And now, the moment you've all been waiting for!

PICTURES! Yay for Mum! She brought over her card reader and I was able to download the 199 pictures that have been languishing on my camera for the past few weeks. Whee!

I think Sophie looks like a '50s housewife here. She was quite proud of her "hat"!

My handsome brother with my adorable kids.

And the...same? brother? (He was demonstrating what a driver's license photo looks like.)

The girls decided to have a picnic, and Deet wanted to join in. Sophie's actually at the end of the tray, you just can't see her.

Attack Kitty! I had the bright idea of hanging his beloved mouse toy on its elastic string off my exercise bike. He's always loved this silly little toy, but now anytime he's hyper he goes straight for it and wears himself out completely. It's perfect because the string stretches when he grabs it and bounces away when he lets go. When he gets it completely wrapped around the bike, he looks at me and meows forlornly until I take pity and unwrap it for him. AND, best of all, he hasn't tried to play with the babies at all since I did this!

Funny Zoss!

My 3 year old still astounds me with her grasp of vocabulary. Words or phrases I don't even know how she learned she uses in everyday conversation.

Like yesterday - she ran up to me and said, "You can eat me!" I said, "You're not edible, silly girl!" And she looked a little crestfallen and said, "But I'm tasty!"

Another time she was visiting her Nanay and sat down next to Uncle Gabe on the couch. She saw he had a pillow on his lap, so nothing would do but that she had one too. Then she very carefully arranged her three board books Just So on the pillow, settled herself in, looked up at Gabe and said, "And that's how it's done."

One more: yesterday I called the vet to schedule an appointment for my cat, Turkish, to be neutered. When I hung up, Zoe asked who I'd been talking to. I was concentrating on my knitting and said absently, "The vet - he's going to fix Turkish."
"Going to fix Turkish?" she asked, "Can he fix me too?"
I laughed and said, "You don't need to be fixed, silly goose!"
And she said, "But am I broken?"

Have-a-birthday!

Yesterday we celebrated Gabby's birthday (and Mum's and Erich's). Zoe was SO excited to have everyone over at our house, and kept running from one person to the next, saying, "Have-a-birthday! Have-a-birthday, Nanay! Have-a-birthday, Mama!"

A different kind of coffee cake

Mum made a coffee cake yesterday and gave some to Zoe for breakfast (who spent the night out there). Zoe loved it and scarfed it all down. A few minutes later, Mum came back through the kitchen and Zoe asked in her usual careful manner, "Can I have some more tea pie?"

I must be doing something right!

I'm not sure how I've managed to brainwash my children so thoroughly, but clearly brainwash them I have.
This morning I was brushing Zoe's hair - part of our normal morning routine. Out of the blue, she said in her halting speech (halting because she has to think of every word before she says it), "You're such a pretty one." I said, "Thank you!" and she shook her head and said, "No, you're a gorgeous one!"
Not sure how I managed it, but I'm not complaining about the results! ;o)

(Sorry for the continued lack of pictures - still no dice on the camera cable.)

Meant to be together...

And here's why.

Background: I don't usually have OCD (anyone who's seen my house knows this), but there are some things that I like done a certain way. One that comes to mind is the color of a baby's bottle and who it belongs to. For instance, the green and blue bottles are Deet's. The purple and pink ones are Sophie's. The clear ones are for either, at which point the color of the nipple ring is what determines who it goes to.

So, the other day I made two bottles, a purple and a green one. As I made them, I was thinking that Erich was really going to laugh at me when I handed them to him and told him they were each designated to a baby already.

I set them on the table next to him, said "The green one's for Deet, purple's for Sophie," and turned to go back in the kitchen before he could laugh at me.

From behind me I heard him say, "Oh, you color code them too?"

........

There ensued a lively discussion in which we discovered that we each have been independently giving the exact same bottles to each baby without the other's knowledge.





Yep, I married the right man for me. ;o)

Cables iz fun!

Wow, who knew! (Okay, anyone who knits halfway seriously knows, but *I* didn't!) I tried cables last night, and I am thrilled and surprised at how easy, fun and gorgeous they are!
I'm making this for myself:


In Austermann Bambou yarn, which is 35% bamboo (no, that's not a typo) and 65% merino. This is the yarn before I cast on:

It has an incredibly soft hand and wonderful drape, but holds the stitch definition beautifully, so it's working up into a really gorgeous hat. This one I might actually WEAR! ;o)

And I'm enjoying the cabling so much that I'm going to start incorporating them into the fingerless gloves that I sell. I think that would be really striking!

Sorry - I just can't help getting excited about this. Some would say that I need a life, but eh...I'm happy with the one I have. ;o)

The camera and computer had a falling-out

They've stopped talking to each other. ~sigh~ Which means that until I can get a relationship coach here to reconcile them (ie, go buy another USB cable), no pictures for this humble blog!

In other news, wish me good luck and happy fingers - I'm about to attempt cable knitting for the first time. 'Twill be interesting to see how I fare (and if I survive). A report will be posted, although pictures (obviously) will have to wait.

Kids are all doing fine - we're over everything except the lingering congestion in this latest round of illness. All except poor Erich, that is - he's literally getting run into the ground, and he's so exhausted and sick that his body isn't recovering like it should so he can heal. Please pray for him - he's pretty miserable right now and I can't take care of him. :o(
Also, he needs prayer on a different front because they're studying traffic code this week, which is mind-numbingly boring and tedious. The instructors have been cramming the stuff into the recruits for TEN HOURS a day all this week, and one more day of it tomorrow. Then first thing Thursday is the two hour test on all of it. So please keep Erich in your prayers, especially early Thursday morning!

Leaps of logic

We had nachos for dinner, and the girls were standing next to me while I ate. Zoe leaned over and inspected my bowl of nachos and said, "Oh, there's CHEESE on those chips! How FUNNY!"
Gabby and I both laughed, and I said, "You're the funny one!"
Zoe looked indignant and said, "I'm not a chip! I'm Zoe!"