Happy Birthday!

Little Man Conall turned two last week.

Or, not so little Little Man, that is (with Papi, here) - 92%ile height and 80%ile weight at his checkup this week - he's a big one, just like his sister. (Please, please, please, don't play football when you're bigger! Play soccer, or swim, like your Papi, please!!)

She really wanted to help him blow out those candles... He got a couple more Thomas the Tank Engine books and engines and some Play-Doh stuff; a nice, calm birthday after a pretty crazy Christmas this year.

And he wouldn't eat the cupcakes, funny man. He loves chocolate, so I thought he'd eat them, but he'd just take a tiny little nibble from the bottom of a cupcake and then put it back on the plate. Ah well, more for Ms. B that way!

About Time!

Hooray, the Little Man is walking! (He's 16 1/2 months at this point, so he's a bit late - his big sister walked at 15 months just about on the nose, also on the late side - they're both quite large, I guess large kids tend to walk a little later, according to their doctor, who wasn't particularly worried - I love their doctor, he actually *listens* to me, amazing, he's great.)

Want to see some pictures? :)



There he goes! Too funny, they're so cute when they're first figuring it out. I guess he was just finally ready - he's been pushing one of his trucks around a lot lately, and Sunday was just the day! (Shaggy grass in the back yard.)


He's feeling *so* much bigger lately (I swear they grow overnight), but he's still pretty darn little next to our Big Papi...

Somebody likes the camera.

He's been walking all over the place since Sunday - backing up, turning around, going around things, squatting down and picking stuff up... Ginga (my Mum) called it - he waited a while to get around to it, but now he's a pro, with very minimal wipe-outs.

Hope everyone had a nice long weekend!

Skiing! Hooray!

So, we've been skiing on Sundays a bit this winter, just popping up to little Pat's Peak to give Ms. B a bit of an introduction to the sport. It's a friendly little mountain, very nice for kids, and has some nice little steep runs for Carlos and I, too.

But this past weekend, we got up to Stowe, for the first time in FIVE YEARS. I can't believe it's been that long... We used to have season passes there, and rent a house with friends (hi to Doug and Sarah!!), but that was before Ms. B and Mr. C. They've put a bit of a damper on the skiing thing, especially since Stowe is a bit over three hours away.

The Quad, on Saturday morning - the "nose" of Mt. Mansfield is in a bit of clouds.



This is partway down from the quad. It's always hard to get a good perspective of the steepness of a trail with a camera... This is a relatively mild blue (intermediate) run at Stowe. I think I'd forgotten what skiing a real mountain is like. The double black (expert only) race trail at Pats that I was having fun on would rate pretty much with the more difficult blue runs at Stowe. Pats is cute, but its a toy mountain! And one run at Stowe (they're loooong runs) is about equal to four at Pats. My thighs were burning!

Man was it good to be back on difficult terrain - yes, I do ski the black runs at Stowe. And I have skied all the Front Four (including Goat, which is nuts), but not on this trip, I'm still too out of shape. Depressing, but true.


Bella on her first chair lift! That's the new Inspiration Quad over at Spruce Peak (also part of Stowe - nice that beginners have a completely separate place to learn, basically). Spruce is in the midst of a HUGE construction project. New lodge, new housing, shops, an ice rink, new lifts, it's all going to be gorgeous from the looks of it. Main Street (run down the middle of Spruce, used to be completely 'wild' snow - no grooming and no snowmaking) looks completely different. There is a HUGE half pipe, all sorts of big jumps, and a new, much faster, lift.

The changes are interesting. I'm used to Stowe being kind of funky classy, almost eccentric. I'm hoping it won't lose all of that vibe with the improvements... Definitely really like the Over Easy Gondola that connects the two mountains. I actually had time to scoot over to Mansfield and get some snowboarding in while Bella was in her lesson on Sunday morning.



