Feeling better

A quick update to let you know that Jack is doing really well. We have a huge praise that he didn't need pins in his elbow after all. That makes his recovery so much easier and he is feeling fine today, in fact, his biggest complaint when he came out of anesthesia was his IV! Thanks for your prayers and well wishes. I am so relieved to have this dreaded surgery over with and with such a great outcome, I feel like I can breath again.

"Oh Snap"

I am updating to request prayer for Jack. He will be having surgery on his elbow tomorrow morning at 7:00. While we were visiting my mom, en route to Los Alamos, he fell off of a swing set and broke his elbow and needs to have surgery to reset the bone and then to have pins inserted. He has been a real trooper throughout the whole ordeal, including sitting in the emergency room without pain medication for nearly four hours. The break could have been a lot worse, and we were able to get into an orthopedic surgeon right away and he has a good prognosis for the future, all praises. We ask for prayer that he will recover well with out any complications and that he will be calm and cooperative while he goes under anesthesia. He has a great fear of needles and is very scared of doctors and hospitals, so he will be anxious until he is out. Juan and I are also anxious and worried for our little boy. My logical-side knows that things could be much, much worse and that I just need to trust God in this, He is the great physician and His will will be done. My mother-side is fearful and worried sick. It feels guilty and out of control. God's perfect love casts out all fear and I am leaning on that fact right now. I know that God loves Jack more than I do, He doesn't delight in the suffering of any of His children and I know that He is big enough for this, for my fears, for Jack's health, for our family.
Thank you for your prayers! I will update as soon as I am able to.

Smells of the Shiprock Fair

That line is a twist of the title of a book by Luci Topahanso called Songs of the Shiprock Fair. She is an amazing poet and writer from Shiprock, which is near where I grew up. But that isn't what I want to blog about, maybe another day though. What I want to show you is what I did last night! See? Frybread. I made it all by myself, though it was for B's class for his immigration unit. He studied the Navajos and decided that for maximum points he should bring food. I made small pieces, about half as big as they are usually made, so it went pretty fast, and I was able to roll them out round, which NEVER happens. The smell in the house was fantastic...it is a smell somewhere between a Krispy Creme doughnut factory and a Saturday flea market. I can't explain it, but it is such a familiar and comforting smell. I couldn't help but have a taste of a hot one drenched in honey. It actually tasted pretty darn good too! It was a good thing I made just enough for the class, or I may have eaten more than one.

And here is Mimi enjoying her first piece ever. It is nearly as momentous as eating her first birthday cake. Jack isn't able to eat any wheat, so he isn't able to have frybread, but he has chewed on a mutton rib, so he is almost a real Navajo. Ben worked really hard on his report and learned all kinds of interesting facts to share with his class. He is so excited to present the whole project to his class that he is nearly beside himself, though he said that I will get fifty percent of the credit for typing what he told me to, generous of him, don't you think?

I finally finished Katja last week. I'll post pictures tomorrow, cause it is in the wash right now. I also turned the heel of the second sock, or should I say sock five? (As in HP5.) I know what you're thinking, big deal. You've been working on both of those for weeks. But it IS a big deal, because I had company last week. My dear friend from North Carolina was in the area and I was able to pick her and her girls up from Denver (where she was visiting other friends) and bring them back here for a few days. It is the first time we have seen each other in a few years, three actually. Jack was only a few months when she moved from Los Alamos. In fact, we have both added new babies to our families since then, so it was great to see her and her kids. We ran around a bit, and then when the kids went down for naps or to bed, we would sit and knit. She is one of my only kitty friends, so it was a lot of fun. Plus, we have similar taste because she was knitting a sock on the same yarn that I picked out for a pair of mine. The amazing thing that we discovered is that our kids look like siblings, and they are all about nine months apart. Can you imagine having four kids under the age of four? The nice part about going out was that no one thought my kids were mine, so if they were misbehaving, someone else got the blame! Haha. At one point they were all on one stroller and Eri was pushing it while I was looking at something in another part of the building. Poor Eri, she was given several looks, I'm not sure if they were piteous or disbelief, but either way, she was a good sport about it!

One more exciting thing that happened today is that I ran my first full mile. Well, at least in the past seventeen years. I ran track when I was in mid school, but I am not sure that I ever ran an entire mile without stopping. This is a big deal to me, I feel so accomplished.

I will be traveling for about a week at the end of the week, so I don't know that I will blog before I go, and I am not sure that I will be able to while I am gone. So I'll update more when I get back, or tomorrow if I can squeeze it in between laundry and packing...

"Do the chickens have large talons?"

It seems that Napoleon had good reason to wonder...(click to see it bigger)

Of socks and books and tracks

Oh, the things that I have to share with you, whoever you are...

