Category Archives: Family

Knitting Knitting and a Baby Shower

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While we were in Oklahoma, we had a baby shower for my brother and sister-in-law, and my cousin and her husband (my cousin-in-law?) They are due on the same day! It was a great time.  I’d knitted several gifts for the shower.

I found a pattern on knitpicks for a cute little cabled cardigan.  It was very fun to knit.  It’s pretty darn small though.  It is not going to fit anyone for long, but I just loved it anyway.  I made it for my beautiful cousin.  (I babysat her when she was an infant.  Crazy!)

I also found some pictures of the Maile cardigan that I had made for Holly.  I couldn’t find the pictures the other day, but I just knew I’d taken some.  I had.

Like I’d mentioned, the Maile Cardigan is a great pattern. I used Kertzer On Your Toes Bamboo.  This yarn is just wonderful to knit with.  I made a shawl with it last summer, and I bought enough that I can still knit something else.  There’s actually a little dress that I’m hoping to make with it.  It’s another pattern from the Sock Yarn One Skein Wonder Book.

Anyway, this will look so much sweeter on a baby (or 1 year old perhaps given my sizing).

Some knitters mentioned that they found it difficult to add the sleeves to the body and then begin knitting in the round.  The stitches are crowded at first and it’s hard to maneuver around “the corners” (this would make sense if you had it in front of you!).  However, I used really long circular needles, and I just kept scooting the stitches around.  I didn’t find it to be that big of a deal.  I think the construction is well worth it.  I definitely want to make this again sometime.

Here’s Mommy to be with the sweater.  The color looks so different in this light!

I have to share too the entrelac baby blanket that my sister made for Holly.  It turned out so pretty!

Totally unrelated, but I wanted to write this conversation down.  Davey was helping me water this morning.  I told him that when we lived in Arkansas we didn’t have to water so much because we got so much more rain.  He likes to talk about us feeding the plants, and what they need to “eat and drink” to live.  (sun and water).  He was watering with the hose and he said, “Well I know they sell garden hoses in Arkansas, but I sure don’t know why they need to!.  I always enjoy his observations.

Here he is when he was helping me take pictures of the baby socks and hat I’d made.

Home Again!

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We had a really nice trip to Oklahoma, but it is good to be home.  We took some pictures, but I think I left my camera charger in a hotel in Tulsa.  I think.  And the extra battery.  I found a universal charger though today, and I am charging up the battery that was in the camera.

I’d been looking forward to posting about the things I have been knitting.  For example, I made this baby hat and matching socks.

This pattern came from the Sock Yarn One-Skein Wonders book.  It’s got a ton of neat patterns in it.  I’ve not done much with it yet.  The yarn is awesome colorful superwash Wollmeise.  I made a cowl with it, this hat and socks, and I have enough left to make something else as well.  I love that yarn.

I made the prettiest little green baby sweater too.  It has a lace pattern at the shoulders. It was an interesting construction in which you knit the body and the sleeves, and then you put them all onto one circular needle to knit them together.  This was a little tricky at first, but it looks really nice.  You can find the pattern and some pics here:  Maile Sweater. Somehow, I forgot to take pictures of it, although I could have sworn that I had. I’ll try to get some pictures soon.

The beauty of baby knitting (for me at least) is that I don’t fret over swatching much, because I figure at some point, this little sweater will fit.  This sweater, a little unfortunately, won’t fit until Baby L is about a year old.  I really should swatch more.

On our return trip home, I had about 3 skeins of sock yarn so that I’d have plenty of knitting.  I wasn’t sure which yarn I’d want to get going on.  Unfortunately, about an hour into the trip, this happened.

My needle snapped into at least 4 pieces.  I am still not quite sure what happened.  Maybe they were getting a little brittle?  I am not sure, but while I had tons of yarn, I’d only brought one set of sock needles.  I didn’t have much hope that Walmart would have any needles (this was my only realistic possibility on the road in Kansas on a Sunday), but then they had size 2!

