i'm annoyed with myself for not utilizing this perfect outlet for my random thoughts and activities. part of the reason for my chronic blog neglect has to do with the fact that for months now, our memory card for the digital camera has been M.I.A. it's fun to post recent pics of the family and our shenanigans on here, so i guess since i've not been able to do that, just journaling hasn't been a priority.

tonight was awesome. josh and i went on a much-needed date. we dropped the kids off at daddy and vesta's at 4, then we went to addison and had dinner at sweet tomatoes. i'd heard about this place from several friends, and had been told it was like souper salad, but a notch above. it was delish! i had an asian salad with crunchy wontons on top, a baked sweet potato with butter, some bread, and i tried two kinds of soup: corn chowder with potato and bacon, and yellow curried split pea. both were awesome, but i slightly preferred the corn chowder - the split pea had an aftertaste that i didn't love. for dessert, i had a warm blueberry muffin with butter. yummm!!! not the healthiest, i know - i could pretend i had "salad" for dinner and feel super healthy, but i ate a ton of carbs. and butter. after dinner, we met my brother, caleb, and his girlfriend, beth, at adventure landing for a game of miniature golf! it was josh's idea, and it was so relaxing and fun. not one of us has a competitive bone in our bodies, so we just played around and had a blast. i got three holes-in-one, josh and beth each got one, and my stinkin' brother got three also, including one which he achieved single-handed, with his LEFT hand, AND while talking on his cell phone. show-off.

in between dinner and golf, while we were waiting for my punctuality-challenged brother to arrive with his girlfriend, josh and i went down the street from adventure landing to super target to get josh a 3-ring binder, spiral notebook, and usb flash drive for his drafting class. i also picked up a new memory card for the camera, and a cute shirt for micah and a two-piece outfit for rowan that were on clearance. i fell head over heels in love with all of the autumn boys clothes that were there, and wanted to buy everything for rowan. i can't wait until i start making extra money typing for my dad and i can get him his fall wardrobe! as much as i love buying cute clothes for my kids, i'm glad my aunt and mom have micah pretty much outfitted in oilily for the rest of her life (until she becomes a teenager and decides she only wants to wear white, black and brown), because two wardrobes to purchase might be hard on the wallet. i still can't keep myself from buying cute stuff for micah at target or old navy. it's just too fun.

my latest hobby, knitting, makes my heart so warm, and hopefully one day soon it'll make my head warm, because i'm trying to knit a hat. i say "trying" because i've attempted this hat three times now, and it keeps coming out too enormous for my head. mama, katherine and i are going to dunn bros. in addison tomorrow to knit together, and to cast on our first "knit-a-long" - this booga bag. i'm so excited about this! i don't get to sit down and focus on knitting too often during the day, so i'm sure i'll be tagging along at the tail end of the knit-a-long, but that's okay. i'm just so excited to have a bag that i can actually use, that i MADE, at the end of it!

micah has been asking me to read to her non-stop lately, and i love it. we have gobs and gobs of books, a lot of them from my childhood, and looking through them gives me warm fuzzies. she wants me to read them all, every day. rowan likes books, too, but he seems to want to look at the pages on his own, quickly, moving from book to book. he's not too interested in sitting in my lap and being read to. he makes lots of sound effects to accompany the story, and doesn't like how long it takes me to finish each page. the super early-reader board books are right up his alley - the ones with a picture and one word on each page. he digs those.

in other kid news, rowan has sporadically been using the potty! usually before his bath, or right after. the other day, while he was naked in the playroom, he actually stopped playing, found me in the computer room, led me to the bathroom, climbed on, and peed - twice! i was impressed. josh and i briefly discussed buying him some training underwear, but quickly realized, upon turning and finding him sprinkling the hallway carpet, that he's not there yet. he just likes to do everything his sister does.

ahhh... that's enough for now. i have so much more to ramble on about, but i'm very sleepy, and i'm reading a great book, and am anxious to snuggle up in bed and read until i can't keep my eyes open.

i love to knit. i love to knit. i love to knit!

i haven't posted in a while; i've been busy knitting. :) we've been doing the same old things around here; taking care of baby lina (who is 10 months old now!), playing in the sprinkler out back and at the splash parks and swimming pools as often as possible, hanging out with friends, and doing fun family stuff. josh has been working and getting ready to attend classes and richland community college so he can get a drafting job. today he went and got a new driver's liscense, and returned some books and paid a fine at the college, so he's all ready to register for his two classes on monday! he'll take developmental math and auto cad 1 (don't know what that is exactly, but he's excited about it). i can't wait for him to be working in the field he's so passionate about. i'm guessing it will do wonders for his overall happiness and health.

