Girls and Spring

The girls got some new spring duds and wanted to model...all except for Leah.

I still find it incredible that Leah is so fair haired and blue eyed and Grace and Anna have my mousy brown hair and Jeremy's hazel eyes.  Although I have blue eyes and she comes by the blonde hair naturally; Jeremy was a blondie when he was a little boy.

SNOW!

We’ve had quite the spring around here.  And I use the term spring only because that’s what the calendar says.  We’ve had some snow around here, several storms in fact.  One week I was stuck home because the road to town was closed for 2 days.  The next week I was at home for nearly 4 days because I didn’t dare venture out as it was literally a white out.

That made for quite the harrowing trip home one day.  While on the dirt road I couldn’t see any road markers, thank heavens the road is straight and when I saw a street sign I knew I’d made it through that part.  It was white on white.  I stopped when my car hit the drift that usually forms by our back door and there my car stayed for 2 days.

Grace had 2 early release days and 2 snow days out of that storm.  Jeremy did manage to work nights as usual...although it took him twice the amount of time to get home.

I did manage to finish a pair of socks and start some wrist warmers.  The girls kept busy with drawing and reading, which somehow leaves the house in utter chaos. 

In Which I Made a Few Things

I have been busy making a few things this weekend that I wanted to share with my faithful 5 blog readers.  I got a flat of strawberries in my latest Bountiful Basket and made some strawberry butter.

This is only part of it, I had to can in two batches because my canner wasn't big enough.  Turned out pretty darn tasty if you ask me...a-hem!

In one of the Taste of Home magazines I was browsing through had a freezer slaw recipe.  We like coleslaw around here, so I thought I'd give it a try.

It was pretty tasty as I taste tested before I put it in the jars.  We'll see how it is after it comes out of the freezer.

I also made, but forgot to take a picture before it was gone, some ham/lentil stew thing.  My mother-in-law had given us the ham bone and residual ham at Easter.  I'm not fond of Jeremy's ham and beans so I thought I'd do something myself.  I put about 1/2 lb of lentils, chicken stock, cut up potatoes and carrots in the crock pot and set it on high with the bone...Jeremy gave it rave reviews, the girls were, as usual, hesitant to eat it.

Babies!

Been some interesting happenings around here lately.  Anna wanted her haircut "like Mommy's", so we got it cut.  It looks cuter than heck, but she wore her hood up at daycare for a day before I bribed her to leave it down.  And nobody laughed or made fun of her.  She looks like Tinkerbell  J

Then I got a picture via text message of these....

They are hard to see because of the redness from the heat lamps, but the top picture is chicks.  The bottom are ducks.  The girls think they are awesome.  Leah says "ducks" and wants to go downstairs to see them.  (We are keeping them in the basement until they feather out and can go outside.)

 

Introducing Princess

We’ve had a cat now for a few years, but he’s not very social and mostly keeps to himself.  We thought the girls might like a cat they could love and pet and adore.  We surprised them with a trip to the animal shelter.  After much deciding and petting several cats, we brought Princess home.  OK, her first name was not Princess, but the new name won by a landslide.  Her first day was mostly hidden under the bed.  But yesterday she wandered around and laid and watched us and let there be lots of petting and carrying around.  I found out she slept on Anna’s windowsill last night.  I saw her using the catbox and she’s played with the string and stick we rigged up.  Leah even petted her “backwards” (you know, the wrong direction of the way the fur lays) and she didn’t bat an eye.  She’s not too fond of the dogs and her and the other cat have eyeballed each other quite a bit.  Once everyone’s decided on the pecking order, I think things will be good to go.

Without further ado, here’s Princess.

A Study in Sock Heels

I was happily knitting along on a pair of socks and thought I'd try a short row heel.  Little did I remember that I apparently have fat ankles because that type of heel is quite tight around the ankle.  And so began the search for the ultimate heel.  I found one on knitfreedom.com which allowed for some increases...you know, for my fat ankles, hehe!  So I started a sock near the heel so I could do the heel and see how it fit.  Turned out the heel fit quite well, so I finished that sock and started it's mate in which I probably knit the fastest pair of socks in my life.  It took about 2 weeks, usually it'll take me a good month to whip out a pair of socks.  I'd really like to meet those women who say they can knit a pair in a day...that's probably all they did that day!

If you will notice, they have a little cable up the side of the leg, never have done one before so I thought I'd give it a try. 

 

I also found a heel by Cat Bordhi called the sweet tomato heel.  I tried that on the sock before this blue pair and I like the heel, nice and smooth, but I think I'm gonna have to do some increases before I do this heel as it has a similar problem to the short row heel, it's too tight.  (And that sock yarn was scratchy, so it may be abandoned).

A Sweater and a Sleepover

I finished this baby sweater about a week ago, but just now got to sewing on the buttons and blocking it.  The parents chose to let baby reveal it’s gender at birth, I think it’ll work for either a boy or a girl.  I really like how this sweater turned out.  I made one for Leah and it’s adorable, however, it didn’t fit her until she was a year or so old.  I went down a needle size for this sweater, so hopefully it’ll fit a bit sooner.

Grace had her first official sleepover-that-is-not-with-family sleepover.  One of her classmates had her birthday.  It sounds like they stayed up until midnight, painted each other fingernails, decorated some butterfly cutouts with glitter and had a bunch of fun.  She got home around 11:30 the next day and slept most of the afternoon away!