Let Me Tell You About My First Experience...

With a Cookie Press.
I picked up a press to use with a great Butter Cookie Recipe that I found online. The Mister and the boys like them, I thought it would be fun to make shapes that didn't require the mess of rollers and cutters. Anyway, the sad thing is that I had never used a cookie press nor seen a cookie press in use. I will not disclose how many blobs of dough were formed before I figured out the incredibly simple act of pressing cookies. *sigh* And no, the instructions that came with my economy minded cookie press (no sense becoming heavily invested if there is real potential of not using a second time) were minimal at best, no pictures, a lot assumed. And we all know what ASSUME stands for... Luckily, the cookies taste the same no matter what they look like.

Eldest way to spend a day...


Here is Eldest, center in red, at his last floor hockey game of the session. He sure loves running around with a stick in his hand.




















Here's a sprouted pea... a mere 9 pounds and 23 inches...

Is he not the most adorable baby you have seen all day?!?!









Here is a glimpse into after Thanksgiving entertainment. The Mister and his mom worked on the puzzle while I gathered up my projects. The Peapod was sent off to the pea that sprouted.










The Sven has been finished and is awaiting its
own departure.












And here is my contribution to an ornament exchange. I got the pattern out of the Interweave Knits Holiday magazine. I incorporated the fair isle pattern. I must say that it was unbearably cute.

Don't You Love it When

I am a little tired, it is a little late. I just wanted to finally put up a post. Then, I hit a wrong key? Or something. So, I am going to bed.

I will sum up, Happy Thanksgiving- a little late, and Can you believe the men I live with?
I solemnly swear that maybe I will post tomorrow.

It was good.... so.... good.....

I cannot say that a whole lot of anything noteworthy has transpired this week.
I can say that I love Christmas Knitting... maybe even more accurately, deadline knitting. I don't need any other excuse to sit and knit than that I have to get it done. It makes me happy to spend an hour during the day, in the (relative) sunlight, awake knitting.
Here is the Mister's Blue Cable Sweater. I had set it aside last week and now I am not sure where I am in the cable pattern. Pretty close to the end of the repeat, it seems. If I can figure it out, I will definately get a post-it to keep my place. It is so difficult to let go of the notion that I can remember anything.

Here is The Sven Sveater. I gave up on doing EZ's Invisible cast on for the second sleeve and just knit up from the ribbing. I rationalize this as a comparison of two methods and am willing to bet that no one other than myself (speaking in reference to the household that it is going to inbhabit) will ever notice.
I am zipping away on the body and am excited to do the yoke. Celtic Queen made this sweater for her niece and nephew and they were gorgeous. I cannot wait to see my niece in it.









Knock-off, anyone?

The fabulous and overpriced sock-bag has met it's match. Thanks to Mary Mulari's Made for Travel, I created my own version. I adapted the stuff bag, made it larger, taller, and added a few straps. Ta-da! It is red ripstop nylon. It even has a sock in progress already. The MIL was eyeing my sparkly socks so I let her pick a skein from the stash. Subtle but effective. These will be on the sly and either for her birthday or xmas (which are only 2 weeks apart.)


Socks Socks and More Socks...

INBA's red sock yarn finally came in. She only ordered 3 skeins for the store so I bought them all. I wonder how having such a limited inventory works for her? Seems to me that it just saves me money and I am sure that it does the same for others... whatever. I did pick up some blue... had to talk the boy into it, but he is going to let me put a blue heel and toe on a pair.

He is so funny. I took him to a preschool class up at the Carnegie Science Center last week. It was about worms, a favorite subject behind Trains, Sharks and Dogs. It was a good time, he made a worm box complete with rotting vegetables and egg shells. They did a little drawing and also made a worm out of a knee-hi stocking. He has been sleeping with "stuffy" ever since. We have a bedtime ritual of "talking dogs" where I converse with them about their day, but only in a scruffy voice and a stuffed dog in my hand. I think this began when they couldn't figure out how the dog was talking because they just looked at the dog and not me and of course I would pretend it wasn't me. Anyway, Stuffy now it the one talking. How do you talk a worm? Irrelevant, he wants the worm to talk like the dog (scruffy voice,) but Stuffy isn't allowed to bark. Ah, another fine example of how we spend hundreds of dollars on toys and really all we needed was a 25 cent stocking and some fiber fill.

Worth the Wait

I know, I know... I am so bad at blogging. But I knew that this post was going to be a lot of pictures, and I wanted to be able to tell the whole story... as it is, I have INBA at my elbow, wanting on my lap to see the train pictures. A mother can only do so much, so this will have to do.

Here the boys are in Cumberland, MD. We are at the rail station that their Grandma used to arrive to when coming to see her Grandparents. Her Grandfather was the conductor on the railroad, he would pick her up in Pittsburgh on the 11 o'clock train and take her, sleeping, into Cumberland. A lot of nostalgia as she told the boys about this, again.
Anyway, this is a brick relief. Isn't it the coolest thing you have ever seen? Ok, maybe the second. Either way, it is neat.



And I thought it nice to know that just up these stairs, a steam train would make my little boy's dream come true. At least I hoped. He has been pestering me since June to go to Colorado to ride a steam train from Durango to Silverton. Well, Cumberland is a lot closer and it is a steam train, too. I thought he might be distracted.

No. No such luck.



But this was his face as the engine steamed into the station. JOY, AWE, HAPPINESS. Score one for the Mom and Dad.

See, I am so thrilled for my child that I have gone this far without mentioning how FREAKING cold it was. Ok, by some standards, not so cold. I understand that it could have been colder. Not the point. Cold for me. And disappointing mostly because I had talked myself into believeing that wool socks will protect me. Not so much, not that you will be able to take them from me. I am cold. All the time. I would cry, but I am afraid of ice.



Anyway, this is a view of the country side. Very beautiful and we obviously missed most of the colors.









And then there is the view provided by the Mister leaning out the side of the train.

This is what happens when you let the Mister go wandering around by himself. And he didn't even come back with popcorn.











Here we are in Frostburg. It was sleeting. yuck. but we found a nice little coffee shop at the top of the hill that made Ghiradelli hot chocolate and really tasty vanilla lattes. It makes the cold more bearable.

by the way, that is my MIL, Me, INBA and Eldest.




We got to see them spin the engine around on the roundtable. I was not particularly enthusiastic about waiting around to see that, but WOW, that is something to see. I suppose it is the sheer size of the engine and the steam and smoke and noise that just becomes overwhelming.








INBA doesn't care for the cold, either. Or the noise for that matter, but what he was really mad about in this picture... Daddy made him turn around and look at Mommy. So much less interesting than the train.









For a kid who says he wants to drive these things when he grows up, he needs to be less sensitive to the noise. It is really something to be around a train like this. Just the pollution from this engine was staggering. It took 3 tons of coal to go 15 miles. It really makes me stop and think about a busy station with many trains coming and going. Makes me appreciate what we have, even when we can do better.






Knitting news... Peapod is complete. Somebody's something is complete. I have another pair of sparkly socks on needles (plain stockinette) and I am making my niece a matching outfit with her bear. This is the bear sweater. I am so proud of this!!! It isn't in the round, but I used the 2 stitch patter out of the back of the Big SVen and I love love love it!!
So that gave me the confidence to start on the big girl part.




It is Navy Blue and I am using leftovers of pink that I used in some clog socks, cream from the Orca mittens and green from the frog sweater. I don't feel so bad about the big bin of odds and ends now.