Halloween

Too tired to write much, but here are some pictures from Halloween...

Everyone impatient to Trick or Treat 

M.E.'s Pumpkin

Nate's Pumpkin on the left, Nick's on the right.

M.E.'s pumpkin all lit up. 'Cary to quote Nick

Rascal

Nick is a thumb and finger sucker. We've been working on getting him to stop, with little success. When told to take his hand out of his mouth, he used to take his hand out. Lately, when reminded he will put BOTH hands in his mouth, and adds a saucy grin!

Blustery Day

Today is a beautiful, if slightly cold fall day. More typical of November here than October. But, November is just around the corner. Yikes! The good news is this blasted campaign will be over. The bad news is then Christmas is just weeks away.

Going Back to Work

When M.E. was born, I became a stay-at-home mom. In my mind, I was sure I'd return to work when my youngest was in school full time, which in Georgia is kindergarten. Nick's not in kindergarten but he is kindergarten age. Now, Nick has been in school more or less full time for the past 2 plus years, so I could have started before this.

But, this fall has brought home the advantages and value of having one parent at home. Nick was out for a week probably with shigella. Nate for a week with his foot and then now another couple of days. We don't have a lot of family close by.

So far, I've applied for a few positions listed in our local newspaper, but haven't been looking very actively. Also, I'm not really sure what I want to do. I was product manager for a biotechnology instrumentation company. There aren't a lot of those types of companies here.

These are all excuses, I know. Oh well, maybe a fabulous job will fall into my lap. Or we'll win the lottery, of course, we don't play.

Halloween Party

Every year the kids' Uncle B hosts a ginormous Halloween party at his farm. There are hay rides, a corn maze, a treasure hunt, horses, and of course pumpkins.

Eww, pumpkin guts.

Nate's handy work!

What happened to M.E.'s face?

Nick showing off his bad haircut and the pumpkin he likes. (At least we didn't pay for it)

Happy Birthday Honey!

It's K's birthday. Won't tell you how old he is. But his present was all 6 years of "Hogan's Heroes" and german chocolate cake.

One Man Band

This is from this summer, I can't figure out how to turn upright, it so here it is anyway.

'Ni 'Ni

Tonight I helped serve at the middle school youth group mystery dinner. The kids are given a menu with 16 items such as "butcher's helper(knife)", "Golden rod (carrots). The kids each chose 4 items per course for 4 courses. Some kids had a knife to eat corn with or a toothpick to eat jello with. They all had a blast.

We came home to K, Nate & Nick watching Star Wars Episode 1. Nick said "Ni Ni, sleep" so, he hugged everyone and I took him up and put him to bed. He is so sweet and he likes his sleep.

A fun day, Nate is recovering, a little bored since I kept him home today to recover some more.

Splinter

Nate had his surgery today to remove the piece of wood. Here is the result. He's now home and happily building Legos

CTTD #1

That's Cute Things They Do. Last week Nick rediscovered the viewmaster. He was walking around looking into it bumping into walls. Of course, he has to share.

Update Post #4: Nate Turned 10

Last week Nate turned 10. We celebrated as a family with a trip to Chuck E Cheese. But Nick was disappointed that the presents weren't for him.

Fortunately big brother let him help unwrap...
He's getting really good at unwrapping presents.
Nate's fav, now he only has 110 pages to go.
Cookie cake! Unfortunately, mom forgot to buy candles

Over the weekend Nate & a few buddies played Lazer Tag and of course, there were more presents.
And a cake, this time with candles.

A Dog's Life

Catch Up Post #3: We Celebrated Our 16th Anniversary

Hard to believe it's been 16 years. We went to McCormick & Schmick's for dinner. K is a traditional kind of guy so he likes to pick a present out of the material for each year. This year there is no traditional gift but holloware is the "modern" material. This year is was a Michael Aram platter from the Twisted Vine Collection. 

What did I get for K? I cleaned the house, believe me it's pretty rare for the house to be clean.

The Wizard of Has (Oz)

One of Nicky's birthday presents was the Wizard of Ha's a Veggie Tales version of the Wizard of Oz. And he's been watching it over and over...and so have all of us. But it made us realize that the older kids have never seen the original Wizard of Oz movie. They know the rough story and most of the pop culture references.

The reason they haven't seen it is that I can't stand the movie. When I was little, it scared me to death. I couldn't sit still and watch it instead ran around the room. Especially in the scenes where the Wicked Witch of the West steals Toto and those in her castle. For some reason, my mother was frustrated and aggravated with the running around. So year after year we'd watch the stupid movie when it came on tv, I was scared and she was irritated.

