Things have been crazy. No energy or impetus to write much. I work. I hang with the kids and chauffeur them where they need to go. I cook, clean, sleep. We had some family in town a week ago - I must sort through those photos someday.... So anyway - here are some of the things I encounter during my routine:
Harley being goofy:
Nani wishing to go out on a walk:
Neko being an alien-wannabe:
Guppy, Harley, Kassie and Lexa in Seattle by the piers:
And here's HK's cat Neko, enjoying the new patio furniture we bought a few days ago. The weather has been so nice, we have been eating dinner out on the deck pretty much every night. I love our backyard. It was one of the major reasons we really wanted this house. It was even worth the icky traffic driving up and down our street all the time.
And what was for dinner tonight? Sushi, of course. And gyoza (the potsticker kind), but no photo. That was our second course.
Here she is. So I sucked at getting a photo of her every Friday for her first year. But once she hit about 50 lbs, all her photos started looking pretty much the same. If I were less honest, I could have just posted any old photo of her and nobody (but me) would have known the difference.
But I thought she was too cute here. Not only is she cuddling her squeaky giraffe, but she is snoring. Her regular spot is under my chair while I work every day. She makes a great foot rest, and she gets near constant foot-petting. So it's a win-win thing for us.
They are both passed out on the floor under my desk.
Something really weird just happened. I went into the basement to put in a DVD for Lexa. Someone unhooked the stupid DVD player, so I went to go hook it back up. Nani sat at the door like she wanted to go out, so I let her out. Her cable that is attached to the runner was wrapped around one of the posts for the deck, so I didn't bother untangling it. I figured Nani would only be out for a couple of minutes while I got things sorted, and then I would let her right back in. No big deal, no reason to put her on the run line.
So I gave up on the stupid DVD player because Lexa decided that she would just watch a cartoon on TV instead. So I went to go open the door to let the dog in.
The cable was firmly attached to her collar.
Nani never barked, I never heard anyone outside untangling the cable or walking around my yard and she was out there for less than 5 minutes. And yet somehow she suddenly had the cable attached to her collar. I don't think Nani could have done it - she lacks the opposable thumbs required to open the clip.
And considering the strangeness of the blog post I have been writing but haven't posted yet, this makes me wonder what the heck is going on. I made sure the basement door was locked just in case some weirdo is lurking in my backyard.
ETA: Also, I never saw anyone. my basement has large windows and a slider all along the wall. I was sitting right next to the windows and didn't see a thing.
It's the boy and his dog having some quality time together.
For some reason Elmer found an unpopped corn kernel quite fascinating. He's a sweetheart, but not the brightest kitty.
He has the prettiest eyes.
The rest of him is quite nice as well.
LOL.Nani looks so thrilled.
Elmer had to be in the photo too. He would not be ignored. Nani is 37 weeks old. You would think that by now she isn't looking any different. Well, I suppose she's not. But she is slooooowly putting on more weight. She isn't looking so skinny. You would think that with as much as she eats, she would be fat as anything, but she is so busy growing all the time, she seems to always look on the thin side. She is finally starting to bulk up a bit, and she's really looking pretty.
This is a very crappy photo taken on my phone. I had misplaced both my cameras that day. Actuall,. the kids misplaced my small one, and I misplaced my big boy.
The pink dye had finally faded from Elmer's head. So Harley decided that since she didn't have any more dye handy, Lexa's new markers would work nicely. I stopped her before she managed to color the entire cat.
I was really trying to take a photo of some of the fiber I was practicing with. Elmer refused to move, so I had to try to arrange them both as artfully as I could.
Sleepy puppy.
It's a day late for her 34 week photo, but here she is at 34 weeks and 1 day. Poor baby stepped on glass or something today while on a playdate with Cousin Greg's dog Maggie. Her foot started bleeding again when she started running around the house playing with the kids, and now we have bloody pawprints all over. She keeps ripping the sock off. *sigh*
She wouldn't let me finish making my bed. She was too comfortable where she was.
Well, today's photo also ingeniously doubles as Nani's 31 week photo. Is it laziness or 2 birds with one stone? We really don't need an answer to that, do we? Let's just call it a cute end to a craptacular week.
