Stretchy Cotton Baby Set

A coworker and friend of Jon's just had his first child.... an adorable little boy. My second thought after getting the birth announcement and saying, "Awww... how cute!" was "Yay! I get to knit tiny baby things!". I used the same stretchy cotton yarn that I used to knit Charlotte's cotton socks but in a handsome denim blue. (Cascade Fixation color # 9030 (Denim)

I liked that the yarn was almost all cotton so the baby wouldn't be too warm with hot weather approaching. I also loved that the yarn is so stretchy incase the baby had grown a lot in the weeks since his birth.
The little hat was knit following the Very Basic Baby Beanie pattern.

I didn't follow a pattern for the tiny socks. I knit a pair of toe-up socks using 24 stitches total (starting with 12 to make the toe). They were so tiny and so cute.

Welcome to the world, little David!

A Happy Easter

The Easter Bunny visited us on Sunday.


We spent most of the day at Nana and Grandpa's for brunch...

...which included the world's most adorable pan of rice krispy treats that Nana made.

We hunted eggs... well, gathered them from the chicken coop.

Nana and Grandpa's yard is beautiful with Spring flowers everywhere!

Then the kids hunted for Easter eggs...

and hunted...

and hunted...

...and ate the candy inside!

There's a nest of Phoebe birds on a ledge in the upper corner of their front porch. This is the second year that these birds have made their nest there. The baby Phoebe's have hatched!

After brunch and the Easter Egg hunt, we took the paddle boat out for it's maiden voyage on the lake. Jon, the kids, and I paddled our way around the lake.

See you later, Nana and Grandpa! We're never bringing this boat back!

Jon and I sat in front to pedal....

and the kids sat in the back.

We saw turtles sunning themselves on logs.

The lake was so beautiful.

These flowers were so fragrant... and I love the reflection in the water.

After we came back to shore, the kids got into their bathing suits and splashed around in the wading pool on the shaded deck.

It was a wonderful day!

The Switch To Local Milk and Garden Update

We recently started buying local milk. We are lucky enough to have a local farm that produces milk from cows who are raised humanely, fed on pasture and grains grown on the same farm, and never receive additional hormones. Homeland Creamery is in Julian, NC and I'm hoping to be able to take a trip out to the farm in the next few months. Cows who are grass-fed are healthier animals and their milk is healthier. Homeland Creamery does use some grain but I am happy that they're on pasture much of the time.



The milk is pasteurized (raw milk is illegal in NC) in such a way as to retain the creaminess of the milk. Since I can't drink milk (due to IBS), I had Jon do a taste test. I had him taste the 2% milk from the store and then the 2% from Homeland Creamery. He knew instantly which was the "new" milk because he said it tasted much creamier. He said the store bought 2% tasted like water in comparison.

There's a small store on the way to preschool that carries Homeland Creamery's milk. It is more expensive then the milk I used to buy at Walmart but only by $1.50 a gallon. That may sound like a lot but when I did the math and realized that our 10 gallons a month would only cost us an extra $15, we decided it was worth it. That's less then it would cost for us to go out to eat. I'm happy to support a local farm that raises their animals humanely, the milk tastes better, and the milk is better for my family.

They also sell homemade butter. We don't go through much butter since Jon and kids mostly just use it on toast so this pound of butter should last a long while.

The last thing I bought was a half gallon of heavy cream. The ice cream recipe I use calls for 1 cup of cream (along with 3 cups of whole milk) so I divided the rest up into freezer containers and now I have 7 cups of cream in the freezer ready for the next batch of ice cream.

I made Jon and the kids some strawberry ice cream over the weekend. Jon said it should be a crime to eat something that good. I used my go-to ice cream recipe and added about 1/2 cup of strawberry jam from last year's strawberries. It's not very often that I get sad about not being able to eat dairy, but I have to admit that I really wanted some of this ice cream.

Now for the garden update...

The seeds I planted a few weeks ago weren't as successful as I had hoped. I had less then 1/2 of my seeds germinate. I spent a few mornings this week getting the garden ready for the second round of seeding.

This lettuce is coming up pretty well. There are bare spots but I'm wondering if maybe I'll try to transplant some of my thinnings in a week or two to help fill in the bare spots.

