Busy, busy...

Wow where do I start. Max got tubes in his ears last Tuesday so about 11 days ago. Since then the boy has started to talk up a storm. He is telling his teachers at school "want more" when he wants his snack and "All done" when he is finished. He has even said Robyn. The funniest thing he has done yet was yesterday when we were out to lunch. I was giving him pieces of my seaweed salad just to see if he would like it. When I stopped feeding him pieces he yell "not done yet!!" and tried to grab for more. It was so funny. I was very proud of him.
He has also decided as of yesterday that he actually wants to walk and he is starting to practice on his own. He got up to 7 steps.

It got worse....

I was talking about the fact that little man got the stomach flu on Monday. It is now Saturday and we are home from an overnight to the hospital on Thursday. He got severely dehydrated and had to go in for IV fluids. The good news is that he is back to his happy little self and playing with his big sister. He still has the runs something fierce but is on his way to recovery. I will keep you all updated on him. Thank you to all of you who knew about him and kept me in your thoughts.

Long weekend..

The wedding is finally over. Thank goodness. Hopefully everyone in the family can get beyond all the nastiness that has happened and become a happier family again. It was such a shame that the wedding was about everyone buy my Sister-in-law. But she was a beautiful bride and had a wonderful time at the wedding. Robyn was a beautiful flower girl. The little boy who was the ring bearer was the same age. At one point during the service he couldn't remember her name and kept tapping her on the knee saying, "hey pretty girl." It was so cute. They played during the whole reception and the best part is that they live near us so they will be having a play date soon.

The bummer is that last night Mister Man came down with the stomach flu and has been sick all day and all night. Hopefully we have seen the worse of it.

First Steps...

Max took his first steps today!!! Just three, but it is starting. I am so so excited for my little man...

Help my Temple....

Hi Guy...
This is a plead for help.. Temple Emmanuel of Wakefield had a major oil spill in Nov 2007. We are now at the end of cleaning up from the spill. The break in our oil tank leak over 700 gallons of oil into the ground. We have had to have environmental cleans and the like to be able to use the Temple again. What this means is that we are now looking at a bill of over $200K ( we are a small temple of 60 families and do not have the means to pay this). This is where you can help. We have set up several ways to earn money for the Temple without people have to donate money. Here is what they are..

iGive

We are now registered at iGive.com. This is a very simple way for all of us to help earn money for the temple without a lot of work/financial commitment.

Here's how it works: when you go to buy something online, simply go to http://www.igive.com. You will have to register the first time with this website. Choose your charity ("Temple Emmanuel of Wakefield"). Next, check to see if the vendor you are planning to make the purchase from is available (there are ~700 vendors, including many popular online sites). Click on that link and continue to shop at the vendor's site as usual. If you make a purchase, the temple will get a percentage of the price. Some stores will give us as much as 10%, but 1-2% is pretty typical.

Every time you go to purchase something online go to igive first. If the store you're looking for is registered, this can be painless for you, and very helpful for the temple.

Amazon.com

Like iGive above, but even easier. Before you buy something from Amazon click on any black Amazon logos on the Temple web site.

Anything you buy while in that session (ie until you close your browser) gets the Temple a cut for between 4 and 10% of your purchase!

As with the stores through iGive, if you're planning to "shop there anyway", why not have them send a cut back to the Temple?

Good Search.com

Now this one is the easiest one to earn money for us. It take a longer time but there is no
payout what so ever for you. Every time you search we earn 1 cent from the searches. What you need to do is go to Good Search, go to the who do you search for box and type Temple Emmanuel of Wakefield. This will become your default charity. Below it gives you the choice of putting Good Search as you search engine on your tool bar. Please do this and set it as your search engine. Every time you search using this tool box, we get one cent. Now isn't that easy?

Thank you to everyone for their help and support. Hopefully this will help us pay a huge bill.

Maxwell...

On Sunday was his first birthday party. He had such a good time. Loves all his toys, but the best part was that he stood on his own. He was playing with a toy using it for support, then let go and stood. Now that he know that he can do this he is practicing standing every chance he can get.
He also found a bag of bread on the coffee table left by darling Robyn, brought it over to me and said dis... I asked him if he wanted to eat it and he shook his head and said dis... He is growing so quickly.

I have been very bad..

