Cuties!

I made a photo album of Kayla and Adele's antics this afternoon; you can see it here.

Mommy Told Addie "No"

And this is what ensued.

Embossed leaf socks

As knit in Brown Sheep Wildfoote yarn and modeled and worn by the cutest sock wearer:

Wake up and smell the pumpkin seeds

You can hide.

You can try to pretend you have other things to do.

You can be inordinately cute

But your pumpkin guts belong to us!

Addie and Gilad's preschool went to the farm this last week (and Addie's 2 year old class used it as an excuse to teach the children all the standard nursery rhymes and songs, so all week we heard her singing "Old MacDonald" and "Baa, baa, Black Sheep" and so on). They came home with popcorn and pumpkins. So we've hacked the tops of their heads off and scooped out the brains and guts and are soon to eat fresh roasted seeds.

So much going on

Jeffrey, Feivel and Sachy are still off at camp. Tirtze's home from her grandparents' and Kayla's gone with her Oma tonight to see the Harry Potter movie. Don't worry; everyone's still very cute.

Meanwhile, all continues as abnormal as ever. What do you keep on your counter? On ours, of course, it's fermenting dye.

The better to dye yarns:

lichen and osage orange on the left, just lichen dye on the right.

And Kayla wanted some goth style fingerless mitts, so I knit them for her:

Hippo, Birdie, Two Ewes

Pics from Kayla's little birthday cake moment (Snickers cake, yum):

She should not be allowed to be 14 years old already!

Oh, and if you're wondering about her hair and Sachy's peyos in the pics--yes, her Oma and Grandpa bought her a hair straightener for her birthday and she's been experimenting.

She's an 8th grade graduate

Kayla and her classmates celebrated their eighth grade graduation tonight. Here she is in her graduation dress

And she won the middle school award for tefillah (prayer). We are so proud of her for all her work in middle school.

Kayla got bored

So she managed to put Addie's hair in pig tails.

In the nick of time

Kayla's sweater is ready before Passover.  She designed it--very short sleeves, square neckline, slightly raised waistline, cables at the waist, loose and slightly cropped:

Age One or Fifteen?

Yes, Addie is lounging, listening to an iPod with Tirtze...and drinking a baby bottle.

In other news, I attended a bas mitzvah today, Kayla attended her first school play rehearsal as part of the tech staff, Sachy went to a birthday party, Feivel went to the movies, Jeffrey had a ton of paperwork to do, and I did a tiny bit more of Pesach cleaning.

Oh, and I finally finished a long-languishing sweater:

as modeled by Kayla.

Like Magic!

Well, thanks to the Harry Potter game over on Ravelry, I've cleaned up my knitting and spinning stuff.  A bit.

Jeffrey moved a book case and we cleaned it up:

I've mostly caught up on filing my patterns in their binders:

My spinning fiber is a little more organized, or at least neatened up:

And my yarns are put away in an old dresser:

I've also knit a cowl for Charms homework and proposed an O.W.L. level project (a lacy, cabled, fitted sweater).  And I've almost finished plying my Corriedale (though that's not for Harry Potter knitting, that's just for joy).

Meanwhile, the two big girls are at their first karate/jujitsu class.  Don't try to imagine it.

We Didn't Have Latkes Last Night

That is because Kayla came home from school with a broken wrist and I had to take her to the urgent care center, where they splinted it.  Now this afternoon she just got it fully casted at the orthopedist.

This morning I dropped Addie off at day care, went out to my car, and it wouldn't start.  Nothing.  Jeffrey came over to the day care provider's house to help, and we got it started briefly but then nothing again.  We wound up having to call AAA, getting a jump start, and then I drove straight to the dealer (because it turns out that Saturn Ions have a unique, placed-in-the-back-trunk battery which can't be replaced by mobile crews, it's a dealer part), where they diagnosed a dead starter as well as a very marginal battery.  In truth, though, at least it happened on a quiet day when everyone was pretty much able to get where they were going and be safe and all is well except our wallets.  Plus, sitting at the dealership I was able to finish the baby sweater for our next-door neighbor's new baby (pics to come later when it's dry).

When I got in to the office finally after dealing with the car repair, it turned out our VPN was down and there was no fix in sight.  After sitting around for over an hour, I gave up and went home (at the suggestion of both of my bosses).

On the very happy side of things, I found a nice gift (set of gifts in fact) for my father's birthday, but I'm not going to show anyone or give any more details in case he reads this before next week!

So tonight we will have latkes and sufganiyot (jelly donuts).  Yum, yum, yum, happy chanukah!

What We've Been Up To:

Working hard

Being cute

Just thinking.

