Mommy and Gramma spent this weekend in Chicago, at a very nice Quilt Show.
So while we were away, Daddy and Miss R had the house to themselves. What did they do you ask? Well, a little of this, some of that, and a whole bunch of this.
Sorry there aren’t any pictures, but they were so gosh darn busy playing that they forgot to stop long enough to take any. What a wonderful weekend.
PS. More on the quilt show as soon as I recover enough to get the pictures up and running.Â
This is the practice pair I made of cotton yarn (not my favorite choice now that I’ve tried it) of the Hurry Up Spring Armwarmers from the SNB book by Debbie Stoller.
This was also the first time I did a cable. You’ll notice the right glove looks a little funny. I don’t have a picture of the left glove for a very obvious reason. All my cables went backwards. So instead of nice little leaves, I have this crazy looking spots of raised cable while the edges are all furry. Oh well, I finally got the hang of it and am now working on those fabulous Fetching gloves I like so very much. I’ll try this one again soon.
So, when we moved in to our new abode, the first thing I thought was, “oh! those birds have got to go!” For those of you who haven’t been to my house, the kitchen is a very lovely little cottage/farmhouse/contemporary disaster of design styles. The black appliances scream “contemporary modern!!” while the blue plaid knobs are crying out, “farmhouse chic!” And of course, there’s the fact that it’s cottage sized. But the one thing that I just couldn’t stand was the birds. Someone along the line decided to use a wallpaper border around the kitchen and dining room that contained birdhouses and birds.
The birds had started talking to me, and what they said was, “please, ma’am, take us out of our misery and pull us off the wall.” So I did. Almost 6 months ago. Did I do anything else for 3 months? Nope, we just stared at the empty space where those birds used to be.
Not the best picture in the world, but you get the idea.
Then, I got motivated to take down some more wallpaper. Unfortunately, instead of wallpapering with real honest to goodness wallpaper, they (someone who owned this house before us) decided to use shelf liner OVER wallpaper. Yup. So I steamed and steamed and steamed and finally got down to the nasty wallboard that is up on the walls. Some of it was primer gray, while patches were yellow. The trim had all been painted mauve at one point in this poor house’s existance.
So, a few weeks ago, my wonderful mother-in-law said, come on, we’re finishing this thing by Thanksgiving. We cleaned all the walls and got the remaining ook off the walls. We patched and primed.
Then we painted. What used to be an old faded blue mottled wallpaper is now…
Pumpkin Toast!
In a fit of Autumn, I decided to paint my dining room the color of a squash. Albeit, a toasted squash. Now, Daddy Rimes is telling me that I cannot repaint this Christmas to a Poinsettia Red or Pine Tree green. I have assured him, this will not happen.
However, I cannot promise that come Easter I will not have visions of Pastel Pink walls.
 Until I became a parent, I never thought I’d be so excited about potty time. Every time that I go potty, there’s Miss R telling me that I get a potty sticker and a “special” m & m. And of course, as soon as I get my m & m, she wants one too. Which then means a trip to the potty with our pants hanging down and our diaper torn off and strewn about the bathroom (whether or not it has something in it-more on this in a minute) and the happiest face when she actually does make potty IN the toilet.
*And to any non-parents, I’m terribly sorry about what I have to say next.
But this morning takes the cake. She ran into the bathroom while Mommy and Daddy were in there (it’s a VERY tight squeeze with all 3 of us) and declares, “I going POTTY!” and rips off her diaper before I have a chance to catch her and “plop” out falls the contents of her diaper to the floor.  Daddy and I just stared a moment. He said something like, “eww, is that really…?” And I said something like, “yup,” while I grabbed a baby wipe and starting cleaning up the mess.
Before I was a Mommy, I don’t think I could have done that. After 16 years of cleaning up horse manure, goat droppings, kitty litter, doggie doodoo, and rabbit pellets, I really would have said, “eewww, gross.” But now, it’s just another day.
Hooray poop. Have an m & m.
