Missing something.......

Last Sunday Little Buddy pulled out one of his super wiggly front teeth.

Then he showed me what he had done and we had to find that tiny tooth in his bed.  When he opened his mouth the other front tooth was dangling and I had to pull it out.

So two front teeth came out within an hour and Little Buddy has a whole new look.  Believe me when I say his already prominent lisp is out of control!  Oh the drama of it all! He looks pretty cute I think.  Enjoy it while you can my friends, one adult tooth is already coming in.

Happy Friday.

Seeing Double.......

Last weekend I finished the Rowan Berry Shawlette that was giving me so many problems.  I finally found an error in row 12, well maybe not an error but something I wanted to fix to make it work out better and be more symmetrical.  I know that is sort of funny with an asymmetrical shawlette.  This was made with two skeins of Berroco Pima 100, 100% pima cotton yarn, and a size I hook.  The color is Day Lily, or 8414.  It did not take long to make if I don't count the several days of frustration before I got the hang of it.  About 420 yards went into this shawlette from my stash.  I liked it so much you know I had to give it another go and make number two.

The pattern is quite simple.  After you get to row 13 there is a four row repeat that is easy to remember, so easy I often found myself surprised when I was already done with it and had to start the pattern again.  I wrote it all down so I would not forget the several changes I made.  I'll have the major change on Ravelry soon, just in case your interested in making this.  You can find me there at Mereknits of course!

Rowan Berry Shawlette II was completed this morning as I sat down in my quiet house and watched a bit of TV.  This is something I never do, I mean never, ever do.  But this week has me waking up and 4:45 in the morning and then having to carry out my entire very busy and long work day with little sleep.  I don't think  it is because of the time change because I did not wake at 5:45 before this.  I am plum tuckered out my friends.  Besides the no sleep this has been a brutal week at work with many difficult situations that had to be addressed, I'm not sure I handled them all well but I did try.

This shawlette was made with Debbie Bliss Falkland Aran in the color Mustard 07.  I uses a size J hook to make it and could actually have gone up a size to allow for more drape.  Two skeins of this yarn were used so I am guessing about 400 yards.  This will be for the medical foster mother who had Little Buddy when he came into care.  I still work at her home about 9 hours a week, she deserves a nice present for having me there so much!  This yarn was expensive and I treated myself to it sometime last year.  I knew the perfect project would present itself and I think this is it.  Jeannette is a love, she still loves Little Buddy so much, her whole family does.  We had a visit with her last week.  She loves to hear all the stories about him, especially when he is a bit naughty, that always makes her laugh.  And a bit naughty he has been this week at school.  He is waking up early too, so even with early bedtimes to try to catch him up on some sleep he is still tired.  And when Little One is tired he is not very cooperative.  Keep your fingers crossed he has a better day today.

Here they are together, I really like them so much.  Hope you have all had a good week.  I am off to a wedding tomorrow for most of the day and evening.  All the men in my house are thrilled I will be out of the area.  They can scream and carry on all they want during the Ohio State football game!

Have a good weekend.

Halloween fun.................

Halloween 2018 has come and gone.  The fur boys had a good time dressing up like cats, all of the 10 seconds they had their headbands on to take these photos.  Once they realized that their brother had something on their head well it was a free-for-all trying to get them off.  All this fun in my front yard!

Little Buddy had quite the day.  We woke really early to get down to the children's hospital in St. Petersburg for a routine MRI and Neurosurgery appointment.  He walked everywhere as these two appointments were in two different buildings.  All is good with that little brain of his thank goodness.  His neurosurgeon is always so amazed at how well he is doing.  She saved his life twice when he was about 5 weeks old. After all this fun we went to Little Buddy's medical foster family where I worked on two children while he entertained everyone.  He loves them so much and believe me it is mutual.  

