Isn’t that how Christmas is, though?  It snuck up on me, big time, and even this morning I wasn’t ready for it, but came it did.  We made cookies yesterday and left them out for Santa.  Ethan found them this morning, coming into our room to tell us that Santa had eaten!  the cookies!!  We went downstairs and they kinda lost it, especially after they’d opened their stockings and we made them stop to go eat breakfast.  Ahh the dulcet tones of screaming on a peaceful Christmas morn…

Let me backtrack, though, since it’s been a while and things has happened.  Ken finally finished the tele shelf he’s been working on for a while (put on the back-burner because there was an “issue” and he was frustrated with it).  We remembered to take pictures so you can journey with us through our minor little living room tweak!

Before

Before again

Lookit the mess we’re making!

Ohhh!

Nice!

Brava! Ken is magnificent!

So we got a tree, next, and decorated it.

Then SANTA CAME OMG!

And who made those gorgeous stockings?!

All the new toys, spread around to be admired and fought over (excluding the trucks on the ottoman – we had those already).

Unanimously the best.toy.evar! (well, more or less.  What? Santa doesn’t give you toothbrushes?!)

I made this for Victor this past week.

He loves it.  He hates it.  I think it’s hilarious, though am considering taking out the eyes and replacing them with “dead” eyes (white with an ‘X’ in the middle) as the pattern suggests ( here )So now that the boys are asleep we’ll be rushing around trying to get packed up and ready to leave first thing tomorrow to hit the mall for the world’s most last minute shopping ever and then it’s up to NY to spend the weekend with family.  We’ll be back early next week, stressed and overloaded with too many toys (Gramps and Nana I’m talking to you).

That’s it for tonight, folks.

Dun dun DUUUUN!!

It’s lightweight (think feather-weight), warm, slippery and wonderful.  I love it love it love it!  I hope I don’t look like a weirdo wearing it because I loves it soooo much!

Ethan’s first reaction was to tell me I looked like a Dragon and that my shawl is nice.  I’m going to take it as a compliment.  I’m very proud of this project.  I love wearing it with the point at the side (just need a pin to hold it), and love wearing it with the ends tied in the back as it’s most stable like that and out of the way (the ends have a tendency to trail into everything I reach for).

I read an online magazine called Knitty that, quarterly, publishes itself along with many free patterns to knit.  It’s very well done and it’s the source of several projects I’ve made/are making (Starsky jacket, Monkey-Waterfall socks, Boing socks).  It was just published again, recently, and I thought I’d post here what I liked and get some input should anyone feel like providing it.

Knitted wire jewellry have cropped into my field of vision lately as a very interesting idea and something I’m slow-smoldering-considering.

Fish Hats that are just too cute!  I love that it’s like the fish is eating the child’s head.  I take a perverse pleasure in the idea.   Not to be made this year, I think, since the boys aren’t able to really let us know when they get cold (and therefore require a more protective toque), but in the future…

I think these mittens are a very cute idea.  Cool in a sub-culture way (based off video game “hands” in some games) and practical.  Too bad I don’t have a baby to put them on.

This toy has a high likelyhood of joining our family.  Partly because I love making toys for the boys, partly because it uses up small, leftover bits of yarn, partly because it’s cute.

Should you ever wonder “what the heck is blocking?!”, allow me to explain.  Most yarn, especially natural fibres, has a memory.  Blocking takes advantage of that in that once a knitted item is finished the loops that make up the knitted stitches are all, well, soft.  Blocking encourages those loops to more firmly remember where all their little kinks and bends are.  Kinda like a metal strip – it can be curled, but you apply a certain force in a certain manner and it’ll bend at an angle.  Blocking is similar in that it applies a certain force, not harsh or pulling, but it convinces the yarn to use that shape as it’s default (until you get it wet again which is why some garments require you to “lay flat to dry” or “reshape and lay flat to dry” when you wash them).  Blocking lace is the same as blocking any knitted item except you are applying a pulling force.  All the stitches, knit large and loose, will stretch…BIG.  Knitting lace is “knitting around empty spaces” and those empty spaces are what make lace, lace.

Here’s what my shawl looks like right now after a cold water soak with wool wash and a gentle squeeze to get rid of some of the excess moisture (non-cold water or agitation makes it felt *real* easily, so you have to be crazy-gentle).

