Fifteen years ago I married the guy that I couldn’t live without.  Still can’t.

Happy Anniversary, Dana.

Life here is good and crazy and noisy and chaotic and I love it.  Daybreak is growing, I’m seeing more patients all the time and I love my job.

The kids are growing like weeds.  Jack Henry is 2.5, Georgia Kate turned 1 in August and Anna Grace is 8.5.  Can’t believe Anna Grace is that old.  She’s growing up so much.  Jack Henry is hilarious and Georgia Kate just wants to keep up with him.  And GK recently saw the neurosurgeon again, had another MRI and was deemed peachy perfect.  We were discharged and that phase of our life appears to be over.

Knitting?  Well I started the knitting olympics and got quite far but didn’t finish.  I did do a lot of knitting and spinning on our summer vacation.  But things then hit the skids.  This past Friday I cast on for a pair of socks that I’m knitting for a Christmas gift.  It feels so amazing to have a pair of needles ( or I guess I should say a set of needles in this case) back in my hands.  I love it.

Now that I’ve taken the first step to getting back to this thing, hopefully I can continue.  Until then, let me distract you with pictures!!

My Peeps!

Georgia Kate (a.k.a. Georgia Cake, Georgia Katie or Peaches…depending on the mood)

My girls

Jack Henry

Anna Grace…growing up so much. 

(BTW… am I the only Bigfoot-obsession-overcomer that didn’t know folks also call these things Yeti?  Sounds like a little old lady… yeti.  Just doesn’t have the same ring to it.)

Georgia Kate tolerates them just fine. She just likes to make sure the entire hospital knows she’s hacked off.  And as soon as you pick her back up, she stops.  Immediately.

We won’t get her results until Tuesday.  Her head circumference is currently 49 cm which translates to “way too freakin’ big”.  The diagnosis last time was “benign extra axial fluid”.  That’s what we’re hoping for this time.

We now have 2 flash MRI’s under our belt and hope we have no more.  If we do, this child’s nickname will be changed from “peach” to “Flash Gordon”.

Instead, I have spent many months plagued by injuries.  Achilles tendonitis, knee pain and a groin pull.  I have a very hard time telling people that I have a groin pull injury.  Just seems like that should be a boy thing.

I have now taken three weeks off and I attempted to return to running this week.  Or…slowly return to running this week.  Things went well but now…..now it’s a bazillion degrees outside and the humidity is through the roof.  I had hoped to have toughened up quite a bit before this place started to feel all Florida-ish.

When I was running after I had Jack Henry, I lost a three pants sizes very quickly.  This time…nada.   I better start dropping some pant sizes soon.  Afterall, I ain’t doin’ this for my health!

The ballet was The Enchanted Child about a little boy who disobeys his mother, gets sent to his room and has a major meltdown.  In the midst of his fit, he destroys his room.  Then all of the things he has destroyed, and all the things he has harmed in the past, come to life and scare the daylights out of the boy.   There were fish and lambs and even bats and dancing flames of fire.  That kid hacked off a whole lot of stuff!!

Anna Grace’s class were the flowers that come flying off of Mama’s dress.  Mama, in this case, was Mr. Kirst wearing a dress and walking on stilts.   All of the dancers entered the stage hiding around Mama.  Most were hiding behind him (her) but some of the shorter dancers were hiding beneath his (her) dress.  It was pretty cool to watch.  All of the flowers then began to scold and shake their finger at the naughty, naughty boy.

Recitals mean lots and lots of waiting.

 Ready to go.

 My beautiful girl.

 Scolding the naughty boy.

Doing a great job, doing her best. 

 Anna Grace and Amanda

More scolding.  I think she liked that part best.

 Posing for the paparazzi.

Grandma and Grandpa Haukoos. 

May 2012

Our church has a Mother’s Day tradition of taking family photos and framing them as a gift for the mothers.   I love this tradition and I love looking back on all of our previous photos and seeing how our family has changed.  Boy, oh boy, has our family changed.

Well, let me get things caught back up.

The Drawer:   In my last post I discussed the idea of cleaning out a drawer of little jewelry boxes and my fear that if I did that, I’d have to move again.  Well… necessity says I’m going to have start cleaning.  I have a little sorter thing that holds earrings, necklaces, etc and I’ll get them back in use.   What was the deciding factor?  Estate planning.   I need to pull out some things, photograph them and then decide who gets them if I keel over.   Cheery, ain’t it?!!

Christmas on Valentines:  On Valentines Day I finished up a project that was intended to be a Christmas present.  Just a tad late.

Diagonal Lace Socks

Yarn: Dream in Color Smooshy (Blue Lagoon) 

Anna Grace is 8:  In March, Anna Grace turned 8.  I am still stunned to think that she is actually 8.  She has grown up so much and she amazes me every day.  She has become a great help and she’s showing me that she knows how to show compassion for others.  I’m also learning that she is a caregiver.  As soon as someone is hurt, she’s on the scene with band aids and ice packs.  I love her so much and always think of her as the kid that totally transformed my life, my faith, revealed my self centeredness and changed me completely.   She’s the kid that forced me to see the world with different eyes and I am so proud of her.

