Does anyone remember waaaay back in January, when I made a bunch of crocheted snowballs?

Photos by Brenda Ponnay

I originally made them for an idea Brenda had up her sleeve. But you know how those ideas can fizzle out sometimes. Personally I think Brenda got the box of snowballs in the mail and decided she loved them too much to part with them. Bug might also have had something to do with that decision. I don’t know, I’m just guessing.

The other day Brenda IMed me to say that she was going to use these snowball photos in a post of hers where she and Bug were modeling some items crafted by her sister-in-law Jaynette, of bluejaye crafts on Etsy. (She is helping Jaynette out by holding a virtual craft fair. You can read all the details on Brenda’s post.)

I will just add that I own one of Jaynette’s wallets and I love it! I get compliments on my stripey wallet all the time. It’s big enough to hold cash, cards, ID, and more—but small enough to fit into my back pocket if I don’t want to carry a purse. I’ve been using it constantly for over a year and it’s still in perfect shape, so you know it’s well-constructed!

Anyway. Brenda told me she was going to use the photos with my snowballs in them, and asked if I had thought any more about putting a listing in my Etsy shop for crocheted snowballs, or the pattern. I hemmed and hawed at first, but she’s a fast-talker and she convinced me. She said I could use her photos, since I’m not at home and don’t have any crocheted snowballs handy. She even agreed to create the PDF for me and prettied it up with an illo just because she’s nice like that. Maybe this was her way of paying me back for making the snowballs in the first place. Maybe I owe her another latte now?

I know, I’ll just pay it forward: I’ll give away three free copies of my crocheted snowball pattern. Just leave a comment telling me you want in! I’ll do a drawing on Saturday morning and then email the pattern to the lucky winners. (Incidentally, that’s the same day that Brenda is doing her drawing for a free Miminko onesie, so if you’re interested go over and leave a comment on that post. You can also snag free downloads of her monthly calendar print-outs while you’re there.)

Crocheted Snowball and Crocheted Snowball PDF Pattern

Photo taken by my mom

Annalie is frowning because we asked her to smile. Right after this picture was taken, she cracked up because she’d done the opposite of what we asked. I think the joke’s on her because it’s an adorable photo anyway.

When we were at my Aunt Janet & Uncle Larry’s house, Annalie kept calling Janet “Grandma” and Larry “Grandpa.” Larry said, “Eh, she just sees an old guy with gray hair and thinks, That must be a grandpa!” Then he told us how one of my cousin’s kids used to call him Grandpa too, and it bugged my cousin so he would tell his daughter, “That’s not your grandpa, that’s Uncle Larry!” So she started calling him “Uncle Grandpa.” Then we blew Annalie’s mind by telling her that Janet and Larry ARE a grandma and grandpa, and that their twelve grandkids are her second cousins, most of whom she knows well and plays with every time we’re in Omaha.

I asked Annalie if she wanted crunchy or smooth peanut butter on her sandwich. She put her hand out, palm down, and moved it back and forth in a continuous motion as though she were running her hand along the surface of a table and said, “Smoooooooth, please!” I found that hilarious because I talk with lots of gestures. That’s the first time I’ve seen her use such a classic one, though.

This morning while we were lounging in our pajamas and watching Zoboomafoo, I mentioned to my mom that we should try to hit Target to get Annalie some more pants. When I packed to come here, I could only pack two pairs of long pants for Annalie because she outgrew all her other pairs over the summer. I told Annalie the only solution was for her to stop growing. Without taking her eyes from TV she said, “Mama, don’t you want me to grow up and have even better manners?”

When we left the house this afternoon to head to my cousin’s house, it was snowing. Not the fun kind that comes down in big fat flakes good for snowballs and snowmen, but the kind that comes down in tiny hard pellets and barely accumulates at all. Annalie was still very excited that it was snowing. As we drove down the expressway she watched the snow and exclaimed, “I just love winter!”

As we drove along we talked about how November is technically still fall, even though in Nebraska it feels like winter sometimes; and how you can look for other clues to see what time of year it is, like Halloween pumpkins or Christmas decorations. We talked about how the weather in Nebraska can be unpredictable. I explained that if something is unpredictable you don’t know what’s going to happen next. Annalie replied, “So, if I don’t know what’s going to happen it’s unpredictable, and then when I know it’s predictable!” I’m not sure but that might have been the first time I’ve heard her reason out a new word and its definition.

At dinner this evening Rachel mentioned that while cleaning her basement recently she came across her set of Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. That led to me mentioning that HalfPintIngalls has a twitter account.

Annalie seems to still be on Pacific time. Our first night here she was up till nearly 1am. Last night she was obviously tired and in bed at 8:30, but didn’t give in to sleep till 11:30pm. (But then she slept till 9am which she NEVER does. Silver lining!) For those keeping score at home, tonight she was out at 10:50. If the trend continues, tomorrow she’ll fall asleep right around 10. By the time we go home she’ll be on Central time and then our problem will be keeping her up past 6pm.

