We are thankful ~

We have had a wonderful holiday weekend. Relaxing with family, cooking and eating good food and laughing a lot. Plus some great phone conversations with loved ones far away. Here are some parts of our weekend that I am very thankful for:

A sister who is wonderful, and also a great cook ~ she's carving the 17.9 lb turkey...

Daughters that rock...

Family members who are far away, but close by in our hearts.

Family times together...

And a sense of humor for all of us....(great hat, from the Hats On book!)

I am counting all my blessings and very thankful, indeed.

Christmas continues too ~

There is more to Christmas preparation than knitting. Really... OK, Amazing as this sounds...I know... My sister and I spent last night beading and really enjoyed ourselves and all the creativity that surrounds us when we bead. She is very good at beading, and I am learning a lot each time we bead together.

Here is what I ended up with ~ several beautiful necklaces!

Aren't they fun!

Twelve down ~

The blanket is growing. This knitting is starting to really look like it will be a blanket when it grows up.

It is warm and soft and lovely.... (so is our sweet E, modeling for us)

Is it possible to finish this before Christmas?

Why I didn't knit last night ~

Tuesday night was delightfully busy in our part of the world. We started out at an exciting basketball game of oldest daughter...

...and ended up at her induction into National Honor Society.

Great night! We are so proud!

Nine down ~

Weekend knitting is so great! With all the rain we've been having, I've been doing a bit of knitting on the blanket. I'm on the ninth ball of yarn, and still not halfway yet. The knitting is still interesting and I'm wondering if I'll be able to finish it for Christmas....

I think it looks pretty great on our buddy, Bennie.

Knitting on this blanket is keeping me warm too!

Lambeau Leap ~

While we were watching New Moon with hundreds of twilight fans... my sweetie was watching the Packers with thousands of Green Bay fans ~ at Lambeau Field.

At his Packers' Backers club at the end of last season, he won the BIG raffle prize ~ 2 tickets to Lambeau Field... and so this is it... and he went with two of his brothers, and his great friend and his wife and daughter.

Here is a big play, he emailed me this picture (above) with the words, "2nd and 8 from 9" and thankfully they must have moved the ball accordingly, and they ended up winning the game against San Francisco.... Hurrah!

P.S. See why I knit so many Packers hats?

New Moon review ~

Well, we saw New Moon this weekend. We were excited all weekend, and ended up going with four other gals. We took up an entire row at the theater.


Here are some observations that you may not have seen in the movie reviews, fan magazines or twilight blogs:

1. All of the coming attractions trailers for new movies include actors & actresses from Mama Mia.
2. There does not appear to be any knitting or knitted items in the movie.
3. The Alice's first outfit is very "un-Alice" unless she is a waitress in a diner.
4. Jake's long hair in New Moon looks better than his long hair in Twilight.
5. I thought the wolves would look cheesy, but I was pleasantly surprised at how real they looked.
6. Only one "can't watch" part in the very beginning where there was some heavy neck cracking going on...

I'm sure there are more obscure observations, what are some of yours? Think about them while you listen ~ can you name that tune?

Too cute ~

Have you ever seen pictures that you know just couldn't be as cute as they appear? Well, this mother of twins and also a 4 year old has an amazing talent of making everything she photographs cuter than it could possibly be. I first met Kara through this picture of her twins, and her description below (and I knew she was amazing)....

finds her twins on the dining room table, they had taken apart the bouquet and one is dipping a flower and using it to shower the other. Her head is soaked. Both are giggling hysterically. Me, being the disciplinarian grabs the camera.

Here are the hats on one of the sweetie twins...

Kara Rue Photography ~ check it out on Facebook ~ she has some great pics ~ what a talent!

The JitteryKnitter knit hats for the twins and they are oh-so-cute, especially on sweet twin's head!

These are all such great pics of them... amazing and such fun!!!

Bravo to all!!!!!

Christmas cast off ~

I have finally finished the last Christmas hat, at least I think this is the last Christmas hat that I've planned to knit for my family.

It is one of the Packers' hats, this one is for Uncle Ken (shhhh, don't tell him) and it matches little Jack's hat ~ I think Jack is 3 years old this Christmas...as it is the third Packers' hat I've knit for Jack...lucky little guy, eh?


Modeled by my sweet E....cute as a bug, isn't she! P.S. This is my 32nd finished project this year! Hurrah!

New buddy ~

We have a new buddy in the house ~ she seems to have followed hubby home, and our youngest has adopted her. I am calling her Bennie, and she is very curious about socks I am knitting for sweet E.

She likes our sweet E, and they have been having fun together...

Pretty big buddy, eh? She causes quite a shock to some that see her for the first time!

New Moon today ~

Yes, today is the showing of the New Moon movie, second in the Twilight series. My girls and I will be going to the Sunday matinee, and I think my oldest will have already seen it on Saturday with her friends.

As many wonderful Harry Potter knits that I've seen and loved, there aren't many of the Twilight knits that move me at all. After seeing the first movie, the only knit I could remember was Bella's mittens, and here is a link to the pattern, with complements to the SubliminalRabbit blog. Check her out!

Seven down ~

Seven balls of yarn are now knit into mum's blanket... It looks much longer already, and I even used it to stay warm as I knit on it tonight.


I did count how many balls of yarn there are.....and there are 25 total or more (are there 35?)..... So, I'm not quite halfway yet.... stay tuned!!!

Losing Jed ~

We had a bit of sadness over Halloween weekend. We lost our sweet banty rooster, Jed. He died from an unknown cause and he is missed by all of us. He'd lived with us for a day short of two years.

