Summer Solstice Fun

Once a year on the Summer Solstice, the kids get to stay up as late as they want. Here's what's on Ginny's "to do" list for the night:

1. Eat popcorn
2. Watch cartoons
3. Eat ice cream (note: Chardy made homemade peanut butter ice cream with a fudge sauce!)
4. Make cookies
5. Go to the store and buy Cheeze-its
6. Eat Cheeze-its
7. Draw pictures
8. Play a game
9. Makeovers
10. Have midnight munchies
11. Make funny videos until the camera runs out of memory or something
12. Take a break
13. Charades
14. Make funny faces and see who laughs first
15. Tell funny stories
16. Play a chess game
17. Play Yahtzee
18. Play tag
19. Drink caffeinated tea
20. Dance to music
21. Dance party!
22. Pet Roxy (the cat)
23. Wake everyone up
24. Go to bed at 7am

Sounds like an awesome evening to me...can't wait to hear about it in the morning :-)

Chopped Champions!

Chardy and I are huge fans of Chopped on Food Network, so we decided to have our own little Chopped-style challenge in Rome. Alli, Aaron, and Ginny were the judges and chose the secret star ingredients for each course:
Appetizer: Basil
Entree: Roma tomatoes
Dessert: Brioche

With our challenge in hand, Chardy and I each prepared a 3 course meal for our judges! The biggest challenge: we only could use what was in our kitchen, which was pretty bare since we've only been here for a week! Here's what we came up with...

Appetizer:

On the right: Chardy made fresh buffalo mozarrella cheese sticks with a basil olive oil drizzle.

L: I made a small bite of what I call: cremosa caprese with fresh basil and cherry tomatoes.

Entree:


L: Chardy made an amazing homemade pizza using the pizza bianca base from our favorite bakery (Forno Roscioli), homemade tomato sauce with peppercino oil, and of course fresh mozzarella and basil!

R: I made a spaghetti arrabiata with parmagiano.

Dessert:


L: Chardy's dessert was an Italian strawberry shortcake with a peach reduction sauce.

R: Mine was a chocolate nutella bananas foster topped with marscapone.

Happy Judges:


P.S. It's a good thing we walked 6 miles today...

Snow Falling in the Pantheon

An amazing experience.

Customs in Italy

I'm talking about the actual Customs in the airport, but they told us a lot about Italian cultural customs as well! So, as we go through passport control, which in other countries is a very strict formal process, in Italy, the guy comes out of the booth with his arms wide open to greet Ginny (our 5 yr old). I swear I thought he was going to hug and kiss her! I had heard Italians love kids, but I didnt expect to see evidence of this first thing at the airport!

Then, as we go through customs: again in other countries, it's usually pretty formal with the "declare" and "nothing to declare" lines with detailed forms, random inspections, etc. In Italy, all the customs guys were hanging out drinking coffee, chatting, and laughing. Literally there were no forms at all, no inspections, nothing! Totally laid back. Totally Italian? I don't know yet, it's only been one day...

26 Days and Counting

26 days until our sabbatical stay in Italy!!!!!
26 days until all the gelato you can eat.
26 days until Michelangelo.
26 days until the Colloseum.
26 days until pizza on every corner.
26 days until we all miss DH/daddy terribly.
26 days until we all become Skype experts.

Pharaoh Jellyfilleddoughnut

So Chardy was telling me a story she and her friends came up with about Pharoahs in ancient Egypt and their doughnut minions... My favorite line:
"it's day Five. The doughnuts are getting stale and the coffee is running low." There was also something about a chainsaw, but I'm not really sure how that fit into the whole mix!

What Kind of a Mother am I??

So, Ginny asked me to help her eat her Pixie stix from Halloween. As I'm doing so, I wondered aloud, "What kind of mother am I pouring sugar into my daughter's mouth?" Ginny quickly replied matter-of-factly, "A good one!"

I guess it's pretty simple from the perspective of a 4-yr old.

Belay Monkeys

Alli and I belayed Ginny and Aaron for 3 hours at the Portland Rock Gym. They were so awesome -- must be all that practice they get in the apple tree!

What do a vampire, TARDIS, and magical fairy princess kitty have in common?

HALLOWEEN, of course!

High Praise

My daughter just told me I am "as awesome as all the cookies in the world combined." Now that is high praise coming from a 4 yr. old!

For the Love of Chocolate

Even though Mom doesn't like chocolate, (and I for one have to disagree with her,) obviously Ginny was enjoying some.




It's also apparent that she's quite the sloppy drinker.

Is There Anything to Say Other Than "Sorry"?

My daughter's idea for the title...since I have been so lax at updating this site. It's really not that turning 40 got me into a slump, funk, or anything like that. It's just the usual busy-ness of summer, including but not limited to, a whopping 7000 mile cross-country road trip in the van with 4 kids! (Yes, we had an awesome time, and we are all actually still on speaking terms after over 100 hours in the car.)

Anyways, onto the real motivation for posting: Sock Summit 2011!!! I feel so spoiled that SS was once again held in Portland...to the point of actually feeling a teensy bit guilty that we got to have such easy access to this fabulous event! Anyway, I spent far less this time around (seeing as I still have bags of yarn from SS 2009 that I haven't yet knit...that actually makes me feel even guiltier!). So, instead of shopping, I took two very cool classes.

