Venus Vanguard Previews Up

I finally got my previews up for the Carnival themed stocking over at Venus Vanguard tomorrow night. I have a semi custom auction with this amazing BFL dyed up in 2 custom "Carnival Lights" colorways for my by Kim over at Western Sky Knits.



And this in stock pair of Cotton Candy Monster Booty Longies knit using the softest of the soft, Malabrigo single ply merino. They are 'Buy It Now', so get your trigger finger ready!

I Dare You Not to Smile...

I was going to save this picture, but it has been raining for 36 hours and Henry had a hard time at Kindergarten drop off this morning so I need a pick me up.

Rebecca from Catchlights NW out in Oregon did a photo shoot with the always amazing Kimya and Panda Dawson this weekend. When I heard that two of the most talented mamas I know were getting together I knew I had to work myself in there somewhere! I sent Panda a pair of Crankypants for the shoot, knit from the most b-e-a-u-tiful hand dyed organic merino yarn from Dashing Dachs in the "Guppy" colorway. I haven't seen all of the pictures yet but I just couldn't wait to share this one any longer.



I'll be posting more pictures from the shoot and launching a big Crankypants photo contest soon, so keep checking back. And keep those podcast/video blog ideas coming, I'm loving them!

WMAG Interview

Tela over at Working Moms Against Guilt asked me if I would do an interview with them a while back and it went up today. Click that link above to check it out!

They are also giving away a pair of 12-18 month Classic Sock Monkey Crankypants at their review blog, so go enter!

Harrilu and Crankypants Sticker Give Away

The loverly Megan from Harrilu (she does the super cute No more Monkey... and Owly tees on the site) sent me 2 adorable Big Red Dog long sleeved tees. Since they are 2T and I don't have any wee ones to put them on I thought I'd pass the give away on to you!


Note: The give away is for this design on a 2T Long Sleeved Tee

So what do you have to do? Well, I've been wanting to do another video blog and Kyle got me this Madonna head set thingiedoo to do a podcast but I don't want to just blabber on about something no one cares about. Shoot me an email at info[at]crankypantshome[dot]com and tell me your fabulous idea for a video blog and/or podcast. Every email will be entered in a random drawing to win one of the two tees and if you include your address I'll send you a sticker just for sharing your ideas with me. I'll leave it open for a week and pick the 2 winners next Monday 'round about noon and post them with the September customs list.

WooHoo!

Monday Monday

This Kindergarten thing is proving more difficult than I thought. I'm all emotional and weird and can't focus on what I'm supposed to be getting done while Henry is at school.

I finished a couple of customs this weekend and they are on their way to their new homes:




There are a couple of things going on this week so make sure you check back in.

Errands-here I come!

Empty House Day 2

Having an empty house coinciding with getting cable after 3 months of no TV is..not good. I actually watched Step Up today while working on a custom. Seriously.

Henry was pretty psyched to go back to school today, I hope day 2 doesn't disappoint. At orientation on Tuesday I mentioned to his teacher that he could read books on his own already. All of the elementary ed. friends I have said it was better to give an early heads up so he can get placement with a reading group in a higher grade, so I just threw it out there. She kind of blew me off and asked if I was sure he wasn't memorizing his books. Well today when I dropped him off she told me that he had read her morning message on the board out loud as she was writing it so when they did this little activity where the Gingerbread Boy left them notes all around school, she let him have a crack at them before she read them out loud to the class. He nailed every one. Yup.

20 minutes until I can go pick him up.

Tonight our good friend Peter Parpan is having an opening tonight with some of his fine art woodworking and furniture pieces at The Grove Arcade Arts & Heritage Gallery so we are going to swing over and check it out. I wonder if this means I have to dig something presentable out of my closet...

Nice Try.

I think Henry is going to learn a lesson today. And that lesson is:



It's the thought that counts.

I also learned a few things.

1. According to grocery stores across Asheville, food coloring is considered an "extract" and should be shelved accordingly.

2. If you wait until 20 minutes before you pick your kid up from school to frost his cupcakes you should at least take the frosting out of the fridge to soften ahead of time.

3. That little trick where you cut the tip off a plastic baggie and use it as a piping bag is a lot easier when Paula Deen is doing it on TV. Especially if you are trying to put white on top of red. That's just pink waiting to happen.

