In one of Thing Two's classes last week, they made home-made Chia heads. Thing Two, however, did hers upside down, so her guy has a beard growing upwards instead of hair on his head. Pretty funny. The grass grows really fast. Sometimes, it seems like every time I pass through the kitchen, it's grown a little bit more!
Well, the barbecue was a big success. The first person arrived at about 12:20, and the last one left at 7:45 after helping with some clean-up.
We ended up with 36 people, including kids, and WAY more food than we needed. Hubby cooked up about eight pounds of chicken leg quarters, a mess of pork ribs (1/3 of them still marinating in the fridge & never got cooked), a bunch of hot dogs for the kids, and not quite half a big package of steaks I had bought. We also had the usual chips & dip, some fancier fried appetizers, three different green salads, potato salad, two different pasta salads, fruit, shrimp, veggies & dip, apple pie a la mode, and an American flag cake. I've always wanted to make one, and then I forgot to get a picture of it -- d'oh! It was a white cake with cream cheese frosting with fresh blueberries & strawberries on top. By the end of the party, there wasn't a bite left. Yippee!
There are still several two-liter bottles of soda outside in a big tub of ice(water), plus a partial keg (!) of Miller. One of our friends from Thing One's school called this morning and said they had an extra keg left from a party they'd had on Saturday, and he wanted to know if he should bring it. He came over an hour or two before the party was supposed to start and got it all set up in a big tub of ice so it would be nice & cold by the time the party started, then came back later. What a guy!
We had a good mixture of people -- church friends, a family we know from WW/MOMS club days, one of hubby's co-workers, and friends from both Thing One & Thing Two's schools.
Everyone seemed to have a great time, though there were a few kids who were pretty freaked out by Jenna. We ended up having the fearful kids stay inside and having Jenna stay outside with that crowd until all the fearful kids had left. It's really too bad that those kids were so freaked out b/c Jenna was SO good! She had a blast with so many kids to play with. She was really very well-behaved, didn't get upset when new people arrived, wanted to play with everyone. I don't remember having to correct her behavior once the whole time. We did have to have her leave the room a few times or leave someone alone who was afraid of her, but she wasn't doing anything wrong, just existing within the line of vision or personal space of someone. One seven-year-old girl was so afraid she started yelling when she just saw Jenna, even though Jenna was outside and she was inside! Now, I could understand this from the 18-month-old b/c Jenna must look huge and intimidating to her, but from a seven-year-old? Really....
Anyway, we ate way too much, got to hang out with people we like, enjoyed some really nice weather, and had a good time. I must have been on my feet more than I thought b/c my feet are really tired.
Oh, and if you're wondering why I'm not in any of the pictures, I actually am. I'm in the loud orange & yellow tropical print shirt. I didn't really have anything summery to wear, so I grabbed that out of hubby's side of the closet. (My parents brought it back from Mazatlan for him a few years ago, and I think he's worn it all of once.) I think hubby didn't take my picture b/c...well...I just looked big & loud. Oh, well.
This was my little project this afternoon while the teen girls from church were cleaning the house to raise money for special contribution next Sunday. I weeded my front flower bed and finally put in my little solar lights for the front walkway.
As you can see, they're rather crooked. Hubby said he'd straighten them out for me.
I had meant to also weed the back flower bed, but I never did get to it. Oh, well. Our friends can deal with a few weeds for the barbecue tomorrow.
...Sophie. This time, I actually managed to choose a named pattern, so I'm sticking with the name. Sophie is yet another felted bag, a small purse. She's going to be orange and yellow stripes. Depending on how she looks, I may put a felted flower on one side, too. Fun!
Oh and yes, she's going to be made from some of my "accidental stash" from last week (see "LYS" and "LYS - Part 2" posts).
Yes, this is Helga, the big, hairy felted knitting bag. This one felted more like the patterns say: she shrank more in height than width/circumference. She's so big she could probably even hold an afghan or good-sized throw in progress.
I ended up deciding I didn't like the way the pattern wanted the bottom to be, so I used the bottom from the pattern for Inge. Basically, since she was 160 stitches around, I placed a marker every 40 stitches, then did k2tog before and after each marker until she was the size I wanted, then I did a three-needle bind-off on the bottom.
Yes, she's huge. Yes, she's hairy. Kind of hippyish, I suppose, but I do like her. Actually, she was so big before felting that I almost considered leaving the top open and having her be a poncho.
On to the next project....
...to the new shed! Muchas gracias, Marky Mark and Bobcat for passing on your old shed to us.
This picture was taken with the good digicam with flash, so it's a truer rendering of the colors. As you can see, Helga is growing quite well. I'm just about ready to start the bottom (it's a top-down pattern). I don't like the way the pattern says to do the flat bottom, though. It has too much seaming, which seems to me like it wouldn't be as sturdy. I'll probably do mitered corners like Inge so that the bag will end up more square. We'll see...Well, they had the big kindergarten/first grade performance at Thing One's school today. It was pretty cute. All the songs had something to do with food (even if it was only one line), so the theme was "The Pantry". Unfortunately, hubby and I had a lack of communication, so we were there w/o camera, and I dont't have any pictures to post.
Here's the program:
She's been practicing the songs for weeks, so we all know all the words to all of them. It's always fun to check out all the kids while they're performing. There was one first grade boy who looked like a young Elvis in his black suit and white shirt with his hair slicked back. A kindergarten boy had his hair in a Mohawk and his hands in his pockets, not participating. Fun!
Last night, Jenna got a chance to do a performance of "I'm a big, mean guard dog, and if you try to come through that door, I'm going to eat you for lunch".
It was 8:30, and hubby was at church. The Things were in bed, and I was in my Raiders jammies (great visual, eh?), sitting in the rocking chair, knitting. Suddenly, someone knocks on the front door, and Jenna starts barking like crazy.
I can barely see out the peep hole on my tippy toes, but I looked. There was a guy out there I didn't recognize so, with the door closed, I asked who it was. I didn't recognize his voice, and I couldn't tell what he was saying (I could see well enough, though, to know he wasn't a cop or a fireman or anything), so I just didn't open the door. Jenna kept barking for a while . She even jumped up on the door. Eventually, the guy went away. Jenna's barking woke up Thing One, but other than that, everything was fine.
Hopefully, the guy wasn't bleeding to death and looking for help from a compassionate person! It was great having Jenna get all protective like that. When hubby came home later, he was pleased to hear how Jenna had performed.
