Meet my mouse for the Recycled Stuffie Swap at Swap-Bot, he's made out of two old wool sweaters that I felted and his fancy rhinestone button eyes are from my mom's stash. I hope he goes to a good home.

Getting more personal that I usually do here, but what the heck, I have like 4 readers? LOL
Went out with the kids to visit some friends today. I've been feeling blue and this perked me right up. It's amazing how therapuetic a bit of baby holding, watching your kids play with friends they haven't seen in a while and catching up with your own good friend can be. Why do they have to live an hour away?

Can anyone tell me what a 7th grade art teacher bases her students grades on? Lydia chose art as an elective this year over chorus. She is very creative, finishes all her projects on time and does all the requirements, yet she got a B- this term. I am not hung up on grades at all, but Lydia was really shocked at getting this grade in her favorite class and is kind of disappointed.
It's 7th grade, not art school! I would think if you finished your assignments within the time period, showed interest in the subject and behaved in class, you would get the best grade. She always got As from this same teacher last year, I wonder what happens when you hit the magic 7th grade level. Oh well, I just happen to think she's very talented and creative but I am her mama after all. I told Lydia that grades really don't matter in the long run, especially if you enjoy what you are doing.
My parents were always disappointed if I ever got less than an A in any subject and I don't want to be that way with my children.

BTW, this baby I got to hold today is impossibly cute and sweet and her smile will melt your heart. She has blended into her family like she was always meant to be with them. It's a beautiful sight. *sniff*

Here are the Artist Trading Cards Tess made for the swap, the pumpkin one is not actually felt. It is a photo she cut out, she added the paper underneath. I really like the collaged one, she's so free with that type of thing. I'm kind of bummed with the swap because we haven't received anything from our partners yet. It's a kid's swap! You should not flake out on a kid. I hope they show up someday, what a bummer for their first swap.

The oldest girl fencing, she's on the left. Such a cool sport!

I signed the girls up for a kid's ATC swap at Swap-Bot, we made some together. It was really fun. These are Lydia's first ever.
I'll post Tess' tomorrow.

Happy Halloween!

I always sing to the kids before they go to bed, the littlest always seems to get the most songs and I was getting tired of our old ones so I decided to expand my horizons and pick a few new ones, but the boy is rather choosy and most of the new numbers didn't go over so well. Except for My Funny Valentine, which instantly became a favorite and must be sung every night at least twice now. Fine with me, I like it and it's not super long.

I was laying in bed with him last night, I read to him, sang him some songs, told him how happy I was that he was born and wished him a happy birthday one more time. He was silent for a few minutes and then started singing to me:

My funny valentine
Sweet comic valentine
You make me smile with my heart
Your looks are laughable
Unphotographable
Yet you're my favourite work of art

Is your figure less than greek
Is your mouth a little weak
When you open it to speak
Are you smart?

But don't change a hair for me
Not if you care for me
Stay little valentine stay
Each day is valentines day

Sure, he needed a tiny bit of help and he skipped the 'when you open it to speak' line but my heart melted listening to his sweet little boy voice. On his birthday, he gave me the best gift.

I created a Halloween Softie swap on Swap-Bot and here are the two I made for it. The pattern is from Wee Wonderfuls.

Poor lonely blog, getting ignored in the summer. We were all very busy the past few months and we capped them off with a wonderful trip to Seattle for a family wedding. In crafty news, the girls and I went softie crazy and Lydia (12) has been on a polymer clay kick and what she's making is so darn cute, I just have to show them off.
Note to self: Dust before taking pictures on Macro setting.

