Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Snow Pictures



Yesterday, and today we had a beautiful snow. The light and fluffy kind that coats everything, and makes the whole world look like a beautiful post card. I decided to take pictures of it because it was so beautiful, and for Sonia. These pictures are the view looking down our street. We are very lucky to live on a beautiful tree lined street, as well as a picture of our home. The colors are slightly off because I took the pictures in the dark, but I love it still....


Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Arturo's EEG

Yesterday we took Arturo to get his EEG. For those of you who don't know, Luis, our oldest, was referred to get an EEG as a precautionary measure. When we went to get it done we all thought it was a waste of time, but it turns out that Luis is having 100's of silent seizures a day, that get worse when he sleeps. We're not sure what this means yet as we haven't seen the specialist. Because a lot of seizure disorders are hereditary we decided to get Arturo tested also.... Getting an EEG requires the person to stay up the night before so that they will fall asleep during the test. No problem for our 7 year old, but to keep a 4 year old up is torture!! Arturo handled it well, and for a little boy who doesn't like to be touched, he sure handled the procedure well too. I'll let you all know how the results turn out.





Saturday, February 23, 2008

Homemade Yogurt



So, for the past week I have been torturing Alicia with my slightly obsessive dreams of homemade yogurt. Not the frozen kind, but real, from scratch yogurt.  Well, yesterday my yogurt maker finally arrived!!!  I spent a couple of hours preparing the milk mixture, and then it takes about 10 hours for it to set.  The yogurt maker is essentially a low heat base with seven glass jars, and a lid.  I stayed up to 1 am for it to finnish.  Boy was it worth it!!!  I just made plain, since that is what we mostly eat, but it was so creamy, I could have ate the whole batch.  I restrained myself, and, instead, I made a big batch of lentil soup for lunch, and we had yogurt on top.  It could be a coincidence, but it was the best lentil soup I have ever made!!  Yum.  Now I can torture Alicia with obsessive thoughts of different flavor combos!  Don't they just look yummy?

I Lied





Alicia, being the awesome mother that she is, actually did take pictures of Aaliyah and Arturo outside in the snow yesterday.  It took me almost 45mins to get them all bundled up, including the ever requested scarf.  But it was worth it, don't they look cute?




  

 


 Arturo is the cutest big    brother!  He insisted on  pulling  his sister all by   himself on the sled for   blocks!  

Friday, February 22, 2008

My Mathematical Interpretation



Okay, so for those of you who don't know;  three things...
1. recently the appellate court ruled that same sex marriages performed outside of New York must be recognized just like heterosexual marriages already are.
2. this means: if Alicia and I went to Canada and got married, we would be recognized (only in New York, maybe  Mass, and Vermont too, but I'm not certain) as married, giving us, of many things, the right to get spousal health insurance through work, just like every other married couple....  and
3.  Maggie Brooks, our county executive, decided to appeal this decision stating that it would be too expensive for the county to bear.... (I've already read some articles that say the appeal alone will cost more than the cost of insuring county employee's but we'll over look that so I can give you all an impressive/not so impressive display of my math skills).

Well, knowing all that, I did some unprofessional/ slightly imperfect research and found that it costs the county about  $5,982-$7,249 to insure the average employee. Okay, without knowing how much it cost exactly to insure those who are married compared to those who, lets say, have four kids like us, I'll take an average, so, for arguments sake... $6,616.

I looked up on the county budget to find out how many county employees there are and found that there are 4,525 authorized full-time positions (With part timers there are 5,293 but I'm not sure if they get benefits so we'll go with the 4,525 number for this experiment).

The easy to read breakdown

I found that, in New York, only about 50% of people are married = 2,262 married employees

10% (high estimate) of the population has identified as homosexual = 226 committed homosexual couples (all of which would have to go get married).

How much it would cost a year to insure same-sex couples= $1,496,539

How much it already cost to insure heterosexual couples =$14,965,392
hmmmm.........

One Reason I Love Having Kids




Today while in the car I was lucky to be able to eavesdrop on a couple of conversations between Arturo and Aaliyah... they went a little something like this....


Convo #1
Aaliyah to Arturo: "We go boat?"  translation: Are we going to go vote?
Arturo to Aaliyah: "No, we only vote in the rain."  translation: every time we've gone to vote, in recent memory it has, indeed, rained.  

