It’s been overcast and rainy the last few days, I just love weather like this. Jim loves it because it’s gotten him out of mowing the lawn, although he has enjoyed blowing every single leaf on our property with our new leaf blower my mom got us for our anniversary.

Things are just a wee bit crazy around here. Most of the preparations have been made for the fiesta and the house is as clean as it can be with two little destruct-o-cons running around. Today after I work at the office AND the yarn store, I’ll come home, eat dinner, get the kids in bed and then meet Elaine at the airport. Eden has been talking about Baby Anya for the last two weeks. She is just peeing her pants with excitement to be able to hug Baby Anya. She keeps exclaiming out of the blue, “Baby Anya is my friend.” Just about every baby doll in our house is now named Baby Anya.

Tomorrow is all about the food preparation and party favors. I think I’m most excited about the cotton candy. YUM! I’m off to finish the last of the vacuuming and get ready for work.

Eden messed up her face again. I swear, she’s going to look like a boxer by the time she’s 6. It seems all her injuries involve her falling from great heights. Luckily this one didn’t end us up in the emergency room. She climbed ON TOP of her little kitchen and then either jumped or fell off hitting the corner of her eye on a sharp toy. That kid is a monkey. Today, her eye is still swollen, but I think she’s going to be ok.

If we can make it though this week with everyone intact, we’ll be doing great. Three more days until the fiesta, I think we’re going to make it!

Is it sad that I cleaned the windows of the house for the first time… in FOUR years? Now every time I walk by I’m shocked by how clean they are, it’s like the difference between wearing glasses and not.

And now I have a bathroom to clean…

Eden: “Hey, why did you put your flower sheets on, where are your blue sheets?”
Me: “I changed them because the blue sheets were dirty.”
Eden: “‘Cause Daddy peed on the blue sheets?”

Me: “Eden tell Grammy what happens when little kids go into the liquor store.”
Eden: “They go to jail.”
Me: “And what happens in jail.”
Eden: “They get knocked up.”
I very quickly add, “She means LOCKED up.”

Upon realizing that the kids are very quiet, Jim goes to investigate. He finds both of them sitting side by side on their bedroom floor. “What are you doing?”
Eden: “We’re watching Cinderella, it’s just pretend.”

We picked up our car from the shop yesterday. It was really sad to give Jim’s dad’s van back to him. As much as I resist the idea of driving around a minivan (I’m only 24! I should be driving some cool European hatch back.), it is SO nice for taking the kids around town. Like a night and day difference between a minivan and our little Honda Civic.

But we gave the van back and picked up the Honda. And we got very good news! It didn’t end up being the clutch, it was the axle after all. We saved $450.00. Thank God. My dad was relieved too, cause he was starting to doubt his diagnostic abilities. I’m just relieved that all my hard work at the yarn store this month isn’t going to go towards the stupid car.

Tonight Jim and I are going to celebrate our 6th anniversary (which is actually Sunday.) My friend Melissa was so sweet to offer to take the kids for us all night tonight. I can’t believe that it’s been six years. But in some ways, I can’t really remember my life before being married. I was really young when I decided to get married, not even 18 years old, but I knew then that it was the right decision. I’ve spent the last six years knowing that my 17 year old self knew what she was doing. I can only see God’s hand on my life, and I am more grateful than words can say.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the judgement we pass on each other. When it comes down to it, we are all deeply flawed. I guess I don’t understand the part of human nature that prompts us to point out those flaws in each other. I think it becomes even harder when parenting choices come into question. I know a lot of us go into parenting totally naive. We think that things should be a certain way and judge all the others who do it differently.

I know personally, I went into parenting with very strong views about staying home (ala Dr. Laura). How I regret the judgement I passed on moms needing to work. I think many times we judge what we don’t understand. And I think that once I entered the situation where I needed to work the few hours that I do, more for my mental health than my financial health, I began to understand why some moms work. Honestly, I can’t count the words I’ve eaten.

I still believe that there are absolutes, there are rights and wrongs, but I think many times, we make our view of “absolutes” too broad. I think that unless you see someone crossing that absolute line, that we should have more faith in our fellow parents ability to do their job their own way. This doesn’t mean that I don’t hold standards, I hold many of them. But I guess I’m trying to get to the point where I think long and hard before holding anyone but myself up to those standards.

I can’t remember the last time Eden slept through the whole night. She rarely gets up needing to go to the bathroom, but she always says she’s scared. As she gets bigger, it gets harder and harder to actually get any sleep if she’s in bed with us, so we usually make her go back to her bed. The other night she climbed into, or I should say onto, our bed and when I told her to go back she threw a big fit. She said that she was scared of the Elephant on her wall. She was really freaking out about it.

So, in a moment of tired desperation I asked her, “Do you want to sleep on the couch?” And she thought that was the greatest thing ever. Now all she wants to do is sleep on the couch. I’m not sure how to keep her in her bed, but at least she says that she’s not scared of the elephant anymore.

Interweave knits has a new more “youthful” knitting magazine out. My guess is that it’s in competition with Knit.1. I like it better than Knit.1, I think, because it features more than just Lion Brand yarn.

Here are a few things I’m thinking of making (pardon the poor photo quality.)

I think this sweater is really great, minus the pom poms. Can you imagine what kind of gunk would be floating around in those? Just give them one minute with Honor and we’d have to call in the biohazard team. (I really need to get myself my own personal biohazard team, don’t ya think?)

The description of this one was a strapless vest. I might be able to pull it off with a button up shirt underneath and a jacket over.

And this is my favorite. I’m making a model for the yarn shop, and then I’m sure one for me too.

Being at the yarn shop all the time is hard because there are SO many things I want to make and not enough time in the day. sigh…

The weather has turned instantly cold here. Although knowing Colorado, it will be back up into the 70’s again before winter officially sets in. It’s really hard to choose a favorite part of fall. I love the leaves changing. There’s just something about it that just changes the whole entire atmosphere. And the cooler weather is such a relief, but I think the reason I love it so much is that it means snuggles with my babies during cold mornings.

Fall also means some fun things coming up. Our anniversary is this coming Sunday and Fiesta Blevinza is the following Saturday. Wow how quickly that has come. And it’s very exciting because Elaine will be flying in for the Fiesta in a week and a half! The realization of this just hit me last night and I realized, I’ve got lots to do! So I sat down today and mapped out everything I’ve got to accomplish for the party.

Now I just have to figure out something free and childless we can do to celebrate our anniversary.

I’ve sat here for an hour trying to think of something to write. I guess I’m suffering some sort of block. Life is progressing as usual around here. Hopefully the car will be fixed soon, turns out it was the clutch. Ouch.

We’ve got a busy weekend planned, I’ve got two knitting classes and Jim is playing a show with his band. I’ll have more interesting things to post next week, I promise.