not my minty!!!!!!! March 28, 2011

Minty was the first kitty born in Baby Carrots litter, and me and tasha had to pull him out by his tail after we realized that she was not able to push him out on her own! 

He was always super fluffy, and just like his father he was well on his way to being giant sized.  He and his sister, white trash, have always been like little puppies~ they follow me around the house while i’m cleaning!! 

The one thing i will miss the most about Minty is at night when he did his stealth kitty act, his goal being  to see how long he could lick and purr my arm or face before i shooed him away!!!  I would just keep lifting him up and moving him to the spot behind my knees where he would end up sleeping all night. 

Last weekend i sent the kids outside to look for Boomer cause she was extremely pregnant and didnt want her giving birth under the porch or something.  After looking for a bit i suggested they look in the clubhouse or under the pool deck in the backyard and not ten minutes later adrian came up and told me that minty was dead by the clubhouse door.

He didnt have any bite marks are scratches, just a line of dried mud on his side and a nosebleed.  After what happened to Hagar last year, i think that Minty got hit by a car and took off running in shock, making it as far as the backyard before dying.  What made me even more sad was that me and adrian were looking for him in the front yard the day before and how crushed they were cause they thought he was just sleeping (the cats hang out down there by the creek and its not unusual to see animals there, just too far away to tell exactly which animal it is!)

We buried him there and picked some flowers for him, and i still wish it was one of the mean strays instead.

nathalie

cat food mystery solved! January 21, 2011

i know i have a gazillion cats here, not to mention the few strays that also eat on the front porch……..but a bag and a half of cat food every day?!!?

This is why:

This is Gabe, i think he lives on the farm behind us. 

In this pic it is easier to see just how giant this dog is compared to one of our bigger cats, Moo Cow:

i think i should start buying dog food, too!!

later!

nathalie

it snowed on christmas and i did not take a pic! December 27, 2010

For almost a month now i could not get my camera to upload, so i found tasha’s little barbie camera and here is what we came up with:

this is Buddy sleeping on my lap while we were watching Despicable Me

 Bite Size Baby sleeping next to me

 me and tasha

What was fun about the pics from the camera was that since there is no flash all the pics were too dark to see, so each photo was a surprise when we adjusted the brightness to see it!!  Lots of them were really bad so we had a blast laughing at how stupid we looked….well, mainly at how stupid i looked!!!

I finally got my camera working, and here is the chocolate creme pie Tasha made for a school project and for Thanksgiving:

DELICIOUS!!!!!

And this is why we named this kitty ‘White Trash’:

seriously, she does this every single day!!!

This is Monkey being adorable as always:

and here is Buddy, she knows she likes her picture taken!:

Minty & White Trash sharing my spot on the bed

I love this photo my dad put on his facebook, he is with santa in 1952:

One thing i bought for my kids last minute were these cute piggy banks that have a display of how much change you put in, the best part was that they were $4 each!:

And the best for last, here is a kick-ass ninja minion made by Sarah Courtman for breast cancer awareness:

oh, wait, one more pic~ this is my family years ago at christmas, i’m sitting on my dads lap:

later!

nathalie

show off November 23, 2010

I love these posts where i get to show off everyones creations using my patterns!!!!!

Here we go:

these awesome scarves were made using my pretty pretty flower scarf pattern (http://gnathalie2.wordpress.com/2010/08/15/flower-scarf-tutorial/)

this is by dobermon from ravelry

These two are by clare76 from ravelry:

by cre8ladyb from ravelry

made by glassjules from ravelry

this by leila1979:

by sarasaki

by rachelvinrace

by peculyr

and this one by woolymountain from ravelry:

Evil minions using this pattern (http://gnathalie2.wordpress.com/2008/01/09/evil-minions/)

by craftyshanna

by curiouskate

this cat is not fooled!!!

by feederofthepack

by JMN

by leesy

by lillieduck

by needlesnswiffers

by treesh

by acwmaiden

by bijou3owl

I LOVE all these minions!!!!!!!!!  but to be fair, here is the link to the ninja minions pattern which is based off of my evil minion pattern:

http://www.princess-delirium.com/tag/ninja-minions/  

Cat toy pics (http://gnathalie2.wordpress.com/2009/06/08/squiddly-cat-toy/)

by coffeebuddy, and adorable cat Brodie!

A seasick pic, too!:

http://gnathalie2.wordpress.com/2008/04/17/seasick/

by lanouchette from ravelry

And kiwi birds:

http://gnathalie2.wordpress.com/2007/07/31/my-crocheted-take-on-kiwi/

by dorsia

by rosellatinn

Everyone has done such amazing work!!!!!!!!