I really didn’t think I’d be too thrilled about knitting with metal dpns, but I’m actually liking them pretty darn well.  I’ve gotten a good start on these socks that I’m knitting with Zauberball.

I’m looking forward to posting more pictures from our trip!

Knitting as fast as I can & a little about Davey

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I’m knitting as fast as I can.  I have a couple of things that I really want to finish before we go to Oklahoma next week.  I can’t wait to put up pictures once I finish. One of the things I am working on is all stockinette so I can read and easily watch tv while I knit.  I’m even trying to combine grading and knitting although that doesn’t go quite as well.

I have to blog about a few things Davey has said lately so that I’ll have them recorded.

Our neighbors brought him some salt water taffy back from California.  And let me say it is the best salt water taffy I’ve ever eaten.  It’s from a place called Balboa Candy. I’ve never been that excited about salt water taffy, but you can taste the ocean (in a totally good way) in this stuff.  Ok.  I’m off topic abit, and you can guess who the primary consumer of the taffy has been.  Davey tried it, but it was not his favorite.  The little girls wanted to know how he liked it.  Davey told me, “I didn’t really like it that much, but I don’t want to hurt their feelings.”  This had him concerned.

He’s also been talking about what he wants to be when he grows up.  “Mommy, maybe a doctor.  Or a construction worker.  Or yeah!  I want to own a Walmart.  That way I can go look at the toys whenever I want to! (I imagine he would be equally happy to own a Target or Toys R Us)”.

He finished up a pre-k camp today.  It was 3 days a week for 4 weeks.  He loved it. His teacher told me today that he was such a pleasure to have in class, and that he was a leader in the class.  Apparently, he (as David put it) likes management and organization.

David asked him the other day whom he played with at school.  Davey said, “Well I play with the boys.  But I like playing with the girls too.  They are just sooo cute!”

I think I posted this picture the other day, but it seemed like a good picture with which to end this post!

Splash Party and Barefoot Sandals

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Davey has been enjoying his “splash party” this weekend.  It certainly has been a hot weekend to break his water toys in.  102 here today.  Apparently a record for Denver.  So we have been covering ourselves with sunscreen and venturing out for part of the afternoons.

As requested, he now has his kiddie pool, water table and gecko sprinkler.  He has been having a good time.

He becomes very immersed in his play.  Total focus.

I took a close up shot of him, and I noticed he’s collecting more freckles every day. They are cute on his little nose.  I was kind of hoping that he would have David’s darker tannable skin over my pale freckly skin, but maybe he has some nice combination.

He and David played more this afternoon.  I like this shot of the two of them.

And a Davey grin.

I also brushed up on my crochet skills today.  My sister in law saw some “barefoot baby sandals” the other day on etsy.  I’d never seen them before, but they are pretty darn cute.  I found a pattern on ravelry, and I made a couple of pairs today.  Thank goodness for google, as I’d forgotten exactly how to do a couple of stitches.

They are so much cuter being modeled on a chubby baby foot.

So they just go on the top of the foot.  The front loop goes around the second toe, and then the back goes around the back of the foot.  I guess that might be self-explanatory.  I was tempted to knock on our neighbor’s door to request their 6 month old as a model, but I don’t know them well and figured they’d think I was nuts.

I used cotton to make these.  There is a sparkle in them too although you can’t see it in this majorly sunny photo.

I tried a different type of flower on this pair.

Pretty cute. Holly, if you read this, feel free to tell me if you want a different color or flower style!

 

Loki Friday

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We’re having a quiet day.  Poor Davey woke up throwing up last night.  “Spitting” as he calls it.  So he’s not feeling too well today.

He’s sad too though because today was “Splash Day” at his pre-k summer camp.  He was looking forward to it all week.  He was to wear his swimsuit to class, and then they were going to play outside in the water.  He keeps asking me if his class is still at splash day.  He knows he doesn’t feel well, but he sure hated to miss.

