Goals for 2011

1. lose 15 lbs

2. go to the beach

3. play with my children

Top 10

My Top 10 events from 2010, in no particular order

1. Jack turning 1
2. Lilly starting preschool
3. Anniversary in NYC
4. Kiss from Jack
5. Summer at the pool, splash park, puppet shows
6. Summer trips to Knoebels
7. Summer nights by the fire
8. Trip to NC
9. Dinner at La Bergerie
10. Relaxing December

End of the year

Brian, Jessamyn, and Johnny are here! Hurray! We are having a lot of fun together enjoying Brians last couple of days here before he heads back for the rest of his deployment. We went running today, it hurt. Brian runs like a 5-6 minute mile, so even his slow jog pace hurt me. I have been trying to knit Johnny mittens while he is here and nothing is working out with yarn. I have decided to put away my yarn, try to put away the ipad, and soak up the rest of the time with them. (Although to be fair Jim, Jessamyn, and Brian are all comparing apps on their i-touches) We are all going to put our boxes down and continue the phase 10 battle!

Jim and Liz mash-up 2010 (i.e. pictures together)

2010 Lilly review

2010 Jack review

My Knitting Year In Review

1. Hat for baby Jack
2. Half a sock for Jim
3. One leg warmer for Lilly
4. One super fancy mitten
5. Cable hat for Jessamyn
6. Sweater vest for Jack
7. Pair of mittens for mom (second mitten not pictured)
8.  Baby blanket
9. Pumpkin  hat for Lilly
10. Thumb sucker cover
11. Pumpkin hat for Jack
12.  Mittens for me
13. Pin Cushion for Jessamyn
14. Set of hat and booties
15.  Christmas stockings

Not pictured: all the other gifts I gave, tons of hat and baby booties.

Dec. 26

Well it's over. Wasn't it all a blur?  Didn't it go too fast?

We had a lovely Christmas with our family and soldier on leave. Wonderful presents were exchanged, and like the majority of humanity I ate too much, spent too much, and indulged too much.

I remembered to take pictures for about 10 minutes of our 4 day long Christmas extravaganza. We spent time with the entire family at my dads house, my moms house and the Pitt house.

So many thoughtful and wonderful presents. Jewelery, make up, knitting necessities, crafting accessories, endless pampering gifts, PJs, and all things lovely were given to me for Christmas.  I came away realizing that I am quite the spoiled brat.  Many surprises were pulled off (see Brian's blanket made by Jessamyn?) and now we all are recovering from the sugar/present induced coma we ventured on together.

Time to cozy up with some melancholy music and my knitting needles.  One more week of holiday before the world will force us to move on, think about the pounds on the scale, dollars in the bank, and the winter months ahead.

Dance

Lilly had two dance performances on Saturday.  You can hear her teacher helping on the sidelines.

Christmas Prep

It's the last couple of days before Christmas and I just realized that I have a lot to do. I have not been stressing myself this December and it has been quite enjoyable. Hopefully it wont be too miserable this week as I do everything in one week.

Today I would like to
1. Attend my Work luncheon
2. Attend and help with Preschool Christmas program
3. Watch Workmen coming to my basement
4. Complete Exactly one billion loads of laundry to do
5. Start and finish Wrapping of all gifts
6. Break out the cricut to make tags for gifts, etc.

Tomorrow I have to
1. Finish most of the items from Monday
2. Clean the house
3. Fold one billion loads of laundry
4. Mail last minute package

I cant think past tomorrow, we,ll see how the week goes.

I have one more last minute scarf I am making, two if I finish the first one.

Hmmm...Like I said a lot more than I thought, better get started!

Inventory

Lilly helps Jack inventory my kitchen cupboard.  This is a daily occurrence, I just recorded it this time.

Hat

I made this candy cane hat for Jack last night.  I found a similar hat online, but could not find the pattern anywhere! I had to improvise and just copy from the picture.  It turned out great, however, I lacked a pattern which left me hanging with sizing issues. Thus a slightly small hat for Jack's cute little head.

It is a little snug on his head and the bottom rolls up revealing the inside, because it is too small.  I rolled up to the inside so you could see what I mean. Jack is asleep so I can't force him to model.

I have three options.

1.  Rip it out, start over, and hope I have enough yarn to make it bigger.

2.  Attempt to pick up stitches and make the bottom of the hat longer

3.  Find a completely different hat to make and give this one away to anyone who reads this blog and has a baby with a smaller head than Jack.