And now for my kitties:

this is Buddy, Minty, and Theadorable hanging out in the kitchen

Frosted Flake and Bite-size baby playing in the kitchen drawer~ the four little ones used to climb into the drawers to sleep!

Theadorable is determined to get away with the yarn!

bite-size baby gets a turn too!

And here is a group shot of kitties in the playroom~ they were chasing one of those plastic egg things that you get from the 50-cent machines in grocery stores:

from left to right: White Trash (named for her constant desire to jump into the trash can), Monkey, Moo Cow, Minty, Blindy (my daughter thought she was blind for a day cause the kitty would’nt follow her finger), and Theadorable

Later!

nathalie

clearer instructions September 10, 2010

i recently got a request for help with my evil minion pattern, and i realized that i keep leaving out the super cool * symbol for stitch repeats!  anywho, i rewrote the evil minion pattern to hopefully make it easier to follow, you can download the pdf here:evil

and we all know i can’t write a blog entry without kitty pictures!!!!

this is Theadorable sleeping next to Boomer, and little baby Roger made himself comfy right on top:

Here is newborn Bite-size Baby crawling on the scarf i was working on:

We named her ‘bite-size baby’ not only because she is the tiniest kitten ever born in this house, but also cause Tasha could fit her head in her mouth!

and here is Rosie & Theadorable chilling out on the couch:

later!

nathalie

flower scarf tutorial August 15, 2010

a tutorial for my pretty pretty flower scarf was requested, so i made a simple photo tutorial pdf!

pretty pretty flower scarf tutorial

more new kitties!!!! July 13, 2010

so, boomer, blubee, and baby carrot gave birth to fantastically adorable kitties these past couple months (3 have gone to new homes so far) and a friend of my stepson showed up yesterday with 2 kittens just pleading with me to take them in (of course i did!!) and here are a bunch of cutie pics!!:

Blubee went first and had her babies a couple months ago, and i swear it looked like she had a pile of puppies!!:

 

About a week later Boomer had her babies:

 ’one of these things is not like the others’!

Since they’re so close in age they’re now just ‘the kittens…..and rosie’

Here they are storming the castle:

We found a home for Bandana Man and Bender:

And 3 weeks ago baby carrot had her babies~ all of them came out feet first!:

This is Monkey at 5 minutes old:

The two white ones, Minty the boy and October the girl were the first two born:

This is Monkey and his twin sister Thing 2:

Minty always puts his paws on his head when we pick him up!:

and thing 2 likes to escape the confines of the closet:

Badass just chills on the couch not minding the babies around:

Madaleine’s friend Hillary has been here all week, and her and tasha spent all day building a cat house out of packing boxes and fabric from old clothes:

The cats LOVE it!!!  They were inspired to build it by the arrival of Merlin and Magic:

 these two are glued to tasha, and even stay on her pillow while she’s sleeping!!

Guess who REALLY hates that they’re here:

 so what’s the new plan now hostile bunny?!!!

this one is courage the cowerdly kitten:

And booboo baby’s got herself a sleeping spot:

 we named her booboo baby cause when she was about 3-4 weeks old Luis stepped on her~ we totally thought she wouldn’t make it through the night but me and tasha’s words of encouragement obviously helped!!

Hillary took this pic today of Moo Cow:

 i love that you can see his reflection in the window and his shadow on the wall!

Rosie hissed and swatted at the kittens at first, but now she’s glued to them:

she seems to like boomers kitties the most, this is them an hour ago:

and here are baby carrots babies from tonight also:

i think the novelty of ‘pictures of the new cats’ is wearing thin on merlin:

and this is magic in the cat house playing with the cat toy i made:

It’s a really easy pattern, using the generic g hook and ww yarn:

chain 100

r1:  5sc in last chain made

r2:  2sc in each ch around (10 sc)

r3:  2sc in next, sc in next around (15 sc)

r4:  2sc in fisrt, sc in next 2 sc around (20 sc)

r5-7 or 8:  sc in each sc around (20 asc)

r9:sc in next, chain 15-20 (varied lengths your choice), then 2sc in 2nd ch from hook and in each chain up till 1st ch made.  *sc in next 2 sc, then chain 15-20, 2sc in 2nd ch from hook and in each chain up*

repeat * all the way around, then sl st and fasten off.

enjoy!

nathalie

i get Lost May 8, 2010

i never really cared about watching ‘Lost’ until i ran out of tv series to watch.  i think it was the same closed-mindedness that kept me from watching Battlestar Galactica for so long.  That, and i remember being so uninterested in listening to a radio morning show discussing Lost that i didn’t think about it twice~ until a couple weeks ago when i ran out of stargate episodes to watch.  Thanks to Hulu and my mom saying it was a good show, i dove right in………. and i love it!!!  and Sawyer is so freakin hot!!!!!    anyway, my sister Jennifer just sent this to me and i still can’t stop laughing!!!

