Peace!

We are out of here, for a week and a half. We are headed to Utah for my grandparents 50th Anniversary. Then we are headed to northern California to spend the forth with my dad. So peace homies!
I am really excited to see my family, but let’s be honest, I am also really excited to eat at all the food places I like in both places. Mostly Mexican food. Them Mormons really know how to make a burrito! Just kidding, I don’t really order burritos at most of these joints, and they might not even be Mormons… But it doesn’t stop me from being excited. I am stoked for the tortilla soup at the classic Utah favorite… Cafe rio. The honey shrimp taco’s at bajio’s. The burgers and fries at taco amigo, mostly because of the rockin’ fry sauce. And in nothern california I love the super burritos from el belazzo (kinda like chipotle only better), and some good sea food down at the fisherman’s warf. I likes me some food… Obviously.
Don’t worry though I’ll be missing you too :)!

Carmen’s word of the day

1. Flip-clop n.

A backless, often foam rubber sandal held to the foot at the big toe by means of a thong.

“Mom I got my fwip-cwops on!”

2. knitting Noodle n.

A long, slender tube or rod, extruded from buoyant foam and usually brightly colored, used as a toy in swimming pools.

“Where is my knitting noodle?”

I can’t make this stuff up folks.

Fathers Day/ US open

Lee’s brothers came down this past weekend to go to the US open.  So I got to spend father’s day with four dads.  I made them a huge breakfast father’s day morning, and then shipped them all off to the golf tournament.  A few minutes later Lee walked back in the house and asked me if Carmen and I wanted to go because they had some extra tickets. I thought this may be my only chance to ever see Tiger Woods in real life so I said yes.  We ended up having a great time… Which we weren’t sure was going to happen since I am not much of a sports fan, but this was actually fun.  It was a ton of walking and jockeying for the best position to see Tiger but it was worth it to see those few really exciting moments.  Like when tiger was on the last hole and he has to make a putt to tie the score and go onto a playoff the next day.  Here is a picture Garth took with his cell phone… that he had to sneak in… in Carmen’s stroller… Without me knowing!  It’s of Tiger getting ready, you cant really see that it’s Tiger and his caddy on the green, but it is, and you can also see the throngs of people around us.

There were 60 thousand people there with us, so we found a spot where all my tall guys could see and I stood on Carmen’s stroller so I could see.

It was pretty exciting because a few moments before he goes to putt the entire crowd goes dead silent.  With 60,000 people holding their breaths at the same moment, it is pretty intense.  Then he makes the putt and the place just goes nuts with mayhem.

It was pretty fun.  We had to go back the next day to watch the playoff.  Two days of pushing Carmen around a golf course was pretty interesting… Especially when they players go to hit and everything is silent. We had to keep telling her “shhh… baby’s sleeping”  Because that’s the only way to get her to whisper.  And if she yells out during a shot, it’s not like at church when your kid starts singing twinkle twinkle mid prayer and surrounding people just smile understandingly… Golf fans get ticked.  She was actually surprisingly good the whole time though.

I am glad I went.  I got to see Tiger walk about 3 feet in front of me, so that was cool.

Coming from someone who is not a fan of anything sports related, going to the tournament was a pretty good father’s day gift for Lee, I think.

I’m going to put this on my blog.

Guess what Carmen finally figured out how to do? Yep- she climbed out of her crib! I was beginning to get over confident that she wouldn’t figure it out until she was like 3 1/2 or something. I only thought that because she is a climber and if she hadn’t figured it out by now…

But alas, no, she figured it out and now my life is over. Ok so it’s not that big of a deal, but it is annoying. So instead of just fighting to keep her in her crib with punishments and such, I have just accepted it and turned her crib into a toddler bed. (Oh, and put a lock on the outside of her door, of course.) Mommy still needs nap time, even if Carmen thinks she doesn’t :).

I guess I should have expected it any day now since she is the size of a three and a half year old… and she is so freaking smart!

The other day Carmen and I were coloring together. I colored her a page in her princess coloring book which must have struck her fancy… because she ripped it out and was carrying it around for a while. A little while later she walked up to me and said “I’m gonna put this on my bwog”.

I’m not sure if she ever did, Her blog is private and she wont send me an invite.

Crazy Cuteness and other stuff too.

