Happy Father’s Day 2012! (and a little Mochimochi)

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Happy Father’s Day!  We are having a nice but productive morning.  I had to go to the grocery store, pay bills and water. Davey loves to help me water.  We’ve been watering for the neighbors while they are out of town, and he thinks this is just great fun.  It was in the 70s yesterday.  Beautiful.  Today?  96.  That just seems like a crazy jump to me.

David is cleaning for Father’s Day.  He just finished all the floors.  A very clean house is probably his favorite possible Father’s Day present.  Davey helped and Koko got underfoot following everywhere.  I dusted.  This Colorado is dusty.

I got no satisfactory pictures of David for Father’s Day gift opening.  I was given the ok to put this one up.  I told David it was blurry.  His response?  “Exactly.”

Davey loves delivering the presents.  There’s not much he likes better than a good celebration.  I am in a little bit of trouble for not buying balloons.  He felt better though once he remembered that we are going to make cupcakes this afternoon.

Notice the artwork by the stairs.  We have several beautiful paintings around the house compliments of Davey and a lot of tape.

I knitted some little things for my dad for his Father’s Day.  He built this awesome dollhouse a few years ago, and we thought it would be fun to have some knitted objects in it.  So I looked at my great Teeny-Tiny Mochimochi book, and I picked out a few things to knit.

My favorite thing that I made was this mailbox (it’s about 2.5 inches tall I think):

Here’s an idea of the scale of these little things.  You might not immediately determine that the following is a record player.

Anna Hrachovec writes really nice patterns.  They are a little tricky because many are in the round and are done with size zero or size one needles.  But I’ve gotten better at it with practice.

I also made a gnome (every house needs a little gnome!) and a telephone.

Pretty fun!

Happy Father’s Day!  We are off to California Pizza Kitchen for lunch.  David loves their spaghetti which may be the garlickiest dish on the planet, but it’s his favorite.

Davey’s first day of Tee Ball and Mommy Fail

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Yesterday was Davey’s first day of Teeball.  I checked the schedule to see when the game started.  10:00am.  We got there at about 9:45am.  Turns out, I’d read the wrong week on the schedule and the game had started at 9:00.  I felt horrible.  Terrible.  I beat myself up thoroughly.  Davey was pretty ok with it  The coach was awesome and let Davey immediately come in and bat.  He was supposed to pick up his jersey when we got there, so we didn’t even have time to get him changed.

So we said hi to the coach, he said, “hey let’s give him a turn to bat!”.  Next thing we knew, Davey was out there with his bat in hand and batting helmet on his head.  Once he figured out where to stand, he reared back and connected for a great solid hit right up the middle.  David was so proud.

So once he hit, then he had to run to first.  (after the coach got Davey to relinquish the bat and then pointing him in the right direction.)

There were parents and coaches galore out on the field to help guide the 4 year olds.  It was very cute.

David was out there to help point Davey to third base.

After he got to third, someone got another hit.  Davey saw it going toward the pitcher, and for a moment he was ready to run to the pitcher mound himself, but then a nice coach guided him home.

He did so well.  He just jumped right in with no hesitation.

After the game was over, we put on his jersey and hat so he could have it on for a few moments with his new team.

Next week the practice/game starts at 9.  I’ve doublechecked already, and the coach has confirmed it.  At least Davey got out there and experienced hitting the ball for the first time.  That may have been the way to go, but I still wish I’d gotten him there on time.

Patchwork socks are complete! And another Karate Show and Love Party!

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I finished my patchwork socks.  I’d joined a knit a long on ravelry, where the mission was to knit up a pair of socks using leftover sock yarn.  I have some of this, so I picked out yarns that I hoped would work well together.  I am happy with the result.  I love them lots actually.  They fit so nicely too.  The KAL was done by Susan B Anderson, and I used her pattern “How I Make My Socks“.

When I used to knit more socks, I’d get a picture of Davey’s feet in there with mine.  It’s been awhile, and his feet sure are growing!

Davey transferred to a Little Gym closer to our house and has been going there for the last 3 weeks.  He was actually going to karate at two gyms for a few weeks.  I was hoping this would ease the transition.  I think it has worked out well. So this resulted in him getting to participate in another big end of the year show.

Another medal.  Always fun!