Pass the Chunky Monkey Please

A few notes: The thing in Henry's hand is (his belt) a super cool Indiana Jones whip. No he has never seen the movies, but we let him play the LEGO video game. In retrospect, not the best idea 2 days before Kindergarten starts. At least I made him put it in his backpack when we got to the front door. Yes, my hair looks like chicken fried butt in those pictures. When Kyle woke me up I was in the middle of dreaming about being trapped in an airport with my old friend Brad who I haven't seen in ages because when I had a kid he moved out to Portland to live la vida loca. Then Henry decided he wanted cous cous for lunch. His school is nut free, so we're getting creative over here. Waking up at 7 and leaving the house at 7:30 does not give you much time to get dressed, get a 5 year old dressed, make cous cous, drink coffee (ahhhh, coffee) and make sure your lovely locks are looking good. By the by, the big bag I am carrying is a new batch of snacks for Henry's class, since we were all required to bring a snack for the class to share at some point and yesterday I dropped off 24 packages of PEANUT BUTTER crackers. They really should tell you they are peanut free before they ask for snacks, no? So that is a big bag of peanut free pretzel packs to make the old switcheroo.

When I got home I promptly put on loud music and got to work so I could stop the constant stream of "I wonder what he's doing right now...I wonder what he's doing right now..." going through my head. He's had 2 years of preschool so it isn't like I'm not used to him being gone all day, but there is something different about Kindergarten. I feel as though he has been plucked from my mama arms and plopped down on the one way street to Grownupville. The other thing that is bothering me is that him being away from me is no longer just about me and him and what we want to do. I can't just pull him out with no good reason just because I want to. It isn't my rules anymore. I'm not sure I like that very much.

At any rate, I just finished baking Henry a batch of First Day of Kindergarten Mario cupcakes that look like this:



Well, that's what they are supposed to look like. But since those are made from pound cake from scratch by the awesome folks over at Snack or Die and mine are made from a cake mix with the help of Betty Crocker, they may vary ever so slightly.

Now the cupcakes are baked, the playlist has ended, it's too quiet in the house and there is a half an hour before I go meet my seamstress to drop of Monster bib supplies. Somebody pass me the Chunky Monkey...

Grrr...Argh...

Okay, so maybe he's not technically a snap press die cozy. But only because there is no such thing as a snap press die cozy...

Beaded Skully Monster Booty!

Well, with Kindergarten bearing down on us (the day after tomorrow-gasp!) it seems that I have only had time to update when there are pictures to post.

Last night while I was putting Henry to bed, Kyle snuck out to the store and got Ben and Jerry's and The West Wing. How awesome is he? Equally important, how awesome is Ben and Jerry's new ONE Cheesecake Brownie Ice Cream? They created this special flavor in partnership with and to raise awareness of ONE.org, the campaign to "Make Poverty History". It is an amazing cause and an amazing ice cream-cheesecake ice cream with chocolate cream cheese brownie chunks. Hummina. Yes, I get the irony of using a 15g of fat per serving decadent ice cream to spread awareness about world hunger, but whatever gets peoples' attention is good with me.

Anyhoo. It was in this chocolate cream cheese and Bradley Whitford induced euphoria that I finished these crazy Beaded Skully Monster Booty longies. When knitting in 207 tiny glass beads? Chocolate cream cheese and Bradley Whitford are highly recommended to help keep sanity intact.

Right Now...

Henry and Kyle are at The Clone Wars, which Henry has been looking forward to seeing since...birth. I can't remember when he saw the first trailer, but it has been on his mind ever since. I can't wait to hear all about it when he gets home. Until then, I am trying to get some work done!

I just listed the monster bibs at my Hyena Cart shop.

There is the smaller version:



and the larger toddler snap down version:



and both come in the green stripe or the pink stripe:

Monster Bibs!

I finally got my first batch of Monster Bibs and Monster Mess Eater Snap Bibs all snapped up and ready to list. Because this is the first batch my new seamstress has done and there are still a couple of kinks to work out, I will be listing them on my Hyena Cart at a discounted rate. I'm hoping to get another batch whipped up, photographed and up on the regular Crankypants site in the next month or so.

While Henry and I were hanging out with our friends Adella and Liz today, little brother Griffin was nice enough to let me snap a few pictures of the smaller snap-less bib:







This style is a new addition to the line. It is smaller than its snappy toddler sized counterpart, but has all the personality (and little snaggletooth) and is still full coverage enough to protect your favorite baby tee from mealtime drips and teething drool fests. It (and the bigger toddler snap bibs) will be available in this green stripe and also a hot pink stripe.

I'll let you know when the discounted batch goes up!

Hairs Cut

Yesterday Henry and I went to our friend Melissa's house to get hair cuts before our "Meet the Teacher" day sneaks up on us next Tuesday. We should have gone a month ago when it was averaging 98 degrees every day, we feel so cool! So. This is the picture I would send you if you asked to see my new hair cut.