I am sorry to all those people who check here and never see an updated blog. Life has me very busy with the kids. Maxwell is now 1 years old and is as sweet as sugar. Today when his big sister Robyn was outside playing and walked by him he yelled Rob!!! I guess we all now know what her new nickname will be until he can talk better. He is such a sweet little man and I have really enjoyed getting to know him this past year. He is now a scooter and refuses to crawl but looks like he will be walking very soon.

Robyn is a sweet, sweet girl even though she is quite the handful. Has come up with quite the interesting vocab and often tell me things with words to large for her age. Told me the other day when I said no candy that she would just organize it instead. Then funniest story with her the other day at the grocery store. We were out shopping during Passover.. OK it is still Passover but this was at the beginning of it. Every single thing that she picked up to eat was chametz (flour, corn syrup) filled goodies, I kept telling her no, you can't have this, this week. Next week. She finally broke down in the ice cream section crying. It isn't fair to us Jews making us eat all this stuff this week. We should be able to have what we want just like everyone else. I don't know why Jews have to be punished. It was the cutest thing ever. I felt awful for her, but she still couldn't have her goodies.

All tied up in a knot...

I am here to actually ask a question about sock yarn. I am a long time sock knitter and just purchase some beautiful Madeline Tosh sock yarn. As I was making it in a ball I found a knot in it. Now I have over 20 skeins of sock yarn at this moment in my house, nary a knot. All of them hand dyed yarn. I wrote the owner who told me that this was standard practice and to basically cut the knot out and to knit it together... Really... no kidding I have been a knitted for over 25 years. I know how to handle a knot in my yarn. My issue is that when I am spending over $20 on a skien of yarn I expect it to be perfect, especially considering that it is hand dyed and I am assuming hand wound. Am I being unfair to this company by complaining?
TIA
Here is her letter...

I must say that one knot in a skein or ball of yarn is pretty standard in the industry. I am quite sorry that the yarn displeases you, we do strive for quality in our yarns. When the commercial yarns that we use to dye have more than one knot in a single skein it is not sent to our retailers. We believe this is a fair policy and a honest compromise between the wool mill's desire to created yarns with great yardage and the hand knitter who wants as few joins as possible in the garment they are creating.

In reference to your knitting, what I often do, is cut the yarn right before the existing knot and then join the yarn back in without the knot, the same as you would when joining a new skein of yarn.

Thank you for your input we hope to always be open, honest and fair with our Madtosh customers and feel our policies reflect that.

Sincerely,
Amy Hendrix
Owner of Madelinetosh Co.

Back to Basic Toy's- Fixed...

After canceling my order through Back to Basic toy's on Christmas Eve I was going to let go of the issue. I decided to change my mind. After a little research on the company I discoveredd a couple things. One they had an employee stealing from them. They were scanning in the FedEx boxes and putting the stuff into their car. Guess who's package was one of them. The other thing I found out was that they were totally overwhelmed by the amount of orders that they received for the holidays. Something like 6 times they were expecting. Hence the shortages and just general mayhem at the company. I called them back today. I explain to them the whole issue and that I would like to give them a second chance and ask what they could do to help make things better. They are sending the toy overnight when it gets into stock and took some money off the order. Needless to say I am happy with the outcome and Robyn is going to be one happy little girl.

Scrooged by Back to Basic Toys!!!!!!

This is the year for things to be ruined by others. As in my last post, my parents rained on my parade about my brother's gift. Now this. I order Robyn what was the perfect gift for her. She loves imagination play. I thought it would be a toy that she would play with for a couple of years and then Max would get to play with it. I ordered it from the above company on the 9th. Plenty of time to get it here. No rush, no worries. Around the 17th I finally got the email that the package has been sent. It will be here on the 20th. OK a little to close for comfort but I can deal. Well, I keep checking the tracking number and it doesn't show as leaving the building. I start to get a little worried. Ok, now the 20th, the package still isn't here. I call them and point out no tracking number and no gift. Just a little worried, well they lied to me. They told me on Friday, no worries it will be there on Monday. Don't worry. Well guess what, it isn't coming, it isn't in stock and they totally screwed me over.
P.S Robyn is so sweet.. she told me that she understood that I tried very hard to get her the gift, that she stilled loved me and could wait for it.

I am so annoyed...

I got my brother a nice gift for Christmas.. a print of a Red Sox's baseball painted by a local artist.... It is awesome.. I told my parents about it.. So on Sunday... knowing darn well this is what I am getting him went to Building 19 and got him this... the photo of the three teams. Well shoot they got him a really wesome photo that is licensed and she wonders why I am so angry at her....