Vacation threw me off. It's been a couple of weeks. Or three. Here's the baby girl.
And here's her boy.
I am blogging to you from Vancouver, WA - my mom's house. The snow has been insane. Like very insane. I have never seen this much snow dumped on us before ever. The Murg finally made it to an airplane. He left last night - Christmas Eve. He was scheduled to leave the 21st, but all the snow had Porkland crawling to a stop. Almost all the flights out of PDX were canceled. But he made it out. It would just be nice if he would call soon to let me know he made it okay...
So we have to have Christmas photos of the kids, right? They have been getting too spoiled!
Here we have Hannah Montana Angel Lexa:
And Chace got an iPod Touch from Santa just like he wanted!
And Harley is looking thrilled as always:
And Kassie is looking like a sweet little cheetah girl.
Nani has been exhausted from playing with Yoko (the dog) in the backyard. She is just plain pooped.
I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!
She has been quite busy with this bone from a prime rib roast. She doesn't know I still have another one saved for her. :-)
SNOW!!!
School was canceled yesterday in anticipation of a snowstorm. We didn't get one. This morning we woke to a metric buttload of snow that fell all day. Nani barked at the sky off and on while she was out, telling the clouds to knock it off. She didn't understand snow. She didn't like to poop in it, because she preferred to poop on my bedroom floor instead, even though she had just been outside for a potty break.
I had been lusting after the pattern for the Ariosa Cowl by Pam Allen. I kept staring at it, thinking I couldn't possibly pay a whole $5 for that pattern. It was just brioche stitch knitted flat, then add a cable twist and continue in the round. I could figure it out, right? Well, I finally quit thinking about it and just knit it this afternoon.
It wasn't as difficult to figure out as I thought it would be. I think mine came out a wee bit larger around than I would have liked, and wished I could have made a wee bit longer than it ended up. But at least I will remember that for next time. Just cast on less than 56 sts on my next try.
See? It's not so bad. The yarn was on sale and the pattern didn't cost me anything but the time it took me to work it out in my head. Oh, and many thanks to the Brioche Stitch website.
And school is cancelled again tomorrow...
It would seem I forgot last week's photo. She actually posed nicely, and I got to choose the least freakish of the 5 photos I took! Now if she would only stop thinking the bathroom is her place to pee too...
I can't believe she is almost 6 months old now. Her ears and paws are still huge. I keep thinking that she is going to stop growing any day now, then I realize that is just me being wishful. She is the perfect size right now to me. She's on that large side of what people would consider a "medium" dog. But I know that since she is only 24 weeks, she still has many, many months of growing ahead of her.
She is still sweet as ever, but drives me crazy sometimes with her baby brainlessness. She's been enjoying all the turkey scraps she has been fed these last couple of days. I am sure she is thankful that the little girls can never seem to finish everything on their plates. And I figure that a little turkey and rice can't be too bad for her. I try to keep her away from too much gravy. That dog gets gassy enough without any help from gravy.
We all drove down to my mom's in Vancouver this morning and got there at about lunchtime. It was really nice to be able to spend Thanksgiving with my family for the first time in over 10 years.
The food? There was a ton of it. Turkey, Ribeye roast, turkey and beef gravy, stuffing, potatoes, sweet potatoes, rice, green beans, cranberries, pumpkin pie and custard pie. It was all delicious. And it was so nice to get to hang out with my family, then get sleepy after eating while we digested.
Even Nani wasn't immune to the turkey coma.
The boy still loves his dog, even though she refuses to be totally house trained.
Here's Nani, protesting her innocence after getting busted again chewing on books in my office room.
Thank God we have had the laser pointer for her exercise on the really rainy days.
She was not cooperating for today's photo shoot.
Let's start with knitting. I started my I Mog Di socks from my Wollmeise club shipment. They are coming along nicely, when I get the chance to actually work on them. You have to pay attention to the pattern, but it goes faster than I thought it would.
Oooh! I got a great pair of Via Spiga pumps for super cheap on Saturday. The retail was $225.00. I got them for $23.99. I love them!! 