We're home from up north, we had a wonderful holiday. Yesterday we rode on the Pere-Marquette Rail to Trail. David had Tess on the tandem and Kai was on the bike seat with them. I was free and easy. We started off at the trailhead in Coleman and for 3 miles, all Kai would do was whine about getting ice cream. We finally arrived in Loomis and saw they had a little play structure at their rest stop so we decided to let the kids play. There happened to be two boys playing there also and David asked them if there was any place in town where we could get ice cream. Well, there was a party store just over a hill. We rode over and not only did they have ice cream, but they had freshly made sandwiches and even string cheese for the kids. So we had lunch and dessert and headed off for Clare. Then we turned around again and went to a place called the Herrick Recreation Area. It was a little lake with a sandy beach, a huge playground, a campsite and indoor plumbing. What a good find! We hung out there for a while and then took the long ride back. I was really tired at that point and was thankful we were riding with the wind. We ended up riding for 20 miles total, I love cycling the rail to trails because they are relatively flat. Hills are murder on this out of shape body of mine. The only thing that would have made yesterday perfect was if Lydia had been there. I miss her so much. Only 2 1/2 more days until I go get her at camp!

I finished the Elephant from the Animal Friends book while I was gone, he is gray with a green and pumpkin striped sweater. His ears came out odd, but he's a cutie. Tess made two owl stuffies also. I taught her to sew on my mom's old, old Singer. She picked it up right away, she was following the curves and keeping her seam allowances straight. I think she's a natural. My mom couldn't remember how old I was when she taught me to sew, but I'm sure I was older than Tess. I am really proud of her.

The Animal Friends cat is finished! I think I will use smaller needles next time, but he is cute and I know my daughter will love him. My 7 year old (ok, she will be 8 in a couple of weeks lol) made this Bunny Dude (as she calls it) to mail to her big sis along with the kitty. He has 4 eyes, two on each side, but only one nose and mouth. He also appears to have been injured, note the gaping hole on one side that she declined to fix. My daughter wants to make sure I write that I sewed on 2 1/2 of the buttons and did the nose and mouth, but that she did the rest. BTW, I am unhappy with the way the photos came out, but they'll have to do as I'm really supposed to be doing something else right now.

I have such a love/hate relationship with my site meter. In one way, it's cool to see where visitors come from, but it is so disheartening to see the length of visits most often be 0:00. I don't expect comments but, sheesh, a couple seconds of perusing would be nice. Ok, end of whine, I'm over it. heh heh

Wow, it's been awhile, bet you're all anxious to get a new post from me. yeah, all 2 of you. hee hee
I'm working on making the cat from this pattern book, I was having issues with ribbing there on his little sweater. I finally figured out that they wanted me to K,P, K into one stitch instead of consecutive stitches and it was good to go. I was tickled with myself for not giving up and doing an easier version which is what I wanted to do after frogging it for the 5th time.
I want to finish the cat asap so I can send it to my 11 year old daughter who is at camp for two weeks. I miss her terribly and she's only been gone since Sunday.

My 7 year old girl is totally into making softies now, I'll have to post some pics soon. She made an ant for her daddy for Father's Day and a little rabbit too.

This Wee Pirate Bunnie (pattern from the awesome Hillary at http://weewonderfuls.typepad.com/) was made for my 3 year old son who is all about pirates at the moment. The hat, scar and eye patch were all requests, I nixed the sword idea.



After all, he doesn't look too sure about this whole pillaging business anyway. How do you like his gold earring?
I know it's hard to see in the picture but it's there on the left. I had way too much fun making him and I think I'm going to make a whole gaggle of them. What do you suppose is the proper name for a group of Bunnie Pirates?

Last week I went on a 3 day trip to northern Michigan with my oldest daughter's class, we spent one day on Mackinac Island. Most of our day there was spent riding bikes and playing at the beach. The weather was beautiful, the island as lovely as it always is. The kids had just enough time to buy the requisite fudge and the ferry ride to the island was a treat for so many of them. My parents have a cottage in northern Michigan and my family sometimes takes our many trips up north for granted.
It was fun to see my daughter's classmates enjoying themselves swimming and biking and hiking. It was also a great opportunity to get to know them and some of their parents better.

