened their home for the get together this year as they, with a one month old and me with a 3 month old, were unable to make the trek to our parents house for the holidays this year, and I with a 3 month old wasn't up for the long drive by myself much either.

It was a GLORIOUS time! We made it there without any incident - unlike Mom and Dad, for whom it took 12 hours and 15 minutes to make the trip this time due to the snowstorm. We were SO thankful they made it safely. 287 was closing down the line, right behind them it turns out and so many were stranded on the highway for Christmas Eve. We later learned that the road was closed anywhere from 8 to 13 hours, depending on the location. It was a MEGA long trip for them but thankfully, those 35+ years driving in that sort of mess for the highway department made Dad able to make the drive.

There was still snow on the ground when we arrived. We enjoyed a scrumptious Christmas dinner and many other yummies during our visit. The kids got to enjoy playing out in the snow - building a snow man and having snow ball fights and "skating" on the ice. We received many wonderful gifts and I think Dad really enjoyed his clock I made.

With five children ages 5 and under the house was FULL of fun and laughter. Hadley and Ryan SO enjoyed playing with their cousin Court and I think he took a real liking to Hadley, or HI-EE as he called her.

Some of the things I enjoyed most about the trip
- seeing/spending time with my family and meeting the newest Patterson, Beckham
- watching all the kiddos play
- having a snowball fight with my bro. Actually, I just threw ONE NEAR him but he decked me with several good ones. I complained at the time about the lack of fairness but I loved "being a kid" with my baby bro.
- laughing at the yellow snowman. Tucker decided to treat it like a fire hydrant and that cracked me up. He did it not once, but twice!

Had Ourselves a Merry Little Christmas

...and we hope that you did as well.

Our first Christmas "home" in our current abode was a great one. In years past, we've been able to travel up to my parents' home in the Texas Panhandle for the holidays (and let me just say that there is NOTHING like my parents for Christmas!) but this year, with Ray having to work and with a 3 month old, it was just no doable. We hung lights on the house and, for the second year, got a live tree to decorate. Everything was festive for the holidays.

Ray had to work Christmas Eve at work and then spent all afternoon/evening working at the Christmas Eve services at church. The kids and I headed over to some friends home for a bit to celebrate and then went to the late service at church. After the Christmas Eve service, we met up with Ray and drove around looking at some spectacular Christmas lights! After returning home, we set out brownies and milk, hung the stockings by the chimney with care and the kids went to bed... well, they were SUPPOSED to be in bed. Around 11, Ray went outside and shook the jingle bells and upon coming back inside, overheard our oldest son tell his sister, "I heard him!! I think he's here!" and then all went silent and the kids went to sleep so "Santa" could visit.

Christmas morning found the children thrilled with all their gifts.

After enjoying some of their gifts, the kids and I packed up to head to Flower Mound to spend Christmas with my brother's family and my parents. Unfortunately, Ray had to work over the weekend so he was unable to join us. He spent the rest of Christmas visiting some of his family, then having dinner and catching Avatar in 3D. He thought the movie was pretty cool but, personally, I think he enjoyed having a coke and popcorn sitting in peace more.

It was a blessed Christmas for us this year, despite not being a great year financially for anyone. We hope that you and yours were as blessed as we were.

"Yellow" in Brown

I participated in a test knit for one of Erica Jackofsky's (of Fiddle Knits) beautiful new hat designs, Yellow.

Unfortunately, the yarn I used was not ideal for the project. The alpaca in this yarn created far too fuzzy a texture to be able to really see the beautiful stitches that make up the hat. I also ended up with some extra yarn from the skein I used and wish I'd been paying closer attention to that as I could have made more of a slouchy hat, versus the beanie style I made. Oh well... it is done and wrapped up. I'm giving it to my SIL. Before I packaged it up, however, the kiddos "modeled" it for prosperity purposes.

I definitely recommend this pattern. It is a simple pattern that, once you get going, you can knit on the go as it's a small project and you don't need to tote around the pattern cause you can remember the repeat easily.



UPDATE: It fit my SIL and, IMHO, looked GREAT on her!

Me & My Baby

Manly Men

The guys shared a little "dude" time together recently when Ryan needed a little help with weaving in the loops on the potholder that he made for me.

Look At Me...What Do You Think?

These are the words we hear so often from the lips of our darling daughter. She loves to dress up and show us her various "outfit creations" as well as loves to show us the various ways in which she can put clips in her hair, even when style "Z" looks just like style "A" and the other 25 hairstyles she's decided to do.

I decided to share a couple of her recent "looks" with you. (Don't you think the Vicks rag just makes these outfits? HA HA Oh and the Vicks rag was already on her...she didn't add it. LOL)

He Just Melts My Heart

I just LOVE, LOVE, LOVE his little grin. He's such a charmer and KNOWS he has his mommy wrapped around his little finger.

I can't believe, however, that it's already been 3 months since he entered our world. I can hardly remember life before him... Oh wait, I do recall sleep being part of that pre-Reese life. HA HA... Just kidding. I'll give up my sleep for this precious little man.

Helping Hands

My older two decided to be very helpful while their Nanny was visiting (I can't get them to clean like this when she's not here) and washed the dishes. They did a wonderful job and when finished with the dishes, they scrubbed their chairs and little dinner table...and, gasp, helped clean their room!

Baby's Room

FINALLY, I'm posting pix of the baby's room. I've had them on the camera for eons but am just now getting around to downloading the pix. Blame the delay on having three kids and too many projects...

We were going for a "vintage sports theme". It is a handsome little guy's room, IMO (in my opinion)....AND making it even more stellar, again IMO, is that this is predominately a "re-mix" room...one that I am MOST proud of!

