Birthday Weekend

Saturday was the big triplet 4th birthday party and was tons of fun. Laura came up on Friday and Stacy and Jessica came on Saturday. The girl's house was full of people and they had a grand time. The party was a "T" party - T for triplets, Tiger, Tangled (Rapunzel movie) and Thomas the Train. The girls wore darling outfits that their mother made them - cute pants and a t-shirts with "4"s on them. Amy Frazee made the cakes which were outstanding. A link to her website is on the right of this blog "Inspire, Create, Bake". She shows the process she went through to make the cakes. The girls loved the cakes and we thought they wouldn't want them cut but they were fine with cutting them as they wanted to eat them. :) Even Lily ate some of her cake - she liked peeling off the black tiger stripes and eating them.

After the party Laura, Stacy, Jessica, Dennis and I went to a new place in Delano called the Lotus Leaf. The menu isn't very big - mostly crepes but the food is delicious. They were not prepared for as many customers as they had that day - after we were seated they started turning away people as they had run out of food.

When we came home Stacy asked me to teach her to knit. I groaned (just kidding) and taught her. I was so happy she wanted to learn and was very shocked at how quickly she caught on. I had given her a learn to knit book and wonder if she had already worked on it as she was able to do the knit stitch very well very quickly. The next morning I had her pick out some cotton yarn and showed her how to make a dishcloth. I got a text from her later saying that she would be giving me the dishcloth when done "because mothers have to like their kids art projects no matter what they look like" :)

Sunday Stacy and Jessica left for Texas and Laura, Dennis and I watched the Daytona 500 and had a barbecue as it was in the 70's. After the race Laura and I went to the store to buy groceries for a big freezer cooking plan I had for Monday. That evening we had a fire pit until the cold front started coming through and the temperature dropped about 10 degrees in a few minutes time.

It was a wonderful weekend.

Shopping

Went shopping yesterday for Valentines, birthday, groceries etc. Discovered that two cents can cost you $15.00. Doesn't sound possible but it happened to me. I bought a package of yarn (hush) at Joann Fabric - it cost $4.99. I gave the clerk my flyer for the 40% off coupon and she said, I can't use the $5.00 off coupon (which I hadn't even seen) - the item you buy must be $5.00 or more and the yarn is only $4.99. So I lost $5 there. Then went to Best Buy to buy movies for the triplets for Valentines day. The only one I found there was $19.99 - I tried to use two of my $10 reward certificates (since with tax it would be over 20) and was informed the item had to cost $20.00 to be able to use two certificates so there was the other $10 I lost. Crazy. Of course I still have the $10 Best Buy certificate so I can go back and buy something else. I should have bought a new paper cutting board - mine was trashed this year after about 25 years of use. I remember buying it for about $5 and they are now $17.

This was Second Saturday in the Delano District. Delano is the neighborhood on Douglas with great little shops (mainly Twist - a yarn store) and on the second Saturday of each month you can get discounts if you have a special canvas bag that says Second Saturday on it. I went to Twist and got 15% off the yarn I bought (hush again please). It is safe to say that I don't stay on a yarn diet any better than I stay on a food diet.

In other shopping news - I received two books from Amazon I ordered with my $20 gift certificate I received from Amazon for pre-ordering a game for Jessica and James. The books are just marvelous - "60 Quick Knits" has 20 hats, 20 scarves and 20 mittens (!) all made in Cascade 220. I love that yarn - it is soft and has wonderful colors. The other book is "Sock Yarn - One Skein Wonders" When sorting my yarn I realized that I love to buy sock yarn - it is pretty and usually not very expensive so I have one of the canvass boxes full of just sock yarn. Problem is - I have made socks and really didn't enjoy them all that much. This book has 101 patterns that go beyond socks - fingerless mittens, hats, scarves, baby sweaters - really cute patterns all that supposedly only take one package sock yarn. I have a problem believing that but I usually buy two packages of each sock yarn so I should be able to make these items.

Pretty blanket pretty baby

I made a popcorn stitch pink/white variegated baby blanket for a co-worker's first grandchild this last month - the blanket is very pretty - but not nearly as pretty as Miss Avery. She was a month premature but is catching up quickly and seems quite comfy in her blanket.

Yarn Diet

I broke my yarn diet. I was on Ebay checking out yarn just to pass the time - no intention on actually buying any yarn. Heavens we all know I have enough yarn. But then - hanks of hand dyed wool yarn that was just beautiful appeared on my screen. There were a few bids but the highest was $4.50 for three (3) (yes 3 ) PLUS free shipping. That was crazy. So I bid $5.00 just for the heck of it. I won the yarn for $4.75. This yarn would be over $25.00 in Wichita, Kansas, USA. Yes it was from China and that was way out of my comfort zone but decided I didn't have much to lose - $4.75 was hardly a cup of Starbucks. Since Ebay is paid with Paypal, it wasn't like I was giving my credit card information to the Chinese population. I bought it on January 24th and it first said it would come the end of May - then the update said the beginning of March - since I had no plans for this yarn I really didn't care when it came. Imagine my surprise when this came in the mail today:





The yarn isn't perfect - there are some sections of green in the middle of the orange blend but I can live with that, I can cut those sections out and wind the rest in balls. Still have no idea what I will do with it but I know I can make hats for school kids, doll clothes or something that will fill my time.