The first was on Morphing Cables...this one I will admit was far beyond me. After explaining the "basics", the instructor told us to take it away and improvise. It was at that point that I realized all those people who flew across the country to attend SS were WAY better knitters than me, because I really didn't have a clue. But, it was still fun and the instructor was very entertaining.

The second class was on Textured Colorwork in the Bohus style and taught by Chrissy Gardiner. For those of you who aren't familiar with Bohus Stickning, you should just Google it and be prepared to drool over all of the amazing sweaters, hats, and other patterns from this cooperative. So, the class was really informative and at the end, I had my very own textured colorwork coffee cup wraps to show for it.



Next up, I'm thinking of something a bit more challenging, but not too crazy... At this point, I can't decide if I should follow a pattern or just make one up myself...

Turning The Big 4-0 Today...

Here's how I basically feel about that!

A 4 Year Old's Product Endorsement

How's this for a product endorsement?

Ginny sidled up to me this morning and whispered in my ear..."Can I have some Sugar Babies? They tasted good; they changed my life...It was magic."

Now even I kinda feel like I should try some of those caramel candies at 8am!

Zombie Capture the Flag

Now, I know the title seems strange, but let me explain...

The zombie part comes from the fact that Aaron recently has been obsessed with an iPod touch app called Plants VS Zombies, where zombies are attacking your house and trying to eat your brain, and you have to defend it by planting zombie-attacking plants.

The capture the flag part comes from the fact that we signed Aaron up for flag footbll and he confused it with capture the flag.
The following conversation was like this:

Me: So in capture the flag, there's two teams, and they each have flags. They hide the flags, and then the other team tries to find it without getting tagged, because if you get tagged you have to go the their jail. If you get their flag then get onto your side, you win.

Aaron, confused then understanding: Oh! So it's like if a zombie breaks into your house, steals your brain, takes it to the other side of the road then eats your brain.

Well, I guess that's one way of putting it...

An Unexpected Day "Off"

Other moms may appreciate this throw-up story that is "too good" not to share. (The rest of you may just be grossed out, so feel free to stop reading here.) Let me preface the story by noting I made the kids a nice healthy breakfast of scrambled eggs and wheat toast. (These enter the story again later in a most spectacular fashion...)

So, we get to school in the "stop-n-drop" lane with the usual 3 minutes to spare before the bell. It's our turn for the kids to get out. The doors fly open; the kids start their daily scramble out of the van, when Ginny starts to throw up everywhere.

Since she's standing between her car seat and Chardy's seat, it gets on (here's where it is amazing, folks):

• the floor,
• Chardy's seat,
• Ginny's car seat (and yes, of course, by that I mean both her car seat and the van seat),
• Ginny's backpack (I threw that one away),
• Ginny's coat,
• Ginny's pants,
• down Ginny's leg into her Ugg boots (the name really fits now)
• and probably a few other places I am forgetting...

Consider this: We're in the stop-n-drop lane; the other kids are all shrieking trying to get away from Ginny and the puke, cars are lined up behind us...the scene was...rather funny. Anyway, 30 minutes later, after I cleaned all the throw up out of the car and Ginny, we are now back home for an unexpected day "off"...

Snowy Toes

Our Artist

Alli has such amazing artistic talent... Here's a sampling of her recent drawings and sketches:





She also just started working with pastels:





The artist:

Sudden Snow

Well, we woke up to an unexpected snow storm today and witnessed probably the largest snowflakes *ever*!



This, of course, called for snow cones, snowmen, and an impromptu snowday...


Good thing too, because I might have been able to get down the hill to take the kids to school, but would probably not have been able to make it back up!

Free Pattern: Wiggle Hat

When we were skiing last week, I saw a super cute hat in one of the ski shops. Wiggle Hat is my attempt to reconstruct it!



Materials Used:
Yarn: 135 yards (85 gm) Lion Brand Jiffy (or other Bulky 5 yarn)
Needles: Size US 10 / 4.25 mm 16” circulars and set of 5 US 10 DPNs
Tapestry Needle
Scissors

Size: 2T (17” circumference)
Note: Larger sizes can be made by increasing the number of cast on sts by multiples of 4.

Gauge: 14 sts = 4”
Abbreviations:
K: Knit
P: Purl
C4B: Cable 4 Back (Slip 2 sts to cable needle. Hold to back. K2, then K2 from cable needle.)
C4F: Cable 4 Front (Slip 2 sts to cable needle. Hold to front. K2, then K2 from cable needle.)
K2tog: Knit 2 together

Pattern:
Brim:
Using long-tail method (or other loose cast-on) CO 60. Join to work in round.
Work K1,P1 rib for 4 rounds.

Body:
Round 1: [C4B] around.
Round 2-4: K all sts.
Round 5: [C4F] around.
Round 6-8: K all sts.

Repeat Rounds 1-8 once more.
Then, work Round 1 one more time.
 
Crown:
Begin Decreases as follows (switching to DPNs when needed):
Place marker at beginning of round.
Round 1: [K4, K2tog] around. (50 sts)
Round 2: K around
Round 3: [K3, K2tog] around. (40 sts)
Round 4: K around.
Round 5: [K2, K2tog] around. (30 sts)
Round 6: K around.
Round 7: [K1, K2tog] around. (20 sts)
Round 8: K around
Round 9: [K2tog] around (10 sts]

Cut yarn (leaving 4-6”) pulling end tightly through remaining 10 sts. Weave in loose ends.

If desired, make large pom pom and tie to top.