Bulky Butttock Muscles: Part II

I have been hoarding this particular little anecdote for a while now. First, I needed the visual aid and by the time I had that, I had read about the contest on JenLa (click button below for details) and decided that these two things dove-tailed nicely*.

Regular readers may remember us coming across the phrase "bulky buttock muscles" while reading about the body and the giggle fits it caused for the Bug. Well fast-forward to early September and the arrival of the wee Beeb. While we were still in the hospital, I was getting ready to change a wee diaper and Bug came over to see the action. Before I got down through the layers to bare baby, out of the blue, Bug asks, "Does Baby Brother have bulky buttock muscles?" I chuckled while finishing with the denuding of the baby bum and told him to see for himself. Bug studied the minute hiney for a few seconds before announcing, "Nope, not bulky. They're baby buttock muscles."

These are said "baby buttock muscles" about a month later. While the skinny little butt (compared to the rest of the body) is obvious, the scale isn't, but take my word for it, even with a humongous cloth diaper on it, Beeb's sweet little butt fits comfortably in my hand.

And, as an AWW bonus, a reprise of a picture from last spring:

I am still wondering what happened to the "A."

*Edited to add: Due to a bit of controversy accusing JenLa of malicious intent for using a phrase that I have seen on several sites other than the person who started it, they have withdrawn the contest. I am pulling the button and link and the abbreviation of the offending phrase, but will leave the post since the world needs more cute baby butts.

We Love Fall!!

We went back to Lake Farm Park on Saturday and took Kitty Daddy along. And I remembered my camera this time. It was another beautiful fall day, so we had a nice walk and Kitty Daddy tossed horse shoes and I knit while the kids played at a couple of the playgrounds.





I have been knitting, but at the moment, all my stitches are going into biggish projects that don't show much for the effort. I will throw in a progress photo of the Frost Flowers and Leaves shawl, though.

I started the edging and have completed a couple of inches of the twelve miles of edging to finish the shawl...so the end is in sight, but not necessarily all that close! The edging is 12 stitches wide and every 16 rows finishes off 10 shawl stitches. There are 1380 stitches around the edge of the shawl. Yipes!

Eeeewwwwww...spiders!

No, actually, there are nice and cute, cuddly spiders! Yet another Halloween-inspired crafts project. We made the spiders a couple of weeks ago and finished up the webs this morning. We got black pipe cleaners, black pom-poms, and google eyes from the craft store and added paper plates, black paint and black and white yarn from the home supplies.



Other than that we have been alternating between camping at home nursing colds (Beeb, Bean, and I) and trying to get out and enjoy the fall weather. In preparation for winter, we have added a Tuesday library trip to check out some of the other nearby South Central libraries. We like the familiarity of the branch we have been using, but it is a tiny library in a strip mall and the kids are getting a little bored with the limited kids area toys and I'm getting a little tired of having the teensy-weensy kids area cheek-by-jowl with the computers and feeling like we are disturbing everyone!

After the library, it was too beautiful to go back home, so we went looking for a park that we had heard good things about. I couldn't remember the name and only had a vague idea of where it was, but we hid pay dirt! We found Lake Farm park, which has wonderful hiking trails, three playgrounds scattered among the hiking, a lovely setting with trees, prairie, and Lake Waubesa. First, we alternated hiking and playgrounds and on the way back we alternated hiking and sitting on park benches overlooking the lake and reading library books. Since it was a spur of the moment trip, I didn't have my camera, but we definitely be going back, so I will get pictures sometime!

Wonderful weekend

We had a marvelous weekend this week, marred only by the fact that Grandma and Grandpa weren't here to share it with us as planned. In addition to perfect fall weather and gorgeous fall colors, we had a whole bunch of fun activities.

On Saturday, we went to the Enchanted Forest put on by the City of Fitchburg. It was held at a local park and included wagon rides pulled by Clydesdale horses, a bonfire, and a walk through the woods lit by Christmas-type lights and populated by folks dressed up in story book costumes. Of course, I forgot my camera, so no pictures! We went the first year we were here, but missed last year due to an unfortunate combination of iffy weather, cancellations, and company.

