Christmas Favorites - Lucy

Lucy is unlike most other cats in many ways - but she does have her "cat-like" moments every now and then. When it comes to decorating for Christmas, she is a true cat. She loves to get in all the boxes, play under all the paper the ornaments are wrapped in, and bat at ornaments down the hall. When we still had a small tree on the floor, she would take these 3 specific ornaments off the tree and play with them during the night. She wouldn't bother any other ornaments except the same 3...she has standards.

We had to be careful last night, though, as we almost had a repeat of the cat scene in Christmas Vacation. I wanted to get a picture of her with the lights, but the color was getting all washed out.


So, I tried with the flash off. Lucy kept moving, though, so I never got a good shot. She wanted to eat them, but as we all know...that never ends well!

Knitting Update

For all my non-Ravelry family and friends, I wanted to update you on my latest knitting projects.

First, I have several things that I made for our newest nephew, Jack Lindsay. Unfortunately, I forgot to get pictures of one of the hats. I'll have to snatch one the next time that we're home.

Cable Blanket for Jack

This pattern was so easy to memorize, so easy to complete, yet it looks much more complicated. This was the first time I had ever used the Plymouth DreamBaby yarn, and I would highly recommend it. I saw the blanket several weeks after Jack was born, and I know it had been washed many times already. It was still as soft as could be and did not have any signs of pilling.

Earflap Hat for Jack

This is a modification on an adult hat pattern that a friend of mine made. It ended up being WAY big, but it worked out because Jack has a big head :)

Cozy for Bri

I started this shawl to accompany my dress I bought for our 11 year high school reunion. When that fell through, this was put on the back burned until I could finish Jack's gifts. I finished it over the knitting retreat I went on in October. This is super warm!!! Lucy loves it too!

Morning Surf Scarf for Bri

This project took awhile to complete, but only because other projects kept having a stronger priority. My sister Ann gave me the yarn for this project for Christmas last year. I went to visit them in January, and got to go wild in the LYS near her house. It is Rowan Tapestry, and I highly recommend it!!! You can see in the before and after picture that I had to do some major blocking in order to get the waves to come out the way I wanted. In the end, it blocked beautifully. I believe I have enough yarn left over to make a hat!

Christmas Favorites - A Charlie Brown Christmas

My love for A Charlie Brown Christmas has many origins. Most importantly, I love how Linus reminds us all what Christmas is really all about. It's not about the presents, or the traveling, or the stress...it's much more important



And how can you not love this scene where all the children are dancing. I know that my husband and BFB can attest to me dancing like this whenever it comes on TV. In particular, I love the twins in purple and the spiky-haired guy in yellow.



And last, but not least, we have the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree. My in-laws gave us our own version of the tree to put up in our house. Now our Charlie Brown Christmas dinner will be complete on Christmas Eve.

Holy Moly...Bridget is 30!

I apologize for taking a week to get some pictures up from my birthday weekend! It was an AMAZING weekend, took some time to recover from it, and had a ton of work to get done this week.

As always, Jason made my birthday so wonderful. He took care of some much of the planning for my party, not to mention the clean-up. I am generally so concerned about being the hostess with the mostess, that I tend to work too much at our parties. Not this year! Jason took care of it all.

Plus...he hit a homerun with my birthday gift
What girl can resist the blue bag and box with a white bow? I was so suprised and ecstatic, that I was shaking while I opened the box. It looks just like the front of our wedding invitation

I wear it every day!

I also owe so much of my birthday happiness to Kate. She took time away from her family to join me, sans kids, and celebrate for the whole weekend! Thanks Katie!!! And a big thanks to her hubby who stayed home wrangling with the twins for 3 days.

Here are some pictures from the party. We all had a GREAT time and was probably the best Fredstrom Halloween Party ever! Enjoy...

A blast from the roaring 20's

Howie showed up to play!

I got to play "Drink or No Drink"...I think I won big!

Howie lost his 'stache

True gangsters know how to roll

I had a GREAT time. Looks like Testudo did too

New Countertops!

They are finally done!! After 4 long months of fighting with Lowes to order our countertops properly, we are finally finished. There are a few minor touch-ups that we need to do with some paint under the bar, but otherwise it's all complete.

This project wasn't without its problems, though. We discovered that the majority of our walls are completely uneven, making it almost impossible to line things up. Thankfully we had our friend Jeremy who is a professional kitchen contractor and a perfectionist to make it all work out. We also ended up having to redo ALL of the plumbing under the sink to compensate for the deeper sink and new disposal. I didn't do much to help with all of this...but I did manage to take all the old plumbing to Lowe's and figure out exactly what new pieces we needed. I was VERY proud of myself.

Enjoy these before and after shots

Main side with the sink. You can see in the background we had the Ryder Cup on all weekend. GO USA!

Jason removing all the nasty quarter-rounds that were used to mask the uneven walls

Bar area from living room

This is what the wall behind the sink looked like after the bar was removed. Taking the bar down didn't do this...the original bar was put in with this big hole there.

Our lovely helper! She was actually very well-behaved during the whole process

By far the easiest part of the whole kitchen

Main counter with new sink

Much larger and deeper sink. I LOVE IT!

Bar from living room

Close-up of bar

Hopefully you can get an idea of how it matches with the floor. It's perfect!

Things I've Learned Today

1) I will forever be knitting with blue yarn. My sister-in-law just found out that she is having a boy. Come October, the count will stand:

Nephews 6 - Nieces 1

2) Due to the aforementioned thing I learned today, I believe that my husband and I will be the ones to raise a gaggle of girls.

3) I think that it is completely appropriate to knit something pink for a boy. What do you think?

4) No matter whether I get another nephew or a niece, I am blessed and happy to be an aunt all over again!

Benjamin's Baby Blanket

This is my 1st FO in 2008!!! Yes, it is June. Yes, it took me over 6 months to complete. Yes, this has been my most favorite project to date! I was able to give this blanket to my sister this past weekend when we were in Flo-town. However, with all the hub-bub of the trip, I forgot to take a picture of Benjamin with the blanket. Oh well!

Benjamin's Finished Blanket!

The pattern that I chose is the Renee Baby Blanket from Staci Perry over at verypink.com. There is such a sweet and endearing story behind her pattern that it made my heart melt and I knew this was the perfect blanket for Benjamin! I made a few slight modifications to the original pattern. There are supposed to be 5 panels of the lace, but I cut it down to only 4. Also, she includes fringe on the end, but I felt that leaving the fringe off makes it more manly.

Since the pattern is lacy, I wanted to take it's manliness further by using some of Tess' Designer Baby and Sock yarn in a color stream of blues, yellows, and greens. While I love the texture and feel of this yarn, I don't think that I will use it again!!! It was heavily overdyed to the point where my fingers turned blue after knitting it. I spoke to my wise knitters over at the Sip n' Knit and asked what I should do to set the dye. They told me I had to give it a boiling vinegar bath.

Boiling vinegar bath??? I couldn't believe that I had spent 6 months on this wonderful blanket and now I had to put it in a pot, on a stove, and boil it in water and vinegar. I was so scared to do this. So, I took the blanket outside to get a couple pictures before I potentially destroyed it!!!

Blanket posing in the sun!

But I don't wanna boil Benjamin's blanket!

Okay...it's in the pot...the water and vinegar are added...no turning back now!

In the end, I did 2 boiling vinegar baths, at least 3 wash cycles, and about 10 rinse cycles to get all the vinegar and soap out. It was a 2 day process, but in the end, the blanket came out squeeky clean and no longer bleeding all over me.

I couldn't live with myself if I turned my nephew into a Smurf because of my yarn choices.