Secret

Remember when I posted about a secret Valentine's Day project for Jim? Well, it is not that sweater vest. I will never make that sweater vest. I think it would take me 5 years to make it, and like my sister said, global warming would probably have set in by the time I finished it, rendering the sweater vest useless.

A little known fact about me is that I cannot keep a secret, especially in regards to gift giving. I just can't. Every year my sister and I tell each other exactly what we got the other for Christmas and birthdays. We kind of like it that way.

Anyway, I ended up telling Jim about my secret project. Hand knitted socks. Socks are very hard because you have to use super tiny needles. He has been asking me for awhile to make him socks, but they always seemed too hard. But I decided to give it a try in the ultimate declaration of love: socks. This was going to be my master piece of knitting, only the color of the yarn wasn't working out. Which is why I had to tell him about the socks. I didn't want to make him socks if he didn't like the color. I could tell he didn't like the color after I showed it to him, but honestly I wasn't crazy about it either.

I can keep knitting in the slightly girly organgeish/brownish color that I mistakenly thought was Saffron (Jim's favorite color, although apparently saffron is bright orange, which I didn't really know.) I can add in some brown stripes (suggested by a friend). Or I can turn them into spiral leg warmers for myself and start over with a safe grey or black yarn for Jim's socks.

Being a child of the 80s, I secretly want to have a reason to wear leg warmers on a regular basis.

New Years Resolution

My new years resolution for 2010 is to make February a fun month. February starts tomorrow and I am still not entirely sure how I am going to do this. I turn 30 on March 1, I have 29 days left to be 29. Now this could be very depressing, or it could not (so I'm told). I WILL make this month spectacular (any suggestions??)

I thought I would reminisce this month from major events in my 20s.

In my 20s I lived in a

-dorm room

- first apartment

- first apartment with Jim

- town house

- married student housing

- rental single family house

- our first home that we own with a lawn to mow

From dorm room to property it was a good decade for moving up the ranks in housing options.

On an entirely different note....

This weekend we were sick. Lilly and I had a sick day and stayed home. Since we were sick I decided that the best medicine for sickness is homemade chicken noodle soup. It is the best medicine IF 1) someone else makes it for you 2)it's not your first time making it 3) it's not your first time attempting your own pasta 4)you don't have a huge mess to clean up after. Jim came home from church to the rescue and cleaned up after my cooking catastrophe while I napped. Maybe sleep is the best medicine.

New Trend

Hopefully you will continue to indulge me with my new trend of adorable (I don't think I am biased) baby pictures and knitting updates. My mom and my sister really love them (and so do I).


Here is the hat I finally made for my sister. After a great amount of research and other hats made and unmade for her I finished this slouchy star cable beret (modeled by Lilly). I got the pattern off of ravelry.com, made with 100% Merino wool (very soft - not itchy).

Picture

I was attempting to take some pictures of Jackson in his Beatles onesie, when a sad little 4 year old kept sticking her head in every shot. (You can see her elbow in each of the pictures above) Every single time I take pictures of Jack - Lilly sticks her head in. Each time I have to tell her that I want to take just a few of Jackson and then she can join in, and each time she is sad by it. So here are a bunch of shots with Lilly jumping in to the picture at the last minute.

Knitting Update

Lilly's birthday was a lot of fun. We went to Chocolate world and had a wonderful time, I really love Chocolate world. Thank you Hershey!

4 is already a much better age than 3. No kidding. She woke up at 5 am today and had no tantrums all day, amazing. I am loving 4. As my mom said "She has turned an emotional corner." Every day she tells me how much she loves Jackson and that he is her child and her favorite. When I say "Lilly, I love you." She says "And I love Jackson."

I knitted a baby cocoon for my friend who likes photography, so hopefully she can get some cute(r) baby pictures. It is meant for a new born and not for an almost 13lb baby, as you can see Julia is a much better fit. (I couldn't resist stuffing Jackson into what I now call a baby stuff sack)

I am currently working on a bunch of hats because I can't escape my obsessive need to make hats. I am also working on a secret Valentine's day project for Jim which may or may not be this sweater vest that I found on whipup.net.

She's 4!

This week

Lilly is having a birthday tomorrow, I can't believe an entire year has gone by. I am still not over her 3rd birthday so I said no parties this year. However, I had so much guilt over it that I ended up planning another 4 day extravaganza. (This might read like "If you give a mouse a cookie")

I baked mini cupcakes for Lilly's preschool and had batter left over so I made regular cupcakes, but no sprinkles left. I needed something to fill those white cupcakes with.

That led me to the discussion of what kind of cake to have for Lilly. She has been telling me for a month or two that she wanted a monster cake. I didn't think she was really committed to the monster idea, so I looked up pictures of princess cakes, etc. We looked up a ton of cakes online and she still wanted a monster cake. I did a google image search and found a cake from "Where the Wild Things Are". She said that was the cake she wanted, so I agreed. I found an easy recipe for fondant, and made my first cake with fondant. Hooray for easy fondant! I of course had to make matching cupcakes (also copied from online).