i think grampa's pretty excited...  i got this gorgeous pic in my in box today!

congrats have to go out to allyson and len for their new baby boy!

Caleb Robert William Susko was born this morning at 7:57 AM and weighed in at 8 pounds 14 ounces...

i'm going to go and see them tonight, so i will post and tell the internet how beautiful this baby must be!

woohoo! i made myself something...  naughty, naughty me...  especially since it's so close to christmas...  what was i thinking!  this is made from red heart cozy wool in cardinal.  what beautiful stuff to work with...  nice and chunky, and it really shows stitch definition well.  the colour in this pic looks a little orangey, but it's actually a nice vibrant rich red colour. 

i did it using a braided cable pattern from knitty. and i just bracketed it with six stitches on each side of double seed stitch.  i was a bit worried that the back of the scarf would be intolerably ugly, but it really isn't too bad.  i think that the double seed stitch makes it nicely tolerable.  i would post the pattern in its entirety, but al has it now...

This is supposed to be a close up of the stitching, but the lighting is off...  and i don't really know how to fix it!  aaaaaa!!!  help!

at first when i was working on the pattern, i was just marking off my rows on the piece of paper i had the pattern written on....  it was sure making a mess of things, and not very fast either...  al leant me her row counter (i'm thinking these will make some great gifts!)(thanks, manda!), and all was hunky dory after that!  the only trick is to remember which time you should be keeping your cable loops forward, and which time they should be back.  i did find a neat way to cable without a cable needle, but i found it a bit awkward...  so, instead i slipped my cable stitches onto the needle, knit the next three, then slipped them from the cable needle back onto my knitting needle.  kept the cable nice and even.  (but, can you see the mistake??)

so, now it's onto gramma's scarf, which i am still debating on...  not sure what i'm going to do with it yet!  all the lace patterns i've tried have way too much counting to work on when the kidlets are up.... 

darned kidlets, looking for attention when i'm trying to knit!  ;)

it's interesting to me how we (my three sisters and i) were raised to speak our minds.  tell how we feel about something.  and then, when we do, we are punished for that.

i'm also interested to see how "support" apparently means that you have to abandon everyone who loves you just because they disagree with something that you may be doing.

disagreements are fine...  i have friends who i disagree with about certain things, but who i can still get along with fine.  it's our nature to disagree on things.

i love my family.  i adore them.  they make me crazy, as families often do, but i still love them.  do i disagree with them occasionally?  yes.  do i wish they would simply go away sometimes?  yes.  but, the key there is that i love them and i want to be with them.  that's what family is for.  you should always be able to count on your family, even through the disagreements.  your family should always welcome you with open arms...  even though you disagree.  your family should get other members help when they need it.  in spite of disagreements.

disagreements are what life is about.  i will not go along with something that i think is wrong just to keep the peace.  it shouldn't be an issue.  my thoughts and feelings should not be trounced on just to keep the peace either.

but this time it's me!!  i thought that mommas weren't allowed or able to get sick??  it really sucks, quite frankly.

first, there was puking, and then there was the aching head...  actually, my entire face hurts.  it's horrible.  but, my wonderful amazing knight in shining armour husband took the morning off of work so that i could get a bit more sleep.  isn't he fabulous?  i know.  sucks to be you for not finding him first!

so, now that the kidlets are off for a nap, i am going to go and nap again as well.  and hopefully i will be pain free when i get up.

hopefully.

my daughter is much too precocious. 

anyone out there who has kids, or who knows people who have kids, or who know that kids exist, know that it's a bad thing when your children are out of your sight and are quiet.  silent even.  this is not good. 

a good parent will get up and go to see what their child is doing.  bad parents, like me, simply get worried and holler, "keyzia, what are you guys doing?" 

now, most children, the average child, the child who doesn't want their parents to come and see what horrid thing they have done or are doing will yell back, "nothing!"  and then the parent goes to see that nothing really means they have cut their little brothers hair and drawn makeup on his face with permanent marker the day before family pictures.

not my child, my child leaves all possibilities open.  when i ask what she's doing she quite calmly responds, "ANYTHING."  and when asked again, "I'M DOING ANYTHING, MOMMA."

i really do think that this is quite a good response.  i mean, nothing means nothing, but anything could be anything.  and really, it isn't usually that she's doing nothing but that she's doing anything.  although, usually the anything that she's doing is nothing good.

so, silly me, took the kidlets to walmart today.  i had to return a few things, and i wanted to pick up ephraim's tres cool christmas present while it was on sale. 

first things first, to get gas.  the poor guy at the till was having trouble getting someone's credit card to go, so he asked this girl (had a manager's tag or something??) how to manually put it in...  there was a pretty good line up of people waiting to pay, but this poor kid couldn't really do anything with this card that wouldn't swipe.  instead of being nice and just helping him out, she takes the card, gets it to go through, and then proceeds to reprimand him (in front of the rest of us waiting to pay for our gas) for asking her for help...  says that he can't do that when there are customers waiting to be served.  ummm...  okay, so what was he supposed to do?  say, "sorry buddy, you're going to have to wait until i ring these other thirty people through because i don't know how to get your card to register."  yah, now that's customer service.  why do people do that?  does it really make the manager or whoever feel bigger to tell someone how to do their job in front of other people?