And in other shopping news, I spent a birthday check on some earrings made by my Plurk- buddy Opal. Aren't they lovely? Go buy stuff from her! She's got great jewelry and stitch markers and handspun.
And lastly, I got a bird feeder for my birthday from Anne and Doug. I had been wanting one for some time. I put it on the hook on the deck that I can see from my desk while I work. The jays are hard to get photos of, because they spook much easier than the sparrows and finches.
Well, I hope everyone is having a great week. Mine isn't too bad, though I have been working way too much.
She hates the vacuum cleaner.
I just saw Elmer for the first time today. I can't believe Harley did this to him. She is always making fun of him for being a "girly cat". The girl has gone too far this time.
Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na... BATDOG!
It's just a dog and her boy.
Last night I heard splashing and whining coming from the bathroom. Harley and I were out here in the living room, so we decided to go investigate the strange noises. Harley went into the bathroom and said "OMG, why is there water all over the floor?" She looked up right as I walked in and we both saw this scene:
Chace said "But mom, she was stinky!"
This week has been sort of rough. Monday was spent trying to furiously prepare for the night's massive computer system upgrade at work. By 10pm, the old system was crashing and hanging. They thought they may have to abort go-live of the new system. I didn't get everything done that I needed to. By 12:30 am, I called it a night. We lost some statistical data. But an even bigger deal was that one of the guys forgot to do the final billing batch out of the old version. Now they are trying to figure out how to recover about a half a million dollars stuck on the old, dead server. My main backup guy on the IT team has been sort of cranky with me. I am going to chalk it up to stress.
Tuesday was just a series of minor irritations that kept coming at me all day long. I handled it.
Wednesday, I finally got the call that the middle school that my son was supposed to be going to was finally going to register my child and get him started in school. I had been trying to get him registered since JUNE. The registrar had/has issues. The next blog entry has the school details if you are interested. I had to write the ordeal to get it all out of my system. And keep in mind while if read it that Bellevue is supposed to have the number one district in the state. ORLY?
Later that night was nice. My sister and 2 of my brothers take us out to dinner. Since they had the moving truck all loaded up and were moving back to Vancouver, WA.
So Chace finally starts school on Thursday. I walk the kids to school, and Chace's bus stop is right next to the girls' school, and his bus leaves at the same time the girls start class. Pretty convenient. From there, I go straight to a meeting at work, where I walk into the tail end of another meeting that I get dragged into. It is a major sh*tstorm - fallout from the upgrade on Monday night. Wrapping up some details here makes me late for the meeting I was scheduled to be in. So after that, I run straight back to get Lex from school, go to the store for dog food, and realize that after buying shoes for the girls and the damn dog food, I have almost exactly $5 to last me until Friday next week. Lovely.
I run home to finish work, get wrapped up in that and am a couple minutes late picking Kassie up from school. I adjust my calendar to give me my reminder 5 minutes earlier. I continue working on that missing half million dollars issue for work. I keep looking at the clock wondering where Chace is. About an hour after school has let out, I really start to worry. I know he walks slow and dawdles, but he is nowhere outside. I call the school, who calls transportation, who calls the bus driver. Nobody has seen him. The school pages him. They don't hear from him. I let them know he is a high functioning autistic boy who is at the school for his first time of the school year. I am worried that he may have gotten stressed out and disoriented - it has happened before. I get in the car and start to search the neighborhood. By this time, I am in tears. The school calls me back a few minutes later to tell me that he came in the office.
I go pick him up. He had fallen asleep outside under a tree. The intercom page woke him up. I asked him why he was still at school. He said he was waiting for me to pick him up and/or he missed his bus. He didn't call me because he figured I would notice he didn't come home on the bus and I would go pick him up. I made sure he knew that if he missed his bus, he needed to go to the office and call me.
Today is Friday. It is also Talk Like A Pirate Day. I am also a year older. As a special birthday gift to me, Nani had explosive diarrhea on the living room carpet this morning. We have cream colored carpet. So far, despite hunger, I have been unable to eat breakfast.