On to home where he had his speech therapy and then a tiny rest time before the festivities of the evening.  He was Gecko from the show PJ Masks on Disney Jr.  This year I decided to buy a costume instead of my completely overboard themes of the past.  Really, that train costume last year took me two weeks to make and all he did was wear it for 12 houses.  He wanted to be Gecko so I ordered the costume online.  The joke was on me as when I opened it yesterday afternoon, I know last minute Meredith, it was way, way too big.  I ended up cutting off the legs, which led to his crotch being way too low.  Which meant I had to bring the whole bottom up at the waist, but I made it too tight.  Out came the seam ripper again and I lowered it a 1/2 inch to the perfect size.  But then the legs were too short, so I sewed them back on, but cut off the feet.  Yikes, did you follow that?  An hour of sewing and it fit, so much for not wanting to sew a costume!  He was thrilled and loved being Gecko even though he only made it 6 houses before I had to carry him home.  He was so tired, it was so hot out and he was just burning up in all that polyester.  Still it was a wonderful night with The Aunts here from Wisconsin to tag along.

Let me just say that today he had a horrible day at school and at PT after school.  He is just exhausted.  So it was homework, bath and a very early bedtime.  Tomorrow I hope he is better.  I can't imagine many of the kids had a good day today.  I had just two kids yesterday not my normal 10 due to Little Buddy's appointments.  Then today I had two cancel, and I had to cancel my last four because it was my day to get 35 shots in my head and neck.  I think Little Buddy and I both need to be in bed early tonight.

Yesterday was also my oldest son's birthday.  He is now Mr. 25 and I just adore him.  He is a hard worker, a great big brother, and a bit of a help at home when I ask him.  He can make me laugh like no one else, well and scream a bit too if I am honest.  He is growing into the man I think he should be even if he has a few edges to soften.  He is off to Columbus, OH tomorrow to see his friends and celebrate his birthday.  Oh, to be young again!

Here is wishing you all a great weekend if I don't check in and write another post.  I hope to see what you have all been up to this weekend, catching up is on my to do list.  Hope your Halloween was fun if you celebrated.  Happy November everyone!

Happy Halloween........

Happy Halloween!

Another year at the Fall Festival.................

After all the horrific news this week in the United States, shootings at grocery stores, bombs sent to people that have a differing point of view, and of course the massacre at a synagogue where people were attending a Saturday morning service, well I thought we all might need a little Little Buddy love.  He makes me smile, and smiles I have needed after seeing all the hate, the lives shattered, and our president holding rallies among these horrible times. 

Here we go another year at the Fall Festival with Little Buddy.  This year it was only us two, Dad has a foot problem that makes a lot of walking painful.  No matter, Little One and I managed just fine.

Little Buddy rode a very tall horse and went on the train  and the cow train three times each.  He informed me he isn't even scared of them anymore, I guess being seven makes you very brave. 

We saw sheep, pigs, two alpaca's, a giant cow, a zorse, huge tortoises, a llama, ferrets, red foxes, little pigs and so much more. 

Little Buddy got to pet the ferrets and feed the sheep.  He was so excited and might I remind you very brave.

As this was the first cool day of Autumn, meaning a high in the 70's he got to wear his new jeans.  I am a bit of a nut but I just can't get over that cute hiney.

Here he is from four years ago, our first visit to the festival.  My goodness he was so tiny, now he is a big, grown up, brave boy.

Enjoy your week my friends.  Hug those you love, after this week it seems tragedy happens more and more frequently.  Stay safe.

Birthday boys................

My beautiful boys are one today.  Happy Birthday Hank and Bear.  You light up our lives with your love and crazy antics.  You are so excited about each and every moment of the day, a lesson I can learn for sure.  Hank helped to heal our hearts a bit after Max's death, and then Bear joined us two weeks later and helped us even more.  They are so fun and full of life, and love each other with a fierceness I could never image before seeing it myself.   I can't imagine a day without them.  Thank you boys for joining our family and making us all happier.  

By the way if you have not seen A Star Is Born, run to the theater right now, I mean run.  You will be  moved by this movie, deeply moved.  I am listening to the soundtrack as I write this, I can't get enough of it and that is not something I usually do.  I am not a big music downloader.  So go this weekend, you'll be happy you did.