I promised him that we would do a “Splash Day” here.  We’d already bought the little sprinkler.  It’s a “goofy gecko”, and it turns out they’d played with that same sprinkler at their first splash day.  But he said we also need a water table, a pool and lemonade.  And we have to make the lemonade ourselves with lemons, water and sugar.  This is what they did at school. So that’s what we will do.  A water table should be fun for him since it looks like we are going to have a hot summer.  He’ll like getting his “guys” out and playing with them on the table.

This cheered him up.

And hopefully this weekend, he will be doing this.

So he’s resting. He’s feeling a little green I think, but he’s not had to “spit” anymore.  He threw up at about 4am.  I thought he might throw up again, so I had a hard time going back to sleep.  He was lying next to me, and it was like trying to sleep next to a little potential “spit” bomb.  Fortunately, he’d gotten it out of his system I think.

I’m working on a project which involves a turkish cast on.  I found an awesome video to demonstrate it.  No talking, no fiddling, just straight into the demonstration, and I was able to follow right along.  You can find the video here:  Turkish Cast on.

Ione and the magician

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I finished “Ione” the other day.  It was a crescent shawlette pattern, and I knitted with a great yarn that I’d not tried out before.   It’s called Prism Saki and I got it when I was visiting my friends at Knit Unto Others in Arkadelphia.  It was so nice to knit with.  This pattern was great too.  It has a lace edging and then garter stitch.  The garter stitch is done in many short rows for the shaping.

The pattern was easy to follow and the lace section was really fun.

Davey helped me model it.

He was dancing around.

He also has been playing magician.

He performed a magic trip for me.

“Here we have a bag that is empty.”

“Abra-ca-dabra!”

“What?  Handkerchiefs!”

“Tada!”

 

 

Happy Father’s Day 2012! (and a little Mochimochi)

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Happy Father’s Day!  We are having a nice but productive morning.  I had to go to the grocery store, pay bills and water. Davey loves to help me water.  We’ve been watering for the neighbors while they are out of town, and he thinks this is just great fun.  It was in the 70s yesterday.  Beautiful.  Today?  96.  That just seems like a crazy jump to me.

David is cleaning for Father’s Day.  He just finished all the floors.  A very clean house is probably his favorite possible Father’s Day present.  Davey helped and Koko got underfoot following everywhere.  I dusted.  This Colorado is dusty.

I got no satisfactory pictures of David for Father’s Day gift opening.  I was given the ok to put this one up.  I told David it was blurry.  His response?  “Exactly.”

Davey loves delivering the presents.  There’s not much he likes better than a good celebration.  I am in a little bit of trouble for not buying balloons.  He felt better though once he remembered that we are going to make cupcakes this afternoon.

Notice the artwork by the stairs.  We have several beautiful paintings around the house compliments of Davey and a lot of tape.

I knitted some little things for my dad for his Father’s Day.  He built this awesome dollhouse a few years ago, and we thought it would be fun to have some knitted objects in it.  So I looked at my great Teeny-Tiny Mochimochi book, and I picked out a few things to knit.

My favorite thing that I made was this mailbox (it’s about 2.5 inches tall I think):

Here’s an idea of the scale of these little things.  You might not immediately determine that the following is a record player.

Anna Hrachovec writes really nice patterns.  They are a little tricky because many are in the round and are done with size zero or size one needles.  But I’ve gotten better at it with practice.

I also made a gnome (every house needs a little gnome!) and a telephone.

Pretty fun!

Happy Father’s Day!  We are off to California Pizza Kitchen for lunch.  David loves their spaghetti which may be the garlickiest dish on the planet, but it’s his favorite.

