12-29-09 - Catch up day

Lazy day today... hoping to get a bit of pre-party cleaning in, and catch up on phlogging a little.  May also visit Full Bloom to get some knitting and social time in.

I'm hoping to finish Dad's Santa hat today, too, so that I can give it to him for Christmas.  Here's a photo of it in progress:

12-28-09 - Carmen Angel

Some days, Carmen is an awesome kid ALL DAY.  Today was that day!  We went to the Y early on, and she played great and didn't want to leave when I was done.  I spent a full hour on a stationary bike, knitting the whole time.  It rocked.... definitely be doing more of that in the future!

We came home and had snacks, and she was great.  We ran out to the bank, and she was sweet.  We came home for lunch and outdoor playing time, and she rocked.  Then it was naptime, and she went down easy.  Even dinner and after dinner play time was wonderful.  Carolyn was happy all day, too - bonus!

I ran outside to see if I could get a picture of Jupiter's moons again today with the new tripod.  Unfortunately, my eyes weren't working too great and the photos are out of focus.  Oh well, there will be more clear nights!

Since my photos all kind of sucked today, I'll post one from yesterday.  This is Carmen using her new fingerpaints from Grandmother...  she wasn't so sure about getting her fingers messy, so she mostly used a paintbrush:

12-27-09 - New tripod!

Today, we finally got to pick up our "ladies" from Double Durrango farm.  They should be having their kids sometime in late April.  Let's hope for more girls this time!!!

We also went to Main Street Yarns to get some yarn for Dad's Santa hat.  We got an alpaca/wool combo for the red and a baby llama for the trim.  The baby llama is incredibly soft - I want to swim in it.

Tyme got a new tripod for me for Christmas!  I'm really stoked to try and catch more stars now that I can point the camera in lots of directions, instead of just straight up.

We're also really enjoying our new living room.  I spent lots of time today on the new windowseat and on the couch, which is oriented in a really pleasing way now.  I'd always been afraid that it would make the room unusable to have it in the middle of the room, but it actually works out really well.

Here is a shot of the moving stars, taken at 2 AM - check out the green on the trees and the beautiful stars!  This is with no photoshop enhancements:

12-17-09 - New windows, and Santa

This morning started out with a lot of waiting and some cleaning.  The windows got here late, and Uncle FL got here even later.  As soon as he pulled up, though, he got right to work ripping up the window in the front to make way for our new bay window, and after about 8 hours, it is nearly done.  Tyme was helping, too, which is awesome since we're both into learning as much about construction as possible.

I also put up the Christmas tree and took the girls to visit Santa Dzia Dzia for pictures.  When we got back, I started to immediately make our holiday cards, since those need to go out on Saturday at the latest.

Tomorrow, we plan on finishing the bay window and (hopefully) starting on replacing the other windows.  The new ones look awesome and I can't wait to see what the house looks like with them in!

Pictures:

Carmen and Blaze (FL's dog) watch the progress on the bay window -

Carmen and Carolyn visit with Santa Dzia Dzia -

12-16-09 - Errands, knitting, sun

Today started out well because I got my butt out of bed early and was able to run some errands while Andrea watched the kidlets.  They didn't wake up until noon (!), so she got off easy today!  I finished my out of the house stuff and came home to camp out in the office with Tyme and finish his hat.  See picture below.  It's pretty awesome.

Then I started on a soft bunny blanket thingee for Carolyn.  The yarn I'm using is 89% bamboo and 11% acrylic.  I didn't even know they made yarn out of bamboo, but this stuff is so soft and nice to touch... it's really amazing.

Carmen was very happy to play outdoors today, which made me happy.  I think it's great when she pretends to plant and water flowers, collects rocks, lines up stuff she finds in the yard, and runs around with the goats.  She's also very into her pretend friends right now, and I love hearing her make conversation with them.  Today was a perfect, sunny, cool day for her to enjoy playing outdoors again.

We meant to get the tree up today for the holidays, but it didn't happen.  Maybe tomorrow we can work on it.  If not... no big deal.  The new windows will be festive enough for me.

I started thinking about Carmen's birthday party, which I just realized is only 10 days away.  OOPS.  So we're going to go with a fairy theme, and I'll start brainstorming cheap ways to entertain and feed kids and adults.  I also have to decide if it would be better to have it on her actual birthday, or on the day after, to give people a little break from Christmas.  I also don't know what we're going to give her as a gift.  She doesn't request anything, really, probably because we don't have cable and she doesn't see commercials for stuff.  I'm sure that will change as she gets older and starts wanting things that her friends have or talk about, though.