On Sunday morning, we got up and headed out for trick-or-treating at the zoo. I remembered to bring my camera, but discovered that the batteries were dead when I went to take the first pictures, so I only have one picture of Beeb from before we went to the zoo (I promise to get costume pictures of everyone on Halloween!):

In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight...

Sunday afternoon and evening were dedicated to Bean's Birthday! The divine miss Bean is now three years old! We celebrated by going to Ella's Deli (which has become a birthday tradition here) and then coming home for cake, ice cream and presents.


If you aren't in the kid-vid loop, it's Map from Dora. Say it with me: "Cake - Presents - Three Years Old!"

FO: Blanket Squares

Two small finished objects! Both were quick knits but SLOOOOW finishers. I am just too lame when it comes to weaving in ends. I have had the knitting done since before Beeb was born and I finally took the whole two minutes (no joke) to weave in the ends today. I swear I am going to take them to the post office tomorrow! Please feel free to slap me around if I don't. Anyhoo, will be shipping them off to Ms. K for the Miner's Blankets she is assembling.

Specifications
Yarn: Paton's Soy Wool Stripes (Natural Berry, left and Natural Blue, right)
Needles: KnitPicks Options, size 8
Pattern: Seat of the pants log cabin block for Berry block, mitered square (based on pattern for blocks in New Knits on the Block)
Verdict: Love SWS! A soft cushy yarn to knit with, a neat lady organizing the project, and a good cause. What's not to love??

As long as I caught a brief ray of sunshine to get the blanket block pics, I tried to capture the gorgeous roving I got last weekend. I have a little assistant helping me to keep the ball from rolling away in the wind. Even with the sun, the picture really doesn't do the colors justice. Plus you can't see the green and blue sparkly synthetic fibers that are mixed in. I guess you're just going to have to take my word for how purdy it is...

Oh Crud.

We have been just having quite the series of mishaps and plans fallen through this month! Kitty Daddy's mom was schedule to be here the first week of October to see the grandkids and to keep Kitty Mommy company while Kitty Daddy went to Minneapolis for a two-day conference. However, because of some health issues, her doctor suggested that she remain close to home until things are better resolved.

Next, my parents were supposed to leave Oregon last Saturday and arrive in Wisconsin today. Unfortunately, Grandma Dell (my dad's mom), who also has some on-going health issues ended up in the emergency room on Friday morning, so my folks had to scratch the trip, too. That puts poor little Beebster at 0-2 with the grandmas (through no fault of his *or* theirs!). Of course, Bug and Bean (as well as my parents and I) are way more disappointed than Mr. Beeb.

Then, if that weren't enough, we had yet another flat tire on the van yesterday. The interesting part is that we were on the way to the library and had the flat within a half of a block of where the last flat occurred. The good news is that this time, it wasn't cold, dark, and raining...the bad news is that this time, I had three little assistants in the car with me. Fortunately, Kitty Daddy was able to make an appointment close to where he works and will be taking it in tomorrow morning, so we are only house bound (other than outings on foot) for two and a half days instead of waiting until Saturday, when we usually take care of these things!

Fortunately, we have also had a lot of good stuff too. Last weekend was lovely. We went to the Fitchburg Fire Department open house for the third year in a row we've gone. No new pictures this year, but we did a lot of the same things as last year. On Sunday, we drove down to Rainbow Fleece Farms near New Glarus. I oohed and aahed over Patty's beautiful roving colorways and ended up coming home with just under four ounces of "Deep End of the Ocean." Deciding which one I wanted to try was NOT an easy choice! If we get a sunny day (and I remember), I will see if I can get a picture that does it justice!

