Halloween 2012

I've been busy sewing this past week.  My grandson, Malachi, requested a blue dinosaur costume for Halloween and Grandma tries to fulfill requests.  For a while there, I thought I'd bitten off a little too much, but it turned out well in the end and he loved it.

I really loved the tail, although it got drug though the puddles.  Luckily it's machine washable.  :)

 

Both my little trick or treaters and my awesome daughter.

 

Little Zach had a purchased little tiger costume.  He was adorable as ever. 

 

~Jane 

Spring!

Regular Session is over, but unfortunately we went right into Special Session, since they can't decide on a budget.  Mainly the way Special Session affects me is that we aren't allowed to take time off, so that kind of limits life right now.  On a positive note though, I've finished one of the two strings of bandana pennants I'm making for the Little Guy's birthday and the pennants just need to be added to the hanging tape at the top on the second string.  Bias tape from my mother's stash is coming in handy here.  I used two navy and two red packages.  :)

It suddenly hit me last week that soon I'll have two little guys to knit for.  I immediately cast on a sweater for the new baby.  I fell in love with this little Sweet Pea Cardigan from 60 Quick Baby Knits.  I'm knitting it in Peapod Green Comfy Worsted cotton from Knitpicks.  I'm making the hem and edges without the picots since I want it to look a little more boyish and leaving off the ribbon trim and squiggles on the hood.  It is working up really cute.  I absolutely love the peapods knit into the design. 


 I have very poor circulation in my feet and I've been trying to keep my feet nice and warm.  This is the first winter I've noticed cold really hurting my feet.  At night, I have a rice bag that I warm up and tuck into the foot of the bed, but it doesn't seem to hold the heat for very long.  I read a book by Rachael Herron that talked about "hotties."  Basically hot water bottles with a cover.  I got rather inspired.  I started looking for hot water bottles to buy and couldn't really find any around town.  Looking online, I found lots of negative comments about the most available ones that are made in China.  Not really wanting one of these with their questionable materials and odors, I finally located some sold by the Vermont Country Store that are made in Germany with brass fittings in the neck to prevent leaks.  I've ordered two.  I've also knit a hot water bottle cover from some stash - Rachael's ISBN Cabled Hot Water Bottle Cozy by Yarnagogo, and I bought some Cascade 220 to knit one more.

Since I also have the Little Guy's second hoodie sweater on the needles, to replace the one that shrunk, I have lots of projects to work on.  The pictures here are from Ravelry.  I'll post pictures of my finished projects when I get them done.

~Jane

The Wonder of a Little Child

Today I had the privilege of watching the Little Guy for a while.  He had just had a late breakfast, so I got him all dressed and went off to do some Christmas shopping with him.  I wanted to get him a rocking chair for Christmas.  We have a child's rocking chair here that was my husband's when he was small and the Little Guy loves to come over and sit in it.  I wanted him to have one at home also. We found our rocking chair and came home.

The rain had slowed to a drizzle and the Little Guy wanted to play in the puddles with his froggy boots.  So Grandma managed to get a couple pictures.  He just had so much fun!  He was trying so hard to jump in the puddles with both feet but hasn't quite managed it.

Grandkids are Wonderful

I got a call from my daughter yesterday.  She was calling to inform me what "Your Grandson" did.  Uh, oh.  Already I know someone's in trouble.  She went on to tell me that she put the Little Guy down for a nap and instead of going to sleep, he managed to reach through the crib to the wall and peel off the wallpaper border that I put up in his nursery.  Since his crib is pulled away from the wall, she doesn't know how he even managed to reach it, but says he obviously spent a lot of time at it!  :)  My reply, "Oh, well.  When I come over tomorrow, I'll bring some glue and put it back up.  Did we have any leftover wallpaper?"

This response I immediately recognized as a definite mellowing from how I'd have responded if it had been Elsie who did it as a toddler 28 years ago.  Then I would have been frustrated, mad, etc.  All my hard work in vain.  I made a comment to that effect to Elsie, and she said, "I know!  I'd have been in big trouble."  :)

What can I say?  It's not the end of the world.  I'm pretty sure it's fixable.  The Little Guy is so cute, this Grandma just can't get mad.

~Jane

P.S.  He managed to get a lot more down off the wall than I expected, but it was pretty easy to glue back up and luckily was in fairly large pieces.  I was expecting parts of it to be shredded.  I left the bottle of glue, so Elsie can glue down any suspicious spots that might pop up again.  :)

Please!!!

Yesterday I went over to my daughter's to babysit my little grandson until his dad got home.  On the way over I stopped at Starbucks, as I usually do, to buy my daughter and I each a coffee.  I walked in with my iced coffee and immediately the little guy wanted a drink.  He loves drinking through a straw.  Now on occasion I have let him have a drink, but only after I've finished my coffee and what's left in the cup is the melted ice.  But this was a full cup of iced latte so I told him he couldn't have any.  Immediately he started rubbing his chest doing sign language for "Please!" over and over again.  I felt so badly I couldn't give him a drink through my straw.  His next favorite thing is drinking from a regular water glass, so I got him a glass of water and held it for him to drink and at that point he forgot about my coffee.  But this grandma is still smiling at remembering how cute and how pathetic he looked signing "please." 

~Jane

P.S. One of my co-workers suggests my asking for a small cup and straw the next time I get iced drinks so he can have his own.  What a great idea!