The sugar snap peas are really starting to grow. I transplanted some of the plants from the other end of the bed to make a more dense patch of peas. The transplants are doing well.

My swiss chard plant that survived the winter is doing really well. I'm going to be harvesting some to add to soup later this week.

So, after I weeded the teeny, tiny weeds that had sprouted everywhere, I put up the garden fence. We have quite a few wild rabbits in the woods behind our house and one groundhog who I assume will be making an appearance again soon. I don't want to risk having my little plants eaten.

I replanted the beds that didn't have much success the first time around. I interplanted some beds. My broccoli beds now have musclun greens and spinach planted with it. My carrot bed has now been seeded with mustard greens (I've never tried them before... that's some of the fun of a garden). I planted spinach around the edge of the kohlrabi bed. I put in lettuce seeds just about anywhere I thought they'd fit. Hopefully these seeds will germinate better and we'll have a full salad bowl in a month or so.

I'm hoping this picture will look much different next month.

This weekend I'm hoping to get back garden ready for planting. I'm going to be buying my tomato plants and putting in seeds for summer veggies soon. Now, as long as Mother Nature cooperates, we'll be eating well this summer.

I've linked this post up with Simple Lives Thursday.

Noodle Beads

Recently I found these short little noodles at the store that I've seen used before in pasta salad. I thought they looked a lot like pony beads but with slightly larger holes which makes them even easier to thread onto a shoe lace. I put a large handful of beads in 4 separate bags and then added a few drops of food coloring. After a couple of shakes of the bag, the beads were brightly colored. They dry almost instantly since the dry pasta absorbs the food coloring pretty fast. The kids loved making necklaces with these beads.

One quick tip... don't step on the necklace.... the beads will break into a million pieces!

Colardino Shawl

I love this shawl. The shape is nothing unique or difficult. It's a super easy pattern that makes easy TV knitting. The special thing about this shawl is the yarn. I love this yarn. The wool base (75%) of this yarn is various earth tone shades of brown, tan, and purple. The yarn is 25% polyacrylic which I assume is the jewel-tone fiber running alongside the earth tone wool. I love the effect of the rich base color mixed with the bright pops of color.

As you can tell from the above picture that I accidental used 2 different dye lots. I didn't realize this until I looked at this picture. It's not very obvious when you look at the picture but it really shows with the camera. Oh well, I'll just pretend it's a design element instead of a mistake.

I used the One Skein Shawl pattern. I've used this pattern many times and I'm sure I will in the future too because it's a great basic shape. The funny thing is that I used much more then one-skein. I used 6 skeins of Schulana "Colardino" Mulch (I assume this is the color). I knit it on size 10 needles. I wanted the shawl to be as big as possible so knit it until I ran out of yarn. I did a garter stitch bottom border.

Eight Wonderful Years

Today Jon and I celebrate our 8th wedding anniversary. I feel like I've won the lottery with such a wonderful husband. He's supportive, understanding, funny, spontaneous, and loving. These past 8 years have flown by. This was our engagement picture. We were 23. That Becky didn't know how amazing her children were going to be.

This is a picture from our Honeymoon in Disney World. This Becky didn't know that it was possible to love her husband more then she did at that moment.

This picture was taken a few months ago. I may not know what the next 8 years holds for me but I know how grateful I am for what I have right now.

Not All Recipes Are Winners

Just wanted to let you know that weird things can happen when you try to change recipes. Usually my changes work.... but then there are the other times when... well... it doesn't. It's all part of the fun.

A Fun Weekend

This past weekend, Jon's parents and sister came for a visit from snowy Pennsylvania. We had a great time and I always love an excuse to cook more food! I was so excited by how well the crusty bread turned out that I baked to go with our spaghetti. I'll post the recipe soon.

Suzanne and Grandpa's birthdays were in March so we celebrated late with chocolate cupcakes and candles. Jon put one on Grammy's cupcake too so she wouldn't feel left out.

Jon had fun playing with fire after they were done with their candles.

Charlotte read a book to everyone.

Grammy crawled around playing trains with Evan. My knees hurt just looking at this picture!

The weather was cool but sunny and beautiful. Suzanne treated us all to a yummy pizza lunch before they headed home. We were all sad to see them go. See you guys in a few months!

Signs of Spring