Buckle your safety belts, this is going to be a long one!

So my husband did the sweetest thing the other day, he went and read my entire blog! Ok so some of you may be thinking “What the heck?” am I right. Yes I know, to the common person, having my husband read my blog doesn’t seem like a big deal, or maybe the fact that he has never read it before also alarms you, but there is a reason. For the past few years, or ever since we moved to California, Lee has had a job that required him to wake up at 4:30am and not return home until 6:30pm, so his zombie like state when he returned home prevented him from having any desire to sit at the computer and read crap that I’m sure I told him about anyway. And he couldn’t read it at work because their servers had a block preventing them from going to any websites that weren’t work related. All of that made it hard for him to read it, but now that the ball and chain (AKA pain in the A Select Build) is no longer hanging around my husband’s neck hour after hour, he suddenly has a new wave of energy that he hasn’t had in a while. (read: he is starting his own company, so if anyone needs any landscape construction/maintenance go to his website here- GreenBeeService.com)

So I thought it was particularly sweet that he sat down and read the entire thing in one sitting.

Anyway he re-brought to my attention that the first couple of months of my blog have pictures missing from them (I have known for a little while but have been ignoring it and hoping it would just go away). I guess the picture host Tiny Pic that I started using when I first started this blog decided to move or delete half of my Fracking pictures unbeknownst to me, and so now I have to go back and re upload them so that the first half of my blog makes any sense. Well, needless to say, I am beginning to rue the day I ever stumbled on effing Tiny pic in the first place, because it is a lot of work to put all those pictures back on and there is no payoff. No one is going to see these posts because they are years old and people probably already commented on them anyway. So other than my own personal journaling sake, I have no motivation. And I am just getting kind of T.O.’d because I’m sure the other half that hasn’t disappeared yet… will eventually. Grrrrr.

One good thing that did come of all of this is that I got to look back at all the old pictures of Carmen, and I am about to die of adorableness overload. I know I blogged these before but she is just so cute they deserve another go around.

On another topic, It must have been my birthday or christmas yesterday or something, because despite the sick child (who is doing much better, by the way) it was kind of an avalanche of awesomeness. My hubby made me a deal that if I got Carmen put in bed that he would go pick us up some White Lime… So I said “of course!” Which was actually a great deal for me because it was my night to put her to bed anyway. And as he was walking out the door, he told me that there were two packages sitting on the porch for me. Which, I don’t know about you, but having any package waiting for you is just about the best thing ever… Even if you were expecting it. So I opened the big one first which was full of Neutrals Licorice yarn! Yay!

My brother in law Morgan and his wife Bethany found me a ton of that yarn, Which I could not be more stoked about because I was starting to get discouraged, and was trying to prepare myself to say goodbye to that yarn forever. But now it looks like I have enough to last me a while. So thanks guys!

Then I opened the other package, and it was the new knitting book I have been waiting for months to come out!

Knit one, Embellish too. by Cosette Cornelius-Bates

I have actually been reading this girl’s blog for a long time, admiring her artistic approach to knitting. And a while ago she was super sweet in sending me instructions on how to make a square beanie for Carmen… Even though she didn’t know I was going to buy her book anyway! She has some super cute stuff in here and I can’t wait to make some of them.

Then Lee got back with my cheesecake flavor frozen yogurt with marshmallow cream and pomegranate sauce… MMMM!

Then I got an email from the amazing and beautiful Wendy from blue lily and she had finished the photo’s of the red baby cozy I made for my shop… Which were adorable, so check them out:

And to just put a cherry on top of all that sweetness, her awesome photos of my little cozy, helped it sell in less than 24 hours! That has got to be some kind of record! I have one more of these that I am going to post in my shop tonight, so if you have your heart set on it, you might not want to wait… It is the last of this color in my stash, until I can find more (which is getting harder and harder these days…Eve tsk tsk!).

Is it possible to have so much awesomeness in one day? That wasn’t even all of it… but this post is getting extreme and I don’t want to make you any more jealous!

