She Knits Shizknits

Monkey Boy turns 4!

taken with my iphone

Monkey Boy is now four years old. For his birthday, he wanted to go ice skating with the Dearest. Unfortunately the Dearest was busy putting a new floor down in our home office....and painting...and building a new desk...umm....all of which had to be done by New Year's Eve because everyone in our neighborhood was coming to our house for a party.

So MB got a raincheck to go ice skating on Friday, and we took him out for dinner to a restaurant of his choice. He picked California Pizza Kitchen, which has the yummiest mac n cheese. And of course the best part of the meal was the free sundae at the end.  As you can tell, he and Little Man really enjoyed all that ice cream! He was very excited to get home and open his big present, the Batcave. He also got some Batman Underoos. 

Monkey Boy at four years old:
- is obsessed with Batman, Krypto the Superdog, and Star Wars.
- loves to play Legos with his big brother.
- will spend half the afternoon chasing his big brother around upstairs, playing 'superheros'. 
- rides his little bike like a pro- trying to pop wheelies and going off curbs
- knows his own mind...he will argue with you that the sky is purple, and after a few minutes you'll believe him.
- when he has decided something, he will not change.
- chatters incessantly all day long
- can be an absolute charmer when he wants to be
- knows how to spell and write his own name
- loves to sleep in big brother's room
- still carries his 'little blankie' around before bedtime, and sleeps with it tucked under his chin
- makes the silliest faces
- loves to swing "higher higher!" on the big-kid swings
- is now '4-1' inches high
- still weighs 40lbs
- wears a size 10 toddler shoe and size 4t clothes
- will drink OJ all day long if you let him
- knows how to work the DVR remote
- really likes to watch "The Lion King" and "Krypto the Superdog"
- kisses me every morning and right before bedtime at night
- is a sweet, crazy, active little boy who surprises me every day with at least one funny comment,  silly face, or spontaneous "I love you"s.

I can't wait to see how he grows over the next year....

apt pupil

(video is weirdly wonky after I rotated it in Movie Maker...oh well....the audio is what makes it!)

at the park with small men and knitting

taken with my iphone

due to technical difficulties...

At one point on Christmas day, it so windy and rainy that the small men and I ran to the front door to check out the storm. We opened the door and all got soaked by the rain, which was literally coming down sideways. The 7ft deep covered front porch was no protection-it was like we were standing in a shower stall. Anyways, the rain also caused our Christmas lights to short out, which meant the Dearest had to go reset the circuit, the wireless router and the cable modem. Somewhere in there, our homeserver took a dump and quit working. All this to say, the only currently available record of our Christmas morning is this movie (which I uploaded to Flickr before the rainstorm wreaked havoc on our techno-gear)...
Don't worry, all our photos and movies are still safe on the server, as the Dearest is in the process of rebuilding it. More photos and movies will follow as soon as the homeserver is up and running again...

Christmas eve

Counting down the hours till Christmas morning...


watching Santa's progress on NORAD...
spreading out "magic reindeer food"...

eating candy canes...
Christmas Eve dinner with good friends...

opening their one Christmas Eve gift (and no, I did not make the open the matching pajamas!)

Monkey Boy got a Batman airplane, since that's his current obession...and LM got a Wizard Kit...

Now the small men are snug in bed, waiting for Santa to arrive!  Merry Christmas all!

Christmas caroling- a little something to spread the holiday cheer

finally....

seasonal randomness

Today we are socked in with rain and fog- the second (or third) big rainstorm we have had in 10 days. This being perpetually sunny SoCal, *any* water falling from the sky is unusual. Last Monday it rained so hard and so long that most of the streets around here flooded. The drainage systems are just not made to handle that much water at once!  But SoCal has been in a drought (with whispers of water rationing earlier this season) so no one is really complaining.  Well...maybe the commuters who get stuck in traffic due to accidents....

Now onto the seasonal randomness:

-It did stop pouring long enough last week for me to take the small men to Tarjay to buy some gifts for the Dearest.  This is the first year that Little Man was so insistent about 'giving Dadda a gift'. I hope the Dearst likes Legos, because we sure spent a lot of time in that aisle picking out a gift!!!!! LOL  It was very cute to hear the boys discussing which set "Dadda would like best".