Anyone fit that description??


Suggestions?

P.S. Brian came home from Iraq for Christmas. Can you think of a better present than that? Happy day.

Musings

Lilly just informed me that she prefers her PBJ whole. Not cut. You know, taking out that essential mom step of slicing the PBJ in triangles. She still wanted the crust cut off, so she is not completely grown up. "You should have cut off the crust, now I have to peel it off."

My Christmas cards are in a big stack mocking me because they are not finished and only 10 days until Christmas. I guess its time to step it up and get into gear. Christmas is coming!

Done

Now ALL the stockings are hung by my bookcase with care, in hopes that St. Nick soon will be there (or something along those lines).  I finished all 4 stockings, done and done.

It's been awhile since I posted a picture of my adorable Jackson, just because he is adorable.

Breakfast with Santa

We had breakfast with Santa on Saturday.  The REAL Santa, according to Lilly.  Jack didn't freak out, but he was perplexed by the whole thing.  Lilly said Santa can bring her whatever he would like to bring her, makes things easier for Santa.

Jack is walking now, he is very proud of himself.  We have all been super sick and spent the weekend in bed. It was kind of nice to just  be home and not crazy rushing around for the holidays.  I have added a few more projects than necessary, but so far things are staying somewhat low key. Hope you're enjoying the season.

Mini sweater

 I knitted a mini sweater for the tree tonight. Well it's not a sweater for the tree, it is a sweater ornament for the tree. I am sure you got that.

Decorations - check

Elf on a shelf (er..frame) - check

Christmas tree decorated and ready for Jack attack - check

Glittered pears ready for Lilly to play with - check

Sick Days

We have been sick for a month now, and this week I am really sick. I have no voice and spend my nights coughing away bidding on cricut cartridges on ebay. We have to get better soon!

I have declared this day (and yesterday) a home day.  We are not going anywhere, we are staying home drinking our fluids and pumping the vitamin C.

Since our basement is 95% done, 100% enjoyable, we are spending our sick time down there.  We like to just lay on our new carpet.  We even moved a few things downstairs to make it more enjoyable.

I rented Eclipse, watched it last night and whipped up this little stocking ornament. Besides the sick part, I am rather enjoying our quarantine in our new basement.

O Christmas Tree

Jim and I picked out our live/dead Christmas tree over the weekend. I think of them as live and he thinks of them as dead (since they were chopped down, you get it). Jim grew up cutting down trees from his grandmothers Christmas tree farm and I grew up buying really expensive trees from the Catholic church down the road.

Jim does not mind how I decorate it, its kind of my thing. The only problem is I mind how I decorate it. The first few years we had a fake tree that I tried to decorate like my mom's tree.
Here I am circa 2004 decorating our tree.

 That did not work out because I do not have the ornaments to back up that style. I started buying cheap ball ornaments to hang and decided that I would hence forth only decorate my tree with red and gold ornaments. Only now that makes me sad. I like all the colors. Instead of collecting beautiful ornaments over the years (like I wanted to) I have collected discount ornaments from walmart.

Note the discount ornaments

I have been worried about pleasing everyone else in my life with my tree, when really, who else even cares about my tree but me??

My favorite memories of Christmas are pulling out all the ornaments, each one special and different, each one beautiful.

 2006, Lilly's first Christmas

 2008, Our first Live/Dead tree

  2009, Jack's first Christmas

It's decided then. I will no longer collect ornaments from the after christmas sale in red and gold balls from walmart. I want ornaments from every where I visit. If it is significant, then I want it on my tree. Send me your old ornaments mom, I am ready to carry on the tradition. (Although, it is my tree, so I might have colored lights)

Stocking

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

The [hand knit] stockings [that I made for Jack and Lilly] 

were hung by the [bookcase] with care,

In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there.

I made these stockings from a pattern book I borrowed from the yarn shop. They worked up pretty fast, my first time turning a heel (knitting lingo).  I have Jim's done and mine is almost finished.  More pictures soon.  Wish I had a chimney to hang then by with care.

Jinx

I knew it was coming, you knew it was coming. Within minutes of declaring mom day a success my day crumbled into a mess. Screaming, crying, ear infections, eye infections and a trashed house finished off my day yesterday. Now I am sick along with the kids and I don't have the energy to clean my house.
Don't stop by, we are a house of mess and germs.

