Keep Calm and Carry On

I don't know if I am insanely easy to please or if I really do live in one of the most beautiful places on earth...but this view every morning when we're eating breakfast makes me happy! Yesterday we actually saw the sun for the first time in a week or so and it was just lovely reflecting off the snow.


After watching Holly frolick in the snow on the deck, Lyla wolfed down her breakfast and demanded (there might have been a "kweeeeze" or two in there) to do the same...



I thought it was going to be a case of 10 minutes to get the snow suit on for 5 minutes of play but she stayed out there forever playing with her spade and a couple of bowls. At one point she dumped a spadeful of snow on Holly's back...I don't know why people say cats only have one expression, I couldn't manage to get a picture of the look of murderous rage in Holly's eyes.



Obviously, I was out there too, engaging her in creative and stimulating play...

And then I peed in a bowl of snow....

Aside from the fun frolicking in the snow, we seem to have taken a couple of developmental steps backwards in the past few days, she's waking up more at night and after mentally checking off potty-training (pottty-training...done!) she's had a couple of "mama, I just peed"s. Sleep and potty = connected? I'd forgotten how critical the sleep is for both of us, we're just much nicer people after a good night sleep, without it, her grumpiness feeds mine, or maybe the other way around. Anyway, I think it's time to slow down, throw a chicken in the oven, cuddle up with a ton of books and maybe a cup of tea and a cake...oh the felt food madness has to stop!

Kawaii or just kowai?

Lyla seems to like her just fine...



I wasn't really trying to make some big p-c statement with this (sorry...Emily, after Little Bear's friend, god how I love Little Bear), I was in Meijer a couple of weekends ago with my new knitting book from Shannon and looking for something quick to make with the severely limited selection of wool they have there. Not such a bad thing for her to have though, especially as we live in Whiteyville, Honkigan, I watched this months ago and it has stuck with me. When did we come up with the idea that dollies have to look like their owners.

Anyway...mmm cupcakes...

The Tiger Who Came to Tea

I wonder if anyone else feels a dreadful sense of foreboding when reading this...

besides (of course) Sophie's mummy.

And this?

Run, Sophie! For the love of God, run!

Jumper!

I have somehow managed to take a couple of balls of wool and fashion it into a jumper-like object. It was so much more fun than I thought it would be...especially at this stage...

It seemed very boring just going round and round and I really wanted the fun stuff to start. I couldn't quite grasp how this was enjoyable, it just seemed very repetitive and a bit annoying really. Then I started the sleeves...


I didn't even know what a double-pointed needle was a couple of weeks ago and now I was using 5 of them to do something that didn't even look like knitting. I was following DW's excellent instructions and some point she says...if you have metal dpns, this might be tricky. Yup, I unravelled the first sleeve 6 times before I finally got it.



Anyway...this is the finished product...




She's all pouty because she wants to play with "the shiny, red camera", no way kid, that's my shiny new red camera...Happy Birthday me, thank you Quinn! Anyway, it looks better than I thought it would. After I figured out that I'd used the wrong wool I was pretty sure it would be unwearable and it is a bit baggy as well as being short in the sleeves and the body but I think it looks pretty cute on her. I still can't work out what I did wrong but somehow the neck placket bit is way off centre...I even stopped decreasing on one side for a bit to see if I could get it more centred...Quinn reckons it looks cool that way...that's why I love him. And I'm totally hooked, I made material from wool (yup, that's what knitting is). My hands feel like something's missing, I want to start something else right away. I really want this...demonstrating my enduring love affair with granny cardies...this might have to do.

Cake and friends

Cam: Hey, Lyla...knock, knock.

Lyla: Who's there?

Cam: An apple.

Lyla: An apple who?

Cam: Why did the apple cross the road?

I fell about laughing, they just carried on licking the spoons, or knife in Lyla's case, bad mama. We made Keri's gorgeous looking almond cake from her even more gorgeous looking blog. It didn't look quite as pretty but tasted amazing (still tastes amazing in fact...I just had a gigantic piece while Lyla was asleep...work out or eat cake? hmmm, that's a toughie).

Doing it wrong

I went here on Sunday morning to enjoy some cat and kid free knitting time with a cup of tea and an orange and currant scone and one of the other me-timers comes up to me and told me that she has made that exact jumper twice! And I'm pretty much doing it all wrong. She was really lovely about it and it was hard to be cross but I'm apparently using the wrong kind of wool (there are different kinds of wool?) and it's going to be pretty baggy on my already pretty gigantic child. I'm determined to finish, at least I'll have learned some new stiches, right? Jesus, how zen of me.

Paradise

"Do not weep, life is paradise, and we are all in paradise, but we don't want to realise it, and if we did care to realise it, paradise would be established in all the world tomorrow"

Easy for me to realise it, making almond buns, finger-painting and singing along to Mrs J, this Dostoyevsky bloke must have had a pretty sweet life too.