I’ve taken tons of photos but have not downloaded them yet. I’m lazy, I’m busy, I don’t have my laptop, the only computer in the house is in the room where Annalie is spending hours each evening going to sleep.

There is leftover Godfather’s Pizza in the fridge, and some yummy dessert pizza too. I know what I’m eating for breakfast!

We had a super fun Halloween! First, my mom and dad are in town. My mom being here isn’t that unusual, but my dad being here is a rare occurrence. He’s not much of a traveler so we usually only get one visit out of him per city. Now that he’s retired we’re going to drag him out to visit us more often, but it was still a fun novelty to have both my parents here for Halloween—the first one they’ve spent with Annalie.

Second, Brenda invited us to come hang out with her crew so we went to the beach.

Trick-or-treating is always more fun with friends, don’t you think? If we’d stayed at home we probably would have gone to the mall and trick-or-treated with Gramaw and Grampaw. I guess that would have been fun in its own way. But when it comes to putting on costumes and begging candy from strangers, I’m a traditionalist. There’s just something about walking down a street at sunset, seeing all the decorations and jack-o-lanterns, ringing doorbells, having people say, “Ooh, aren’t you guys cute! Go ahead and take two, there’s plenty where that came from!” I don’t know if a mall experience could come close.

Hard as it may be to believe considering that Brenda has become one of my closest friends and now holds all the secrets to our house, Troy had not yet met Brenda’s husband Toby, her mom Sue, her sister-in-law Heather, or her nieces Rapunzel and Superchic (not their real names). And Brenda hadn’t met my dad yet, either. We all needed some context.

I’m a big believer in having context. I love to meet my friends’ parents, siblings, co-workers, or anyone from other parts of their lives, just to get another angle on understanding them. Erin is big on the context thing too, and when we visited her and Rocco recently she knew I’d want to see her office at school, meet her mother-in-law Rosie, eat at their favorite pizza joint, and so on. So now when she talks to me about going to Rosie’s house or her office mate Alison, I have mental pictures of what she’s talking about. Context is important.

By now Brenda and I have a decent amount of context on one another’s families. We’re just catching up the rest of our families on each other.

We got there early to beat the crazy California rush-hour traffic…so early that we had time to go to the beach! My mom grew up in California, just a couple of towns over from where Brenda grew up, actually—I originally got hooked on her blog because I recognized the mountains in some of her photos of the Sticks—and she loves the ocean. She will go to the beach at every available opportunity. That’s pretty much how Rapunzel feels about it too, so we all walked down to the beach.

Annalie has a funny relationship with the ocean. Some days she loves it, some days she’s petrified of it, and most days it’s a little of both. Luckily on Halloween with Gramaw and Grampaw there she was mostly okay. She even went climbing on the rocks by some tidepools with Troy and Rapunzel and Grampaw and had a fine old time.

Brenda and I had walked back to the house with Baby Bug and SuperChic by then. We had to make the Halloween-themed dinner. There were mummy hot dogs and zombie brownies. Heather brought fancy homemade caramel apples. There were also sweet-potato oven fries and salad, but those were just regular non-Halloween items.

After that it was finally the time the children had all been waiting for. Time to put on costumes and trick-or-treat, woohoo!

Annalie was so excited about her costume. She kept telling everyone that she was a Japanese girl, even though I kept trying to tell her that her dress was actually Chinese. But our friends who used to live in Japan had sent it to her, so as far as she was concerned it was Japanese. (I guess there’s no reason a Japanese girl couldn’t wear a Chinese dress.) What she was most excited about was that she got to wear some of my make-up. A little eyeliner, a little mascara and lip gloss, and voila! She’s ready to give Daddy a heart attack at suddenly looking like a teenager.

She was also quite happy that she at last owned a parasol. She’s been wanting one of these for ages, and when I told her we could get one for her to carry on Halloween I thought she would faint of happiness.

Of course when it came time to leave for trick-or-treating and I reminded her to not forget her parasol, she looked at me like I was nuts. “I’m not going to carry that with me, Mom. Someone could get hit in the eye!” Ooooh-kay then.

There were lots of dark houses in the neighborhood where we were, but there were plenty of lights on too. The houses where we stopped, the people inside were always glad to see us and often mentioned that they’d hardly had any trick-or-treaters at all. Most people were generous with the candy, and all the girls got plenty of loot. Annalie was ready to go home after about five houses when I told her we couldn’t eat anything till we got back home and Mommy and Daddy checked out her candy, but we convinced her to keep going a while longer. Eventually all the girls were ready to head home.

We ended the evening with candy, caramel apples, and a showing of the new TinkerBell movie, which got a thumbs-up all around. Annalie fell asleep on the drive home after telling us, “This was my most favorite Halloween ever!”

I think she’s told us that about every single Halloween of her life. Which is just as it should be.

These photos and many more are in the photoset Halloween 2008 on Flickr