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Tuesday, 20 October 2009

another letter

found another letter from caleb on the computer today. this one was written aug. 8th.

Dear friend plases come to my birthday on june20 and I half to say if you could bring a puppy for my birthday love caleb

er... he does know that we have a dog already, doesn't he? haha. my favorite part is "i half to say". funny boy. i love finding these random letters on the computer.

Wednesday, 14 October 2009

saved

today, i was going through some of my word doc. files when i came across one saved as 'dear grace'. i had never seen that one before, so i opened it and found this:

Dear grace I well remember to bring some pizza and cake and say happy birthday and can you bring a present

oh my gosh. i LOVE it! once in awhile, i let caleb play on the computer. he likes to open up microsoft word and type. he used to just type out the alphabet, but has more recently been really into writing letters. and he's always into his birthday (he thinks about it practically every day of his life). so this must have happened during one of those times. i guess he's figured out how to save things too. haha.

Friday, 31 July 2009

knits

and now, for the knits:
summer update

yes. it has been a very long time. but come on, with the kids calling "mooommmmmyyyyy" every other minute of the day, how could i possibly update? so here i am, 4 months later.

the last 4 months in pics:

i know i'm biased an everything, but i think the kids have gotten cuter with age. perhaps it's because they can play together now. most of the time, they play really well, and it's the most adorable thing ever to watch caleb run wild with his imagination, and karis, with her broken sentences, try to keep up.

they've really gotten into making funny faces recently.
partners in crime, these two. karis has gotten to the age where she wants to do everything that caleb does. everything. if he gets something, she has to have it too or else she melts into the floor.

in june, we celebrated caleb's 4th birthday. i wanted to make it a small gathering, so i let him invite 5 friends to our house on a friday afternoon to play, have some pizza, and lunch. it turned out great! very low-key, which is exactly what i wanted. caleb has been really into super why lately (a pbs show where super heroes have "the power to read"... i know, he's my little egg-head), so each person got to make their own cape and mask. it was very cute.

and what's a party without a little cake? :)

this was our small group this past year (minus the isbells). it was a crazy, crazy time with all those kids running around our house. (count 'em. then add 2 for the isbell boys and 1 for emily n... who was out that night... 12. that's right. 12.) but it was such a blessing to be in community with these people. i love the energy and openness of everyone in our group. and i have to commend the single folks in our midst for not just being willing, but wanting to join us in the midst of the kid-chaos. caleb & karis LOOOVE small group. i think they think it's one giant party every friday night. and i think that's so cool because i remember having the same sentiment as a kid, tagging along with my parents to fellowship meetings.

then we had the privilege of going to regina's wedding. she was stunning that day. and boy, does she know how to throw a party. her reception was at the children's museum. we had a blast.

then last week, i got to surprise my brother and tina with a visit to chicago ON MY OWN! it was so much fun seeing them again, getting so sleep in, do some knitting, watch movies, eat chicago-eats... and did i mention sleep in? and the fact that it was in the 70's was just icing on the cake. i brought my camera, but i had such a great time being care-free that i forgot to take pictures. seriously. not even one. very sad.

the summer passed by quickly, and we're looking forward to school starting next month. karis will be in school for the first time, and caleb will officially be in pre-k! my babies are growing up! (check out caleb and his "chandler smile". heh heh.) they're in summer camp this week (the reason i have time to update), and i've come to realize that karis was more-than-ready to be in school. she didn't even blink when i dropped her off, whereas caleb was visibally nervous the first day. that girl- she's so independent.

all righty-roo. and now for the montage of knits:

Wednesday, 25 March 2009

catch-up

gosh. i barely remember how we got to the end of march. wasn't it just the holidays? oops. well, here's a very quick update.

at the end of february, we celebrated mei-mei's 2nd year.

since then, she has proven to us each and every day that she is 100% a full-fledged toddler.
her terrible two's are in full swing, and she is giving us a run for our money. there is so much will in that chubby little body, it's incredible. but oh, how sweet she can be. all she has to do is flash you a smile and so much gets washed away. we need to keep a close eye on this one. i fear that she'll learn to use her charm for evil rather than good when she gets older.

last week, we took a day and trekked out to the livestock show.
the kids loved seeing all the animals up close (although not pictured, karis had a close encounter with a goat that she wasn't too thrilled about, but was hilarious to watch),

caleb enjoyed riding the ferris wheel with daddy,

and karis loved the funnel cake.

i'm very excited to share that one of my knit-night buddies taught me how to spin a couple of weeks ago. this is my first attempt at it.

see the puff of roving on the left? that was what i started with. the skein of yarn is the end product. it's not very pretty, but i'm insanely proud of it.

finally, some more knit updates. after the holidays were over, i enjoyed a plethora of me-related and immediate family-related knitting. it's fun to be selfish once in awhile.

first off, a "holding hands, feeding ducks" scarf in fall colors. this one was hard to photograph. the colors are much more mellow than the pictures let on. the orange and yellow doesn't really stand out this way in real life.

caleb really dug my scarves and asked me to make him one in "light blue and light green because those are my favorite colors". how could i refuse? i happened to find a ball of super chunky blue/green yarn so i made a very very small version of "my so called scarf" for him

my sister-in-law tina is one of my favorite knitted-giftees because she actually wears my gifts... could also be due to the fact that she lives in chicago. but either way, when i saw the pattern for bella's mittens from the twilight series movie, i had to make her a pair. she's a big twilight fan... and she lives in super chilly chicago, where these mitts would be put to good use.

i also made myself a stole in one of the most popular knitting patterns around: the clapotis.

more accurate colors

i'm not sure why i took the picture like this. maybe to show off the pattern. but i actually wear it more like a scarf most of the time.

a pair of "mr. pitt's socks" for victor

a pair of "crusoe" socks for me (you can't really tell in the picture, but it has a stranded pattern on it. get it? stranded? crusoe? haha.)

a pair of "skyp" socks for victor (sorry. crummy pics. you can't see the pattern in it at all.) and another pair of scraptacular socks for caleb. he loves that he has matching socks with daddy.

one of my proudest knits is the "cardigan for arwen". i love the double-sided cables.

sorry this update is so rushed. i don't feel like i'm explaining much, but i'm trying to get this done before the kiddos start whining and clawing at me... which, believe me, will happen at any moment now.