It makes me wonder how many things I do as parent just because that's what everyone does that aren't the best ideas

What we did today

Today we set out for Stone Mountain and the Highland Games. Nate was fascinated by the caber toss. M.E. by the fiddlers. But both were disappointed that the blacksmith wasn't there. So, after a while we went over to Stone Mountain Crossroads Village to see the blacksmith there. Nate thought it was cool, Nicky thought it was too loud. Learned that a cobalt alloy is now being used on plough blades. And Kim & I had cokes, Nicky HiC, Nate dippin dotes and M.E. was cold. I should have better pictures, but I keep forgetting to take them.

Catch Up Post #2: Nate hurt his foot

The day after Nick's birthday, Nate was playing outside with friends. A game that involved "fighting with sticks." We're not quite sure how it happened but somehow Nate ended up with several pieces of wood in his foot. The entry was between his 3rd & 4th toes. The first trip to the ER involved X-ray and ultrasound. Wood doesn't show up on X-ray very well, hence the ultrasound. Which doesn't seem to be the most reliable method for determining what's in there either.

The second trip to the ER involved IV antibiotics after infection set in.

This is how it looks today, a month afterwards. We've consulted a surgeon who thinks there is sill at least one piece still in his foot. The spot near his toes is a migration of the initial puncture wound and the spot further back may be a hematoma or a granuloma(?) of the foreign body (piece of wood).

Surgery is scheduled for Thursday.

Nicky to Nick

Another transition in the past year has been from Nicky to Nick. It started with the OT at school requesting that Nicky be taught to write "Nick" since the letters K and Y have diagonal strokes which are difficult to execute. His teachers started calling him "Nick" and we've sort of picked up on it. Nick seems a bit more grown up especially for my big six year old. (she says somewhat wistfully).

Catch Up Post #1: Nicky Turned 6!

Last Month Nicky Turned 6!

Obviously, Lightning McQueen and Woody are still among his favorites (we should have bought stock in Disney)

What an amazing year it's been:

• Nicky finally put it all together and started walking independently.
  
• He can now climb up and down stairs holding onto the hand rail and occasionally uses reciprocal steps.
  
• He is putting together two, three and longer sentences. Some are just words and some are combinations of words and signs.
  
• He can reliably recognize all of the letters and tell you the sound it makes.
• He can write NICK.
• He can count to 5 and recognize some numbers.
• He is starting to use pronouns correctly, although I do miss "carry you".
• He still loves music but is starting to be a critic of family members' singing.
• He knows how to operate the DVD player and can turn on the tv with a remote.
• He can operate the mouse to play computer games.
• He knows animal signs for a vast number of animals and can make the animal's sound.
• He's getting very good at bossing everyone around and ignoring us when he doesn't want to do something.
• He can throw and kick a ball.
• He's just such a love and a blessing.

Catching UP

O.K., so I've totally dropped the ball on the 31 for 21. But, I'm really really really going to try to catch up. I figure if I write two posts per day for the next 14 days I can catch up. Yeah right.

Why I Knit

Most everyone who knows me knows that I knit. Constantly or almost constantly. I've been knitting since I was 18. Mom taught me the summer before college. I knit a lot in college for relaxation and to create things. I knit several "boyfriend sweaters" for the same boyfriend and of course we didn't marry. (The only thing I've knit for my hubby is a pair of cashmere socks that shrunk in the wash). Mostly I followed patterns. After graduation I kept on knitting. About that time I discovered Barbara Walker's treasuries and started making sampler afgahns out of acrylic yarn. In retrospect, most are pretty hideous. But, that's the yarn I could afford.

Went to grad school and knit some. I was too busy in life and my next job to knit much. When I was expecting my first I knit her a sweater and then another after she was born. Lots of friends had lots of babies, so I knit lots of baby sweaters.

After Nicky was born life was chaos. But about that time knitting became very popular and the yarns that were available, oh my the yarns that were available. Started knitting scarves with novelty yarns (eyelash yarn - ugh). Then felted bags, then socks (the ill-fated cashmere ones). I started designing my own bags and socks and sweaters. Now, I rarely follow a pattern and have published a few.

It's interesting how my knitting has evolved from being very product oriented to process oriented. I've gone from being monogamous to having multiple projects in the works at all times. Gone from relying on a pattern and not always understanding what went wrong when it didn't work to designing and viewing patterns as a starting place not a bible.

Anyway, the reasons I knit:

• Maintain sanity
  
• Have something that is not undone five minutes after it's finished
  
• Have something to do at boring meetings
  
• Have wonderful gifts to give (or not)
  
• Play with color and pattern
  
• Drive my husband crazy with projects left lying around all over the place
  

There are many more but the first is the most important.

Start of 31 for 21

Tried to post every day in October last year in honor of Nation Down Syndrome month and didn't succeed. Maybe this year will be different.

October 1 is a special day for us because Nicky came home from the hospital after 13 days in the NICU on October 1st, 2002. So, now it's been six years!