Davey’s first day of Tee Ball and Mommy Fail

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Yesterday was Davey’s first day of Teeball.  I checked the schedule to see when the game started.  10:00am.  We got there at about 9:45am.  Turns out, I’d read the wrong week on the schedule and the game had started at 9:00.  I felt horrible.  Terrible.  I beat myself up thoroughly.  Davey was pretty ok with it  The coach was awesome and let Davey immediately come in and bat.  He was supposed to pick up his jersey when we got there, so we didn’t even have time to get him changed.

So we said hi to the coach, he said, “hey let’s give him a turn to bat!”.  Next thing we knew, Davey was out there with his bat in hand and batting helmet on his head.  Once he figured out where to stand, he reared back and connected for a great solid hit right up the middle.  David was so proud.

So once he hit, then he had to run to first.  (after the coach got Davey to relinquish the bat and then pointing him in the right direction.)

There were parents and coaches galore out on the field to help guide the 4 year olds.  It was very cute.

David was out there to help point Davey to third base.

After he got to third, someone got another hit.  Davey saw it going toward the pitcher, and for a moment he was ready to run to the pitcher mound himself, but then a nice coach guided him home.

He did so well.  He just jumped right in with no hesitation.

After the game was over, we put on his jersey and hat so he could have it on for a few moments with his new team.

Next week the practice/game starts at 9.  I’ve doublechecked already, and the coach has confirmed it.  At least Davey got out there and experienced hitting the ball for the first time.  That may have been the way to go, but I still wish I’d gotten him there on time.

Patchwork socks are complete! And another Karate Show and Love Party!

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I finished my patchwork socks.  I’d joined a knit a long on ravelry, where the mission was to knit up a pair of socks using leftover sock yarn.  I have some of this, so I picked out yarns that I hoped would work well together.  I am happy with the result.  I love them lots actually.  They fit so nicely too.  The KAL was done by Susan B Anderson, and I used her pattern “How I Make My Socks“.

When I used to knit more socks, I’d get a picture of Davey’s feet in there with mine.  It’s been awhile, and his feet sure are growing!

Davey transferred to a Little Gym closer to our house and has been going there for the last 3 weeks.  He was actually going to karate at two gyms for a few weeks.  I was hoping this would ease the transition.  I think it has worked out well. So this resulted in him getting to participate in another big end of the year show.

Another medal.  Always fun!

He was in the mood to crawl.  First he had fun crawling across the low beam.

And then across the high beam with a little help from his instructor.

This evening he wanted to have a “pretend” love party for David.  So that meant that all the decorations, cake, candles and presents were all made of his cardboard blocks.  David received “5 Gold Watches”.  Davey insisted on a tripod for the camera as well.  Also created from more cardboard blocks. I like the result (except I’m looking rather scruffy and somewhat pale next to David!).  I love how Davey has his arms around us.

Sweet Things

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Davey has been wanting to have what he refers to as a “love party” for me for awhile now.  He kept telling David:  “We need flowers, a present, cake, a card and decorations.”  So the other day when I got home from work, Davey (and David) had it all ready.

I didn’t get the greatest picture except for that of his grin.  He had picked out a candle for me.  David said he smelled all 32 varieties.  (He likes to smell candles) He picked me out the one he thought I would like the best.

The cardboard boxes are the “party lights”.  Then they bought a small square of cake for us to share.  It was perfect.

They picked out some salvia and snapdragons too, and Davey and I planted them together the next day.

The love party was a great success.  Now Davey wants to have one for David, and then he would like a “surprise” love party for himself.  “You have to surprise me though Mommy!”

He’s started a prek camp this week.  It’s not easy figuring out what all they do.  I have to carefully phrase my questions, and then I still don’t get as much information as I’d like.  Apparently a little boy called him “silly goose”.  Davey didn’t like that.  We told him that that is usually kind of an affectionate name.

Davey said, “well not in MY family!”

And finally, Davey enjoyed painting the other morning.  He painted 6 pictures in rapid succession.  After painting 4 he announced that he was going to be an artist. Approximately 3 minutes later, he was done painting.  I loved his results though.