Baby's new Curly Purly

So here it is this morning after I finished up the ribbing on the second leg cuff. I knit the entire tiny soaker last night with that exception. The color IRL are very pretty olive and harvest mix (both Malabrigo leftover from my f.pea mossy sweater and my first pair of knit longies). I did a k3tbl, p1 ribbing for 21 rows approximately, then switched to St st, and did k1,p1 ribbing for the leg cuffs for 15 rows. Jim got a giggle over the "pod legs" as he calls them. I used the sewn BO that I learned from knitting up my Baudelaire sock (I have to start the next one...I'm definitely doing two-at-a-time-toe-up-socks next time!) It's attractive, trim, and stretchy.

I added in 3 short rows as indicated in the pattern since I knew it was a trim-fit soaker. It really is. The long waist and leg cuffs I think help to keep it trim and in place. But look at how cute it looks when you fold them back :)

So, this was a satifying project as it took no time at all, took barely any yarn, used up some of my stash, made me feel more prepared for the upcoming birth, and now I can finish up the embroidery on the face of M's floppy puppy. That's all I have left to do. I buckled down yesterday morning and finished the ear and tail, seamed and stuffed, and now I just have embroidery to do. I actually like that part the least (well, I really didn't like the seaming either - there was a ton!) because I have such trouble making french knots turn out right. I have to work on that....

So, I need to knit up some socks for the baby too. I haven't gotten my BFL from Angels & Elephants that I ordered (coming from UK so it's cheaper, but might take a bit long with the holidays) so I found a pattern that calls for DK yarn for baby socks. I'm going to see how that goes with my locally spun alpaca that I got. It looks to be a DK weight so I'll swatch it and see. I was thinking of doing the Saartjie booties out of it (Bockstark way to use that wonderful magic CO) also but I think it might be a little big and if so, I'll probably wait for my BFL sock to just make life a little simpler right now.

I think we're ready for the holidays. Despite the fact that I haven't done any baking, have no idea what I'm cooking for Yule or xmas, and that I never sent out my holiday cards yet. Oh yeah...I need to scan that Santa picture.

Beautiful snow again this morning, and really a lovely morning. Even with taking four little kids to the dentist - it went swimmingly. Honestly. I feel peace and happiness is in the air. Jim came home with a carload of holiday cheer and presents, and things are feeling good. Despite the fact that Jim has to work xmas night.....

Hopefully more snow, although it's warming up a bit now and actually finally melting some. Hopefully no freeze tonight - Jim's off Sat. night which is when the freezing rain is supposed to start. I'm thankful he won't be going out in that weather. Driving at 1am where there might be ice makes me worry until he texts me to let me know he's OK. School was canceled all week, so the kids officially now are on Winter Break, but with the snow week they are off a total of 25 days in a row. Talk about a vacation.....

Snow days

It's been two days at home with the kids because of the snow. They are eager to have another snow day tomorrow - but so far, no word of it. The snow isn't supposed to start again until tomorrow morning, so there's no telling. I have my last day to work at M's preschool for our coop commitment. Jim said he'd work there instead of me since I've done 16 days there so far. It took a little bit of arm-twisting as I think he feels a bit out of his element.

Two moms from the school volunteered to work the last two days I have scheduled there in February. Jim was going to work them on his days off but they said they wanted to do it to give Jim and I some more time together as a family instead of him being at the school on his days off. How awesome is that?! There *are* nice people left in this world after all.

No ballet for Miss M today either. No one told us though of course, until after we drove out there and Damien's teacher was there to tell us that classes are canceled. Well, I dropped by my favorite bakery Baker & Spice next door and picked up some eggnog rum cakelet and a baguette to go with the soup I made today. Sadly, I only got one loaf, and it's gone already.

My Baudelaire socks are coming along nicely again - I hadn't worked on them since last Friday I think. My knitting time has been slim with all the kids home since Friday. I wonder if there will be any more school this week or we'll have three whole weeks of Winter Break?

First Snow

This is my cat, September....looking longingly at the birds that adorned our feeders all day long. She kept vigil from around 7am until 4pm.

I spent my first night alone - completely alone, in I think, forever. I honestly cannot rememer any time where I didn't have either Jim or the kids at home with me. My parents did their Christmastime Nana & Papa stayover last night. They had all four of our kids, as well as all four of my brothers kids stay the night and they baked cookies, and hung out. To make the stayover even more fun, it snowed today and they got to play in the snow after homemade pancakes and come inside afterwards to hot cocoa.

Our youngest little guy, little Gabriel, at just 2 1/2 decided on staying over as well. He was very content with the prospect, and so Jim and I left and headed out to finish up some xmas shopping, and wrapping of secret presents before Jim headed to bed to sleep for two hours before heading into work at 1am to beat the snow. I slept in a house by myself, and woke up once during the night to the sounds of crunchy paper noises. I woke up fairly quickly once I remembered that NO ONE was in the house but me. Then I found our cat Phoebe curled up happily on the freshly wrapped gifts under the tree. She smiled (I swear she does this) and MEOWED loudly as she does to tell me how happy she was that I placed such nice little beds for her to rest on, by her new favorite water bowl (we also call this water bowl the tree stand). I headed back to bed, to wake up around 5am which is normal Gabe wake-up-time for a drink or to nurse, checked for the snow that should've been there, found none, and went back to sleep.



Then I woke up again around 7:30am to find that it was beginning to snow, and here is our other feeder, which was pleasing the finches immensely. I checked the computer, made myself some coffee, and picked up that darn knitted puppy that I've been putting off knitting all week - since my Baudelaires have been consuming my knitting time this past week. Which btw, I'm at the ankle on my first sock and it's coming along nicely.

So, I had my coffee, turned on the celtic radio, and would have finished that pesky little pink and purple puppy if I hadn't run out of the purple Mission Falls I was using. Drat. I don't like that yarn enough to really want to buy more - but I have a few more rounds on the head, and the end of the tail too. If it was just the tail, I'd skip buying more and just knit the tail all in the pink - but...the head needs it. I don't know if the yarn stores will be open tomorrow. All the school's are closed tomorrow since it's going to be about 5 degrees tonight and they're expecting a freeze. 5 degrees sounds a tad bit better than the -1 it'll be Tuesday night. A tad.



Here is our street in the morning around 8am-ish. I love how the sky looks with the
white, and the skeleton trees.












And here are the birds hovering in the air while chittering and chattering, and arguing over who gets to sit at this feeder. I feel bad that they are going so wonky over seed with the frozen ground. Jim also said the store was out of the seed I asked him to pick up yesterday.


So, no one has school tomorrow - Jim's off work - and we all get to stay home and relax. Jim had to take the transit home this morning as he couldn't get his truck out of the parking lot from work and was just spinning and going nowhere. I took a slow route to my parents to pick up the kiddos and got them all home safely, and picked up Jim at the transit center and then we settled in for the afternoon. Hopefully we can pick up Jim's truck and get it back home tomorrow.

I'm really not sure what Mother Nature has in store for us...so close to the Winter Solstice. I'm very happy this is the last week of school and then Winter break starts. I'm looking forward to all those snuggly days where we don't *have* to do anything. It's all working up towards the last month before the new baby arrives. Boy, I better finish up those Baudelaires so I can focus on baby knits.