God, I pray that the weekend goes better. I pray that Mr Midgeling realizes that making me pay for shoes, school clothes, school supplies and school lunches out of the household budget is making it so that we will not be able to afford milk next week. Lord, please give the man a clue. Amen.
She loves to eat dirt. *sigh*
It's my 16th anniversary today.
I just wants to share a photo of the first bloom off this bush. I was wondering what color it would be ever since we moved in. I like purple, lol.
And Nani was cute the other night. We took her for a long walk and she was pooped out. She immediately came in the house for a drink, then went straight to her boy's bed for a nap.
So, the drive-by blog post is at an end. I hope everyone has a great start to the weekend and stays safe.
It's not the best photo of her. I have had a rough week and didn't get a chance to photograph her today under natural light.
Here's one I took earlier in the week that I liked much better:
And of course, Elmer is not to be outdone by a dog that uses him as a chew toy and leaves him covered in spit. He posed nicely for me.
Still has the floppy ear.
I love the ankle-gnawing troublemaker.
Here's a much better photo of Elmer:
Would you believe these two were actually sitting quietly together watching the kids play on the floor?
It was very short lived peace.
Meet Elmo. At least that is what the King County Animal Care and Control named him. I am not entirely sure it fits him. I keep calling him "Elmer" in my head, but it seems like a slightly undignified name. (Forgive me if you know an Elmer who is very dignified, but the only Elmer I know is Elmer Fudd.)
The shelter said he was a flame point Balinese, but he looks like he may be a mix of some sort, because he looks more like a flame/tabby point Balinese. He's got the apple shaped head (underneath all the fur), beautiful blue eyes and the flame color, but more of a tabby patterning to him. He is gorgeous. These photos don't do him justice. It was too dark in here for anything but flash photos and my diffuser broke. I will have to get better photos of him in the daytime.
He is affectionate and loves to be held or just sit in your lap. His personality is so much like Baby's. That's why i was drawn to him. He has a few spots on his fur where you could tell they had to cut the mats out/off of him, but they will grow back. He even likes Nani, but Nani is scared of him. It's funny watching her try to figure out how she feels about him.
Nathan and Harley don't like him. Nathan is really pissed at me because he didn't want a cat yet. He wants me to get rid of him. I went to the shelter to look and prove that there was nobody there that would fit our family so I could stop stalking Petfinder so darn obsessively. I was wrong. He's not Baby, but then nobody will ever be like Baby. However, I think Baby would like Elmer.
So fine. He's my cat. I love him. When I first saw him, I passed him by because he was the first cat I saw. You don't want to just pick the first one, you know? I looked at all the other ones. But I kept thinking of Elmer. I spent time with him in one of the meeting rooms. He cuddled me. And I love him.
We named her Nani Que. Pronounced Nah-nee Kay.
Nani = "what" in Japanese
Que = "what" in Spanish.
It fits her. She is really an easy puppy. She whines when she needs to go out to potty, eat or drink. She still dislikes car rides, but I am sure that will change with time. Nani sleeps in Chace's room with him and is only truly happy when she is hanging out with someone. She doesn't like to be alone. That's a good thing, since there is always someone running around this house.
We are all in love!
This is our new puppy! She doesn't have a name just yet, and we haven't brought her home yet. We are curently in Vancouver, WA at my parent's house having an end of summer vacation. My mom's birthday is on Friday and my Dad's birthday is Saturday. It will be the first time my mom will have all of her kids together on her birthday in over 10 years. It's too bad my step-bro Andy cant be here.
Anyway, the whole vacation thing is the reason why we wont be able to pick her up until Saturday afternoon. We didn't want her to have too much upheaval, moving from house to house in just one week.
Isn't she pretty? She chose us. She kept coming over and sitting on Harley's feet. Harley would pick her up, we would cuddle her and pass her around and then put her down. Then she would come right on back. She is one of 10 (!) puppies. She's probably the most mellow and quiet of the bunch. The dad is a registered German Shepard, but the mom wasn't registered because she was the runt of her litter and not considered "quality". Both parents were nice, even-tempered dogs, so I think this puppy will be a good match for us.
I have a few more photos on my Flickr account.