Bella, after her first-ever ski lesson with a real live instructor. Tired, but really happy. And she's learning so much! (I'm all proud, the instructor raved about how coordinated she is - she's still just three, after all, for a couple more weeks...)



Conall says - hey, I have ski pants, why am I stuck in the lodge while you guys get to have all the fun?? Got to learn how to walk on your own, first, little man... (My kids are late walkers.)

Carlos, after tele skiing on Saturday afternoon while Conall, Bella and I hung out at our hotel: "If I could have one day a year of skiing like that, I'd be a happy man..." I think that means he had a good time.

I was a bit worried about his back (he had pretty major back surgery in the summer of '06 - while I was pregnant and about three weeks before we flew to France, insane!), but it held up really well. His days of hucking off jumps and such on his snowboard are probably over (really kind of sad, wah, poor guy, he's so coordinated and graceful on his board and skis) (I hit a couple of little natural kickers for him on Sunday in the powder, just for fun, lol), but he can still telemark like a demon!

We're heading back up this coming weekend, for four days this time! Whhhheeeee!

Stay tuned - I need to post about meeting a fellow EtsyFAST team member!

Phew, What a Week

What a week, crazy. It turns out that my camera *didn't* die - it was just being flaky. Figured this out after I ordered the new one, of course! LOL But that's just as well, if the old one is starting to get wonky, I really do need a reliable camera...

But, in the end, it was good that the old one was still working - the new one didn't arrive until Wednesday, but Tuesday was...

Mr. Conall's first birthday! He was kind of like - why are you giving me this round thing with fire on top? He got the idea, but then flung more of the cupcake around the kitchen than he actually ate (probably just as well).

Lucky guy also went to the doctor on Wednesday morning and got two shots. He's really good about them (doesn't fuss much at all), but it does usually wipe him out. Wow, he actually napped! For anybody who cares - he's now 31 1/2" tall (92nd %ile) and weighs 26 pounds (88th %ile). He's a big guy, just like his sister has always been (tall, but she's lower on the weight scale).

And then my new little camera arrived on Wednesday! It's so cute! Love it so far, but haven't had much chance to use it.



Hi Madeline-cat!

Haven't had much time to weave. I'm experimenting with some rya knots on a little scarflette and I'm just not sure whether I like them or not. I'm still kind of uncoordinated in making them, so they're pretty time-consuming. Not sure whether they're neat or just goofy. Also have no idea how they'll react to finishing/washing. We'll see! I'll post pictures when it's done, either way.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Dead end!

OK, this picture requires a couple explanations. That's Conall, the ten-month-old, and he's "walking" around the kitchen, pushing this stool in front of him, sticking his tongue out to crack me up at the same time. Funny little man. Sister Bella didn't walk until 15 months, so this is really a surprise! We're thinking he might be walking by Christmas (he'll be almost 1 at Christmas). That would certainly make ski season a lot easier for us...

The other part of the explanation is about the stool itself, which has a neat little backstory. My big brother Tim is the head librarian at theTown of Oxford Free Public Library, in Massachusetts. What a great job, huh? He also really loves woodworking, and has made all sorts of fantastic furniture for my Mum. (Trying to talk him into looking into Etsy, but I don't think it's going to happen.)

A couple years ago, the town of Oxford voted to expand his library dramatically, and in the process they replaced a lot of the old shelves (the original library building is reasonably old by U.S. standards, from the early 1900s, IIRC, and they found all sorts of neat historical documents - including a time capsule - during the renovation).

At any rate, Tim salvaged the shelves and made everyone these fantastic little footstools out of them! I actually have two. :) One is down behind my big loom - I sit on it while threading heddles.

This one has gotten kind of beat up over the years... Stickers put on it by Bella, paint dripped on it by me, cat prints tracked across it by Madeline. But we use it every day! Bella uses it to reach the computer, I use it to reach things stored way up high in the kitchen, Conall loves to push it around. Great present. Hooray for big brother Tim. :)

Thanksgiving is about family, after all, right?