It’s 92.5″ wide at the top and 50.5″ tall (and increase of approx. 2′x1′).  I could have blocked it larger but a) didn’t want to and 2) don’t have the space.  It’ll take at least 24hrs to dry, likely, so I need it out of the way of the kids.  As is I had to mash two pictures together since I don’t have a wide-angle lens and am neither 7′ tall.  It fills the whole room, almost.

Many knitters count a project as “finished” when all the knitting is completed, whether it needs to be sewn together or blocked or anything further doesn’t count.  I am not one of those.  A project is finished, to me, when I’m done all work on it; knitting or otherwise.  Therefore, the Swallowtail Shawl is still unfinished.  However the knitting is done and all I need do is give it a soak and block it.  It’s lace, so *big* changes will happen during blocking (size, stitch definition and lace definition).

(this is what it looked like, last we spoke)

It’s unblocked measurements are 34″ vertically along the center spine and 64″ along the top edge.  Here’s a better shot to see the entirety of it all.

I expect the growth it’ll take from blocking to be more than I expect and to make it look stunning.  The whole thing took 4.5 skeins, so if I wanted to I could make a whole.nother.one and still have a skein leftover to.. I dunno… hurl at the UPS guy who keeps ringing the doorbell during naptime (despite a sign above the ringer requesting no rings after 1pm and he rang at 3pm).  Not that I’m peeved about it.

On another knitting note, that cute little cabled ornament I made a week or so ago?  Um…  They’ve been multiplying…

I expect they’ll multiply even more before the end of the month… afterall, I have kitchen cabinet knobs that look oh so lonely without one of these babies hanging from them (until we get the tree, naturally).

Happy Happy Birthday Baby!

After breakfast, today, we started your celebrations… You love your animals, and got a lot of them.  You also got a tractor and, best of all, a train.  Life, in The Land of Victor, is grand.  We’ll hopefully have some pictures later of you blowing out your birthday cake.  You kinda know how to blow, so I’m hopeful.

Early at doing practically everything, about 6wks ago you decided to enter into the “terrible twos” and have morphed from being an adorable and moderately well-behaved little boy into a little devil.  You’re still adorable, you sometimes are well-behaved (with much prompting from us), but you’ve fully grown into the little sneaky bum we always suspected you were.  You’re infuriating, and we can’t help but laugh (sometimes) when you try to pull off some of the naughty things you try to do.  You get into everything – moreso even than Ethan did (though you’re bigger now (you wear 2-3T!) than he was at your age so that accounts for some of it) – to your detriment, at times.

This past week you reached further onto the counter than ever and snatched off the new and fascinating metal can lid you’d been eyeing at the grocery store when I bought the soup.  It had a tab that you just *had* to investigate.  You hurriedly went up to the playroom, I’ve surmised, wherein you fought and struggled and managed to actually get the tab *off* the metal lid.  Here’s where the “to your detriment” part comes in.  I came up to see what you and Ethan were up to and put you down for your nap.  You waited for me at the top of the stairs, a look of worry and upset on your face because your hands were “messy”.  As was the floor, a door knob, your pants, shirt, the can lid and tab that I later found and some of the wall.  You looked like a survivor in a horror film – standing, hands held forward in surprise, coated in blood that was also spread all around you.  Apparently you don’t clot so much.  Once I got you and me and the surrounding area cleaned up I found that all that blood came from 3 tiny cuts on your fingers.  Not enough for stitches, thankfully (think really bad paper-cuts), but you’ve had bandaids for a few days.  At least you heal quickly since all but one bandaid is off now; 3 days later.

As well as being a stinker you’re also very smart.  Very.  You know your numbers up to 10 (in order) and can keep going up to 20 (though you tend to leave numbers out in the teens).  You can count up to about 4 (beyond that, rote memory takes over and you just keep on counting whether there’s objects to count or not).  You can draw circles.  You have a great memory.  To what end that when Ethan and I did this you immediately did this and then, after the letters had been jumbled for a while, this (all the same letters and notice the vowels?).

You’ve always been good with your body – sitting/standing/walking early – and you’ve always been very flexible.  I’d always assumed that flexibility would fade with time, but apparently not (the pants held you back, amazingly – 3mb).  You’ve also, clearly, inhierited my sense of balance and desire to climb (5mb).