Firstly, I finished my sock, hence-forth known as the HP4 sock, because it was knit whilst I read the fourth book of Harry Potter. I am preparing in earnest for the release of movie five AND the seventh and final book this summer by rereading the last three books. There may be a movie-a-thon in the works too. I get cramps every time I think about such momentous occasions. I am dieing to find out what happens in the book, (I have my ideas, and in the past, my ideas have been pretty off,) so I am thrilled to see how the series ends, but a little sad too, because it will be the last time that I read a Harry Potter book for the first time. I reread them about once a year, but this is the end. The. LAST. One. I can't believe that it is over. There is a Harry Potter knitting book out, (Charmed Knits)and if I get a spare ten, I am going to buy it up and knit Harry Potter things for my Potter loving friends and family.** you know who you are, don't be surprised if you get a Sorting Hat in your stocking this Christmas... **

So,with out further ado, I give you Harry Potter sock # four: Four because I was reading book four, not because it is one of four. The next sock will be number five...and I'll give you all the other information when I finish it. Look at that heel, it couldn't have been more right if it had been transfigured from a loaf of bread...

Now, for those of you who don't knit, I am no knitting genius, nor do I know any magical Potter-ish incantations, the yarn does that striping and pattering itself. It just makes me look really smart and magical, and I can use all the help I can get.

The thing that drives me crazy about hand knit socks is the way the toe looks so pointy. I actually adjusted the number of stitches before I grafted the toe, and it still looks like it would fit a house-elf...(I can't help but throw in all these HP references, it is my schema, and if you don't know what I'm talking about, you really need to read the books. )But look at it on. It really works, and it feels like a hug on my foot. I already cast on the second one this morning, and technically, it would be known as "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants book four sock," but when have I ever been technical? And besides, I just finished it this morning, the book that is. It came from the library on Saturday night, and I finished it this morning, quick read, and I really liked it, though it left me wanting more. I love those books, and I've been waiting for about two months to get it, so when I read it so fast, it was a little anti-climactic. Has anyone else read them? I really love the story and it is such a fun concept, how could I not? I give the series a B+. Good in all the right places, but not too deep. Not entirely junk-food for the brain, but not quite as complex as, say, a Power bar either. Just right. A healthy snack. I'm satisfied, but I didn't spoil dinner.

Now, does anyone want to guess what these are? Remember making your plaster or tempera-paint on construction paper hand print as a kid? There was always a little poem which was some variation of "Don't forget that I am growing up and all my little hand prints will annoy you now, but you'll wipe them away and my hand will grow and you'll miss it and wish that you had it still all cute and tiny." This is JackJack's version. "These are my train wheel tracks that I made in the carpet and isn't it the cutest thing you've ever seen to come downstairs and find them all over like a little trail behind me where I crawled all over playing? Don't you wish you didn't have to vacuum them away and could keep them forever?" I do, I do. If I could bronze them, I would, they are so sweet.

Here is a kid who REALLY loves his trains. He crashed out playing with them the other day, waiting for me to get off the phone.

My ankle is healed, oh happy day, so I went "running" this morning. Actually, I just sort of wussed out and didn't really give it my best, so I don't know that it technically counts as running. Maybe more like moping? Send me your happiest jogging thoughts for Wednesday. I don't want to hurt myself again, so I need them...

Sock-o-magic

There is some debate in the knit-blog world about which is better, a short row heel or a heel flap. Now, I have no idea what the difference is, but I'll tell you what, turning a heel is nothing short of magic. It has been a while since I made a pair of socks, so I have had a slow go at this one, but now that I am done with the heel, I am on my way (barring some disaster...) to actually finishing a piece of knitting, I feel that I can blog about it. And I when I successfully turned the heel this morning, I couldn't have been more pleased with myself if I had just spun straw into gold. Pure bliss I tell you, The heel is what makes sock knitting so much fun, besides the self stripping yarn which keeps me endlessly intrigued.

I have also made *some* progress on Katja, though not much, no bother with the rain this week. This weekend would have been lovely weather for it, but alas, it just wasn't done. And I am ok with that. Next week maybe? You'd think that I could turn out 12 inches of stockinette stitch with out much incident, but I just don't feel a pressing need to finish it. So there is the long short of it...literally.

I rode up to Denver this weekend with a friend and the two smallish-type kids whilst J and B went fishing. It was loads of fun to hang around looking at all the things that J is not interested in. We also had an adventure on the Light Rail because Jack is such a train enthusiast. He was thrilled, he has been asking for months to "go dember, tee trains." All trains end up in Denver as far as he is concerned, it was the cheapest train ride in the world and he thought it was as exciting as riding Thomas himself! Unfortunately I don't have any pictures, but here is one to distract you.

That is B out there fly-fishing, doesn't he look grown up??

** AS a side note, some one asked me why I use "J" and "B" for thing one and thing two and then go and say Jack and Mimi, and the answer is that I don't have one, I thought that I was being clever. Good enough? Probably not, but there you go.

Mimi is walking so much now that I fear my days of her being content to crawl around the living room are numbered. She is already into everything, and since she climbs too, she has easily been my hardest non-walker, so it should be a whole new ball of wax (yarn??) when she starts walking full time. There will be no containing her, she can crawl under, climb over or run through any attempt at fencing her in!

Here are a few more pictures to keep the grandparents happy, and for visual interest...

Any tips on how to keep a almost-toddler from pulling her hair clips (and consequently her hair) out and looking like a sheep dog??