He was in the mood to crawl.  First he had fun crawling across the low beam.

And then across the high beam with a little help from his instructor.

This evening he wanted to have a “pretend” love party for David.  So that meant that all the decorations, cake, candles and presents were all made of his cardboard blocks.  David received “5 Gold Watches”.  Davey insisted on a tripod for the camera as well.  Also created from more cardboard blocks. I like the result (except I’m looking rather scruffy and somewhat pale next to David!).  I love how Davey has his arms around us.

Sweet Things

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Davey has been wanting to have what he refers to as a “love party” for me for awhile now.  He kept telling David:  “We need flowers, a present, cake, a card and decorations.”  So the other day when I got home from work, Davey (and David) had it all ready.

I didn’t get the greatest picture except for that of his grin.  He had picked out a candle for me.  David said he smelled all 32 varieties.  (He likes to smell candles) He picked me out the one he thought I would like the best.

The cardboard boxes are the “party lights”.  Then they bought a small square of cake for us to share.  It was perfect.

They picked out some salvia and snapdragons too, and Davey and I planted them together the next day.

The love party was a great success.  Now Davey wants to have one for David, and then he would like a “surprise” love party for himself.  “You have to surprise me though Mommy!”

He’s started a prek camp this week.  It’s not easy figuring out what all they do.  I have to carefully phrase my questions, and then I still don’t get as much information as I’d like.  Apparently a little boy called him “silly goose”.  Davey didn’t like that.  We told him that that is usually kind of an affectionate name.

Davey said, “well not in MY family!”

And finally, Davey enjoyed painting the other morning.  He painted 6 pictures in rapid succession.  After painting 4 he announced that he was going to be an artist. Approximately 3 minutes later, he was done painting.  I loved his results though.

 

Sunday afternoon – June 3rd

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It’s a nice weekend.  Yesterday we walked in the Denver Brain Tumor walk with a friend of ours (and her family) from school.  It was Davey’s first organized event.  It was just about a 2.5 mile walk.  The sun was beaming down though and Davey hadn’t walked that long before, so David ran and then rescued us at about 1.5 miles. He really enjoyed the walk though.  We walked around Sloane’s Lake which was nice.

After David rescued us, he took us back to the festivities.  They had a kids’ area set up and so Davey was able to blow bubbles and play some other games.  He even got a medal which is always a fun time.

This afternoon we are hanging out.  I’m grading and knitting. (I’m looking forward to posting about some of the fun baby patterns I’ve encountered as soon as I gift the resulting knits!).  David is reading and Davey is playing around with a new app on the Ipad (Davey refers to the Ipad as the “app computer”.  Pretty “apt”!).

If it doesn’t storm this afternoon, we’re thinking of heading down to the Chalk Festival downtown.  We really enjoyed it last year.  There was some amazing work.

 

 

A Little Trip to the mountains

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Today we decided to make a drive up to the Silverthorne/Dillon/Frisco area.  We’d not driven up into the mountains in awhile.  It was a beautiful sunny day but chilly and windy up there!

We walked around the outlet malls at Silverthorne for a little while.  Not Davey’s favorite activity.  I can’t blame him.

Then we went hunting for a playground for him.  We began by going to the Frisco museum which consists of several historic old buildings.  We visited the jail, an old summer house, and an old general store.  We also saw this really neat sculpture.

It’s called “Repentance”.  A man was standing nearby also looking at the sculpture.  He was very disgusted because he said someone had broken off and stolen the arrow from the bear’s backside. Apparently, the story goes that the young boy had shot the bear in the backside with an arrow.  Here they stand face to face and the boy apologizes.  I love the expression on the little boy’s face.

We then drove around a little more and found a really nice playground by the Frisco Marina.  Davey had a great time.

I started talking to a nice lady there, and she told us about a lookout point between Frisco and Dillon via the mountain road (instead of the interstate).  It included an approximately 1/2 mile trail with some incredible views and the possibility of a tipi.  We thought this sounded really fun.

It was a perfect short hike for Davey!

It was really beautiful up there.

And we found a kind of tipi constructed from the dead trees.  I think the pine beetle has wreaked havoc in parts of the forests up there.

Now we are back home and it’s time to get Davey tucked in!