Convo#2
Aaliyah to self: "we go ride horses...no.  please?....yes"  translation:  this is Aaliyahs recap of her asking Alicia if we were going to go ride on the carousel, however Aaliyah added the please, and yes part.  My guess...she amended the conversation to her liking.

We were actually going to pick the volkswagen up from the shop...not very exciting, but they did get to go sledding afterwards, we didn't take any pictures but here is one from the other day when just Aaliyah was around.




Thursday, February 21, 2008

My First Socks

I finished these last month, but I wanted to post them here so you could all see them.  I was pretty happy with the result.  I used a self stripping wool yarn, so I was excited to be able to line the stripes up on each sock.  Next time though, I will take notes, that way I will know, without having to count, which row to start the heal on.  Notice the small difference in stripeage by the heal area...... 

Dress From Grandma



The other day Alicia took Aaliyah, and Arturo to the zoo, we couldn't resist having her wear the dress Grandma bought for her!!  Even Arturo thought she looked just like the leopards.  She was super cute, the picture doesn't do it justice!  Thanks Grandma...

Friday, February 15, 2008

Aren't They Cute?

Today was a great day.  We all went up to St. John Fisher and saw a series of Native American stories, two told by a Native American story teller, and three via cartoon, a show organized by friends of ours Dana and Scott. The older two said they loved it, the younger two still have very short attention spans... picture Aaliyah shouting out "POO POO" in the middle of an auditorium just so she could get Alicia to take her out of the room, ugh.  Oh well, maybe next year...(as we keep telling ourselves).  Afterwards we all went out to Great Northern Pizza Kitchen with Dana and Scott, where we were able to get some cute pics of all of them at once, a rare occasion!! Hugs, C

Monday, February 11, 2008

William's Finished Quilt



Well, I was able to finish Williams Quilt on time! I worked all night last Sunday night, then as soon as I came home on Monday I worked until it was finished. It was a good thing because he was able to leave the hospital shortly after that!!! He is home and doing well for all of you who are interested.....

This is the front view.

This is the view of the back with the front folded down.


Monday, February 4, 2008

Happy Birthday

Happy 13th Birthday AYAH!!!!  I love you!

Sunday, February 3, 2008

Quilt for William

So, as some of you already know, one of the little boys that I watch became seriously ill this past week, and, as a result, has been in the ICU since then.  William is getting better everyday, and hopefully will be able to come home by the end of next week.  A link on his progress is listed under the "links I like."  I have made it my goal to make him a quilt by the end of this Tuesday so that he can have it before then.  Just thought maybe you would all like to see...  I'll let you know if I make it.


Saturday, February 2, 2008

Alicia's Socks...

Ok, so this past Christmas I had decided I wanted a homemade Christmas.  
What this meant for me...
I made 10, yes 10 quilts.  One for each member of my family, and my bestest friend Tiffany (still in progress...)

What this meant for Alicia....

a. About 20 hours of straight quilt basting....  You go girl!  
b. Countless hours of putting up with me in panic mode
c. Not one homemade gift....
d. All of the above

Drum roll please..... yes, the right answer is D.  Surprise right?

Well, now, out of love, and yes, a wee bit of guilt, I am embarking on a journey to knit her, quite possibly the most complicated socks I have ever seen.  So all of you out in Cyberspace wish me luck!!  I'll let you know how it goes...

About Me


Hi Everyone!!  
I thought I would start out by introducing myself.  I'm Channyn, pronounced the same as Shannon, and I live in Rochester, NY.  I'm about to turn the big 30 in just a couple of months.  I normally have an existential crisis when my birthday comes around, so I am guessing this year will be no different.  Hopefully it won't be much worse :{
Anyway, I live with my girlfriend of seven years, our four kids, a cute dog, and one pesky, but lovable, cat.  (Yes, we are lesbians if your wondering).  
We are in the process of adopting our kids, which is a very long arduous process, to say the least!
Of course that is a picture of everyone, their names (in order of appearance) are Luis-7, Jonathan-almost 6, Alicia with Aaliyah- 2, and Arturo-4.  They are all great, and have all become the loves of my life.  More about them later....

Anyway, if your interested, I plan on blogging about my kids (of course), the adoption process, knitting & yarn, quilting, and just about life in general.  Welcome, and hopefully it will be a long, fun, and, yes at times, strange trip...........