If your knitting gets you down...

make a baby sweater!

Honestly - they are so darn cute!  And a super quick knit.  This is the Little Coffee Bean (rav pattern link) knit with Berroco Vintage DK.  The pattern calls for a worsted weight yarn, but I found this DK on sale and I know I like working with it.  So I knit the largest size with smaller needles (Us 6 and 4) and ended up with something in the 3-6 month size range. 

This cardigan is off to live with hubby's cousin and her new baby. 

My Sock Drawer

So I knit.  A lot. 

One thing I always have on the needle is a pair of socks.  I thought I would be knitting a lot of socks this summer but it turns out I was wrong.  I finished just one pair so far.  I have another oon the needles, but it still needs 5-6 hours to finish.

Here is a peek at my sock drawer.  This is 31 pair of hand-knit socks.  I can't wait for fall and sock wearing weather!

Winding up summer

It pains me to admit that summer is nearing completion.  I only have one more week off before I go back to work!  The kiddos have 3 weeks and they are determined to make the most of them.

This weekend we are heading to the cabin with some friends.  The kids have been looking forward to this all summer.  Since the dads have to work on Friday, the moms take the kids on Friday morning and the dads join us very late on Friday night.  This works out very nicely because the kids love to stop at all the crazy touristy places.  The dads bring the dogs with them, so the moms and kids can stop as often as we like...and we do.

Some of our favorites:

1.  Great Lakes Candy - This is such a wonderful little store - candy of all kinds. They make most (if not all?) of their chocolate items.  I've been given a little tour of the back room and they have the massive copper kettles for making caramel.  So delicious.

2. Beaver Bay Agate Shop - Our kids just love this place.  They have lots of kitschy little carved stone animals and necklaces in the $3-$5 range.  Very kids friendly - and they have a nice little museum too, with a large collection of beautiful Thomsonite stones.

3.  Kitchi Gammi Park - This is a great park just north of Duluth.  We love to pack a picnic lunch and eat it on the shore of Lake Superior.  The kids could spend hours here jumping on the rocks and poking at stuff in tide pools.  Note to self - someone WILL get wet, bring towels.

After the cabin trip, Gregory has a few procedures scheduled.  Nothing requiring a hospital stay thankfully.  He's having an oral surgery/orthodontic procedure done. (Extractions of baby teeth and bonding of 2 permanent teeth.)  The second one is a plastic surgery procedure.  The doctor has been wanting to do this for a few years (like 4!) but we were waiting for Gregory to want it too.  He is having some scar tissue on his lip removed, the tip of his nose raised to improve his airway in one nostril, and a fatty lump removed from the back of his head.  (Not cleft related, but it's been growing in size the past year or so so it's time for it to go.)

And I've been knitting up a storm!  I'm trying to knit Christmas presents for all of my wonderful co-workers in the main school office.  Since I just do not have much knitting time once school starts, I figured I better get as much of this done before school starts as I can.  Of the 5 gifts I need, I have 2.5 done! 

And here is one I made for me.  A fun little project to use up as much left-over sock yarn as possible.  It did not use nearly as much yarn as I was hoping.  I think I could make about 5 more of these and still have yarn left over!  (It's about 5.5" wide and 70" long without the fringe.)  Pattern Link.

That's all for now - and I seem to be doing a tiny bit better updating this blog - go me!

On being forgetful...

Sunday is grocery shopping day for me.  I make a meal plan for the week, create a grocery list based off that, check for coupons and off I go.

Today, it went according to plan until I got to Target.  It was then that I discovered that I had forgotten my grocery list at home. Poop.  I hastily jotted down what I could remember, hoping I wasn't going to have to make another trip to the grocery store.

I did pretty well because when I got home and checked my original list, I only forgot 1 thing.  Go me!!

So....it's been awhile...

Yeah - I guess I'm not the best blogger.  Surprise, surprise.

A friend and his family were just in town (Hi Joe and Trina!), and he mentioned that I stopped updating my blog.  That got me to thinking.  Maybe it's time to re-start the whole blogging thing.  So here I am, trying to get it going again.

As for now, I'm not sure what direction I'll be going with my blog.  Since I started working (27 hours per week, school year only) I don't have as much crafting time - except in the summer.  That may mean my blog will be more general family/crafting/school stuff.  I'm not really sure.

To start things off - here's a picture of the family taken at a wedding at the end of May.  It's rare to get a photo of all of us together, and even rarer to have us all dressed up.

 

It's not much of a post, but it's a start.  Let's see where I go from here....