Celebration Weekend

Last weekend our youngest turned forty! One sister and friends helped celebrate, and Max helped with the candles. Hard to believe that forty years ago, I got to come home from the hospital with this young man---on my own birthday!  We celebrated that the next day at Giddy Up, a newish hamburger place in Ballad.  It's a perfect spot for families!

That afternoon Little Miss modeled my newest creation, a sleeveless  cardigan. The pattern is free on Ravelry.

Size 1-3 fit this almost two year old perfectly.

She holds her own with the big kids.

We've had beautiful weather for the past few weeks, and as a result the garden has been screaming for attention. In fact Dick is out there right now mowing the backyard, and I need to go water my pots.  

So long for now.

Still Celebrating!

Happy New Year!  In our family Christmas Day is just the beginning of several weeks of celebrations.  DD#2 has a birthday on the 28th, and this year we managed to surprise her with a party at our house.

Almost all of her relatives were there except for one nephew and her sister's family in Chicago.  It's been a long time since we had so many folks at our house, and it was fun. She seemed to like the scarf I made.

At the last minute, Dick and I decided to spend New Year's at Cannon Beach, OR, which is one of our favorite places to relax. It's such a beautiful spot.

At low tide, you can walk right out to Haystack Rock where  puffins nest in the summer.

After New Year's comes  Max's birthday on the 4th and Daddy Brent's on the 10th, so we are having a joint celebration next weekend.   Here is Max with Uncle Carl; they are great buddies. Max liked the penguin I made for him, and it was a fun and quick project!

Off in Chicago celebrations were happening also.  Daniel lost his first tooth, and one of the chickens laid the first egg!

Yes, 2015 is off to a good start in our family.  We hope the same for yours!

Off the Needles

It's taken me a while to get organized after the holidays, and it's been fun picking up where I left off before the grand kids arrived. It's been fun picking up some long abandoned projects like this dish cloth. I really like the waffle stitch although next time I'll include a border as it looks kind of wonky without one. (Thus the close-up...)

Catherine requested a plain cream colored hat, and here it is.  The yarn is Posh by Classic Elite and a combination of silk and cashmere. It's pretty soft.

You've probably already seen Stella wearing the hat, but here are the matching mittens. I'm hoping to get booties out of the remaining yarn. One down, and one started. Stay tuned.

This is the second cowl I've made using Berocco Brio. It's so soft, has a fun sparkle, and a great selection of colors. This pattern I found online at Darn. Knit. (Anyway); it ranked as a store favorite. It sure knit up quickly!

Here's another shot of Max's play mate. If you're trying to find a specific fabric, I found the website missing fabric.com a great help.

And this is now in the mail on its way to the chilly Midwest. David turns NINE on Monday!

For those of you who may be curious about the tiny baby I wrote about earlier.  She now weighs well over 4 pounds and is wearing the hat I made. She still has ups and downs, so keep her in your thoughts, OK?

Happy Stitching!

Family Fun!

This past weekend was a special one because all three of our adult children were in Seattle, and that is a rare occurrence.  Jill was here from Chicago and spent the majority of her time getting acquainted with Stella and Max.

Mommy Jill left these three behind, but it looks like they had fun anyhow with the big-leaf maple leaves we sent from Seattle. Can you believe those dry leaves survived the mailing?

As always, Max and I had to catch up on our reading. He loves books, any and all!

He was also quite pleased with his new mittens until he realized it's hard to build anything while wearing them.

In the midst of it all, I managed to finish this hat. Check off one Christmas project! Yay!

And now the challenge is,  as this weekend approaches, to find something to do that will top the past one! Any ideas?
PS ~Check out Patchwork Times to see what others are knitting, and if you like quilts, see my last post.

Home Again!

We've been back from our trip to the Midwest for over a week, but it's taken us a while to get organized and back to our normal routine.  It was a fun 10 days and included a quick trip to Door County in Wisconsin.

The trees were just starting to turn colors, and we had some lovely Indian Summer days. There was lots of boat traffic at Sturgeon Bay.

We were on the bridge twice when it opened.  When that barge came through, we were on foot!

After driving all over Wisconsin's thumb, we met my sister and Ted for brunch in Green Bay. They were heading home from their 6000+ mile Canadian odyssey, and we were heading back to Illinois.

More pictures later after we plant the tulip and daffodil bulbs, but I did want you to know that the sweater fit Sophia.  And she approved of the color which is NOT cucumber, it's TINKERBELL green. Whew!

On the Needles and Off~~~

This is the beginnings of a hooded capelet from the book Vintage Knits for Modern Babies by Hadley Fierlinger. (Thanks, Kathy B., for suggesting it!) Can't you just see a red cape for the holidays?

Finished! The Tea Leaves cardigan is done, and would you believe I have enough yarn left to make a hat and some booties? Even then I think there will still be one more ball, untouched to put away. 

Just one year ago yesterday this little gal arrived one month early. We are so glad to see how well she has thrived!  Happy First Birthday, Madeline! (She's our tenth grand niece along with three grand nephews, and soon to be five grandchildren.  We feel truly blessed!)

Now it's back to work on that hat and booties! Don't forget to stop by Patchwork Times
to see what others are knitting!

The San Diego Zoo and Then Some

Gosh, it's been almost a month since we got home from San Diego, and I'm still posting pictures from our trip. This is the last of it, I promise! After we left the house in San Marcos, we spent 2 days in San Diego so that we'd be closer to the things we wanted to do.  We spent a fun day at the zoo and quickly remembered why we always liked to go there so often when we lived in that city.  (It's way more expensive now though but still well worth it!)

One of the first things you see upon entering is the flamingo exhibit.  This time, however, the birds were nesting!  Don't you wonder how they build those nests?  When the mamas stood up, you could see their eggs, and occasionally there was a brave chick out for a walk between its mama's long legs.  I had no idea the babies would be grey.

After meeting up with our kids, who got there much earlier than we did, we headed to the panda exhibit. Did you know that bamboo was so delicious?  Having only seen pandas in pictures, I really didn't even mind standing in line to see the this bear and her two children!

While waiting, we were entertained by this red panda  who was just waking up from a nap.  (The sign said it's not really a panda, however.)

We had a fun lunch before exploring the rest of the zoo.  Then we saw.......

the walk-though bird cage, 

lots of interesting plants,

enjoyed the Children's petting zoo,

and found the brand-new Koala exhibit.  Isn't he cute?

Our last day in San Diego, we visited Old Town with Jill and Michael's friends, the Kaspers, who now live in Fresno.  Those huge plants in front of the old buildings are Century Plants (agave).

After looking around some more, we enjoyed a Mexican meal topped off with churros for the kids.  They then headed back to the beach in La Jolla where David got to see the friendly squirrels again,

 and Oma and Opa went back to the hotel to relax.  Now everyone is back at home with only the memories of ten very fun  days together.