Why I Never Became a Sculptor

I found this atrocity in our basement, I made it in 4th or 5th grade. It's supposed to be a human, but it looks more like a block with a dreadful disease. Aren't you thankful I didn't try to add teeth to the poor thing? I can honestly tell you that my sculpting skills did not increase with age. Good thing I was a photo major in school, huh?

I finished this Clapotis scarf over the weekend. It's made with Southwest Trading Company Bamboo and Melody. I really like it but it may be a tad too short for my linebacker shoulders. Yeah, the picture is crooked and weird, I need a body other than mine to model things but the only one available right now is too busy watching 'Pinky Dinky Doo' to help out his mama.

I am always behind on the trends, I just received my first Japanese Craft Book in the mail. I am so excited, I want to make every little stuffie in the book. I have many more books coming because I discovered a website called Crafting Japanese which has links to tons of other bloggers who love Japanese crafting. It also has links to directions on how to order the books since they are Japanese, therefore written in Japanese and the best websites to buy them are also in Japanese. So I ordered 3 more from Amazon Japan, and 4 more from YesAsia a site that is in English and a little easier to navigate than the Amazon site. I also made good use out of Google Translate in the wee hours of Sunday morning. I want to make these two guys first.

Today is feel sorry for myself day:

1. The 3 year old and I went to a birthday party today and we only stayed about 20 minutes because my usually sweet natured son had a gigantic meltdown and I just decided we had to leave. We didn't even get cake.

2. I have lost 23 pounds since the last time I saw many of the other mamas at the birthday party and not one person noticed.

3. I have started my first project knitting lace and I have had to frog it 5 times already because I keep losing track. I feel senile.

4. My hair is still not long enough to donate to Locks of Love and I am thisclose to getting it cut anyway. I cannot stand having long hair.

5. Speaking of my hair, I think mine is thinning a bit. eeek....

Well, I can only come up with 5 gripes, guess things aren't so bad in the scheme of things.

What could be better on a cloudy cold spring day than yarn in the mail? Isn't it gorgeous? I got it from Natasha at Luxe. The photo absolutely does not do it justice, it is so lovely. Check out more at her website http://www.luxefibre.com/
As you can see, I still haven't figured out how to post a link. Natasha even sweetly (har) included some Tootsie Pops in the package.

I forgot how easy it is to impress them when they're still little. He thought that cutting a potato in half, carving a design on it and then sticking it in paint was the coolest thing ever, but he couldn't contain himself when he found out you could then stamp it on paper and make a neat-o design.

One good thing about it raining so much here is that my little boy gets to use his cool duckie boots. They are a bit too big and practically fall off when he stomps in the puddles, I think he gets wetter wearing the boots than he would by just wearing his shoes.

My two daughters and I have created an Etsy store, but we have nothing we want to put up for sale in it yet. My 11 year old wants to make comics and polymer clay pendants and my 7 year old wants to make make handmade greeting cards and stuffed toys. I am thinking jewelry and polaroid transfers for me. I have so many ideas and none of the motivation to start anything. My girls, on the other hand, seem to be creating things all the time. I wish I could break out of my self-conscious and insecure ways. I told the girls this was just for fun and we probably would not sell much (if anything) and we definitely would not make any money to speak of either, but they are excited and I think it will be fun. I'll post the link when we actually have product.
Er, if I can figure out how to post a link. I am clueless with this Blogger stuff, Xanga seems a lot easier to me.

I started this blog only a few days ago and I am already stumped as to what to write. I really only created it to follow around a friend of mine. Well, I'll warn you now that I will probably be writing mainly about my family and my knitting which are the things my life revolves around the most these days. This could be very interesting or very boring depending on where your interests lie. So, I apologize in advance for the blogs telling you all about the yarn I just got from a co-op at a great price or the cute thing my 3 year old boy did yesterday or even that dream I had last night in which Chris Noth had a very prominent position, but not in *that* way. LOL