We are in the house of colds.  David’s hit earlier in the week.  Mine came on Friday, and Davey’s started last night.  However, Davey is not too bad yet.  I hope his is mild.  Colds are miserable.

Meet the newest Christmas time member of our family.  Winkie:

Michael and Holly sent us Mr. Elf on the Shelf.  Davey quickly named him Winkie. He’s great.  Every night he travels to the North Pole to make a report to Santa.  You never know where he is going to turn up the next morning.  This morning he was in a colander on top of the refrigerator.

So today is a resting day.  I am working on my test hat.  If you want to learn to make bobbles, I highly recommend doing it with Cascade 128.  It’s a bulky soft yarn.  I made bobbles on this hat with it, and I could have happily made a jillion bobbles.  I was ready to make a bobble blanket.  Typically, bobbles are ok, but they are not my favorite.  Susan gave me a great link for a bobble tutorial as well.

This hat has so many different things going on.  I learned how to do a herringbone ridge stitch.  I had some trouble.  It involved sending Susan a photo:

I was still a little befuddled so I made a trip to her house.   I am still amazed that I met her in knitting blogland cyber space with no clue as to where she lived.    I move here and now  I could easily walk to her house in 10 minutes.  Crazy!  But turns out, I was pretty much on the right track with the stitch.  I just wasn’t confident in what I was doing.  So I am going along just fine now.

Happy Sunday!

Yesterday Davey and I went to an indoor pool to splash and play.  It had all kinds of fun squirters, splashers and a great slide for him.

I always like to watch him go through his process of  familiarizing himself to  anything new.   He walks around slowly.  He looks around.  He checks it all out.  He doesn’t engage too fully.  He just feels it all out.

Slowly he gains momentum as he gets more comfortable in his surroundings.

Once he gets going – he really gets going.  All out.

We have an Advent Calendar for Davey.  Every evening he opens another numbered window, and every evening there is a piece of chocolate inside.  The chocolates are shaped like Santa Claus or a present, etc.  They are wrapped in very colorful pretty foil.  Davey loves them.

He carefully opens the window, and he takes out that chocolate like it is the most precious of valuables.  He slowly unwraps the candy, and then he moves off away from us abit to enjoy it in peace.  He just treasures them.  I guess it’s in the presentation.  We try not to go crazy on it around here, but he does eat his fair share of chocolate.   These are special.

David asked him if he was going to share one night.  Typically, Davey is a good sharer, but not with these advent chocolates.  He allowed David a microscopic sliver.  I am not sure that David could even see it.

I imagine and am glad that this will become a tradition.

Davey and I went to Super Target this afternoon.  Davey wanted to look at the toys while we were there.  “Mommy,  I don’t want to buy any toys.  I just want to LOOOOOOoooooOOOOk.”  (I tried to describe just how he said it.)  So we went to look.  We’d been wanting to get Candyland though, and so we did get him that.

Candyland!

I was having too much fun with my camera as usual trying to go for some unusual shots.

My goal here was a picture of Davey.  Not the waving Candyland pawn.  But I like it.

Ohhhhh!

Animated kid!

I couldn’t resist this picture of the top of his sweet head.

This is not actually a victory shot, but it could be!

Candyland was a hit.  Two games:  Mommy 1.  Davey 1.   I think more matches are in our future.

The Advent Wreath and Christmas decorations are still buried in the back of the closet.  Unfortunately there is just no room for many decorations.  I think Davey and I will buy some Christmas lights today to hang on the mantle.  He’d love that.

So we improvised again with other candles.  Davey wanted more dancing; however, he (and David) did not approve of my Christmas musical choices.  I kept getting shot down in this manner:  “Mommy.  That song is TERRIBLE!”, and David would laugh along merrily (Form of laughter allowed around Christmas).  So I went through a variety of Christmas cds.   I think Davey wants the equivalent of a holiday AC/DC Thunderstruck.  That’s not going to happen!

Here’s my little AC/DC loving “hoodlum”.

And for a knitting update: I have 2 more projects finished.  Yay!  They were fairly quick knits.  I took pictures this morning so that I can share after Christmas.   I keep looking at the box of yarn for The Sweater.  I need to figure out the fair isle design from the Eddie Bauer sweater.  That shouldn’t be too hard, but then I have to adjust the pattern I have for the fair isle.  Again, it shouldn’t be too hard, but we shall see.

Ok, we are off to tumbling in just a little while.   Then a few errands.  It’s pretty much Spring here again in Denver.  Well maybe not Spring, but it’s pretty mild outside.  They say it snows here on occasion, but we are starting not to believe it.  At some point, it’s going to dump 2 feet on us, and then I will be sorry I said that!

Happy Tuesday!

This afternoon, Davey and I decorated Christmas cookies.  He had a great time with sprinkles.  He also carefully placed these little pearly gem sprinkles one by one.  Until he got towards the end, and then I looked over and saw a small mountain of sprinkles on a cookie.  That was fun too.

What is the knitting equivalent for “her eyes were bigger than her stomach”?  It applies to me regarding current projects, yarn stash and projects I want to begin.

I did finish a hat and scarf yesterday.  They are having a drive for handmade items at school, so I thought I would make something.  The scarf I knitted is such a fun scarf.  If you need a fairly last minute handmade gift, this pattern is great.  It knits up fast, and it is such a fun scarf to knit.  Well, I enjoy dropping stitches on purpose.  That never gets old for me.

So at least I do have one thing finished.  I am also more than halfway through on 2 other secret projects.  I am looking forward to putting up photos of those after Christmas.

But then I am ALMOST done with the first sock for David’s “wheat socks”.  I don’t know why I don’t just finish it up.  Maybe then I know that I have to start the second one.  Second Sock-itis abit on these.  It’s a pretty fun pattern, but it’s dark gray and I am going to have to get more yarn I think.  Look at that long foot.  It has to be almost done.

I have one leg knitted on a little magic loop monster I’ve started.

I am anxious to get back to my test knit project, but I love the horizontal cable, that I have done so far:

And then yesterday we went to the Fancy Tiger craft show.  Great stuff there in a really cool old building in downtown Denver.  Unfortunately, it was very crowded and not the best place for a 3 year old (or his 43 year old dad either I think).  I had a lot fun looking though for a little while, during which time David wrangled with Davey.

There was a spinner selling her yarn.  You can check her out on etsy.  I like her seller name “MurderousHoney“, I guess I should find out the inspiration for its origin before I like it too much!  She had such pretty yarn.  I can’t resist green too well plus I like the idea of meeting the person who actually dyed and spun the yarn.  So I bought this.  I am thinking shawlette.  I’d kinda like to knit one like the Alaska one I did earlier in the summer.  This is not the best photo.  It’s cloudy this morning and the light is not great.

So that’s yarn and knitting for me.  And I haven’t even mentioned “The Sweater”.

But now it’s about time to make cookies with Davey.  I have to take some to school tomorrow so we get to have fun baking and then I won’t have them all here tempting me!

Happy Sunday and Second Advent!