-Monkey Boy had a sudden growth spurt in the last few weeks.  He's been 39inches/30lbs for the longest time, which was driving him crazy because every time we went to Disneyland he would measure himself to see if he was FINALLY tall enough to go on Star Tours (gotta be 40in). Then a couple of weeks ago I noticed him sleeping a lot and eating more than usual.  A few days later I was holding his hand and it seemed bigger.  Then the Dearest measured him and MB was soooo proud to tell everyone "I am big! I am 41!"  He has sprouted up like a weed- all his jeans are now too short for him and his feet got bigger, too!  He even looks different to me...not as rounded/toddler as he did before. He still weighs 30lbs so he has gotten longer and skinnier...he looks like a  little kid and not a baby.  Waaaa!!  It *almost* makes me wish we had another baby....then I come to my senses! LOL He'll be four in a week and I'm loving how much fun it is to have to kids in the house instead of toddlers. I can actually take a shower without worrying about someone sticking a marble up their nose. LOL

-Monkey Boy and his friend Konga performed some interpretive dance to Christmas music, which I caught on video...

-Since another storm was forecast for today, we went to Legoland yesterday. Earlier this year, the Lego store at Downtown Disney was running a special where you got a free child's annual pass ($99 value) for every $100 you spent in the store. We had already decided to switch our Dland passes for Legoland passes, so this worked out perfectly. We bought Christmas and birthday presents for the next couple of years, then got our vouchers for the kids' annual passes. Yesterday we went and turned in our vouchers, purchased passes for the Dearest and myself, and spent a few hours running around the park before they closed.  Monkey Boy and Little Man really wanted to go on the Bug Bouncer in the Indiana Jones section of the park, but check out MB's face in the video- he kept saying "get me off! get me off!"

It was also the first time that Little Man was big enough to ride some of the rides by himself. He was very excited to be able to take the boat ride alone!

-today we are planning on making some yummy gifts for friends and neighbors.  It's the perfect rainy to hole up in the kitchen and play with chocolate and sprinkles.

FO report: Monkey Boy's Stripey Sweater

FO Report: Monkey Boy's Stripey Sweater
Yarn: Knitpicks' Crayon (cotton boucle) in Buttermilk, Azure, and two discontinued colors of brown.
Needles: US5
Pattern:  I just made this up. It's knit in the round from the hem up, then split at the arms. The front and back are knit separately to the neck, then seamed.  The sleeves were knit in the round and joined to the shoulders. The collar was picked up and knitted for two inches to create a roll.
The stripey pattern was made up as I went along...I just kept changing colors when I got bored of knitting with one color.

It's hard to see, but one arm is striped in a different brown than the other because I was running out of the main body color. All the yarns I used were scrap balls from my stash so I had to make do with what I had.  Obviously the blue yarn was what I the least of LOL Otherwise I would have used a lot more blue since that's MB's favorite color.

MB wore this sweater to preschool yesterday and wouldn't take it off till bathtime, so I guess it's pretty comfortable.  I like working with the Crayon yarn- it makes a light, fluffy fabric that's not stiff.  It seems a lot of yarns are too heavy/stiff when you use them for kids' sweaters, which makes the sweaters uncomfortable and bulky. The Crayon is also machine washable which is perfect for a kid's sweater.

The two problems I had with Crayon are its tendency to catch on the needles due to the boucle texture, and difficulty in counting stitches- again, because of the texture. But I like the drape of the finished prodect a lot...I can see using Crayon in multiple colors to make a cute baby blanket or afghan.

monkey vs stage fright

Monkey Boy wins! LOL This is MB singing in his Moppets nursery school class at church. I attend MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) once a week and MB goes to Moppets for childcare while I eat a hot breakfast, chat and listen to to great speakers. While all that was going on in my 'mommy class', MB was learning to sing a bunch of songs. This is just a quick clip of one of them...! He did MUCH better on the stage thing this time around- he went right up there and even waved at me. yay!