You’re also getting really good at communicating.  You speak well and use phrases that you’ve constructed yourself, and not just ones you’ve heard us say.  I love hearing you talk because it’s adorable.  Piktur (2.5mb), agigator (8mb) and momee (8mb) to name a few.  You’ve stopped saying things like “Robobot”, and that makes me a little sad.

You love music and love to dance and move around to it.  Though you’ve still got a deliciously squishy layer of baby fat on you, you’re a very very active boy.  Not that you can’t sit still when you’re playing, but when you’re up and around it’s always at break-neck speed.  I love watching you run sometimes because when you get excited – like when Daddy first gets home at night or when he’s playing Monster with you and Ethan (big file but a good peek at our evenings before bedtime – it’s a wonder those boys ever sleep! 26mb) or when you’re unclothed and can run around (3mb), yelling to the world that you’re “SOOPER BUNNY!” – you get this little hoppy jump to your step that just about makes my heart burst.

Recently we moved your crib into Ethan’s room – now both your room.  We were worried it’d be impossible for either of you to sleep since you’re both light sleepers and both noisy, but it’s been a rousing success.  I’m still amazed that you sleep well and you’re both much happier about it, and have become even closer since then.

You are our trial, you are our joy.  From the start I’ve always had one word, above all others that’s described how I feel about you; you’re delicious.  You bring us so much joy and so much happiness that the words just don’t accomodate.  Happy Birthday Baby, and thank you.

Love always, Mommy.

Well, the first day of school came and went a few weeks back.  I’ve waited til now to speak much of it because it was immediately followed by Thanksgiving (school closed) and the first day of hunting season (school also closed – weird PA thing), so until this past Friday Ethan had only gone once.

Ethan goes to school on Monday and Friday.  The preschool bus picks him up at the end of our driveway at 11am and drops him off shortly after 3pm. He “eats” lunch (picks at it – I’m still trying to find the right combination of foods to incite him to stop looking around and chatting and actually eat) at school and has a substantial snack after he’s come home (depending on how little he ate for lunch).Ethan.loves.school.  We knew he would since he’s been looking forward to going to school for a year now, but it bears saying so much because of how much he loves it.  He loves it soooo much.  He loves his teacher, Miss Abby, he loves painting and singing and from what we can tell everything is going well.  He has a notebook that Miss Abby writes us notes in about each day at school and from the two days he’s been he’s played nicely with the other children and spent a lot of time playing with cars.  Go figure.

His first day of school was chilly but not too bad (I froze my butt off this past friday waiting for the bus to drop him off).  When I went out to get him the bus was a bit early and had driven right up to the door.  A good thing since Ethan was a complete wreck.  They hadn’t even been able to get his jacket on fully as he had one arm in the body of the jacket still.  It’s approx. a 30min drive and he was still crying when I climbed on the bus and collected him.  He calmed pretty quickly once I had him in my arms, but he was devastated at having to leave school; wondrous, exciting, amazing school.  I felt really sorry for his driver, Paul, to have to see him like that on their first meeting (the pick-up bus is driven by another driver, Mary).
This past friday was quite a bit better as he wasn’t crying at all when I collected him.  I stood and waited while his driver unbuckled him and I told him how proud I was that he was being so calm and he looked at me with the most heart-wrenching look and his lip started to quiver a bit and he said “but I’m still really sad to leave” and I piped in and reminded him that he’d get to go back on Monday.  He rallied around that thought and everything was good in the world.

He’s made new friends at school.  Alicia is his bus-mate and she seems quite nice.  Ethan’s not good at remembering names so I haven’t learned of any other playmates yet.  He has, apparently, told at least one joke at school and was proud of it when he got home (he insisted on telling me his joke and I could see from the look of pride on his face that non-parental people had heard and laughed at it).

So it’s a whole new world for our little man and he’s very ready and very excited about it.   It’s a world that’s brought the typical initial sickness to us (good thing for that week off during Thanksgiving since we were all sick) but he’s having a marvelous time and I’m looking forward to seeing how he grows. I love him so much and I’m so proud of the person he is and is becoming.

This is it at 3 skeins (just started #4).  It should take approx. 5 plus a bit, but I’m not sure if it will (hoping it’ll squeeze in under 5).  It’s smaller than it will be since it’s not blocked – knitted lace is wicked stretchy before it’s blocked.  The ottoman (which it’s on) is 2.5′ deep and 4′ wide, approx.