How the Lost characters make peanut butter jelly sandwiches:

Jack
1. Gather ingredients
2. Point gun at ingredients and shout “HOW DO I MAKE A SANDWICH OUT OF YOU?!?!?”
3. Breathe heavily through your nose as though you were about to hit ingredients
4. Give up and make the sandwich yourself, and eat it bitterly

Kate
1. Make separate sandwiches, one with peanut butter and one with jelly
2. Take a bite of the peanut butter sandwich, declaring it the best
3. Take a bite of the jelly sandwich, declaring it the best
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 ad infinitum
5. Follow peanut butter or jelly sandwich into grave danger

Sawyer
1. Throw the jar of jelly at wall, sneering “I don’t need no sandwich”
2. Call the mascot on the jar of peanut butter lots of clever nicknames
3. Huff and puff and stomp around and grumble a lot
4. When no one’s looking, make perfect, even, symmetrical peanut butter and jelly sandwich and sit in a corner, enjoying every bite

Locke
1. Sit idly by, believing that the ingredients will find a way to make a sandwich out of themselves
2. Lose faith and make the sandwich anyway
3. Realize that you were the instrument by which the ingredients chose to make a sandwich after all
4. Run around the room and grab everyone’s knives, insisting that their sandwiches will do the same in time

Hurley
1. Make sandwich
2. Eat sandwich
3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 ad infinitum

Sayid
1. Procure 23 milligrams of uranium-20
2. Set hadron supercollider to eight megajoules
3. Program a sandwich-making macro using Cobol or Visual Basic
4. Act all tough-like

Desmond
1. Eat sandwich
2. Call the sandwich “brother”
3. Place peanut butter slice over jelly slice
4. Spread jelly on the other slice
5. Spread peanut butter on one slice
6. Take two slices of bread, a jar of peanut butter and a jar of jelly

Ben
1. Steal someone else’s sandwich
2. Claim you coerced them into making the sandwich for you all along
3. Say you’ll tell them everything if they make you another sandwich
4. Stare at them all creepy-like

Libby
1. Lay out plans for one of the most intricate, fascinating, and delicious sandwiches of all time
2. Just as you start making it, get shot

Claire
1. Mmmmmmm, peanut butter

tasha likes hats February 16, 2010

Tasha loves when i make her hats, which is just fine with me cause i love making them!! 

I may have posted this already, but this is called the convertible hat (http://aprildraven.blogspot.com/2009/08/convertible-hat.html)

  both tasha and madaleine have been taking turns wearing it

next up is the swirls cap (http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/swirls-cap)

  this one fits madaleine better, but the color is more suited for tasha.  they both look great in it though!

Boomer started being in heat this week and the boy cats that haven’t been fixed yet have been uber-spraying up the house.  They’ve been exiled to the porch and garage.  So what does boomer do?  She sticks her head out of my bedroom window and meows, and there are some boy cats outside that i’ve never seen before!!  Too bad for them!

Now that the house has been relatively boy cat free this week, Rosie is loving all the attention!!  Here she is happy to have her spot back on our bed:

And what’s even better than getting her spot back?  Adrian!!!!!  By far her favorite person in this house!! 

She follows him around everywhere, she even starts wagging her tail when she hears the schoolbus coming in the afternoon!  Here he is coming out of the bathroom:

Adrian wanted me to make a toy for her so i made a snake (http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=289504.msg3294051#msg3294051)

she loved playing with the snake until she got side tracked by her all-time favorite toy ever……PIPE CLEANERS!!!!!

  (she’s waiting for me to give her back her pipe cleaner!)

Every morning i hear meowing in my room and everytime i look down there she is walking around with a pipe cleaner in her mouth and meowing at any cat who dares come near her!!

Oh, and how did i find out that Boomer was in heat?  I saw her run upstairs and a second later 5 of the boys were chasing her.  It took a bit but i hunted down all the boys and escorted them to the front porch.  I’m thinking “whew!” until i see Boomer rolling around like crazy in the living room.  I search the house again and i find this guy:

  I guess it’s not all bad, he is by far the friendliest, sweetest cat ever!   After all the trouble i’ve gone through this week keeping the cats out, i better not see a bunch of baby tobys or baby twinkles!!!

