Breathe in deeply

Smell that? I've been waiting for a day like today to wash the sheets! I even had the girls take their sheets off their bed to wash them. Though I did forget to do mine, so I just changed them instead. I was worried about rain, but it held off till this evening. There's just something about sheets on a line drying. The whole backyard smelled wonderful! If you don't know what I'm talking about go wash your sheets and hang them outside to dry.... experience it.

A Fun Birthday Gift.

Sunday we had 2 birthday parties to go to. One was for our neighbor's son who was turning 3. He loves spider man and all kinds of super heroes so we got him some fun little figures to play with. The other party was for friends of ours youngest son, who turned 1. Since he has 4 older brothers (and one older sister) I figured that he probably has everything a 1 year old could want. So Friday I got out my sewing machine and fabric and started thinking.. If I were a baby boy, who was just turning 1 what would I want? The answer that popped into my mind was "Something soft, fun, bright, and from out of this world." using some ideas from some finger puppets I made for my nephew, and watching Ghost Busters for research, I came up with Radar.
He's an Mutant Alien. His species is Not Octo (as in not an octopus) He was born 6-22-08. Radar has 6 legs, 3 teeth, one eye, and a mop of hair on top. He's big enough to fill the Bead's (my 3 year old) arms. Sorry I didn't measure him before I packaged him. What do you think? Good enough for a 1 year old?
I started him Saturday afternoon and then finished him in the wee hours of Sunday morning b/c we had a baseball game that we went to on Saturday. And with the construction on the way home we didn't get home till 12. There's always construction here in PA. (rolling eyes). I did get to watch a fun original Star Trek at 1 AM.
When the girls got up the next morning they wanted to play with him, hug him and kiss him. They had to do each of them before I put him in the gift bag. So I think he passed the kid test!
When the Bub flipped him over she got all excited and said "He has a tag like you bought him from a store!" LOL the things that kids say. anyways we had to leave before they opened the presents so I'm unsure of if he liked the present or not. And you know me, I'm a worrier. So I'm a tad worried if they liked Radar or not.
if you'd like some more photos go to my Flickr photostream.
I'm pondering if I make a few more Aliens, if they would sell on etsy. What do you think?

it consumes everything.

It was hot last week and the girls spent most of their time in the pool. My DH got in with them one day. They were having fun trying to squirt me with their toys. I liked this photo and thought I would share.
Last week i was concerned with getting my garden going. I know I'm a little late but I figured I should at least try. I was able to pick up some transplants but some I tried from seed. we'll see how it goes through the summer. I'm excited as I love fresh veggies. I'm also planning on canning some of the surplus and also sharing some with people who will need it. I planted red onions, garlic 4 types of tomatoes. some cucumbers, zucchini, beans, 4-5 different types of peppers, some basil, lavender, rosemary, thyme, pumpkins and watermelons, I'm sure there's some I forgot. we'll see when I harvest.
Being in the garden so much I've only been able to knit at night. My progress on my Death by Socks is going. Not as fast as I'd hoped but going. I'm still alive so I'm happy, I'm actually doing the heel flaps now. I hope to finish soon. The foot is all ST st so it should go faster. I'm really liking the pattern. though I think it would show up much better in a solid, but this yarn is what I got gauge in so I'm sticking with it. Lucky for me starting Friday and Saturday it rained. The 2 Advantages of the rain are 1 I don't have to water the garden, and 2 I get to knit almost all the time!
Though it's been dreary at times the sun comes out and we go out to play. Of course the bead finds the puddles to jump in. This one just happens to be in the pool cover, but I thought I'd snap a photo before telling her to stop b/c it's not safe to play there. shortly after it started to rain again so we came in. Fun fun!

This weekend

My bag is finally dry, so of course I had the girls wear them again. this one is the Bub, the bag shrunk considerably! I'll have to take a normal photo of the bag, looking like a bag not a hat... LOL
Saturday Night we went to a Pirates game for our family night. it was HOT!!! I don't know if I mentioned it but I don't like to sweat. esp if I'm just sitting there watching a baseball game. OK you got me I was knitting socks for Death by Socks. (like sock wars but on a smaller scale and a different, more clear pattern). It started Saturday so I took my knitting with me to the game and knit knit knit, and drank some water. I've decided I must be a slow knitter b/c I've only got about 3 inches on the socks done... sigh. Oh well it's fun.
Sunday Night we had another game to go to. This time it was with our church and a AA Baseball game, The Altoona Curve. After the game they had fireworks. They were great, and I got to use the fireworks setting on my camera. Much fun was had by all!

My first Social Spark

Remember just yesterday I was talking about Social Spark? Well today is my first post for SocialSpark! It was that quick that I was approved and able to take an opportunity.
So in other words I'm going to be paid for this post! It's that simple. One reason I like SocialSpark is because I can pick the opportunity's I would like to post about and there's other opportunities too, not to mention you may even be able to increase the traffic to your blog.
Another reason I'm all for this b/c with me staying home now I like to try and earn some extra cash for spending when we go out as a family or to support my knitting obsession!
When you think about it, this is a simple way to earn some money while staying home or on the side. You have control and Social spark has a Code of Ethics. Things they require in each paid post:
-100% Audit-able In-Post Disclosure
-100% Transparency
-100% Real Opinions
-100% Search Engine Friendly
So you're not going to be posting secretly, when people read your posts they know it's a Social Spark post. That's important that they're not trying to be sneaky!
I'm just trying to get the word out for those of you who don't mind writing a post or two to earn some money. The site is really a social type of thing. At the site you can add friends to your profile and if you'd like to "hire" someone to post about your business you can create an advertiser's profile also.
If you'd like to earn some money using your blog, why not go and check it out?