Christmas Cards

I had really good luck with Christmas cards this year.  I won a free digital card from a blog contest and then I earned my 50 free shutterfly cards by selling out my blog(just a little).  The digital card (see above) is for all you slackers who don't send out real Christmas cards.  The rest of you will get my lovely shutterfly card. Win, win.

Mom day

I have extra children today while their parents enjoy a day in NY by themselves.  I got their son off to school, got all the kids dressed and fed, and I went to my Zumba class.  I came home put the babies down for naps and churned out cookies for my cookie exchange tonight.  I adorned my Christmas apron (thanks mom) and baked my little heart out. I really nailed the mom thing today.

New York, New York!

I am in NYC today.  I am in a hotel room with 5 children waiting to get the car and head out.  It is 2pm, time for the Wednesday matinee's to start. I heard The Phantom of the Opera opening music start up through our wall.  Upon further investigation I found out that the hotel shares a wall with the Majestic theatre, which has been home to The Phantom of the Opera for 22 years.  Absolute joy to hear live broadway music for free in my hotel room with 5 children.  Phantom was the first show I ever saw.  I hope to come back one day and see it again.
We arrived in the city last night around 6pm, a few hours later than expected.  We had planned to watch the lighting of the rockefeller center tree live.  We got there way too late and the crowds were out of control.  We had two double jogging strollers pushing through the not-so-stroller-friendly-crowds.  I still loved every minute of it.  We had delicious pizza and then went in search of a cupcake place I found when I was here in July.  We could not find it, instead we found the M&M store, Batman (literally a guy walking around as batman), and the Macy's Christmas window displays. Magic.   All of it.
This morning we woke up to pouring rain and gusts of wind.  We bundled up to head over to Radio City Music Hall to see the Christmas Spectacular, which lives up to its name.  By the time we arrived Lilly and I were drenched, making for the perfect opportunity to buy some Rockette shirts.  Jack and Lilly did really well for the first 45 minutes, it just went downhill after that.  All in all I loved the show, even with a screaming baby it was a good time.  Note to self - dont try a full length broadway show with children anytime soon,.
We are headed home with another wonderful NY adventure behind us.

Gratitude round up

Nov. 26
1. Movie Tangled, so good!
2. Naps
3. Clothes that fit and flatter

Nov. 27
1. Safe return home with no traffic
2. Friends who shared their dinner with us
3. Scott M. for sharing his expertise

Nov. 28
1. Whole family sick (not grateful for that) and we spent the day crafting and resting together.
2. Jim made me dinner while I napped.
3. Inspired day of crafting, paper crafts, knitting, and sewing

Nov. 29
1. Lilly asked if we could just stay home and play, makes me happy that she likes home.
2. Lilly and I worked together to clean the basement.
3. Jack dancing to Shakira.
4. Jack pushing Lilly on his ride on toy with a huge grin, hilarious!

Shopping woes

Did anyone else accidentally spend way too much money today?? Was anyone else tricked by all the ads??

Oh buyers remorse....curse you.

Back to the stores next week to return stuff...I hope.

Thanksgiving

Nov. 24
1. Limited holiday traffic while we traveled over the river and through the woods. Literally.
2. Yummy pre-thanksgiving food
3. Getting to see my brother Oliver

Nov. 25
1. Wonderful day with family and delicious food.
2. Cricut machine
3. Midnight shopping with my mom (we are SO tired).

p.s.  Dear Clutter, 
You are really getting in my way and I am afraid you will have to go. All of you.  To the trash.  I can't get to you right now, you know the holidays, but as of Jan. 2 (I need a day to recover from the holidays) you are out of here.  Every last spare broken toy that my child insists is the greatest thing she has ever known. Gone.
Me

Any suggestions on how to de-clutter your toys without horrible drama and fits???

Giving more thanks

Nov. 20
1.  John for doing the electricity in our basement and leaving his power tools
2.  Jim for working on the ceiling
3.  Knitting turkey

Nov.  21
1.  LDS Church services

2.  Service project
3.  Lasagna in a box

Nov. 22.
1.  Melissa for cutting my doors and Britten for installing my doors
2.  Britten for working 10 hours in my basement
3.  Dan for coming straight from work and working 5 hours in my basement

Seriously how do you repay people like that??

