Category: Uncategorized (Page 137 of 212)

//www.youtube.com/get_player

Here’s the zoo video from earlier in full quality, plus other photos from our outing. (Click the little square of arrows to make the video fit your screen, if it’s too long.  The phone takes a weird aspect ratio of video.)

Because of my work schedule, we met my family for Christmas on the 29th-1st.  We went to our place in Bailey to cozy up and celebrate in the grand, Waterhouse way.  This is a lot of pictures, and there are more on flickr.

Reuniting Jack with my family:

Showing off his table manners:

We arrive in Bailey. The rest of the family spent the night.  I was on call and stayed in Lakewood until the morning.  

Jenn doing her sinus therapy with husband’s help:

Let the presents begin!  Oof, heavy:

Kinects for Ben and Andy and Jenn, and a Kindle for Jenn (now everyone has one!)

 Jem fished her present out of a bag when no one was looking:

What a nerd:

Can you believe this?!  Mom made this aviator sweater for Jack, it’s incredible!  The helmet comes from Soil, that independent children’s clothes crafter I love.

Jack was happy with the paper, but occasionally needed pieces fished out:

 I love this, we’re all pointing to the ball he just opened, and he hasn’t noticed it yet:

Another amazing homemade gift – Amanda wrote two children’s books for Jack.  The ABCs of Zelda and a counting book of Mario.  They are absurdly nerdy and cute.  I’ll have to post a detailed walkthrough of the books later.  

Dad strumming his uke from Andy:

And then he whipped out his own crazy handmade gift of the year – cigar box guitars.  These are so beautiful and they sound great!

 Dad got Mom a cool microscope, and brought creepy crawlies to test it out:

 My lame homemade gifts this year, but they crack me up.  I made Amanda and Andy and Jenn BLANKET STATEMENTS!

Sometime while we were opening presents it started to snow.  A white Christmas!

 That night I gave Jack a bath in the kitchen.  I’ve decided using storage tubs is a genius bath method.  Yesterday I gave him another bath in a tub in the tub, catching all his splashes.  I could sit in the bath fully clothed to support him, and use less water to fill his small tub.  We’ve taken to calling them “tub tub baths.”

Too many presents 😉

The adorable outfit from Jenn and Andy:

A hiking backpack.  I think he likes it!

And a final cute outfit to finish them off!

Oh, what a glorious Christmas.  We were all severely spoiled.  I also got a swift and winder, yarn and fibers to spin, fancy fabric, some art, many little gadgets, silpats, lotions, a ballet date (babysitting included!) and the aforementioned iphone 4.  Later Ben picked up an AT&T microcell device.  It gives us five bar coverage all throughout our house.  I’m thrilled!  We canceled our Vonage house phone plan today.  My big gift is a trip to Boston this spring to attend the nephrology nursing conference.  We are both daunted (because of the ten month old who will accompany us) and excited by the idea, and very grateful for the trip. What will come in the oh-1-1?  I’m excited to find out.

//www.youtube.com/get_playerI’m testing emailing a video to my blog. If this doesn’t post right I’ll fix it later.
UPDATE:  Sweet.  I got an iphone 4 for Christmas and it does some nice stuff.  Like this!  Jack had a great time at the zoo.  We got a membership for Christmas too.  We love gifts that last a long time.  I think Ben and Jack will get good use out of it.  One nice thing about the membership is you don’t feel like you have to get your money’s worth for each visit, since they are unlimited.  So instead of rushing around to see everything in one day, we leisurely hit a couple favorites.  Just the birds, some apes, and the mountain sheep on the way out.  An hour was the perfect length for Jack.

I have a few days off, but oh so much to do! But I promise to post christmas II pictures soon.

I can’t believe it either.  He’s such a happy guy.

He makes this face a lot:

And this one:

He got a Sophie giraffe for Christmas and it’s a winner.

There’s that face again.

And again!  He can cry and laugh at the same time -look close and you’ll see tears here.  Not sure why.  He was enjoying his first hummus, baba ganoush, and taboulih meal and all of the sudden was DONE.  But I can usually make him laugh through his tears.