Okay, that is it for me today.  There has been no crochet or knitting this week, only work and frankly that is not that fun to write or read about.  

Have a great weekend, we are finally supposed to be in the mid to low 80's, hooray!

A forced day at home with Little B, Hank and some new yarn..........

Today I am car less.  It seems a few weeks ago someone backed up into the front of my car and left a huge dent.  A huge dent and no note with information on it I might add.  Sigh, some people are just not very nice.  I did not notice it right away as it is in the front passenger side of my car.  It must have happened over the weekend at some point.  Again, heavy sigh.  Today was the day to get it fixed, but also the day Little Buddy's helper at school needed to leave early.  With no car it was just to hard to figure out how to get him early so we decided to have him stay home.  His regular teacher was also going to be absent.  They sent home his work and I did not have to worry about him, a win win.  What was super exciting is big brother had to drive him to pick me up when I dropped off my car.  A ride in big brother's car is the best.  We are now done with homework and classwork for the whole weekend.  Hooray!

The Hank/leg injury saga continues.  He would not leave it alone and had to be put on tranquilizers Monday and of course use a protective cone to thwart his leg licking abilities.  Let me just say that tranquilizers don't do much with his puppy stamina and well apparently cones can be eaten.  Lets also say a certain husband of mine might not have listened to me when I asked him to put the larger cone on Hank when he went into his crate on Wednesday when my husband went to work.  And lets just say a certain oldest son of mine came home early from work to do paperwork and found Hank with his cone off, and Bear and Hank both chomping on the plastic.  And it might just be that this son did not completely understand how to put the large cone on while attaching it to Hank's collar from the directions he received from me over the phone.  And to make the story even better lets just say the babysitter did not watch what Hank was doing in his crate, where she placed him for a bit and he got that large cone/collar off and Bear and he both had another crunch fest.   You can almost imagine how thrilled I was to find out about the second cone and collar after I got home from yet my third 13 hour day in a row.  It would have been nice to know about the second cone/collar before I made it home because I had to pack up Little B and take him to the pet store at 8:00 at night to get more protective cones and a new collar.  I.  Was.  Not.  Happy!

I found this new type of collar at the pet store.  It blows up and attaches with Velcro in two places around the neck.  It also has a strap that goes under his front legs, across his chest and hooks back into the collar.  It is supposed to restrict his ability to turn his body to reach his legs.  Now this ultra flexible, apparently yoga practicing dog of mine can still reach it if I don't have that strap super, super tight.  Still he is finally starting to heal, finally.  This has been a 12 day ordeal for me.  All because I cut him with the scissors trying to get a big mat off his leg.  You can only imagine the mats that are occurring from all these collars and straps.  I'll deal with those later.  He is sure happy to be off all those tranquilizers, look at that smile even if he looks like he has a whiplash injury!

I think because of all the dog stress, political stress, my work load stress, and of course just life stress I caved in and bought yarn.  I have just been so good this year and really have only bought vacation yarn which we all know does not count when on a yarn diet or yarn restrictions.  It was that darn time at the vet's office when we were waiting to be seen and I had all that time on Pinterest.  Seeing that beautiful Lakeside Pullover made me want to make it right away with the yarn suggested.  Of course I don't have the yarn for it in my stash, and after reading up about Lion Brand Yarn ZZ Twist, yarn that was made with crocheters in mind, I had to buy some.  I looked it up and wouldn't you know they had the right amount of skeins, in my favorite color, right at the Joann's near me.  So I went and bought it.  And while there they had this beautiful Buttercream Luxe Craft Yarn, which I think is now a Joann's yarn brand, on sale so I also bought it.  Well you see I did have to spend so much to use my $10 off coupon.  I am not usually a Joann's yarn shopper but am interested in how these yarns will work up.  Have any of you used them?

Okay, I am out of here.  I have Little Buddy enjoying a movie after all the work he has done and I still have work to do around the house to catch up from my work week.  Happy Weekend!