The Many Faces of the Beebster

Last night after bath time, we did a photo shoot of BB. The HR folks at KittyDaddy's work needed a picture for the employee newsletter. This is the picture we sent along of our devastatingly handsome (pronounced "devathtatingly handthome") little dude:

And here are a few others that are particularly cute or silly looking:




And lest you think he might be a perfect angel ALL of the time:

"'Nuff pictures, mama, leave me alone!"

Haircuts, Produce, and October Crafts

or, yet another get-caught-up post in pictures! Fall is such a wonderful time for getting out and doing fun things that it doesn't leave much time for blogging about all our adventures!

Bug has been in increasingly desperate need of a hair cut for the last month or so, but every time we tried to cut it, he announced that he didn't want a haircut, he would get one in four days. I'm not sure what the significance of "four days" was, but he was extremely consistent in his response. He finally gave in last weekend. Probably because he was starting to bump into walls because he couldn't see ;o). Here's the "before" picture:

and the "after" picture:

He wasn't doing that great of a job sitting still, so it's not too even, but at least it is out of his eyes.

We continue to take advantage of fresh veggies from farmers market. Week before last, we got the fixings for gazpacho:

Yummm! It's one of those seasonal things that a little goes a long way, and I tend to get tired of it after one batch, but man does that one batch taste good. I also don't have the patience to peel tomatoes for more than one batch! Though the smooshing of those tomatoes can be very therapeutic!

A couple of days after making the gazpacho, we got a newsletter from our HMO that had an article saying that they would be offering a "healthy living" rebate that includes CSA memberships for 2008. They currently offer this for working out at a health club (if you work out a certain number of times between Jan 1 and Jun 30 or Jul 1 to Dec 31). For 2008, they will still have the work out one, but they are expanding the program to include CSA membership or membership in Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig. I think it is very cool that health care is finally getting the idea of preventive measures! Especially since we went back and forth last spring trying to decide whether we wanted to join a CSA.

We also made a second trip to the apple orchard last weekend for another huge bag of apples and a gallon of apple cider. We made a wonderful caramel apple cake and a batch of apple sauce right away:

Then, this past weekend, we made a crockpot full of apple butter. I got the recipe from another local blogging mama and it turned out wonderfully! We also did another batch of applesauce.

Finally, our other favorite past-time this time of year is getting ready for Bug's mostest, bestest, favoritest holiday: Halloween. In addition to a grand tour of the "spookables aisle" every time we go to Target, we have started getting our house into the mood, too. Our first project was Bug's current favorite animal, bats, on the sliding glass door:

This is the one that Bug cut out himself. He also drew in fangs:

Bean just drew on black paper with a white colored pencil and snipped fringes on her paper, so it didn't make the exhibit, but she had a blast doing it and was just as proud of her finished product (which managed to escape picture taking). Today, we made paper plate masks. We saw this in one of the Halloween books we have out from the library, so had to try for ourselves. Here, Bug models his masterpiece:

and Bean models hers:

and BB tries out Bug's mask:

Talk about a little bobble head!

We have a couple of other Halloween decorating projects in mind before Grandma and Grandpa come to visit and will post pictures when we do them!

Knitting continues, but I seem to be in a black hole phase with everything right now! I had one of the mystery socks done except for the cuff ribbing, but after turning the heel on the second sock, I discovered that adding two rows to the foot made the self-striping yarn behave much better, so I frogged the first one back to just before the heel, added two rows and redid the heel. So now, both socks are just past the heel turning, but I'm pretty sure that I have done more than two socks worth of knitting by now. On my lace shawl, I only have about ten rounds and the border left, but the rounds have gotten stinkin' huge (the last round before the border is the 194th round and it has a paltry 1035 stitches!!! Thank goodness the first round only had eight!). Plus, the last chart (16 rounds) is a lot more repetitive than the rest of the shawl, so it just isn't holding my interested as well. Also, this past weekend was near 90°F...I'm sure I will be more motivated to have a beautiful shawl to wrap up in when the weather returns to something more seasonal!