Still making friends with the animal.  He is completely charmed by Jem.

I tried to take some photos on his tummy.

But he immediately flipped and continued towards the edge of the bed.  

Stinker 😉

Ben, like most men, is terrible at finding things. I have been enjoying back posts of Hyperbole and a Half over the holiday.  There was one in particular that was JUST LIKE US and I filed it away for future sharing.  It came into use faster than I expected.

When Ben announced he was going to water Brian’s lemon tree and check on Zoe the cat, I asked if he had the key.  Not yet, he said.  I watched him look in the tiny basket by the door.  I watched him look in the basket on the bureau.  Then he looked at me and shrugged “I can’t find it.”  I shrugged.  He stared at me.  I let out a major sigh, put my laptop on the couch, and dug the keys out the basket on the bureau in, like, 4 seconds.  But before I let him have them I picked up my computer and retrieved this comic:

He called me snarky and snatched the keys off the couch.  I chased him to the door and demanded he also see this part:

He said I was being super snarky and left.  I settled back on the couch with my smugness, sure that I had taught Ben an important life lesson about looking harder for things. 

Later this morning, Ben im’ed a link to me and demanded instant viewing of said link:

Touche.

PS Ben will probably berate me for the style I chose to post H and H’s comic.
PPS Why am I bald?

A Christmas Eve bath!

Oy, what a weird holiday.  I was scheduled to work both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  The Masons came to celebrate.  I was overstaffed on Eve and only had one patient to do in the AM on the 25th.  This would have given me a large boost of jolliness except A. I don’t get paid when I don’t work and B. I have another. freaking. cold.  Seriously!  I had two colds over the course of three years.  Then I get sick on both Thanksgiving and Christmas?!  Life is so unfair!! 

Anyway, we opened presents when I got home.  Jack was spoiled as expected, but Ben and I were fairly spoiled too.  Our family is too nice to us.  Jack has also been enjoying the lavish attention showered on him by the grands.  Here’s some photos from the last couple days.  Huh, after uploading them I see that they are ALL of Jack.  Sorry.

 Eating yogurt on Christmas Eve.

 Jack standing atop a mountain of presents on Christmas Eve.

 Barleigh, Nanners, and Jack.

 The dissolve technique for present opening.

 Concentrating hard.

Huh, I expected to be in this picture.  I think Nanners was operating the camera though.

Last night we went to Christmas dinner at Aunt Berit’s house.  Fantastic food, funny relatives, and Jack only cried from getting overwhelmed twice!  It was a nice way to get the Christmas mood, after a weird morning of work as usual.  Even if I got bogged out on Theraflu lemon drink. 🙂

So I finished Jack’s orange sweater – for a SECOND time:

I completed unwound the sweater I knit this fall and re-used the yarn on the same pattern with minor alterations.  It fits MUCH better.  I re-knit it over a few days time.  Now it’s something I’ll actually dress him in.

So the question in this post title refers to this other sweater I finished:

It looks better in action, as in the shot on the right where Jack is sitting in a cart seat for the first time (that was about a month ago).  I’ve worn and washed the sweater several times. 

On the one hand – yay!  I knit a whole sweater!  Yippee me!  I like the color and the yarn from knitpicks is really nice. 

On the other hand – not a flattering top at all.  It was supposed to look like this:

Short puffy sleeves, waist flattering, with a high neckline!  What happened on my pattern?  I knit it a size too small according to my gauge, and it’s still boxy and over-sized.  No matter how I style it, I feel frumpy.  Ben consoles me, saying it looks home-made, but in a good way!  Hmmm.

I feel as though I could make some major improvements.  Make the smallest size, add the collar last to pull it in, shorten the sleeves and take out the puffs, and add more waist shaping and length.  But that would mean tearing it to pieces and starting over from scratch.  While making this sweater, I already restarted 3 times after knitting about 8 inches of length.  So it’s not inconceivable to tear it out again.  But . . . so disheartening.