We first learned about the possibility of adopting Jed and his hens while we were in Ocean Shores, just before Halloween in 2007. While I was at work, my sweeties picked up Jed and his hens and brought them to our chicken coup on Halloween. Come to think of it, John named him Jed when he first saw him ~ I'm not sure what his name had been before...when I first saw Jed, I thought he was stunning, worthy of a magazine cover. I knew I'd seen him on calendars already ~ he was a beauty with his long shimmering tail feathers of emerald green and his white plumage around his head!


He didn't crow when he first arrived. His previous family said he didn't make any noise at all. Our Richie soon taught him how to crow (above picture), and Jed had a great crowing sound ~ not as loud as Richie, but forceful all the same. He wasn't aggressive like Richie, yet no one seemed to mess with him.


His ladies stayed with him, and yet their flock seemed to blend with the original flock fairly well.


I still look for him when I visit the coup. I miss him, his sweetness and his regal good looks...

Brussel sprouts ~

I love brussel sprouts. I love them steamed small and sweet, with a bit of melted cheese on them. I love how they taste like little bits of green goodness.

Have you ever seen brussel sprouts as they are growing? As Sweet E says, they look a bit like what the Statue of Liberty is holding... oh dear, we must do a bit more on our US History lessons so Sweet E knows what Lady Liberty is holding ~ not that she would not be holding brussel sprouts, but perhaps not for her famous statue event...

As I was knitting on the Packers' hat tonight, Sweet E was unpacking our organic box of fruits & veggies and came by to show me the lovely brussel sprouts ~ and they are lovely!

The greens match perfectly with the Packers' hat!

Hockey woes ~

The Red Wings did not do very well against Toronto tonight ~ rats...

but still allowed time for a bit of hockey knitting ~ still on this Packers hat!

Starbucks paradise ~

I would like to thank Howard Schultz for making Starbucks so available and comfortable, and accessible and even OPEN on a Sunday night (well, its not up to Howard if they are open or not, but I thought while I was thanking him...). By the way, did you know that Howard went to the same University as I did... and shares a birthday with my sister.... what a guy, eh?

Well, this Sunday night I was in desperate need of a friend to chat with and some knitting, and just when I'd about given up on the weekend, here comes the Jitteryknitter with an open Starbucks in the area I'd be dropping off one of my kids for her meeting....it gets complicated, eh?


We laughed and told stories and caught up on our weeks, and drank to Howard and the paradise of an open Starbucks on Sunday night. Check out how great her blanket is coming along! The rosewood needles are still ooh la la in a big big way!!!

Now we are seven ~

There are seven of us at work (that is counting the JitteryKnitter who "works" with us in spirit) that are taking up the challenge of helping to knit 1000 helmet liners for our troops overseas. The Patternworks site (at this link) shows what the challenge is, and how to participate. The challenge ends in February, so as not to interfere with holiday knitting projects that you may already have in your queue...

We're going to knit our seven in a nice chocolate brown (not this lovely blue) of Cascade 220, please say you'll join us so we can be 1,ooo?!

Six down ~

Six balls knit, and how many left to go?

Gosh, it looks lavender in this picture!? I really need to count all the yarn balls so I know.... or is it better not to know how many more need knitting? So far so good, as I'm still interested in the pattern...

Now it looks grey again in this picture - I need more time to knit this blanket!

Bravo to you ~

Bravo to our Student of the Month! She came home this week with this certificate, and we are oh-so-proud!

She is pretty happy about it too ~ it is a wonderful vote of confidence from her teachers! Hurrah! Seems like I should celebrate by knitting more, as knitting more is a celebration on its own!

Thank a Veteran ~

On this special day, Veterans' Day, please thank a Veteran for serving our country. This is my favorite Veteran, my dad. He served in WWII and we are thankful everyday that he made it back so that he could marry mum, have a family and make a big difference in the world to our family and to all the kids & teachers that he worked with during his education career of teaching and being a Principal.

Thanks, Dad, I really appreciate all that you do.....

Bazaar Times ~

Time for our church bazaar, and here are the knit hats that I donated.


The total this year was four hats, as I kept knitting for our family instead of the church. The kids & I did bake 10+ dozen hockey puck cookies (yum!) and did some awesome beading of necklaces & bracelets to donate as well....(here are the bracelets made by sweet E ~ beautiful, eh!!)

I do hope the sale goes well! P.S. our church made $11,000+ at the bazaar this weekend! That's $11,000+ for mission work! The sale went really well ~ Bravo!

The other blanket ~

The Jitteryknitter is also working on a blanket, so we have sort of a Blanket Knit-A-Long going so we don't get bored.

Here is the first 4 rows of her blanket ~ I think the yarn was a lovely donation and it looks like it will knit up in a kinder gentler way - not like The Beast...at least that is our hope. Check out those Rosewood needles - ooh la la!!!

Blanket growing ~

By the last day at the ocean, mum's blanket had grown to 5 balls...it looks really great and I am enjoying it still.

See, it is even big enough to fold over the railing....

Plus these pictures don't show the "design feature" that I realized in the pattern error!

Christmas continues ~

I also did a wee bit of knitting on one of the remaining Christmas hats while we were at the ocean. A Packers' hat of warm wool for those upper Michigan winters.

I'm done with the yellow stripes and now just knitting the green. I should really be finished with this by now... but not quite yet!

Sea scarf ~

I laugh during each row of this unexpected scarf. I laugh as I remember how funny Miss M and Jittery Knitter were with this pattern. I giggle that Debi took out the calculator to check the math. So far there are no mistakes, but I'm sure Knitting Karma will come around and I'll do something dumb before I'm finished... but for now it is looking great at the ocean.

This was our second day ~ beautiful sky and wonderful relaxing, beach walking and knitting.

This picture was taken out the window from where I'm sitting and knitting ~ what a great view of the ocean, and my Apple Laine funny lady socks from the sock summit!!!!