On a Posting Role...

I seem to be on a role with the posting thing lately, so I thought I'd keep it up.

Here's a picture to keep you a little interested, lol:

Somebody thinks his big sister is the best thing EVER.

Goofball.

On weaving fronts - Carlos was at work today (sigh) so I got zip accomplished. Managed to sew up another pillow during the goofball's (very short) naptime, though, using interfacing this time and it is much much better. It will be in my shop as soon as I can manage photos of it...

Raining Leaves!

The Weavers' Guild of Boston sale went really well (I sold more than I expected to!), and I will post photos, but, for now, I had to post about the crazy leaf rain out back today...


The leaves are a bit later this year than normal, and we have a Norway maple in our back yard (they have been classified as a weed species, eeks - a normal looking maple, shorter and more full than sugar maples, terrible root system - can't plant anything anywhere near them - and the leaves do change, but not as brilliantly as sugar maples).

ANYWAY. The Norway maple out back has been really slow to change this year, but it finally has, and this morning, after a couple cold nights, as soon as the sun hit the leaves they started just *pouring* off the tree! It was hilarious! About 1/3 of the leaves fell in the space of about a half hour!

So, I plopped Conall into them - we have a set of photos of Bella from right around the same age, also sitting in the leaves, but, here's a couple of Mr. Conall (ten months old today!):



OK, let's see if I can find one from Bella... This is from October, 2004, and she is eight months old, just about on the nose:



That was fun. :) The light was better in the pictures of her. And I probably should have cropped a couple of the ones of him (lazy)... But I do think they look alike, though she had more hair than him! :) (And it was red then, too, obviously, his is light brown, but I think it will wind up darker, more like mine.)

Mobile Baby

Hey, guess who has really started to crawl?

Yup, Carlos. (Just kidding - Conall, of course.) It's great to see, of course, but at the same time... Yikes! This kid already manages to get into *everything* it's going to be insane keeping up with him once he really gets going. I have no idea if this is early/late/average to be crawling (he's about 8 1/2 months and quite the pudge)... Bella didn't crawl until she was almost ready to walk (she walked late - talked insanely early, but walked very late) - she scooted around on her bum instead! Very funny, if you've never seen a kid do it, it's hilarious. It also has the side benefit of being quite a bit slower than crawling (i.e. easier to run block...) Conall has also started saying "Ta-Da!" once in a while when he picks up something like a Cheerio, while holding it up victoriously. Probably doesn't count as a first word, but it's very cute. Funny little man.

Two Cute Men

Conall turned 8 months old on Saturday (when I took this photo):

A Drafting Oops This Time

Good grief. It seems to be my month to make mistakes.

I'm in the midst of another shadow weave project (been a little while since I did one, I was in the mood again). I wound warp, got it on the loom, threaded, etc., and started to weave:

The colors are actually nicer than this picture shows - white, two shades of grey and a steel blue, with accents of deep red running through it. (I realized after the fact that I had unintentionally used my alma mater's colors - red and grey.)

Anyway, do you see the big fat error on the right side? It's not symmetrical. Bugs the hell out of me. This isn't a threading error - I threaded it the way I meant to - it's a drafting error. I needed a mirror image of the left side on the right side and I blew it. Whoops.

Mr. Conall was actually in the mood to nap yesterday. Amazing. After two weeks of never napping more than a half hour (kill me now, lol), he actually took a two+ hour nap yesterday mid-day. WOW. Gave me time to fix this!

So, I unwove (is that a word?), took that little hunk of 11 ends back through the reed and heddles, re-threaded them, tied on again, and started over:



Ta-da! Better, right? Can you see the difference? I sure can, no longer bugging the heck out of me. I think the whole thing will relax a little when it's off the loom and I wash it, but I like the Xs and Os, this is a fun pattern.

Hopefully, that's the end of the mistakes for a little while!