Cake Walk

Today at work, we had a "fun fest."  There was food catered by Dickies and I won a cake.  I would post a picture....but we've sort of eaten half of it already.  It was a Swedish Lace Cake.  Yum.

I got more done today than I thought I would

Today started early.  Like 5 am.  I know some people wouldn't think that's too early but I don't get off work until 10 pm so I don't get to bed until midnight since I have an hour drive home.  Zoé soaked her diaper and woke up and she doesn't go back to bed well so I ended up staying up with her for awhile.

My stepson Chris has his summer leave from the army so he drove down here from New York.  Made it here just in time to go to church.  We have an hour drive to our church and we were late.  I thought we were going to have to sit around and kill time until it was time to get my stepdaughter but she managed to convince her mother to let us pick her up early.  So it worked out well.

Coming home, I had to deal with a very cranky Adèle who had been trying to poop unsuccessfully for 3-4 days.  Not good when you're only 4 months old.  Poor thing.  I spent most of the afternoon comforting her.  Fortunately, glyceryn works wonders.

Despite all that, I finally finished finishing Country Noah.  Here's a picture.

I thought it turned out nice and once I find the nails again, I'll hang it up in the girls' room.  It's done on 9 count Aida which is extremely large.  It's been sitting in my collection of finished yet unfinished cross stitch pieces.  It turned out so well that once I get an iron, I think I'll do the same thing with Mary's Lamb Sampler and hang it up as well.  Hopefully the latch hook will be done by then.  Haven't been working on that.

What I have been working on is the stocking.  I think I've got my second wind on it and it's coming along nicely.

And to finish today's blog post off, Adèle managed to flip herself over yesterday.  Here she is, looking proud.

Thrift Store Find

Today, we hit a thrift store (looking for a crib since we still don't have one for Adèle so she's camping out in the Pack 'n Play) and I didn't find what I was looking for at all.  But I did find this:

And now you are probably saying "What is that?!"

Anyone play handbells?  Basically, it's a set of pitched plastic pipes that you can hit on anything to produce a sound.  They're called Boomwackers.


As some of you know, I used to be a professional musician.  Great job.  No benefits.  Not a steady paycheck.  I always wanted a set of these but this C to C set was $25 and I wasn't willing to shell out that much money for them (I really didn't have that much extra anyway).  I got this set for $1.31.  You can't beat that!

I think Zoé and I can have some fun with these.  She loves her xylophone and my piano.

Lotsa Pictures

My baby is growing up so fast.  Today, we tried rice cereal for the first time.  Didn't eat a lot and most of it ended up on her chin but that's pretty normal.  Zoé loves her little sister and has popped a bottle in her mouth several times when she was fussing.  She also kisses her.  But, on the other hand, she bit Adèle's toe the other day.

Speaking of Zoé, we were at Kroger the other day and she saw something she just HAD to have...

Yes, that is a melon.  I think she thought it was a ball.  We ended up not getting it but she held it all through the store.

Here are some kitten pictures from Father's Day.

And last but not least, my project progress for the week (it's not much, I warn you)

Father's Day

We had a great Father's Day today.  We went over to our in-law's house after church to have a meal.  My stepson Steven and his wife Ashley came over as well.  My father-in-law smoked a brisket and barbecued some chicken, my mother-in-law made rice dressing and cornbread, my husband made a three bean salad and Ashley made red velvet brownies from scratch.  It was all good. 

They feed some stray cats and some of the cats had kittens.  They were so cute, I wanted to take one home.  Unfortunately, the pet deposit is insane in this place.  I know my stepdaughter wants one badly, so I'm hoping to buy a house in the next 2 years (hoping that we can move closer to a WELS school for the girls but it will depend on jobs) and then we won't have to worry about silly things like pet deposits.

I've had a bad cold all week.  I perpetual nose-blowing kind.  Body aches too.  Right before the cold hit, I started getting chest pains.  I was tested for an ulcer but that apparently was negative so they think it's some kind of reflux (left over from the wonderful heartburn I had during both pregnancies).


Also, let me take this opportunity to not recommend Centurylink.  We got them for DSL when we moved here.  We don't get the 6 mb that we pay for and to boot, they lost our first payment and cut our service off.  And their customer service department did nothing to help us.  We had to do the leg work to find our missing payment (I had paid in cash in a store, but I got my receipt).  Next week I have to call them back to complain about our service again and to make sure they're not charging us reconnect fees or late fees.

A bit of finishing

Today, I hung up pictures in the baby room.  We finally decided how we were going to arrange the cribs so I was able to figure out the decor.  We still don't have a crib for Adèle (she's residing in the pack 'n play) but we used the measurements from Zoé's crib to figure it out.  I have a random mess of assorted pictures hung up.  Adèle's theme is sheep so I put up the little miniatures of the sheep that my grandmother made and I will hang up Mary's Lamb Sampler once I have it finished (well, stitching is done but it's not been framed or anything).  I have found a birth announcement sampler that I like that I am hoping to make for her maybe in the fall

Zoé's theme is Winnie the Pooh.  Classic Winnie the Pooh.  However, I was unable to find any classic Pooh patterns I liked for birth announcements.  Her sheets and stuffies and stuff are a mix of classic Pooh and Disney Pooh.  I have a Disney Pooh book and I think I have found a pattern in there that I can modify.

The rest of their stuff is a mix of other things.  I did this piece awhile ago.  It's called Country Noah.  I never finished it and I've decided to basically quilt mount it and hang it in their bedroom as well.  Here is a picture of my progress on it.

Just have to attach the backing and the batting and I'm pretty much done!  Probably won't do it until next weekend.

Sunday Sunday Sunday

Today I am blogging with the "help" of my assistant Adèle who was much less cranky when I snapped this picture.

The dog was knitted by my mother who has seemed to be making a lot of stuff for granddaughters lately.

It's been a five day weekend for me...not really by choice.  I had some chest pains on Friday as I was dropping Em off at home from summer school before I headed into work.  We suspected a gall bladder attack.  The doctor thinks it's actually reflux which is really painful from all the heartburn I had when I was pregnant or I have an ulcer.  Waiting on some test results.

Today we made homemade pizza ala Alton Brown of Good Eats.  But it appears that the dough has somewhat killed my brand new mixer.  The pizza was delicious though.

Here is my crafty progress:

I have continued work on the stocking:

I have also started a latch hook kit that I got for $1.99 at a thrift store (all yarn included!)

The finished project is going in to the girls' room.

Wedding Progress

Here is my progress on the project I've been working on at work (so my DH doesn't see!).

I'm thinking of taking a hiatus from my stocking but not sure what I'm going to work on instead.  Haven't had much time at home anyway.

Found a knitting pattern for Little Charley Bear (a BBC children's show that Zoé likes).  It's for needles which I'm not good at knitting on but I'll give it a go.  It's in metric so I have to find our equivalent and then see if Mom has the right size needles and then I have to track down the yarn but I've already found it on one website so it shouldn't be too hard to find. 

Marco!

Parsley over at Seasons of my Mind has started a game of Marco Polo. 

I prefer this game in a swimming pool.  We'll see how well it works in cyberspace.

To play, leave a comment with the word "Polo" on my blog.  You can go over to her blog and do the same here's the post  Then on your blog, start a new post explaining the rules.

Here goes.....Marco!