Family, Food, and Patience...

When you live 2.5 hours away from most family members from BOTH sides of the family, holiday travel time usually involves quick lil' visits to everyone who requests a quick visit.  We try our best.

"Aunt Dawn" (Paul's sister & Cassie's god-mother) was a visit we had to make! I knew we weren't going to make an appearance at her place on Thanksgiving day, so we planned on a coupe-hour visit... 

A little bit of playtime with the cousins, in addition to a lil' bday cake!  Now THAT is my size of a bday cake!  10"x10"-ish.... perfect size!

Wednesday night was Movie Night for almost everyone in my immediate family;   Gma took Candace and Caitlyn to see Frozen in 3D, and the rest of us "big kids" headed over to the Mega Screen for Catching Fire.  The "big kids" consisted of:  me, Jen (sis), Ron (brother) and his entire family (Jen-wife, Zach and Lindsay), and then my Cassie.  Excellent movie!!!! 

Fast forward to Thursday.  Thanksgiving AND a 13th birthday!  

As if the turkey, ham, potatoes, cranberries, corn, ........ apple pie, pumpkin pie, lemon meringue pie... wasn't enough.  What was Gma thinking?!?!?!?  Such a big cake?!?!?  Good golly.  (BUT, the frosting was the good stuff!)

Laker Ripples fits her perfectly....

and then we all enjoyed playing Chinese Checkers for much of the day.

It was lazy.  I stayed in my PJs all day.  I crocheted some.  I read some.  I FB'd some.  ahhhhhh.

And NOW!  And much as I enjoy relaxing time at my parent's house.... I am chomping at the bit to get back home later tonight to give some first step some time :)

My colors were chosen; substituting browns for blues, and pinks for yellows.  

For those of you sewing the day away...enjoy, and SHARE, SHARE, SHARE :)  I can't wait to watch everyone's progress.

Laker Ripples [Crochet] and some beauty-shoppin'

After a shopping spree last night at 8:00 with Caitlyn and Candace for some odds-n-ends and some more Royal blue Red Heart Super Saver yarn, I was able to put the final 22 rows on the Laker Ripple afghan this morning.   Cassie chose the colors, and I made it large enough for her to use it for many years to come.  Perhaps her Teenie-Tiny baby blanket will finally be retired!  LOL

The rest of the day was playing Beautician to two lil' girls.

Can't tell these two are sisters, can you?!?!!?  :D

I now have two lil' girls bebopping around the house, flipping their hair from side-to-side, la-la-ing.  I'm fairly certain they like the style!

Since the day is mostly whittled away, I don't think I have any ambition to head downstairs to play in the sewing room, therefore, I'll see how many more rows I can add to the newest afghan in the works. 

It's a corner-to-corner pattern, alternating Red and White (obviously), but then will be blue on the other diagonal half, with 50 stars crocheted on top.  I was inspired by a picture posted on Facebook a few weeks' back, so I went off searching for a corner-to-corner pattern to try to remake it.  I shouldn't be surprised at all that Mikey (via Red Heart and the Crochet Crowd) had a tutorial made up for this pattern.  Mikey is the dude I took all of my crochet lessons from, via YouTube.  His Youtube channel is absolutely amazing!!!  Interested in learning crochet???  Check out his channel.  He's super funny... and has a cute lil' Canadian accent to boot! :)

Tomorrow is Monday, but... I'm still able to relax tonight.  Tomorrow and Tuesday are inservice days for the staff;  students have vacation all week due to Deer Hunting (the Wisconsin holiday!!!!) and Thanksgiving.
Happy Sunday everyone!

Kaleidoscope done; Laker Ripple progress [crochet]

It grew and grew, and finally finished (?) at 65 motifs.  Kaleidoscope Afghan.

And Candace approves :)  The final tail was weaved in at 9AM. 

I then had complete intentions of spending the rest of my Sunday downstairs in the sewing room in order to prepare and tidy for the up-coming Bonnie Mystery, but....

nah.  

I wasn't feeling it.

Instead, 

I pulled out the Laker Ripple in hopes to make some serious progress on it SO THAT when Bonnie's mystery does finally arrive, I can devote all my time/attention to it :)

Oh...and....

the Hallmark channel played ALL DAY Sunday.  7AM until 9PM.

{{I only needed a few kleenexes!}}

Procrastinating with a little crochet (and maybe quilting?)

I had an itch yesterday morning to start a new crochet project!  While getting packed up for the day (for the Vball tournament), I perused my "Favorites" list on Ravelry and found inspiration in "Spring-Lacy Ripples" (ravelry link | Bernat Free pattern).  Of course, I didn't have ANY yarn for the pattern, but I added it to my queue.  

While at the tournament, there was enough down-time between matches for me to get a bit of my schoolwork finished, and make up a few more Packer ruffle scarves for a craft sale MIL is participating in next weekend.   I'm not completely done with my schoolwork, BUT.... there'll be time for that later today.

After the tournament, Cassie and I headed to a nearby town to do a little bit of shopping:  a few odds-n-ends with groceries, some new shoes for her school days, and then... we hit the yarn section.  Cassie picked out the colors;  and naturally, she went "school pride"!  Blue-n-Yellow.

Once home, after stopping at Papa Murphy's on the way, we all relaxed....FINALLY!  Paul was still napping (even though it was 6PM).  LOL.  He helped out a neighbor during the afternoon, so had only had a few hours of sleep in the morning after arriving home from his night-shift.  

But by 7PM, all of us were full from the pizza, and were sitting around the TV, watching Ratatouille, followed by The Incredibles.  During that time, I started on Laker Ripples, named after our school's mascot.

I'm thinking I may actually head downstairs shortly to put a couple of hours in in the sewing room.  Do some tidying;  reorganize some projects that are scattered all over, and figure out what status I have Lazy Sunday, Bonnie's Quiltmaker mystery, in.

Happy Sunday!