An old camel-colored micro-suede couch slip cover, with a huge ink stain, was the jumping off point for the remix and the "base" fabric for the baby bedding. The curtains we had gotten from freecycle a few years ago and were using them in our room. The sheers were being used in my old office. The bed was a hand-me-down from a friend of mine, Heidii, who also was responsible for making the super cool pennants that spell out the baby's name. The dresser, wicker shelves and rocking chair were things I already had, although a coat of red paint made the chair so pretty. The same red paint spruced up an old lamp, some frames and a couple shelves. My super talented and wonderful Mom made ALL the baby bedding and the uber-comfy chair cushions. She also dyed some sheets and changing pad covers I had to brown to match everything!

Everything came together to make a really cool room that I absolutely LOVE! AND, this baby bedding set will see yet another life when Reese moves into room with his older brother Ryan. I'm going to re-mix the bedding to make valances for the curtains and pillows for the beds and continue the sports theme to the boys room. I already have an idea on a baseball bat bookshelf...

Here Comes Santa Clause

Guess who came to town? That's right. SANTA!
He visited the Cedar Park Library during the kids' weekly story time. There was a TON more kids there to see Santa than we usually have for story time but that was understandable. The kids all sang several holiday songs before Santa made his big appearance.

Although both the older kids were very excited about seeing Santa, by the time our turn arrived, Ryan wasn't much into sitting on Santa's lap, or even talking to him for that matter. I did, however, get a pix of all my babies with Santa Clause though.

Funny thing...a few days earlier as I was driving to the store, I passed a vehicle that a "real" Santa was driving. It made me take a second glance to be sure it was who I thought it was and sure enough...SANTA was driving past me. Now, I could have been all grown-up and played it cool and drove on as though nothing was out of the normal, but that wouldn't be like me. So what did yours truly do? With a big goofy grin on my face, I waved like crazy at Santa. He probably thought I was a loon. LOL.... It made my day though, to see Santa!

A PURR-fect 5th Birthday

This past Saturday we celebrated my darling daughter's fifth birthday. I still can't believe that it was five years ago that the hospital sent us home with this little bitty thing and expected us to be able to raise it. Our first child, we were, looking back now, so clueless as to what we were doing. It's amazing she turned out as well as she did. LOL... Just kidding.

Anyway, Hello Kitty was the "theme" my DD selected for her fifth birthday party which was attended by both family and friends. We had a Hello Kitty cake with ice cream and punch. Hadley received gobs of wonderful presents and had a wonderful time. I just can't believe she's five years old.



(Pix descriptions....The birthday girl was very surprised, and very happy, to see a new bicycle for her birthday.
Digging all the way down to the bottom of every bag.
"You wear these like this." Showing us where the barrettes go.)

Cow Tongue....Mmmmm

While I've eaten just about anything you can kill, I'd never had cow tongue. Hubby wanted some though, so cow tongue I made. Cleaning it fell somewhere on the gross-o-meter between pulling chicken innards out before you cook a chicken and cleaning the slime off of deer meat. It was SO nasty.

Anyway, we cooked it up. First I boiled it for a while. Then, after removing the outer taste bud layer, I roasted it for a bit before shredding it up and sauteing it with onion and tomato. Toss it on a warm corn tortilla with a squeeze of lime and YUM-MY!!! It was like a very tender and mild tasting pot roast.

Granted, while it was good, it was more work than I, personally, think it was worth so it won't be something I just whip up on any given night, but it was good and now I can say that I've eaten cow tongue. Just don't tell me that's what I'm eating while I'm eating it. ;O)

My Baby Girl is FIVE

Happy 5th birthday to my oldest, my darling, sweet, baby girl. She is growing up WAY too fast. I can't believe it has already been five years since she first came into our lives. We're having her bday party this Saturday.

Sweater for Reese & Other Knitting

With only a little bit left to knit, my unofficial ADD got the better part of me and this little sweater, which I began knitting right after having had Reese, went into a mini-hibernation. FINALLY, today, I finished it. I'm very tickled with the end result and can't wait for my littlest guy to wear it.

Also knit up a little scarf collar for DD. She'd picked some yarn from my stash and wanted a
scarf knit from it. Unfortunately, I only had 27 yds of the bulky so it ended up being a "collar". Hadley picked out the groovy button used to close it. Knit up in just a jiffy.

Although I STILL have the Tuscany shawl that needs to be finished (and I should be working on it so I can have it done to wrap up in on cold days like today), I cast on for the Celtic Tote this afternoon. I've wanted this tote since it made its appearance in Interweave Knits Winter 2007 issue. Thanks to a coupon for % off purchase, I got some yarn to get knitting on it! It has a more intricate and challenging cable pattern than I've ever knit before so it should prove interesting, however, having just completed a simple cable project with the Sleeveless Cabled Baby Sweater, I'm feeling confident that I can work through it. The body of tote is going to be a Natural Brown Fisherman's Wool and the trim will likely be black. Not decided about that part yet.

I'm SO excited I finally finished Reese's little sweater though. Also, for Thanksgiving, he wore for the first time, the little maize colored cardigan I'd knit up while pregnant. He was so handsome in it!

Difficult to Choose

The Saturday after Thanksgiving the family headed off to get our FIRST family photo taken by Stephanie Huebinger of Huebinger Studios. She does EXCELLENT work and was able to make all of us look great...so much so, in fact, that it is going to be difficult to choose which pix to order. I'm very excited about the fact we got an "official" family picture though. Costly as it is turning out to be, they are going to be so wonderful!