You Say It's Your Birthday!

It is Thing 3's birthday today!! She is ONE YEAR OLD!! Where in the world did the year go?! How is my newborn already 1? We have spent a good bit of time remembering what we were doing last year at this time. I thought I'd share a few pictures:

That's me, in labor (nice cankles!), at about 7 or 8 cm dilated with NO drugs whatsoever, thank you very much. Just proves the relaxing powers of knitting :). Ok, that and I have a really weird body that does not mind labor and likes to just dilate away with very little major pain and then have babies come flying out in record-breaking time that causes everyone to hyperventilate and almost pass out (well, mostly just me but maybe a few of the eleventy-five nursing students who got to witness this lovely experience, too). She gave us several scares along the way during the pregnancy and then came out upside down and with the cord around her neck, but she was healthy and beautiful, just like her 2 older sisters. Here she is, brand spankin' new, with her big sisters:

And here she is today, my sweet little monster who continues on her search and destroy missions all day long: What a miracle. She still takes my breath away. Happy Birthday, Sweetie!

Stashy or Scary?

Go here-tell me what you think.

Yowzers!

All Yarn, All The Time

I just can't get away from it! My daughters had Field Day at their school on Friday and since I have the small Thing 3 to tote around, there wasn't much I could do to help out that day. So, the day before I had spoken with the coordinator of the events to see what I could do at home to help out. She went rummaging through her supplies and asked, "Would you mind winding me some balls of yarn for a craft project? Is that something you would be OK doing?" I laughed right out loud. Yeah, I'm not sure if I could do that. I'm not comfortable around mass quantities of yarn-hahaha! Yarn finds me, I tell you! (even if it is Red Heart scratchyville yarn) So here is the result of my labors:

75 Mini-skeins of Red Heart scratchyville yarn

The older kids used them to make these. It is called "yarn painting" in the most recent issue of Family Fun magazine. Don't you just LOVE them?!? My kids didn't make them at Field Day because they are younger but I think we will be doing some at home.

As for knitting, I have some ripping, cussing, and finishing to do and hopefully pictures to show in my next post. Enjoy the crunching of the leaves beneath your feet today-and go paint with some yarn! Whee!

Look, It's The Goodyear Blimp!

I am distracting you from my non-finished knitting by posting a yummy recipe for Fall comfort food goodness, at the request of Laurie and a some folks over at Crazy Aunt Purl. If you have never been to a Cracker Barrel Restaurant and tried fervently not to eat your weight in hash brown casserole, well, I am sorry for you. But here is your chance for redemption! This is a recipe for a lower fat, lower calorie, just-as-yummy-tasting version. It is practically health food, I tell you!! (OK, if you have huge issues with cheesy potato indulgences being called health food, you may just want to move along - now. There is just no place for that kind of attitude here.)

Hash Brown Casserole

1 large pkg frozen Whole Grain hashed potatoes (haha! just kidding-like there are whole grain ones....seriously, you fell for that?! just messing with you-it's healthiER, but don't be crazy!)

1 can reduced-fat, reduced-sodium cream of chicken soup (you can sub in cr. of mushroom, too)

1 C. reduced-fat sour cream (not fat-free or the creaminess turns to jelly-ness. ew.)

1/2 C. finely chopped onion

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1 1/2 C. shredded reduced-fat cheddar cheese (if this is too "fake" for you, do part reg. cheddar)

1/4 C. melted fake butter of your choice

1 1/2 C. crushed reduced-fat Ritz-y type crackers

Mix together all ingredients EXCEPT melted faux butterish stuff and cracker crumbs. Put in a 2-quartish casserole dish sprayed w/ nonstick cooking spray. Sprinkle with cracker crumbs and drizzle melted butterish stuff over the top. Bake at 350 for 35-45 min. until bubbly. Get on some sweatpants, grab a large plate and fork, and choose your knitting project and TV selection ready while it is baking. Remove from oven, get to the couch, and snuggle in with the delectable, creamy, comforting goodness that can only be produced from the proper marriage of potatoes and cheese. Enjoy!

PS-Didn't even miss the lack of knitting did ya'??

PPS-Oh my gosh, now I want to eat potato casserole like NOBODY'S BUSINESS!! Darn you, blogosphere...

Inventory

I have just not had much to blog about for a good while, you know? I did not do a whole lot of knitting this summer for many reasons-I didn't have as much time because everyone was home from school all day, we were running around a lot doing "stuff", we were traveling, etc. Also, I have a hard time knitting much in the summer because it is just HOT and so if it is not cotton, I don't really want it touching me and I don't always love knitting with cotton because it hurts my hands a bit. So anyway, I didn't have much knitting to blog about. So, here it is October and I have been knitting a lot more and so now I am not blogging much because I'd rather spend the small (VERY small!) amount of down time I have actually knitting instead of blogging about knitting! But I haven't totally given up the blogosphere yet so here's what's flying around on the needles and hopefully flying off the needles SOON:

One Skein Wonder--this is the 3rd or 4th attempt, not because it is difficult, I just kept trying to make myself use some stash yarn. I have a lot of yarn around my house, too much some silly people might say, but oddly enough I had no yarns that really WANTED to be this sweater. I liked the colors of a few but of those I actually cast on, one wanted to be another sweater and another was a yucky scratchy acrylic that no matter how hard I tried to like it, it just made me kind of want to throw it far away. So I made a short detour to my LYS and picked up a beautiful skein of super soft, lovely Araucania Aysen that has definitely decided it wants to be this sweater. It should be done in a day or so, depending on the level of craziness in my house.

Circular Vest-this is coming along slowly but surely. It is soft and nice and I really like the pattern but I made a mistake while knitting this at the Dave Matthews concert and I tried to let it go but after several more rounds, I just couldn't stand it anymore and had to rip back a good bit and fix it. Moral of the story-if you are just a little bit of a perfectionist cannot live with mistakes, just fix them right away so you are not extremely angry while ripping back 8 or 10 rounds (rounds that get bigger as you go, btw). Also, the needles I am using for this are garbage so it is making it hard and frustrating to do the p2tog's. I am considering a needle switch before going further but we will see.

Etc.-I still have the Mystery Stole hanging around but I am just not in a lace mood these days. I have just been way too exhausted to do any "pay attention" knitting plus, like I said, I have limited sit down and knit time so most of my knitting is done on the go these days and lace with beads is no good for this. I also have 2/3 of the squares done for my mitred square blanket but I just don't feel like doing it much anymore, even if it was supposed to be a gift. Poor baby, I better just go get him a book or something before he goes off to college... Speaking of college, I still have one Hokie Bird sock hanging around without a buddy-how embarrassing!! I have got to make that other one before the end of the football season or I may end up a lonely single mom. And speaking of onesies, I still have one Peekaboo Mitten without a buddy-good thing it is still 90 STINKING HOT degrees in October so I can buy some time for that guy. I hate UFOs, they stress me out because it is just one more thing I feel like I HAVE to do. Quit pressuring me, you yarn sirens buried in the depths of random, cobwebby baskets and bags! I have decided I will ignore them for now. There, I feel better already. Whew!


Finally, I have made a list of my Christmas knitting and I am getting excited about that stuff so hopefully I will have more to show and talk about in the weeks to come! Knit on, friends!

Handy

Here are the pics of the finished (and even shipped!!) Moss Grid Hand Towel from Mason-Dixon Knitting:

Here she is, blocking in progress

And here she shows herself finished and folded and ready for wiping damp little hands!

And here is a picture of Thing 3 sporting her very first piggy tails, because why wouldn't you want to look at her cuteness??

I just love baby hair!!