Nov. 23
1.  Car inspection passed, got to knit while waiting :)
2. Pre-holiday excitement
3.  (I think it has been too many days without me being grateful for all the obvious things:  Family; the Gospel; the scriptures; a modern day prophet, and wonderful friends)

Gratitude Challenge Continues...

I am a few days behind, and to be honest I cannot remember what happened on those days. I will just have to forget those days instead of trying to remember all my blessings for those days.

Instead I will focus on today.

Nov. 19
1. Awesome spin class
2. Marie letting me use all her amazing crafting supplies and cricut machine.
3. Turkey dish cloth
4. Leftover chili that tastes better the next day and the next.
5. Early bedtime for sleepy children.
6. ipad
7. Shutterfly cards (see prior post)
8. Dracula by Bram Stoker
9. tivo to re-watch community with jim
10. Lilly wanting to learn to play the piano
11. Kisses from Jack
12. Lilly dancing with Jim

Shutterfly - 50 Free holiday cards

Did you hear that Shutterfly is giving away 50 free holiday cards if you blog about their great products?? My friend Emily A. put it on her blog and I decided to jump on that bandwagon. I love Shutterfly!

Every year I create a memory book on their website with my best pictures from the year. I also order their Christmas cards every year as well. So imagine my excitement when I found out that with only a little selling out on my blog I could get 50 Christmas cards. Free.

Last year I used Season Chic Noir  I combined the birth announcement of Jack with my Christmas card for the ultimate holiday card.

It's so hard to decide which card I will use this year! (Because you see it is free, making it super awesome!)

I really like Believe, Family Frame and these cards below as well.  How is one to choose??

  

If you want to check out the Shutterfly Blog giveaway click on the link below.

Share on Twitter or Facebook: Bloggers get 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly http://bit.ly/sfly2010

Ye Olde Lace

Things have not been working out with my technology. My printer wont work (it needs ink, but I still like to blame the printer for its failure), my scanner wont work (I think the CD needs to be installed, again I blame the scanner). I cannot print out anything I need nor can I scan in another adorable Halloween picture. I also received Lilly's school pictures, they are beautiful. I cannot share any of this with you because my devices have failed me.

In the midst of my tech failures I turned to my knitting and crocheting. I am attempting to crochet lace. It is very civil war era of me. It also makes me want to punch someone in the head. I wonder if that is how the ladies of the civil war felt? Blasted small cotton thread and needle, you have failed me too.

As you can see I can easily create a scapegoat in any situation whethere it be computer issues or lace issues.

I had better get on with my gratitude to help my outlook.

Nov. 14
1. PJ Day, all day
2. Knitting all day
3. Together at home with my sick kids and husband all day enjoying nothing together.

Nov. 15
1. Guitar for music class
2. Grocery store
3. Family home evening (Ok that is not true at all. our family home evening together was a disaster, but I feel like if I write it, it will make it better)

More gratitude give me

Nov. 10
1. Practical strangers flying across the country to fix my basement.
2. Tina for more painting
3. Cheyenne for babysitting

Nov. 11
1. Debbie for tiling my floor and more. (Don't know Debbie? neither did I. She is Britten's mom who came across the country to share her skills)
2. Britten for cutting tile and everything else she did.
3. Ron for plumbing my bathroom. (Don't know Ron? neither did I. He is Britten's dad who came across the country to share his skills.)
4. Cheyenne for babysitting ALL day and making delicious dinner.
5. Tina for taking over many of my responsibilities.

Nov. 12
1. Debbie for making my basement an awesome work in progress
2. The community center for closing early, thus eliminating my shift.
3. Crochet cotton for making cute book marks.
4. Britten and her dad for working hard in my basement.

Nov. 13
1. Britten, Debbie, and Dan for working in my basement on a Saturday morning.
2. Tina for hauling trash on a saturday.
3. Jim for working on the ceiling.

Gradtitude

Nov. 7
1. 103 balloons for Jack's birthday.
2. Spinning top that plays lovely chords as it spins.
3. My dad making me a cake

Nov. 8
1. Jeanette the zumba teacher for being super awesome and motivating.
2. Britten for driving her van to Lowes and spending two hours picking up necessary items for my basement project with me.
3. Lowes picking up and returning tile!!! Carpet is on its way.

Nov. 9
1. Tina and Britten for taking huge parts of their day to paint with me.
2. Visiting teachers to brighten my day.
3. Freshly painted shelves that used to be a horrible red.