So sorry...

I am so sorry that I haven't been around for a couple of weeks. Life is just so darn busy with the two kids. They really do keep me busy. We went down to CT for a whirlwind trip for Thanksgiving for Rach and her now fiance to meet his family. They are very nice. The are planning to get married at the end of this May and all hell has broken loose. For some reason I am involved in all the fights. I keep pointing out that this is not my wedding and well quite frankly the only person who gets a vote is Rach and Andy. No one seems to hear this and they are all making me crazy. Now, I planned my wedding and had fun. Leave me out of it.

I am busy writing cards for the soldiers and making blankets for them. Ok making one blanket at this point but I am trying.

Mister Man....

Is starting to chatter. I can hardly believe it. He is saying Daddy... he was so cute tonight. We have finally decided it is time for him to learn to fall asleep in his crib and not nursing. Very important for learning to self sooth. As much as I hate to hear him cry, I hate the fact that if he wakes up in the middle of the night he needs to nurse to go back to sleep. So tonight when he got mad about being in his crib, he starting calling.. Daddy.. Daddy.. Daddy.... Broke my heart, but darn cute...

My Secret Pal..

Rocks... She is so awesome. I know I said that I would put up a photo of the last gift but tech support (my hubby) has been real busy with life and I hate to bother him. He downloads my photos for me. I just got another package in the mail from her. Yarn and more yarn is involved. She knows me so well. I got more sock yarn from her and then I got enough yarn to make Branching Out. She sent me some pens and of course chocolate. Boy does she have my number, they are milk chocolate, peanut and caramel. The nice part of them is that they are Barton's. I love supporting them as they make good Kosher for Passover chocolate. She also sent met he cutest little bag for all my needles. It has a sheep on it. Who can get better then that. Thank you, Thank you and Thank you again.

Yea!!!

Big news here in our family. My SIL got engaged on Friday night. We are so happy for her and can hardly wait for the wedding. He is a nice guy and treats her well.

I won!!!

I am very excited. I won the flash your stash contest for SP11. My hubby thinks this is funny. As I already have a huge amount of yarn. So I got spinning fiber instead.

I am also working on setting up a Stitch and Pitch at the Lowell Spinners. If you have any interest please let me know.

Whee!!!

Or should I say Wii.... You evil little toy. Ken decided that it would be a great idea to purchase guitar hero.. Ok... all I can say is that I stayed up well past midnight and well quite frankly I suck at this game. Now I remember why I hate piano, something about trying to get both hands to do something at the same thing. A quality that I apparently do not possess.. Well, at least I have a week before Glitter and her friend get back from Vegas. Somehow I came up with the bright idea of having them over to play. Now the get to see me make a fool of myself. Oh dear...

On to other news, darling little Max went to the Dr's to get his 6 months appointment. Turns out the reason he is not sleeping through the night is the fact that he has an earache. Because he is on medicine he now has an earache and the runs. Poor little guy, he is so happy through it all. What a sweet boy. Now on top of all of this Miss Robyn bonked her nose at gym and we have to take her to the Dr to make sure that she didn't break it. It isn't broke, but bruised. Thank goodness for small favors.

I am still working hard at my shawl and do not see it being finished anytime soon. I also own Laura one more afghan that I need to sew up for her. She was in charge of the Rebuilding Greensburg Block by Block project and had a bunch to finish. Hopefully I will get that done soon.

Maxwell....

I forgot to share my milestone for Max with you all. Mister man can sit up on his own. He decided that on Oct 15th he would be sitting up man, just in time for his 6 month birthday.
Yea!!!! Max!!!

Getting the Monkey off my back.

I have finally gotten the monkey off my back. Literally. I made a friend of mine Monkey socks from Knitty. I finished them the other week and finally got my act together and sent them. She told me she liked them and that they fit her perfectly. I didn't take a picture of them sorry so I will link to her website here.

On the other front's I am busy as always working on my knitting and will hopefully have something new to post soon.

Spoiled

I just want to give public thank you's again to my secret pal. She is so amazing. This time in my package she sent some wonderful treats. I think my family is getting jealous of all my new toys. I got enough Debbie Bliss cotton yarn to make a new little tank for my daughter with a knitty pattern that she sent. She sent a cute little photo album which I assume for Max, some chocolate, hand lotion, Chai tea, knitting needles and a cute little notebook. I am completely overwhelmed by how wonderful my pal again. You deserve many thanks.