Lemonade

Carmen has not been doing too great for the past few days. A couple of days ago she dislocated what I thought was her wrist, but since it has happened a few times before and was better by the next day, I didn’t rush her to the doctor right away. Then last night she started running a fever, so I took her to the doctor this morning to get my sad little girl checked out. Turns out it was actually her elbow that was dislocated, which happens a lot in young children I guess. By grabbing their hand at the wrong angle it pops the joint out. Hers worked itself back in, but it stretches the ligaments and makes it really sore. Ok, so we got that figured out, but he said the fever was completely unrelated and started checking other stuff. Turns out she has strep throat. My poor Carmie, she is such a trooper.

Add a bad case of food poisoning for me and we are all feeling a little beat up. Let’s just say if you ever get a burger from a new local wing joint, ask them to make your burger well done… I knew I shouldn’t have eaten it after the first bite, but Lee was being sweet to me and bringing me lunch so I ate it anyway.

The fact that we are stuck quarantined at home is probably why I am feeling so bloggy.

Since I couldn’t think of a way to turn lemons into lemonade figuratively I just did it literally. I love lemonade, It is so summery and refreshing. I always get on my lemon kicks and here I am, on one again. Fresh lemons are just so nice; they smell so good, I love the tart flavor, and they are beautiful.

So here is my simple recipe for fresh squeezed lemonade.

Fresh squeezed Lemonade

1 cup hot water

1 cup sugar

4-5 lemons squeezed to make 1 cup lemon juice (I like the big bag of lemons at costco… they are huge.)

4-5 cups cold water

Ice to taste

Just dissolve the one cup of sugar in the one cup of hot water to make a simple syrup. Then add lemon juice, cold water, and Ice and stir. I like to add a couple of lemon slices for flare. That’s it… So refreshing.

Twin Beanies

I was commissioned by a photographer (through my etsy shop) to make some tiny cashmere beanies to fit some twins that are about to be born. Since these are officially the tiniest little beanies I have made yet, I thought it warranted a post… I know, I know two posts in two days… I am on fire!

Big Bad Babys

Since EVERYONE is pregnant right now, I had to knit up a bunch of baby blankets. These three are for my sisters-in-law. I actually knit these a while ago, but I had to wait to post until the girls all had their blankets (I’m not sure that Bethany has hers yet, but she will soon, and she knows about it already so… I cant wait any longer)

This natural sienna one is for Melinda, Lee’s sister. It is stripes of pinks, grays, and tans.

This baroque one is for Jenny, Lee’s brother Bryant’s wife.

And this light green one is for Bethany, Lee’s youngest brother Morgan’s wife.

I added some hot pink flowers to make it a little more girly.

(sorry for the bad pics, knitting is my calling, definitely not photography)

With 7 siblings, Lee’s family keeps me pretty busy in the knitting department.

Etsy Update

I just finished posting a bunch of stuff in my shop, mostly barrettes and binky clips, If you would like too see them all go to my shop here.

Thanks for the help

I am in a serious dilemma because the licorice yarn that I make baby cozies and beanies out of is being discontinued! I fell in love with it a while ago and have not been able to find more! It seriously bums me out because it is the most popular yarn in my shop!

The girl on Jo-ann customer service line told me that the only yarn left are the ones already in stores… so this is where you all come in.

If any of you ever go to Jo-ann craft store (this yarn is a Jo-ann exclusive) Would you please look in the yarn section to see if this yarn is there for me, and if they have it buy them all! I will pay you back and anyone who does this for me will get a free hand knit/crocheted barrette of your choice (or if you don’t want a barrette I would be willing to work out another deal with you).

The yarn is called: Sensations Licorice yarn and the colorway is neutrals. # 8142176 (it’s this one pictured above with the browns, blues, and oranges).

If you do this for me I’ll be your best friend! (or really just a really good acquaintance )

If you find some, just leave me a comment and I will email you my address, and send you a check!

Thanks Dudes!

Oh and just to clarify it is only this color that I cant find, for some reason they are making some of the other colors still, but of course my favorite is the one that’s no longer available.

*Update* Thanks for all of your help finding me the licorice yarn… I know a lot of you looked for me and I really appreciate it!  Lee’s totally awesome family really came through for me, his youngest 3 siblings went the extra mile and found me a ton of that beautiful yarn, so there will be plenty of baby cozies and beanies in my shop in the future.  I think I have enough to last me quite a while… So you can end the hunt, I will let you know in the future if I need another search!  Thanks again everybody… I guess it’s really true, you never know what you can get until you ask!