he continues to be a sweet, supportive husband, even in the midst of really hating his job. tonight he took the kids to his dad's to swim while i went to my mom's house and indulged in my latest, greatest hobby and passion... knitting! mama taught me to knit when i was 7, and when i was 10, and naomi was in her waldorf kindergarten, i learned to knit mittens. i actually completed a pair, and mama has them somewhere... i will hopefully post a picture of them on my ravelry page soon. anyway, katherine, my dearest friend, has become something of a knitting prodigy since teaching herself (!!!) how to knit last thanksgiving. she's made all this neat stuff for me and the kids, and is always working on something... so when i ran across this baby blanket pattern online, i forwarded it to her, thinking she'd probably love to make one for, i don't know, me. she wrote back and said, "this pattern is super simple, why don't YOU make it?!" and as of that moment, i've resumed my knitting, after a 20-year haitus. so far i've made a little doll blanket and pillow, a doll scarf, and am currently working on a doll dress. after i finish the dress (and either a skirt or pants to match), mama, katherine and i are going to do a "knit along" - we're all going to make a booga bag at the same time! since i started up again, mama, katherine and i have been having "knitting dates" where we just get together, chit chat, and knit! it is so fun and relaxing and rejuvinating. we've met a couple of times at coffee houses, but tonight we all had some skeins of yarn that needed winding, and mama has a swift and a ball winder at her house, so we met there. it's so fun for me, the novice, to listen to mama and katherine talk about different yarns and projects they're working on. it inspires me to get better and better so i can do what they're doing! i have all sorts of things in my queue on ravelry - projects i'm going to do as soon as i can. this... is so much fun. :)

tomorrow i'm going to a blessing way for one of my oldest, sweetest friends who's expecting her first child next month. there are all sorts of reverent, meaningful rituals planned, and i wrote a poem to read during one of them. i'm a bit nervous, and i'm sure my voice will be all shaky... but i hope i can be calm, and deliver the words with the spirit with which i wrote them.

earlier today, before my knitting night, josh dropped the kids and me off at terrace pool (our favorite!) while he went to run his DPS and richland errands. we had lina with us, and samantha met us there. alison and her crew, and laura, eli and chase were there as well. it was such a fun afternoon! the kids had a blast, had some yummy snacks, and played hard. by the time we were ready to leave, josh was still an hour away from being finished at the DPS office, so alison was nice enough to drive us home. as soon as we got our wet suits off, we piled in bed and promptly fell asleep - but when josh got home minutes later, micah and i woke up. i was disappointed - a nap sounded sooo nice. rowan got a nice one, and micah and i got up to eat carrot cake. then the kids got to swim again at josh's dad's community pool in rowlett. they came to pick me up at mama's house around 11 tonight, we got home by 11:30, and both kiddos were sound asleep by 11:45. i was almost asleep in bed, but had to get up and upload some cute baby pics to facebook. and i miss my blog, so i had to post here. i've been neglecting it.

oh, and sara the cat is pregnant. : ) for sure, this time.

i just noticed that rowan's picture on the side of my blog here is a little outdated... he looks so different now, but i can't stand to remove that one!! i'll leave it there until his second birthday.

rowan and micah are awesome little swimmers! i really need to take some pictures and video of them swimming before the summer is over, and post them here and on facebook. i'm pretending it hasn't happened, but the huge memory chip for our digital camera has been misplaced (i'm not pointing any fingers, but rowan was the last one seen playing with the downloading component) and all i have are two really small ones that only hold about 15 pictures each. i have no idea how much memory chips cost. we may be buying a new one later this month, because we cannot find the old one. sigh...

tonight i did some reorganizing of the hallway linen closet and the medicine cabinet in the full bathroom. there was tons of stuff in the medicine cabinet that we don't use regularly, and it was taking up too much space - it's a pretty shallow cabinet. and the linen closet was not arranged in a way that made sense. so i waited until the kids were asleep tonight, and went after it. it's fun to get organized, especially in a new house. sometimes i still feel very unsettled... mainly because the kids' playroom has no storage or organization in it at all yet, because i haven't bought the stuff i want from target or IKEA, and the computer room shelves are all still mainly empty, and what is on them is just clutter that's been put there temporarily. i can't wait until those two rooms are finished, then i'll really feel like we've unpacked and moved in completely.

a couple of weeks ago we planted some pink periwinkles and some blue daze in the little flower bed by the front porch. it looks so neat and pretty! i'm so proud of our yard and our little house. i cannot wait until we have a swingset in the backyard for the kids. i'm hoping to get that by spring, so we can be out there playing and enjoying the gorgeous weather.

i have finally decided to start reading the harry potter books. it's ridiculous, i know, but i've never read a single one of them. my dad, brother, sister, and grandfather have all read them and are huge fans of the series. i just always reach for my crime dramas when i get a chance to sit down and read.

micah's cousin, sydney, is coming over to play with us tomorrow while my aunt susan attends some meetings at work. sydney's staying with susan and my uncle, tony, for a week and a half before school starts for her up in oklahoma where she lives with her mom, my cousin julie, and her dad, stephen. sydney and micah get along really well together, even though syd is 5 years older. my aunt's dropping her off at 8 AM, right as lina gets here too, so i am going to have my hands full tomorrow! i told myself i'd go to bed before midnight, so i better keep my word...