More Gratitude

Nov. 5
1. Nap time solitude
2. Phone calls
3. Kindness of strangers at work

Nov. 6
1. Jim, who came with me and happily participated in my music class.
2. A wonderfully successful music class, due to the participation of members and happy children.
3. The childrens place outlet, where I can always find a great deal and yet still over spend.
4. Jeans for my skinny Lilly with adjustable waist tabs.(seriously why don't all kids pants have adjustable waist tabs??)

One more Halloween round-up

1.  Church trunk or treat party

2. Pumpkin patch field trip. Hay ride that lasted FOREVER.  Note the exhaustion on the faces of my children.

3 & 4.  Halloween Parade

5.  Lilly on the parade float for her preschool

Giving thanks in the season of Thanksgiving

This November, in the grand tradition of my friend Heather, I present the gratitude challenge. List three things each day that you are grateful for during the month of November.


Here are some thoughts I had on gratitude earlier in the season.

It's 7am.  
I have the front door open and i can feel a slight breeze from the cool morning air.  The leaves are starting to turn red and i can hear the squirrels searching for food. Everyone is asleep in my house. It is quiet other than the sounds of the animals outside and thie faint noise of traffic.  The babies are sleeping, but soon they will wake up and the quiet will be replaced with the noise of our life.  Making breakfast, packing lunch, getting dressed and out the door for our day.

Lilly is now old enough for preschool and Jack is old enough to crawl around and get into everything. Our house is a little chaotic, the dishes are never quite done and the laundry is a never-ending daunting task.  Wouldn't it be lonely if there were no children to wake up and demand food and love?  Wouldn't it be so very lonely to have a clean house but no family to share it with.  I have to remember that the mess and chaos happens because we live our life.  There is life here.  The whinings of a child, the laugter of a baby happens here in my home.

Nov. 1
1. Wonderful pre-school teacher
2. Candy
3. Zumba

Nov. 2
1. Friends to knit with
2. Knitting group
3. Knitted Christmas stockings

Nov. 3
1. Baby tylenol
2. Bottles
3. Cuddling sick Jack

Nov. 4
1. PJ Day
2. Lilly in dance class
3. Dinner of cracker sandwiches on the counter

Birthday Party

(Yes, my week has been THIS crazy that I need THIS many blog posts to remember it by).

We were able to pull off a successful first birthday party for Jack.  

Birthday Surprise

I was rather apprehensive about Jack's birthday.  It was the start of a lot of tough times, and I was kind of nervous for the reminder.  On the day of his actual birthday I was a little sad.  Where did my year go?  Where did my baby go?  Why am I getting so old??

Then a wonderful surprise happened. In my mail box I found a package from Sarah Jane Studios.  I opened it up and found the most lovely print of September.  There was no card and no message.  Just a wonderful surprise for me on Jack's birthday.

Some lovely person surprised me early with an item from my Christmas wish list.

I called my Jim, my dad, and my mom to see if they had sent it. They all agreed it had not been them.  So thank you to my new favorite person who made a hard day happy and fun.

Happy Birthday Jackson Boy!

10-28-10.

Thursday and Friday

Thursday night was our towns Halloween parade.  It started at 7 and went pretty late, we left around 8:30, making all of us exhausted the next morning.  Friday, the morning of her school party, Lilly decided that her costume for this year did not fit at all and she needed a new costume. 45 minutes before school started.  Secretly I was thrilled. I really wanted her to be a fairy princess (if you know me, you're probably surprised at that), but it's the truth.  I wanted my little girl to be as frilly as it gets.  I immediately got the tutu that my sister made and added wings and a lot of pink and I give you Halloween costume #2.

The poor thing was so tired I couldn't get her to take pictures outside or to even look directly at the camera.

The only time she looked at me was with these goofy teeth.

Field Trip Day

Last Wednesday was Lilly's first official school field trip.  On a bus, with chaperone's, to a pumpkin patch.  This was a BIG deal.

Lilly rode the school bus with her friends and teachers while I drove behind the bus with some of the other mom's to the pumpkin patch.

We arrived to a dreary fall day and took a really long hay ride.  I want to say it was 45 minutes.  We had a tour of the apple cleaning and washing station and learned all about cider, apple sauce, etc.  We picked out pumpkins, played at the play land and headed home.  I was completely exhausted (I think Lilly was too).