Where's the freakin AC?

UGH! it's so freaking hot here I can't stand it. So I guess I owe you guys an answer to my photo question what exactly was this photo of? and how did it happen? well some of you were close in your answers.
It's a typical story of motherhood forgetfulness or absentmindedness.
Lately the girls have been at each other, I'm not sure if it's the age, air or the fact that it's summer. So on said day, The bub (the eldest and should know better) was complaining about unloading the dishwasher while she was doing it (it's one of her jobs) Beady (the youngest) was whining and saying she was hungry. So I got out her request (chicken nuggets, go figure) and put them on a plate to microwave them. Then the girls started bickering with each other b/c Beady was helping to unload the dishwasher and must not have been doing it the way Bub wanted it done so they were fighting (yet again) Finally I said "will you both stop it I need some quiet right now" and I put the dish in the microwave set it and walked away. As I cleaned off the table and just picked up the typical floor mess, I thought to myself "that's weird I didn't hear the ding" and "what's that smell" I went back into the kitchen and found that I'd put the dish in the toaster oven and turned the dial instead of putting it in the microwave like I'd thought. so we has spaghetti instead! **In my defense the toaster oven is directly above the microwave and both are white. ** so that photo is actually a yellow kids plate that didn't last long in the toaster oven.
Today it is so super humid and hot! Luckily we set up our pool yesterday.(it was a cheap easy set pool we thought we'd get our money's worth this summer) so today we took a dip. The girls enjoyed it. As did I! It's rather shallow (30 inches) so I simply sat in the pool cooling off. That is when I wasn't walking around the pool on my hands with a girl or two on my back. I think I may need to get new sunscreen b/c even though it's waterproof and I put some on....well let's say I'm a tad red. And that's not talking about my hair.
That's my goal for tomorrow morning, get sunscreen. Pretty pathetic goal huh? Oh well my DH is working (yet again) so we must do something, we may walk to the store down the street. We do have a Pirates game to go to tomorrow night/afternoon. So that should be fun.
I'm sure the girls will want to swim again. I think I may have to get a few chemicals to get the water to perfect pool condition. But I probably won't add them till the night time so it will give it time to do it's thing.
anyways I'm babbling and there's Raveling to do.

Social Spark

SocialSpark is a new way that you can make money on your blog. If you are a stay at home momma like me it's an excellent way to connect and help support the household. I just signed up and you can also. (just click the link to get started) I'm just getting used to the site so some of it is unfamiliar to me. So far it's OK. I was a little annoyed when at first when I tried to get my blog approved, supposedly it (my blog) wasn't able to be searched for in the major search engines, which is weird b/c it truly is. Go ahead Google Star Knits. OK see what I mean, then it said I didn't have enough posts and I almost didn't continue on with it. Then my friend Pam said to try again, so I did and I was approved. So now I've been reserving opportunities. It's similar to Pay Per Post where you have qualified opportunities to choose from but from what I've seen you put the ones you want into a queue and then you are contacted when it's available. It could be that the ones I'm picking are the ones everyone is picking, I'm not sure. LOL But that's the only thing that's bothered me. I like the site and I'm sure you will too! (go sign up!)
If you do sign up here's My profile, add me as a friend. Just a little shameless plug for myself. I'd like to be popular and get my name out there Star Knits.

I'm off to go make some money

this post has been brought to you today by Pay Per Post

Search Game

A lot of people in blogland are doing this flickr pix search and I love photos so I thought I would do it also. If you'd like to do it here's how it goes. The bold italic are the words I put in the search.

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

The Questions:

1. What is your first name? Allena
2. What is your favorite food? Bread (homemade of course)
3. What high school did you go to? many but I graduated from Sheboygan South HS
4. What is your favorite color? Green
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Vin Diesel
6. Favorite drink? Coffee
7. Dream vacation? Cruise
8. Favorite dessert? Chocolate or Brownies
9. What you want to be when you grow up? Coffee and Yarn Store (co) Owner with my sister
10. What do you love most in life? God and Family
11. One word to describe you. Creative
12. Your flickr name. Star Knits

if you'd like to see who's photo's these are here's the links
1. il silenzio che allena la mente, 2. A Loaf of Bread, 3. South HS Band, 4. Verde no Aquarius, 5. Vin Diesel, 6. Coffee and cinnamon, 7. small ship, radiant sky, 8. Chocolate Brownie of Death, 9. The yarn is everywhere., 10. Psalm 42:8, Painting With Light Art*, 11. "Creative Hands" - Mindy, 12. Star Pillow Mock-up 001

Can you Guess?

What is this? can you figure it out? If you do I may have something for you! Go ahead guess.