I should start this post by saying that today is Hayley’s 11th birthday.  Happy birthday, Boo Bear!  OK, now that that’s out of the way - WHEW!  We had five extra 10 and 11 year old girls at our house today.  It’s a good lesson in realizing that it’s not just ours - they’re all that way!  Loud, giggly, a little mean, and loud.  Whoops, said that twice, but it was definitely worth repeating.  We took them to the movies to see Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man’s Chest.  The movie was great, and they behaved very well, other than managing to get popcorn butter all over their clothes at the “butter your own popcorn” station.  We came home, ate ice cream cake (loudly), opened presents (loudly and wildly and somewhat obnoxiously), then I realized that I was the victim of poor planning.  It was only 4:30, and the parents weren’t coming back until 5:30.  I sent them outside, and they were back in exactly 12 minutes later, because it was hot, and starting to thunder.  I sent them to the playroom for a rousing game of Twister.  That did last about half an hour, during which I could hear screams and giggles through the door (a solid wood outside door!) for the entire time.  I could hear it getting a little ugly out there, so I went in to referee.  They decided to go to Hayley’s room to “play”.  Bad move - 6 girls, boundless energy, in a 7 x 9 foot room.  I think the favorite pastime of 11 year old girls is to make fun of each other.  It wasn’t pretty.  Finally the parents started to come, though conveniently the loudest, most obnoxious 2 girls were the last to be picked up.  It’s over - we’ve survived another year and another party.  I said to Hayley after the last one left, “Aren’t you glad I didn’t let them all spend the night?”  She replied with a resounding “yes!”  I think she was just overwhelmed by the whole thing (I know I was!).

Thanks to FlyLady, my house was very nearly party-ready when we got up this morning (at 9:00!).  I threw in a load of laundry, ran the new vacuum (I am in love with this vacuum - we may run off together one day!), straightened up just a bit, and had time to sit and read email, take a shower, get dressed and made up, and then had 30 minutes to read and relax before they got here.  It was wonderful!  We have party round #2 with family tomorrow, and truthfully, the house is ready, and it feels so good to know we can just get up and go to church in the morning, and come home and have a party, no massive cleaning to do first!  I did get smart this year and realized that they sell ice cream cakes in the store, and I didn’t have to make one, which gets really messy.  Of course, I’d have spent about $6 on the ingredients to make one, and paid $16.99 for one in the store, but it was great, and was a giant yellow M&M made of ice cream, with M&M’s inside.  Quite tasty, and 15 minutes in the store was so much better than a few hours of melting ice cream mess!

Oh - you have to notice the new purple header(not a header anymore, but here’s a pic).

I was riding home from school Thursday afternoon, and an idea popped into my head - spell out Knitnik with knitting needles, take a picture, and make a button and a header.  The button is my first attempt - I couldn’t play with the colors and styling much without making the words disappear.  The purple you see at the top is a result of Shea and I playing with it in Photoshop.  I think it looks rather cool, though it did lose a bit of its knitting needle look in the end.  Still, a cool idea, executed somewhat well.  If you have a blog, please grab a button and link to me!

Obligatory Knitting Content - not much to post.  If you somehow strangely remember last year when Shea was working on a super-secret project for Hayley’s birthday that never got done, it was a knitted pillow, knitted with a microfiber and sort of feather-y fun fur type of yarn held together.  Shea never got more than about 3 rows done.  It languished in her closet for months, then she gave it to Hayley to knit (BTW, Shea is the Queen of Unfinished Projects, just so you know!), and she just putzed with it as well, finally ripping out the 3 rows and leaving the yarn in a drawer.  She found it the other day (I had forgotten about it as well), and asked if I could do it.  So, what have I been knitting?  A lime green furry pillow.  It’s just about done, which is good, because I don’t know how much longer I can stand the yarn!  It will be cute, and very soft, but it is a booger to knit, and I can understand why the girls gave up.  On the plus side, the furry stuff will be all gone, but it looks like there will be an entire ball of lime green microfiber yarn left for the stash.  Maybe it will be another small pillow some day.  But no time soon!

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