Yesterday Honor and Eden thought it would be great fun to play with the bike. I found this out when Honor started screaming. The most I can figure out is that Honor was touching the gears of the bike while Eden turned the pedals.

He got his finger caught between two gears and somehow the chain was also involved in the whole finger smooshing. I couldn’t figure out how to get him out, and was afraid that I’d hurt him worse. All kinds of things ran through my mind: What if it’s stuck in there too long and he loses his finger? What if I can’t get it out and I have to call 911 and he has to stand there for hours while they disassemble the bike? What if it’s broken and I have to rush him to the hospital?

As you can see, I’m a little dramatic. I couldn’t figure out how to get his poor little finger out, so I called Jim who happens to work only 6 blocks away. He told me to calm down and then ran all the way home. In the mean time, I was able to take the chain off the bike and get Honors finger out. It was pretty red and swollen and it broke the skin right at the cuticle. But other than that he was ok. Today it’s just a little red. Poor baby.

Last night we went to my sisters house to visit her new pet. An Iguana named Melengar. He’s a rather massive lizard, about 3 feet long. I wish I would have brought my camera with me….

He’s got a blue head that fades into a brilliant green and then ends at his tail in brown. Eden was pretty scared of him and would only touch his tail, when we forced her to. But this morning, all she could talk about was “Ashweys Wizard”. She told me that she touched the “wizards” tail and that the “wizard woves me!”.

On a side note, yesterday Eden gathered up her purse full of toys, put her shoes on (nevermind pants!) and announced that she and bunny where going shopping at Old Navy. Makes me so proud!

It’s that time of year again. Peach Season. There’s nothing better than the smell of peaches drying on a summer-turning-to-fall day. With it being peach season, then pear season, then apple season, the dehydrator doesn’t stop running. I even had some frozen apricots left that I just finished drying.

My family LOVES fruit leather, which is just fine with me, it’s so easy to make. All you do is wash the peach and then just break it up with your hands into a big pot (remove the seed of course). Cook it down for a few minutes with a dash of lemon juice, and then blend. Pour onto fruit leather trays and dry. The most time consuming part is rolling it. I cut my “sheets” into 8ths and then roll in wax paper. Here’s a picture of the apricot leather all ready to be rolled.

I’ve been a little slow in posting, but I wanted to say Happy 21st Birthday to my little sister, Ashley. We had a fabulous steak dinner at our moms house on Monday and a REALLY good whipped cream cake. How can you go wrong with whipped cream?

Ashley is the hardest person EVER to shop for. I had planned on getting her some pants at Old Navy, but they ended up being flare legged and Ash hates flares (who could blame her?). So, everything I suggested to her that she would want, she didn’t want. I was at a complete loss. I bought her a belt. Whoo Hoo! She didn’t seem too thrilled. But she was happy with the adult beverage that we also bought her. She did turn 21 afterall.

It has suddenly occured to me that the Feast of Tabernacles is coming up! This is what Jim and his family have celebrated his whole life (and is part of his quazi Jewish upbringing.)

This will be the third year now that we will celebrate in our own special way, Fiesta Blevinza. (cheesy, I know.) It keeps getting bigger and bigger, this year I’m even thinking of making tee shirts… hmm… maybe next year. It’s the greatest bash. We have SO much wonderful mexican food, mariachi music, great decorations and awsome party favors, if I do say so myself.

With this feast coming up, it means that I need to lurch in to planning mode. I want this Fiesta Blevinza to be 10 times better than last year. And seeing that I had Honor one week after last Fiesta Blevinza, I’m sure it will be 10 times better.

It also means that I’ve got to lurch into knitting mode. This is the feast that we exchange gifts with Jim’s family. I plan to make everyone who will wear one, a scarf.
Here’s my progress on Abbey’s scarf. It’s the cutest pattern ever, a worm.

I also made this scarf out of the left over yarn from Brooke’s poncho. I’m not sure who it will be for, but the more I see it, the more I think I need to keep it for myself.

Today, I ordered some plain wool yarn (oh, the joys of eBay!) that I will hand dye to make more scarves. Soon I will be crowned the scarf making queen!!!

Here’s my progress on Aunt Ann’s scarf, which will be for Christmas.

