Our Little Slugger

We have this weekend off from Tball practice and game, due to Memorial Day holiday. I thought I would take this brief breather to share some pix of our little slugger from his game this past weekend. Unfortunately, the best pix of him hitting the ball (where you can see the ball going as well) is messed up by Daddy's finger in the viewfinder.


Also, we finally got in Ryan's "official" team photo. How cute is this guy, I ask?

Tuscany Shawl On The Needles

It will likely be a century from now before I finish this shawl so I thought I would share a pix of it thus far... Unfortunately it isn't the sharpest pix but it was the best one in regard to showing off the colorway of the yarn.

Also, one of my finished items...Baby Girl Kimono Sweater. It just lacks buttons and someone to wear it (seeing how we're having a boy and won't need a girl baby sweater).

Currently hibernating (cause I've got too much other stuff in progress including several test knits for various designers) is a baby Kicking Bag in purple. The plan was to have it go with the kimono sweater, perhaps. We'll see.

Goodies from APS Plant Swap

This month, the Austin Pond Society (APS) held its annual plant swap. We had a great turnout with tons of pond, bog and landscape plants. I was actually quite good during the swap itself. I used almost all of my tickets toward three metal frogs who are now jammin' down in my garden area. I love them. Once the main part of the swap had ended however, it was a free for all and I got just a few plants to add to my garden.

The good news is that I didn't come home with anything I took to the swap. I DID come home with a bunch of other goodies though including: Witch's Broom (saw that and knew I had to have something with a name like that), baby red salvias, 2 coffee plants, 2 black/blue salvias (one of my faves), mint, thalia, a plant I can't recall the name of, pond grass, dwarf hummingbird bush, variegated pond grass, malabar spinach, oregano, water cannas, flame acanthus, yellow water iris (will be a nice compliment to my dark purple ones), pennywort, and yellow water lilies....and the frogs.

I spent an entire day working in the pond repotting plants, adding in the new ones and doing some cleanup. Now if I can just get the string algae under control and get it cleared up, it will be all pretty. The pond definitely puts the surrounding garden to shame but considering that the "dry" garden is all from clippings, it is growing quite nicely.

Master Bed/Bath Renovation: Day 1

We began demolition of the master bath and bedroom today. We started getting much of the sheetrock down and was able to get the shower removed. Some things are built better in this section of the house than we encountered when we redid the kitchen. Any possible excitement over this fact, however, was short-lived when we realized what a mess the plumbing is. We knew the electrical was going to be a pain to deal with but, as is typical when you get into such a project, we're finding all sorts of things that need correcting/fixing/doing in order to make this space usable.

I have, already, the "finished" look idea in my head. Color of the walls picked out, look of the bedding and bath linens chosen and even some of the decor decided on. Sadly, it will be some time before any of that is a reality. Our goal right now is just to get the bathroom roughed out and at least the toilet working in the new layout and everything sheetrocked and, ideally, taped and floated. Then we'll move over to what will be the nursery and get it painted and ready for baby before coming back to the "master" bedroom/bath to finish it.

Looking at everything right now, and considering our new circumstances (I got laid off from my job), the end seems SO far away but I know that everything will, eventually, work out.

Anyway, the "fun" began today.... (1st pix is before we began ripping down wall. 2nd pix is result of first afternoon's demo.)

Little Boy Blue

If you were to examine the statistics of my husband's family you would understand why we had pretty much assumed that we'd be having a girl for our third child. After all, we'd already beat the odds and had a son. Boy were we in for a surprise. Yesterday we had our ultrasound. We didn't find out the sex of our first child, our daughter, so we could enjoy that "It's a..." experience. For planning and recycling purposes, however, we decided to find out for our second, and now, third children. (BTW, this is IT. Last one...no more...I'm done.)

We're having a boy!

Husband cracked the doc up when he commented, upon learning we'd be having a second boy, "I guess I should stop saving for college and start saving for bail money." The James' boys....it just sounds like trouble.

Oh and my loving husband was kind enough to bring it to my attention that the girls are now going to be outnumbered and that all decisions would have to begin being democratic. WHATever! That is another whole discussion though. I just wanted to share with everyone that we found out that Hadley & Ryan will be having a baby BROTHER.

Wrascally Wabbit!

When I went out to water the garden yesterday I was devastated to see that a critter, most likely rabbit I assume, had gotten in the garden and eaten all my from seed tomato plants (the heirlooms) to the stalk. Also eaten was one of the pepper plants. URG!!!! I've gotta do some weeding and more planting but I did see a couple of paste tomatoes and purple tomatillos that have ripened as well as bell pepper thus far. Hopefully the heirloom tomatoes will come back. In the meantime, I've gotta come up with a plan of attack.

Yarn!!!

After having spent the weekend stalking the mail person, both of my packages arrived today! I've got yarn EVERYWHERE and it is just heavenly.

Package one was nine skeins of grape/eggplant/plum wine (Color 9651) Cotton Flamme yarn spun in Brazil. This will eventually become the Tuscany shawl. It's perfect!

Package two included 3 more balls of yarn for the Hippie Bolero, tons of crafty supplies for the kiddos to, as my DD always says, "make somethin' out of somethin'"! Stickers, flowers, stencils, brushes, beads, ribbons, fabric paints...goodies galore. And that wasn't all. There was also two balls of some scrumptious light kelly green "aurora 4" yarn from Karabella Yarns of Italy. It is super soft and I can't wait to figure out what glorious thing it will become.

What a wonderful mail day! Yippee!