Patchwork Sock

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I was reading some knitting blogs the other day, and I came upon a description of a Ravelry knit along that looked fun.  It’s a “sockalong”.  I’ve not knitted socks in a year or so, and I’ve missed it!  The idea of the knit along is to just use leftover sock yarn.  I have some of this.  I wasn’t sure how it was going to look, but I tried to pick out some colors that I thought would be ok together.  I finished the first sock today.  I think it is one of my all time favorite socks.  It also fits great.  I used this basic sock pattern from Susan B Anderson.

I think my favorite sock to knit is just a plain basic stockinette stitch – especially in fun yarn – or especially like with this sock where I changed colors every ten rows.

I didn’t want to try to get Davey to take a picture, and David wasn’t here so I put my sock on a sock blocker and used the marimba keys to help pose it.  Very handy!

One thing I learned from knitting these socks was a nice way to finish off those ends.  I had lots of ends to weave.

I may be one of the last knitters to have learned this handy method, but I watched a video by Susan B Anderson, and then I tried it out. It is easy, fast, and efficient.

At each color change, you just take the two yarn ends and tie them in a simple knot.

Then you take the end and run it up and down several stitches in a row through the purl bumps.

Then you trim the ends.  So easy.  Finishes it up so nicely.  Looks great!

Davey had his “big shows” today at The Little Gym.  He had one for his karate class and one for his Giggleworms class.  He had a great time.  David and I were poised with our camera and videocamera.   I had to switch to my phone when the videocamera battery died (I’d not properly charged it).  So we got lots of footage and some pictures.  Here’s Davey with Mr. Nick getting his karate medal.  He loved that.

 

Friday = puny kid and catching up

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Davey and I are hanging out today.  He is kinda puny.  Yesterday he had a fever all day but today so far so good.  I can’t convince him yet though to get out of his pajamas.  I even offered to just switch out pajamas.  He’s had these on for two days so I think it’s time.  That’s the next goal after I finish this.

I’m taking pictures off my camera this morning, putting some up on flickr, and on facebook.  I am also finishing up a sock!  I started it over a year ago.  All that remained was decreasing the toe and kitchener.  I’m down to kitchener now. I really like this self striping yarn in all my favorite shades of green.  It’s from Knitpicks.

I do have to make the second sock still.  Hopefully it won’t be another year before I finish the pair!

Update:  Davey is dressed!

Sunday and Davey’s Knitting

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We are having a nice day at home.  Davey is playing with his village.  Last I heard, “frost giants were attacking it”.  He’s very busy.

He picked me out a keychain for Mother’s Day.

I love it!

Yesterday, he told me that he wanted to learn to knit.  I told him that he might not be quite ready to take knitting on, but that I’d certainly try to teach him.  He did get his little fingers wrapped nicely around the needles.

By the looks of his thumbnail, it looks like he went straight from playing in the dirt to knitting.  This is certainly possible.

He sat in my lap and I held his hands, but I thought he did great for the first time. He learned how to insert the needle into the stitch and could pretty much do that on his own.  I had to wrap the yarn around for him, but then he was pretty good at sliding the new stitch off.  He wants to keep practicing.  He’s off to a good start.

 

 

Spring Soccer comes to an End and a little Knitting

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This morning was Davey’s last soccer practice/game.  It was really cold out though.  Still is!  40 degrees, but there was no wind so it wan’t too miserable.  I think he liked the cool air.  He is so hot-natured that maybe it invigorated him.  He scored a couple of goals!

He was really proud of his trophy.

We also got his team pictures back.  His individual ones are quite cute.  His team photo is cute too but in a different way.  I didn’t want to totally violate copyright, so I just took a shot of part of his team photo. I’m not sure what is going on here.  He wasn’t upset, but it was pretty bright and warm that day I think.

Davey had a great team and great coaches.  We will miss them.  I think that in the fall he moves from co-ed to all boys.

Now we are looking forward to tee-ball.  He will try this out for the first time next month.

And I’ve been knitting some too.  I finished a really fun beret the other day.  I made it with Manos del Uruguay.  Such nice yarn to knit with.  It’s a fair trade company and non-profit too.  It was created to help women in Uruguay.  It’s some of my favorite yarn to knit with.

This pattern was a lot of fun too.  It’s called Early Morning Beret.  It’s a free pattern, and I highly recommend it!