As you may recall hearing in another post, we have a new game in the house. Daddy Rimes really likes his Wii (get your mind out of the gutter, this is a family page). Last weekend, he went out and bought a new game, this game to be exact.
It comes with a very fancy controller that looks like a guitar. And you play it, just like you would a plastic, stringless guitar too.
Daddy really likes this game. He likes it so much, he’s taught Miss R how to play.
She likes to stay up late and play in her jammies.
Even Mommy likes to play. In fact, Mommy is quite good at it considering she has no rhythm, can’t sing, and has two left feet. But apparently, having artist fingers with a lot of dexterity seems to be working.
Since Mommy is the official photographer though, there are no pictures of her playing.
But there is another cute baby shot!
She really rocks out!
I’ve never been to California and I’ve never seen a Redwood tree, but it is on my list of things to do before I get too old to really enjoy them.
I read yesterday on CNN about this wonderful new technology which may make it possible to clone Redwood trees. In the future when Miss R is all grown up and we have cut down all the trees to make parking lots, there is the hope that they will still be able to grow a new forest in Al Gore’s backyard.
One of my favorite stories is the Lorax by Dr. Suess and this story sort of reminded me of it. When I worked at the Kalamazoo Nature Center one summer, we put on a play version of the Lorax. I got to be “backstage” and work with the “Oncelers.” They were so cute with their arms all painted green.
These little Fetching gloves are so lovely to make. I can knit up a pair in a few evening hours of TV viewing, or Wii watching. I’ve decided to make a few pairs as last minute Christmas gifts. You know there’s always that extra person that you didn’t get anything for and they show up at your house with a little something. I usually try to stash something for that event, and this year, it’s these little guys.
They are a little washed out and should be a bit darker, but they are so nice with the little cables.
In honor of the leaves finally turning colors and falling from the trees, Miss R and I made some cookies.
They are sugar cookies and Miss R decided on cats and leaves for our shapes.Of course, before you can eat them, you have to roll them out.
And everyone knows, that if you are rolling out cookies, there is A LOT of flour involved. A LOT.
After the rolling, you have to pat all the dough to make sure it is good and ready for the cookie cutters.
Did I mention the flour? Yeah. Oh, and please excuse the blue painters tape all over the cabinet. It was the only way to keep 2 year old fingers from the freshly painted dining room. (It’s Pumpkin Toast, in case you’re wondering).
When you are all done, you eat the cookies. And well, if you eat all the cookies, there’s nothing left to take a picture of.
(Have I mentioned this is Miss R’s favorite sweater? Yeah, so you may see a lot of it.)
At 7 am this morning, I was just waking up. Daddy and Miss R let me sleep in this morning. As I was laying in bed trying to adjust to the fact that I was in fact awake and not able to go back to sleep, my darling daughter smashes her way into the room. She comes running around to the bed and climbs on up. Imagine my surprise when this is what I find crawling into bed with me.
*disclaimer: I do not sleep with my camera, so this photo was actually taken after I had managed to get out of bed.
What are those things on her legs, you ask? Well, those are a part of this…
A giant foam puzzle of the alphabet and numbers. You’ll notice the E laying out. That’s Miss R’s favorite letter.
*another disclaimer: no foamie ABCs were harmed in this morning’s escapade.
Isn’t she just so funny? She thinks so. “I funny!” HAHAHAHA
Yup, that’s what she said.
So Halloween has come and gone. One of my most beloved holidays. What other time of year is it acceptable to wear what would normally be considered incredibly strange?
Miss R did do the costume thing at day care, however, when it came to Trick or Treating, she just wasn’t that into it. So we sat on the porch and handed out candy to all the cute costumes. She was not about to give candy to anybody scary, so Mommy took care of that.
We had quite the assortment of trick or treaters, and it was a lovely night. Daddy carved some pumpkins (they’re famous pumpkins, check out Kotaku-look for Pac-Man) that the high school kids stopped and admired.
And last but not least, here is our darling candy queen doing her best to practice for
next year
.