It’s made out of merino wool and some kind of sparkly yarn which is a pain to knit with because it keeps getting tangled, but that’s for another day.

It’s astounding how out of shape I am. This week I began riding my bike. I’ve hooked it up to a windtrainer that makes it stationary. It’s really nice since I’m not able to leave the house to ride until we can shell out the big bucks for one of those little trailors for the kiddos to ride in (and helmets for the whole family, gotta wear the helmets!). It’s rather sad, but I can only ride for 10 minutes. Seriously, I can barely make it through the 10 minutes. I just keep telling myself, I need to kick my a$$. I have to get in shape. I have to.

Today I decided that the last minute (really it seemed like 15 minutes not just one minute, I wonder if my watch really works…) I would just give it my all. I barely lived. Really. It just about killed me. All day today, I’ve been sick. I pushed myself too hard. WHAT A WUSS!! 10 minutes is not that long and I’m barely making it today.

Maybe someday I will make it up to 13 minutes. THAT will be an accomplishment.

We just returned from our last camping trip of the year (I think). We went up to Glade Park for two nights where we attended the movie under the stars on Friday night. I love going up to the movie, the volunteer fire department in Glade Park shows a movie every Friday night in the summer. They sell hot dogs and hamburgers, candy and pop corn for supa cheap and the ticket to the movie is $1. All this money goes to funding the fire department. To encourage you to buy a ticket, they get local businesses to donate items or gift certificates and have several drawings.

The movie we watched was Second Hand Lions, which was a great movie, but we had just watched it. The kiddos got quite fussy towards the end and it was WAY colder than we expected it to be.

The rest of camping was fabulous. Except for the bears. Saturday night, the smell of our steak dinner drew bears to our campsite. They proceded to rummage through our trash and tear into our COOLER! I never knew a bear could get into a cooler! They ate a whole loaf of bread, a pound of lunch meat, a package of cream cheese, a stick of butter that was in a TUPPERWARE!, two packages of hot dogs. This is the aftermath of our lunch.

You can’t tell in this picture but next to the cup holder on the cooler, there is a puncture mark from either a claw or a tooth.

This is a picture of Eden and Jen and if you look close you can see Bunny who was brown instead of pink by the time we got home.

Honor had a great time playing in the dirt and being slimy.

And here we are in all our flithy camping glory.

Sunday night Honor received his first hair cut. I was so proud that one of my bald children needed a hair cut. I throughly enjoyed it as I know it will be years before Eden needs a hair cut.

It looks much more torturous in picutres than it really was. As you can see, I was holding him (my biggest concern was that grabby pants would reach up and get his fingers caught in the razor.) And Brooke was doing the cutting.

Believe it or not, but Honor’s hair is longer than Brian’s.

It’s not like his hair was too terribly long, but the hair on the sides was so much longer than the hair on the top and he looked like he was a balding old man/clown.

I may need to try this one. Without the fringe of course. I just can’t get myself to like that fringe.
I saw some suede yarn at the knitting store the other day that would make a lovely poncho, I think I may even bring myself to wear a poncho made out of that fantastic yarn.

The yarn Harlot poncho.

I’m eating peaches and cream. I just thought I would take this opportunity to gloat. There are such great benefits to living right next to Colorado’s peach country. So let me tell you again. I’m eating peaches and cream.

Another thing I’d like to talk about is Walmart. I was there last night. I have to say that I’m quite offended. When ever someone insults my ability as a mother, I get pretty offended.

The wonderful greeter lady gave us a cart and as Jen was strapping Honor in and I was lifting Eden into the back, she asked if we’d like another cart for Eden to sit in. I politely told her no thank you. She proceded to tell me that according to the little flap in the front of the cart that kids shouldn’t sit in the back of the cart. I told her no thank you. She asked me TWICE more if I wanted another cart, each time I told her no thank you. Really Jim would be proud, I was nice the whole time.

But seriously, it’s not like I travel through Walmart with my children hanging upside down out of the basket like monkeys. Eden always has to sit down on her bottom and if she doesn’t I stop the cart and make her do it. Honor is always strapped in.

I hate being made to feel like I suck as a mother. Really. But at least I have peaches.