Anna Grace, age 8 

Easter was fabulous.   Our church conducted the local sunrise service for the City of Eustis.  I got to participate and it was amazing and simple and wonderful and a tremendous blessing.  We had a wonderful day, a relaxing day (believe it or not) and I had a wonderful time celebrating my favorite day of the year.

 Family photo

Jack Henry and Anna Grace

Georgia Kate… my little peach

And then…TWO!!!  Right after Easter, Little Man turned two years old.  On his actual birthday, I took him to New Smyrna Beach to play for an hour or so…just the TWO of us.

A few days later, we had a John Deere birthday party just for the little man.  Everyone wore their John Deere green.

Birthday boy

 Lisa and Georgia Kate

John Deere cupcakes

Cupcake face

 Happy birthday, Jack Henry

Current knitting:  Some.   Working on some color work.  Tension is off.  Time is short.  I’ll get back there one day.

Ballet update…  Recital weekend is this weekend and this may be our last recital.  Anna Grace is saying she’s done and I’m exhausted with trying to get her there all the time while arranging babysitters for “the littles”.  I’m looking forward to having the summer off and have said that we need to make our final decision in July.  Right now we’re just too stinkin’ tired to think reasonable.

And finally… our life is full of smiles and screams and giggles and diapers and chaos and more chaos and tantrums and laughter and a lot of joy.  There are days I pull my hair out but …

New Smyrna 

I wouldn’t trade this crazy life for anything in the world.

I have a bin that has jewelry etc all packed  since we moved here.  I have a drawer on my dresser that contains many little half-unpacked boxes with my earrings, etc.  I have lived this way for nearly 9 years.

In 2003 we bought and restored a 1920’s bungalow in Oakland, Fl.  We had an old dresser and I didn’t get around to unpacking my jewelry box etc until we have lived in the house several months.  I unpacked everything and… we bought a new bedroom set so I had to pack everything back up.  And I did.

So I lived out of the little boxes for another year or so until one day I had had enough.   And I unpacked everything and organized the dresser drawer.  One week later Dana got a job in Washington state and the end result was that the boxes had to be re-packed and we moved across the country.

We get to Washington and get our house all in order.  Except for that dresser drawer.  One day I get frustrated over not being able to find a necklace and I unpack all the little boxes and organize the dresser drawer.  And 2 months later we moved and everything had to be packed up again.  Off we went to Florida.

In Florida I determined that I was not living out of those little boxes and such so I unpacked everything in just a month or two.  We were living in a little apartment while waiting for our house in Enumclaw to sell and organization was a priority.  I organized the dresser drawer, three days later our house sold and we were able to move to an actual house.  And all the little boxes were packed up.

I knew the house we moved to was not permanent so I refused to unpack some things.  Including all the little boxes.  But when Dana lost his job, I figured we were actually going to be in the house for quite some time because we couldn’t afford to move.  And so, after nearly 18 months, I unpacked the dresser drawer…and all the little boxes.  And two weeks later I found this house and we moved.

So my dilemma is this: we’ve lived here 18 months.  I really want to organize the dresser drawer and unpack all those little boxes.  Those little boxes are making me nuts.  But I can’t unpack them.  I have to live with it like this.  Because if I unpack those little boxes…. I’m gonna have to move.  :(

So… scary visit and a week of scary thoughts and we end up with a great outcome.

And that was Dana’s 50th birthday present.  Yep… poor guy had to go to the neurosurgeon’s office to have his daughter evaluated on his birthday. But he said, when it was all over with, that hearing that Georgia Kate was just fine was the best birthday present he could’ve hoped for.

One drama down…..

Our Christmas was low key.  For me, that was a gift in and of itself.  We saw a little family here and a little family there.  On Christmas Day we went to church and then spent the afternoon hanging out at Hammy and Hampy’s.  It was just a nice and relaxing day.  And low stress.  Thankful for that.

I’m still knitting on my Christmas knitting project.  That will be completed probably by MLK day.  Or later.  The way my life has been going lately… anything is possible.  :-)

Finally… it is almost New Year’s Day and I stopped doing resolutions years ago.  Or, I stopped doing the usual “I will eat better”, “I will climb Mount Everest”,  ”I will be a nicer person” version of resolutions years ago.  Instead, I make lists of things I want to do.  Things related to…knitting and fiber and spinning.  YAY!!!  So here’s my list for 2012:

1.  I want to get back in to the habit of going to my knitting group.  I will go to knitting group at least once a month.

2.  I want to finish Jack Henry’s Wonderful Wallaby sweater.

3.  I want to do some project that involves color work.  Maybe just a small project but something.

4.  I want to finish the spinning project that I have on the wheel right now.  (Merino wool by Urban Gypz in the color Tiger Lily.)

5.  I want to do a spinning project (just 4 ounces or so) with my drop spindle.

That’s it.  Those are my fiber related resolutions for 2012.

Hope y’all have a great new year.  I feel like we certainly will now that we have the weight of the world off of our shoulders.  :)