Actually we had a fine Shabbos, then Saturday night Feivel went to the high school play (no one else here wanted to go but he had a great time and felt very grown up seeing "I Remember Mama").  Today, Kayla spent most of the day working with her friend Naomi on their project to recreate the clothing of the Kohen Gadol (chief priest of the Holy Temple) with all his special garments; Tirtze is with her friend Sarah for the afternoon; and Feivel and Jeffrey are now at a Boy Scout meeting.  Then everyone gets back home, we'll light the first Chanukah candles, and then I head out to a knitting get-together while the rest of the family goes to the synagogue's Chanukah party and dinner.

Oh, and I'm knitting an unusually constructed baby sweater for our next-door neighbor's new baby boy; in essence it's two octagons folded, joined, seamed, and finished into a baby sweater.  Here's one half already folded and the other ready to be folded and seamed (pattern is XRX's 4 Tam Pram Set):

Sometimes she scares even me

I have LibraryThing set as my homepage for Safari.  When I open up my internet browser, that's the page I get first.  Tonight Kayla was looking over my shoulder as I opened my online profile, since I was going online to email a copy of an essay she wrote to her teacher.  She started singing, "LibraryThing, (da, da, da, DA, da)

You make my heart sing, (da, da, da, Da, da)

LibraryThing, I think I love you."

Then we emailed her essay on, I joke not, the bassoon.

Dr. Scarupa for the win!

Apparently he was right that Sachy's hives were viral.  Kayla has now finished a virus similar to what Sachy had 3 weeks ago, and is now covered in nice, blotchy, itchy hives.  Unfortunately, even a full dose of Benadryl doesn't seem to relieve it completely even though that worked quite well for Sachy.  The good news is she's already had it for 24 hours so she hopefully has no more than another 48 to go.

Are we cute yet?

Hello?  Anyone there have a clue?

Apparently not.

Meanwhile in as close to the real world as we come, Jeffrey and I just celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary with a dinner for 2, leaving the kids at home.  We had a lovely time and the house was still standing when we returned.

Why we need to buy Sharpies among school supplies

Apparently so Kayla can create "designer" shoes.

We're in your house, taking your pictures, hee, hee
Ever wonder why Tirtze is almost never in pics here?  It's because when I try to get a photo, she does this:

Begone, oh evil camera!

So instead you get Miss Addie, who had a very good time because had Adina and Golda (the usual weekend suspects, as opposed to Miriam who is the usual school day suspect for extra kid around here) sleeping over last night.

 We have a camera and we're not afraid to use it!

Quick Check-in from the Home of the Insane

I'll probably be pretty quiet as we go through the next week, which is the holiday of Sukkos.  All is well and Addie is feeling better after her virus and teething episodes (though she did get a little sick tonight again).

The one thing I absolutely felt had to be reported is the complete loss of two of my children to the nutty side.  Kayla has taught Gilad to only address her as "Master," and she in turn refers to him as her "vampirling" (which he pronounces as "vwampirling").

Perhaps this is to be expected in the case of a three year old who during this afternoon's walk informed me that his feet were hungry and tired.

Look who came to visit over the weekend

It's Cousin It's baby sister

and little brother

Please blame Kayla for this.  Frankly, you can blame her for a lot of things, it's okay by me.

We had a typically crazy weekend.  The end of the week was pissy for me; lousy stuff going on at work, plus I was depressed in general and just not happy.  I was going to say I was not a happy camper, but that could be taken quite literally; on Friday, I signed up for a dream, a week long course at the John C. Campbell Folk School given by Judith MacKenzie McCuin, to be held late in January.  The problem arose at about 4:45 Friday afternoon, when I got a message from them that as a matter of fact, the class was full, the waiting list was full, and I was flat out of luck. Even more irritating (for me, I'm not saying anything against them), when I tried to call the woman to whom I needed to speak back, she was out of her office and of course by that time it was so late I didn't hear from her that afternoon.  I have to follow up tomorrow to see if there's some other week's course I want to switch to, but it won't be quite the same as this would have been!

Addie has a new word:  "read!"  She comes to me with a board book, throws it at me, shouts "read!" and climbs in my lap.  Cute, snuggly, yet obnoxious.

I did get some knitting done.  Here is the Mystery Stole 4, as of the finish of clue 2.  Theme guesses run the gamut from games to gametes, so let your mind interpret as you will:

My problem, such as it is, now, is that Moni has released all the rest of the clues for the Slow Bee Mystery II shawl (clues 13-15) at once, due to internet difficulties she is experiencing intermittently.  This is lovely of her, yet given my personal insanity makes life that much more difficulty because I no longer get my single spaced dose of pattern for the next few weeks, but rather feel like since I have the rest of the pattern I have no choice but to barrel through the rest and get the other half done pronto.  Knitting-wise, I basically feel like I'm already out of breath but have miles yet to run.  Such trouble, oh the woe.

Oh, and since I need more projects and hobbies (like I need a hole in the head) I'm trying needle felting, as evidenced by this hand woven scarf (two triangles from my triangle loom seamed together), in the process of ornamentation (I intend to add a lot more felting, it's just going to take a while):