this happened to me once when i was working at a cigar store in belleville while i was in college.  i had been there for several months, had opened the store that morning by myself, which meant i was there since 6:30 or 7 in the morning, and then my relief person (who had only been working for a couple of weeks) saunters in at noon and wants to know why i haven't swept anything...  because, you know, you should be sweeping and cleaning while there are people in the store.  then she yelled at me for standing on something to get an item for a customer.  i quit that night.

as a customer, i don't want to hear it.  as an employee, i don't want to hear it when i'm supposed to be waiting on other people.

anyways, at walmart, after waiting in line for the return for a good twenty minutes, and after a lady butted in behind me by pretending to chat nice...  and after i kept telling keyzia to be patiend, and after trying to keep ephraim from crying...  off we go to finish off our shopping.  but, by this point, it was time for lunch.  quick detour to macdonald's, then pick up our stuff, then pay and run home.

but, man, was it busy.  and, what is it with people standing in the middle of the aisle in a giant pack and chatting?  can you not move off to the side?  seriously, i am going to start ramming people here!  it's only november and the christmas idiots are already out shopping.  today made me realize that shopping with my children from now until christmas is really going to be out of the question.  not a possibility.  i actually heard someone walk by me say, "is it stupid day today, or what?"  i think it must have been.  and i think stupid day is going to last from now until january 5th.  i guess we'd might as well face it....

yes.  that's right.  the sickness has descended upon the wolters' household once again.  ephraim this time.  i think it's been about...  seven days since i had any real sleep.  the past few days, and off and on last week he's had a fever and been coughing.  now, the cough and the runny nose don't really worry me too much.  it's kind of that time of year.  but, the fever that just won't quit is quite worrisome.  especially when he's content to cuddle his hot little face into my neck and just stay there... 

so, sunday and yesterday i've kept him pretty much continuously doped up with tempera and infant motrin.  packed him full of juice to keep him hydrated, and cuddled like crazy.  he was cooler as long as the drugs were kicked in, but as soon as the started to wear off the fever would spike again.

and being awake at night.  once an hour after midnight.  sure, sleep straight through til midnight and then be up once an hour.  not nice for momma, that's for sure. 

but, by the grace of God, this morning he woke up and he was cool to the touch!  he was actually cool!  i'm so glad.  now, my little boy is back to tearing the place apart...  but, i kind of miss the cuddles.

ja and i went shopping today.  WITH. OUT. ANY. CHILDREN.  i know, i can hardly believe it myself.  it was so weird, i kept thinking i had to smack someone's hand, but there was only ja!  and he hardly whined at all!

so, what were ja and i doing on this gloriously free from the children couple of hours?  we were shoe shopping for me, winter coat shopping for him.  i am just about desperate for a new pair of shoes.  the pair of shoes that i currently have been wearing cause my baby toe to convulse when i put them on...  not so good when you're heading off to the park for the day.

now, this shoe thing has been a huge dilemma for me.  do i cheap out, (again) and have to replace a pair of shoes next season?  or do i just go wild and get the ones that i really like?  can i say here how much i love my husband??  i dragged him everywhere today, found nothing that i liked, and ended up back where we started.  and, all along he kept telling me to get these expensive ones!  now, i don't know if that's because he was tired of me dragging him into every shoe store in the city, or if it's because he really liked them.  so, he made me order them in a size 10...  we'll be trying them on on tuesday.

it's funny though, just a couple of years ago, i wouldn't have really thought twice about buying these shoes...  but now...  it's a bit of a process i've had to work through.  there's a huge guilt factor about buying myself new shoes.  it's really weird, cause i definitely love shoes.  but, i am getting new shoes, and i hereby declare that i will feel guilty no longer.

unfortunately, we didn't find any winter coats in the right size.  the zipper in ja's old coat is completely shot, and after borrowing len's coat last season, we kind of think it's time he had his own.  poor len almost froze last year!  ;)

on another up note, i got some red heart cozy wool to make myself something...  gotta get back in the creating groove...  and i am making something similar to this, although mine is, of course, a bit different.  i ADORE this wool!  it is so nice to work with, and not too badly priced for something with wool content.  another nice thing?  because it's a super bulk, it works up really quickly.  i can't wait until it's finished and it's cold enough to wear it.  the colour i got is cardinal, and man is it ever a rich red.  beautiful.

so, i guess, all in all it's been a successful day...  got away from the kidlets...  spent some time with the hubby....  ate mexican mash for dinner...  pocahontas is on tv tonight....  ahh yes, it is a good day.

me:  ephraim, you'd better not be in the water dish.

keyzia:  momma!  ephaim's in the water dish!

me:  keyzia, you'd better not be tattling.

keyzia:  momma!  i'm tattling!

keyzia:  momma!  i'm wiggling!