One year already!

I know! It didn't seem right to us either. But we checked the dates and it's true: our little Lolo is 1 year old...already!


Here he is enjoying the yarn cupcake I knit for him from bits of the Bernat Satin leftover from my original Buddy Bags. The cupcake pattern was a happy Ravelry find and is available for free from Ava's blog here. It was so much fun to knit and everyone who's seen it wants one. Dada's might look a little strange with 30 candles sticking out of it though!


I made a few mods: worked 2 extra increase rows for the base (I thought my gauge was off and that it looked small otherwise...but now that it's done and is huge I realise I should have just stuck with Ava's instructions!), I also improvised an i-cord candle instead of the cherry and added a generous sprinkling of sprinkles! Finally, I filled a clean Heinz baby food tub with rice and used it to shape the bottom of the cupcake before stuffing which weighs it down nicely and serves as a fun rattle for 1 year olds!


Julian and I also baked a birthday cake for our little lemondrop. Behold our bee and hive cakes above. We cheated with the cake batter (as we always do) by using Betty Crocker's German Chocolate mix which is by far the closest to homemade I've tried (and I've tried many).

I baked the cakes in metal bowls to get the dome shapes and iced them generously with homemade butter cream and chocolate icings (using this Martha Stewart recipe). The bee also got super cute Sweet Tart candy features with a licorice mouth and host wings and was a total hit with the birthday boy! We just gave him the bee and let him have at it while the rest of us shared the hive.


Julian was a terrific helper leading up to Lolo's big day. In addition to helping bake the cake, he helped us pick out Lolo's gift and even decorated the wrapping paper with a little paint and some potato stamps we made using letter-shaped cookie cutters.


He really enjoyed helping out and getting creative and I think he even discovered along the way that doing something nice for someone else can be a reward in itself. He had such a great time helping us celebrate that I really don't think he felt left out or short-changed despite all the attention Lolo was getting and I felt really good about that ;0)

And Lolo? Well he basked in celebrations all week long long. And we basked in his delight and all the joy and wonder he has brought to our family since the day he joined us just one year ago...

Happy Birthday Lolo bean! We love you beaucoup, beaucoup, beaucoup ;0)

Knitting!

I am thrilled to report that both my kidlets are on the mend! Well, Lolo is still teething and Julian is still 2 years old, but at least there are naps again and that means there is knitting again! And not a moment to soon, I was really in need of some yarn therapy ;0)



I finished Lolo's Get Ziggy (the blue thing ;0) and then put it aside a bit to knit a winged heart tattoo! A what? A tattoo! I wanted to come up with a cool Valentine's day project when the idea struck (perhaps it was a Miami Ink commercial?) and naturally I had to put everything else aside for days while I spent countless hours trying to come up with the right decrease sequence for the perfect heart shape. And the right cast-on, cast off combination for the 'ribbon'. And the right font for the writing. Then it occured to me that I was perhaps falling off my rocker and since I couldn't figure out how to do the wings anyway, I put it down too and sought out something fun to do with the kids...

Turns out that my little town turned the big 4-0 this weekend and being the cool town young family town that it is, the City put together a 40hr winter carnival starting with an evening fireworks display, snow sculptures, fire jugglers, an iglootheque pulsing with dance and techno oldies, and even a bon fire set up by our local fire department. After a few weeks of being cooped up in the house with sick kids, this was just the thing! The weather was fab, our neighbours brought along some coffee and doughnuts to round out the experience, and the kids delighted in being out at night! Julian actually thought it was halloween since that's the only other time he's ever been for a walk after dark. LOL!

The best part, we left our house on foot at 7pm and we're back home to tuck in the kids by 8:30pm. Extra bonus: half our kids fell asleep in the stroller on the walk back home so we got to skip the sometimes tedious bedtime routine and Stephen and I got to snuggle up on the sofa together to watch a movie.

While I knit ;0)

It's done!

The anniversary sweater. It's really done!

I started it waaaay back in April 2006 and planned to knit it for my sweetness on the occasion of our second (cotton) anniversary on April 17, 2006. And then I started it. And immediately I knew that was not going to happen ;0) I then reasoned that it would be okay as long as I finished it during our cotton anniversary year giving myself and extra 364 days in which to finish it.

