Happiness is...

There are a lot of things that make me happy. Creating is one of them. I love creating new things. Making something out of nothing. To me, there is nothing like it. Sadly, this part of my life has had to take a backseat to other things this past year. For me, being creative takes time and extra time I don't have a whole lot of. BUT! I decided to take a "vacation day" on Wednesday and do something I have been meaning to do for the past 6 months. I've never hand-painted sock yarn before. Honestly, I have been sort of intimidated by it. As I have said before I have been itching to start a new knitting project. Socks, to be exact. I decided that the boys would really love some "Sem Spirit" socks and dove in. I dyed the yarn their school colors and came up with this result. Generally, I'm pleased.

Last night, I started Heber's socks.

For those of you out there who don't knit, those knitting needles you see in the picture are quite small. They are roughly the same circumference as bamboo skewers used for kabobs. Am I crazy? Probably. But one thing is for sure. I went to bed last night blissfully happy because once again I have started the creation process. There's nothing like it!

Ahh...the smell of new crayons...

Even though I don't teach anymore, I get excited when the first day of school rolls around. Noah and Heber feel the same. They could hardly sleep the night before school started! This is their second year at Sem Elementary and they were so excited to get the school year underway. They both have very nice teachers. Noah has Mrs. Richards and Heber has Mrs. Parkey. In preparation for Middle School next year, Noah has three different teachers for various subjects. Mrs. Richards is his "Homeroom" teacher. He starts and ends his day with her. Noah says he is a little nervous about changing teachers and classrooms throughout the day. "I only have 4 minutes between classes!" he says. Here they are, at school, ready to start the new year! On a knitting note: Knitting with wire is not as fun as I thought it would be!

WHEW!

This last week of Summer has been chock full!

First of all, Heber lost his front tooth and the Tooth Fairy came to visit. Noah was convinced that Heber made out better than he did for the same tooth. That darned Tooth Fairy!

Secondly, Noah celebrated his 10th birthday! Happy Birthday Noah! I can't believe that I'm old enough to have a double-digit child! Where does the time go?

Meet Tanner! For his birthday, Noah got a Webkinz. Have you heard of those? Webkinz are stuffed animals that come with a secret code. You go online and enter the code and the stuffed animal you have becomes a virtual pet online. You have to make sure they eat, exercise, and all that jazz. It was VERY difficult to pry Noah away from the computer! You can check them out at http://www.webkinz.com/

His birthday was a simple one. All he wanted was to have a small family party at his favorite restaurant. What restaurant you ask? Red Lobster of course! It was one of Noah's nicest birthdays I can remember.

Lastly on a knitting note: I have been trying yo use up some yarn in my stash. 6 potholders later I am SO glad to be done with that pound of cotton I've had for years. I'm getting ready to hand-paint some sock yarn and start a pair of socks. I have been itching to do it, but I haven't had the time. Maybe once the kids are back in school........

I wasn't born in Texas BUT.....

I got here as fast as I could!

That was on one of the first bumper stickers we saw last year when we moved to the Dallas area. It was our family's sentiments exactly! We have loved living here and feel we are official Texans now that we have visited the Alamo and our beautiful State Capitol last week. So for my first ever post I thought I would share some of our trip with you.

First of all.....Can you believe that the four of us and all our stuff fit into Eric's Mini? Nope, me either, but we did!

The boys at the Alamo. This was late Wednesday afternoon the 15th. BEFORE tropical storm Erin hit. We managed to get in the Riverwalk too.

We thought all the water we would see would be at Sea World and at the hotel pool. BUT I digress.....maybe next time Shamu.....sorry.

Saturday. On the way home from San Antonio we stopped for a tour of the Capitol Building in Austin. Neato! What a beautiful building! It's even a little taller that the National Capital. You know Texas.....everything is bigger here.

It was a good trip. Even with all of the rain we are glad we went. Fun was had by all. We ate A LOT of good food even though this picture of Noah depicts otherwise!