Later!

nathalie

overdue post February 12, 2010

i have been meaning to do another ‘stuff people make with my patterns’ post and then my computer died!!  all i know is that i was looking through my documents on my computer and i was running a program that converts videos to burn onto dvds when all of a sudden the screen freezes and then goes to ‘the blue screen of death’ i.e. blue stop screen.  i shut it down and restarted, and when it went to the ‘start windows normally’ option i clicked it but it looped back to the blue screen!  i finallly got into safe mode, i followed the directions on the windows help thing and went ahead and uninstalled all the programs i had, i even uninstalled the most recent updates and the updates that others had problems with but nothing worked.  I’m not electronically inclined so i did’nt know exactly what to google for but when i started the computer and hit ‘start windows normally’ it would’nt go to the starting welcome screen.  i realized that rebooting was my only option cause my phone wouldnt work (magic jack) and i had no money.  guess what happened when i did the whole reboot thing?!  it did’nt work cause windows could’nt start properly!! 

At this point i resigned to my fate, shut down the stupid computer, dragged the girl’s tv into my room and watched a CSI Miami marathon with Madaleine.  When i woke up the next morning i decided to try one more time and omg it actually worked!  I already hated losing all the pics i had’nt been able to burn onto cds, but the worst is losing the video of Madaleine’s first band concert (she plays the violin).  Sucks for me, right?!!

So, moving on i am very pleased show off this super-duper mushroom house crocheted by Laurie:

  Awesome-ly cool and it totally made my day!!!

Here is the link to the pattern: http://gnathalie2.wordpress.com/2008/05/23/maddies-shroom-house/ 

I love all the flower scarves that have been made, and hopefully i’m not leaving anyone out!:

(pattern link: http://gnathalie2.wordpress.com/2007/11/12/pretty-pretty-flower-scarf/)

 made by Chapella1988 over at ravelry

 made by Clare76  from Ravelry

 made by suzecro at Ravelry

  made by TamzinB at Ravelry

 a modified version of the scarf, also by TamzinB

 made by lyndseyloo at Ravelry

 made by NattyDReese at Ravelry

 made by yarngirlie at Ravelry

 made by QuirkyNurse at Ravelry

 made by titaniumrose at Ravelry

 made by woolymountain at Ravelry

Projects made with cat toy pattern:

(pattern link: http://gnathalie2.wordpress.com/2009/06/08/squiddly-cat-toy/)

 made by Elenerv at Ravelry

 made by TokyoKyotoxx at Ravelry

Projects made with afternoon delight turtle pattern:

(pattern link: http://gnathalie2.wordpress.com/2007/09/01/afternoon-delight/)

 made by kaitana at Ravelry

 made by mcrowthers at Ravelry

Evil Minions!!!!!!

(pattern link: http://gnathalie2.wordpress.com/2008/01/09/evil-minions/)

 made by caitirin at Ravelry

here’s another pic in front of the computer screen (i do have a weak spot for these evil little guys!)

  lol! i wonder what this one is up to?!!!

 made by LugosiGirl at Ravelry, these are her evil office minions!!!!

Here’s one i haven’t seen in a while~ fancy feast!:

(pattern link: http://gnathalie2.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/fancy-feast-tutorial/)

 made by Annemoon at Ravelry

**EDIT**

another fancy feast has been made!!!

made by fuzzmom at flickr, here is the picture link : http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuzzmom/4163090628/  a beautiful blue!!!!!

and overboard fish:

(pattern link: http://gnathalie2.wordpress.com/2007/07/10/we-all-love-free-patterns/)

 made by ivory142 at Ravelry

and kiwi bird:

(pattern link: http://gnathalie2.wordpress.com/2007/07/31/my-crocheted-take-on-kiwi/)

 made by PlentimawFish at Ravelry

 made by meelee514 at Ravelry

 made by perlinavichinga at Flickr

and last but soooooooo not least, mint chocolate bunny:

(pattern link: http://gnathalie2.wordpress.com/2007/08/06/mint-bunny/)

 made by yellowpinksparkley, i was having a bad day and i saw this and what a bright spot!!  Can’t help but smile with this cutie around!!

Oh, one more, it’s from my crocheted hat pattern (http://gnathalie2.wordpress.com/2007/09/23/happy-birthday-steph/)

 made by mcm at Ravelry

A huge thanks to everyone for sharing all your wonderful projects!!!

Later!

Nathalie