I knit on it a lot. Heck I even knit on it when I was in labour! Now that's dedication!

But man, that's a lot of cables and, well, that didn't happen either. Birthday? Father's day? Nope. Nada. But on the occasion of Quebec's national holiday on Sunday, I finally did it!


I knit the smallest size using just over 14 balls of Rowan All Seasons Cotton, modified the sleeves to knit them in the round, cast on fewer sleeve stitches (104 instead of 114) and worked sleeve decreases until there were 60 stitches rather than 56. Other than that I knit it pretty much as directed (for posterity did I mention that I used 4.5mm Addi's). I did have a few beefs with the pattern though. The main one was that if you knit it to the letter, that is, same cable pattern on both front and back pieces, the cables and ribs don't line up when you do the 3-needle bind-off. See:


My other beef? I hate how dropped sleeves fit. This is not that pattern's fault. But I wish I had given it more thought and modified the sleeve shaping. But, I digress. It's done! And more importantly, it's very comfy and daddy loves it. Modelled shots are forthcoming though because it's a gazillion degrees these days and it just seemed mean to make him wear it out for some pics so I'm waiting for a less muggy day... In the meantime, here's another shot before I show Julian's last 2nd birthday cake:


After his birthday barbecool with friends last weekend, we had another birthday celebration for Julian's 2nd birthday on Saturday, this time with our families. I baked him a cookie cake with layers of cream cheese filling. Yum! I got it from one of the Kids' magazines, but the recipe is reprinted online if anyone is interested.


We all sang happy birthday to his great delight and then right on beat at the end of the song when we generally blow out the candles, he went in for a bite instead and his cap extinguished the candles. It was a roar! We're still giggling about it. Silly billy ;0)


And now, he has officially entered the 'terrible twos', but so far it's more like the 'terrific twos'! Awwww. I'm counting on him to change the stereotype for all toddlerkind! LOL!

Happy birthday Jubilee Bubilee. Mommy loves you big like the sky ;0)

More birthday fun!

It sure seems like it's all birthday all the time around these parts! Most of our relatives were born in April, May and June and it seems like every week-end celebrates someone's birthday! Last week, we threw a triple birthday bar-b-cool (that' what Julian calls a barbeque ;0) to celebrate Stephen's birthday (June 12), mine (June 19) and Julian's (June 25th) with our friends and lots of fun was had by all.

Daddy and I made the most of naptime decorating the yard and I putting the finishing touch on the caterpillar cake while our Jujube napped. I baked 5 cakes in pyrex bowls to get the dome shape and iced the lot using the 7-minute icing recipe from 'The Joy of Cooking'. I finished it off with lots of smarties and it turned out better than I'd hoped! The icing went splendidly with the three kinds of cake I made: german chocolate, lemon and spice (two domes each). Yum!

The weather was terrific so we all went for a swim in the pool and of course the butterfly pinata was lots of fun...except that it was filled with boxes of smarties and hanging out in the hot sun all afternoon! Rookie pinata mistake! But it was a blast and Julian was good and tired by bedtime ;0)

Then came my birthday on Tuesday, the 19th! And boy did daddy treat me ;0) With all the stresses at work lately I really didn't really think Stephen would have the time to give my birthday much thought so I figured we would just order in (which we did, my pick!) and he would give me back the card! In fact, I had already treated myself to some knitting books earlier in the week as a present because I knew he wouldn't have the time to go shopping. Well boy was I surprised when I put out my hands after dinner and opened my eyes to see this:

I was so excited! I had mentioned a while back that sometimes, when he gets home from work, I would really enjoy going out for a walk by myself while he minds the kids. I know you totally get this if you have kids and stay home with them. It's a 'round the clock job and lately I've been longing to take a real break just for a half hour or so... So the iPod nano came with an offer for babysitting anytime I want to just get out for a walk with my favourite tunes! I love that man!

One more party this weekend to celebrate Julian's real birthday with our families and then it's all knitting all the time, baby!

And bonus, I've got knitting books coming my way too ;0)