Anyways, here's the hat:

 

12-15-09 - No TV day

Today was our TV fast day.  I declared it in the morning and stuck with it through nearly the whole day.  Go me!  We have it on a good amount of the day, but Carmen rarely actually watches it.  She just likes having the option to watch it, I guess.  But not today - today was a play outside, play inside, think up new games, do puzzles, read, and watch Mom knit day.  Carmen didn't protest much, thankfully.  I feel like we watched too much tv while we were out in CA, and I don't want it to become a habit.

We didn't go anywhere, and I'm already getting itchy to get in the van and drive.

I started a new hat last night for Tyme.  It's very orange.  I'm going to call it "blockhead," but this has nothing to do with the awesome guy who wears it.  Tonight, I worked on it while Tyme cleaned up a bit in the office in preperation for Uncle Forrest Lee's visit.  He's coming to teach us how to install windows - specifically, the 17 new ones that will be arriving Thursday morning.  I'm stoked!  Double paned, high E, argon, with a neat pattern and the cross beam things on the inside, so that I can clean the whole pane of glass at once.  Best of all, these will have screens, and they will open when we want them to, and stay shut when we're done!!  No more painted shut windows for us....

I didn't take any pictures today, so I'll share one I took in Long Beach, at the aquarium:

Nothing horribly exciting happened in the past few days, but, ironically, I was too busy to write up anything in the journal.  So I'll do short summeries of each day.

12-10
Actually, I don't really remember what we did.  Probably went to the zoo again and ate something like Chik-fil-a.

12-11
See yesterday.  BUT we did go and meet Nicole, who would be Carmen's babysitter for the evening.  Then, when Tyme got off of work (on time, for the first time in two weeks!), we got ready and headed out to his Christmas party.  I sang karaoke for the first time.  I won't discuss this in further detail, but yes, I was perfectly sober.  Carolyn went with us and hung out in the pouch for half the time, then spent the rest of the time with the wife of one of Tyme's coworkers (she asked to hold her, then did so for about 2 hours!!).  She was really happy to sit on her lap, dance with her, and then fall asleep in her arms, while Tyme and I actually got to dance together, eat, and talk to people.

12-12
We had planned on going back down to San Diego for one more day, but the weather was so cruddy, and we were so tired, that we ended up having a "cruising" day.  We piled ourselved in the van and drove around Orange County to see what we could find.  We found a few great restaurants, more parks, and a couple of short cuts.  We hit the zoo one last time for a rainy jaunt, then made our way home for a nap.  After naptime, we went back out for dinner (at Buca di Beppo), and for Tyme to exchange his flourescent orange yarn for some less flourescent orange yarn.  We got "home" and then packed like mad while trying to get Carmen to go to sleep, which failed until about midnight.  Yeah, that's 3 AM Georgia time.  Special.

12-13
We woke up at 7:30 and packed up the car, had our last Holiday Inn breakfast, gassed up, got some road food, picked up Tyme's co worker (part of the complicated plan for borrowing the Boss's van), then had him drop us off at the airport.  We checked in, survived security (nine full bins, four crying fits, three pairs of shoes, two checked carseats and a partridge in a pear tree), then waited for our plane.  I knitted.

Our flight came in about an hour late, thanks to fog and rain.  Flying with the girls really isn't as bad as it could be - I did hear one baby, about Carolyn's age, who wailed and screamed for about half of the 4 hour flight.  I felt so bad for the parents, and so grateful that I had built in pacifiers and a generally happy baby.  We drove home, unpacked a bit, then dove into bed.  Carolyn slept the best she has in two and a half weeks.  So did I!  I'm so happy that being home helps her to go back to her old sleeping routine.

12-14
Today!  The girls slept in until about 10.  Bliss.  We didn't leave the house today, and that's ok with me.  The weather is a bit cruddy, and I was just worn out.  I felt like the girls needed a bit of grounding time, too.  We watched a bit of tv, did some puzzles, unpacked, ate cream of wheat, knitted, and napped.  Now we're winding down and looking longingly at the bed again.  Tomorrow, I hope to call some family members and see about going to visit.  Any friends want a visit, too? 

Here are a couple pictures from the last few days:

Carmen discovers camouflage... Carolyn discovers Carmen.

I finished Carmen's hat!  And she likes it!!

See more recent photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/elizebeth_joy/