And this is the one I'd send if I wanted to show off the Polaroid function on my webcam:



And here's the picture I'd send you if I was "that arty friend of yours":



And if you wanted to see Henry's haircut, you'd have to settle for this because there is no way on Earth he is going to stop playing on the computer to pose for some silly picture:



Unless you were to yell "Hey Henry, I'll give you a Sweet Tart if you smile", in which case, you'd come a little closer:



He looks a little "Little Dutch Boy" there because of the angle, but it is a really cute hair cut. His poor Kindergarten teacher doesn't stand a chance...

No, He's Not With Me...

So last night we tripped over a parenting issue I don't know how to deal with. That's not exactly true, I just don't know ho to deal with it well. We were at dinner last night at our favorite Mexican place (Mmmmmmm, Papa's) and when Henry saw a large man walking our way he stated (rather loudly) "Lookit that big fat guy!". Ohhhhhhhh, poop. What followed:

Kyle: You can't say things like that! Was that nice?
Henry: Why was it not nice?
Kyle: Some people are big and some people are little. Everyone is different and being different is okay.
Henry: If it's okay, why is it not nice to say it?
Me: Ohhhhhhhh, poop.

So to him, "fat" isn't a judgement, it just is what it is. I can't figure out how to say "Being different is okay" and "Don't call attention to peoples' differences" at the same time and not confuse the holy heck out of the kid. If it's okay to be different, why is it not okay to talk about it? I know that it is just NOT okay to yell "Lookit that big fat guy", but I don't know how to explain it without saying "sometimes people are different and they are self conscious about that so we don't say anything, but really differences are great and we shouldn't be ashamed of them, but we should keep our big mouths shut in case someone else is embarrassed/gets their feelings hurt by you pointing it out, even though differences are what make people interesting".

Anyone?

The whip cream on the embarrassment sundae was when our car alarm went off for no apparent reason at around midnight last night, causing Kyle to leap out of bed and run outside to turn it off in his underwear. Oops.

In wonderful and non-embarrassing news, I finished Sarah's pastoral longies last night. I am just a little bit in love with them. She sent me an email saying that she really liked the sheep longies, the toadstool longies and the combination of light blue and brown, so we decided to do a mash up and see what popped out the other end.

Vader

Darth Vader has become the center of my universe. Henry talks about him all day and has nightmares about him at night. Vader is chasing him and turns into a mean dog. Vader is hiding in the secret passageway. HE turns into Vader and can't manage to turn back to Henry. These dreams have been waking him up at 4am, when he yells for me to come sleep with him in his tiny bed and I spend the next 3 hours with feet, arms, crazy hair and pointy little knees in my face- him sleeping soundly, me wondering how long until I can get up and make coffee but not wanting to move and wake him. *yawn*

This past weekend Kyle finished a little kitchen project...chalk board! There was a wonky spot on the skinny section of wall between the fridge and door to the mud room so we decided to make it a chalk board where we can make grocery lists and what not. Henry broke it in on Sunday.






He's working on drawing the scene from Star Wars where the AT AT gets toppled by the Rebel Fighters flying around its legs with rope. You can see the rope in the later pictures.

I finished Angie's Black Bear longies last night. I was anxious to get them all packed up and ready to go, since I've been trying not to work too much in these last days of Henry's summer vacation, so the pictures kind of stink. I'm hoping Angie can snap some good action shots!




Whoa, the light in that office at night is truly horrible. I promise they are cute!

Watermelon!

'nuff said...

Crankypants World HQ.

Ask and you shall receive...

What a Day!

We woke up early this morning and jumped in the car to head over to Lake James with our friends Bill and Kelly and their 3 boys: Three, Connor and Hayes. Man, did we have a blast! After taking the boat into a little inlet and swimming for a while they busted out the tube and Henry was psyched to go first. He wasn't scared at all (which is more than I can say for myself) and kept giving the thumbs up to go faster and faster while I yelled at Bill not to listen to him.




We didn't get photographic evidence of his fancy moves intended to give his poor mother a heart attack, like letting go with both hands and turning around to face backwards in the tube. Sheesh.

Three, much like myself, was not quite so sure about the whole getting-dragged-behind-a-boat thing...



We swam away the afternoon and got fairly impressive sunburns, the lot of us. Kyle and I couldn't stop talking about how lucky we are to live in such an amazingly beautiful place.




That first one in Henry's.

I'm thinking about starting to dabble in a little video blogging to take the camera on this new laptop for a spin. Is there anything you folks would be particularly interested in seeing a video blog entry about? I'm going to feel like a total dork doing it so any input from the peanut gallery would be much appreciated.