Oh well, I'll try some more later

Well, I thought had it all figured out how to load a video and needless to say I was very excited about this. It worked in the preview window, but then nothing actually showed up after I hit publish. Le Sigh. Maybe someday. I'm sorry. Of course I am not sure who is really more disaponted, me or you (of course, I know what it was a video of....). I'll work on it some more.
So instead I am going to have to give you this link to a comic that seems to be kind of true around here since girls got home from college. Hover your mouse on the comic for additional text.

Kittens in the snow and annual winter happenings

Miss Oribel keeps telling us that she wants to go out in the snow again. So we decided to indulge her a bit yesterday . I don't think the girls or I ever expected that she would want to stay out there as long as she did. She can out last three of us on keeping track of her outside as well as fetch.


It would seem that Oribel really thought the Luminaries needed a very close personal inspection.

 

I think she might have been checking to see if anything had gone under the bench while she was up on it. She spent a fair amount of time under this bench in the corner watching the birds and hoping to catch one. She almost made it when one little bird hopped pretty close before noticing that there was a cat on the deck.
It might have looked like she had come over to come back in the house, but she hadn't. As near as I could figure she was just checking in at home-base. Whenever we thought she wanted in and would open the door, off she would go again to explore more stuff and see if there were any more birds to be had.



Apparently Oribel likes the view from the rocking chair as much as I do.

 

Still checking out everything she can. She obviously really didn't care about all the snow that kept falling and covering her all over.

 

We finally had to make her come back in because she kept shivering. I think she decided to take her frustration of being inside out on the bear that lives on the stairs.

 

This the crazy girl trying to get back out outside into the snow. She kept going nuts trying to scratch her way through the door.

 

Yesterday was determined to be the first night of the "Annual Winter Camp Out." The tent was set up and DTY slept out last night. It wasn't very cold, only around 17 above zero: some years this has been done when it is around zero or below when this happens. Normally both DTY and Hubband do the "Winter Camp Out," but Hubband seems to be coming down with a cold. Since he is headed overseas the first week of January, he decided to stay in and is hoping he will be better tonight to participate in this craziness activity.

More Ice Luminaries

Well, just 'cause I had some more in the making, I wasn't super happy with the previous pictures, and Hubband and I wanted to play with camera settings, you get a few more luminaria pictures.

Another daylight just as a start.

 

I am hoping that these look a little bit like they were taken at different shutter speeds.

 

 

I am also hoping it will show up better in "click on the picture to make it larger" mode.

 

Ice Luminaries in action

This is one of the first luminaries I froze, but then I spaced out and set it on the front porch, which is south facing, so it had sun shining on it for several hours. It did this interesting craze as it melted, even though the air temperature stayed below freezing all day.

 

I made several more after that and they were pretty decent since the temperature had stayed around zero to ten degrees for almost a week. I thought I was on a roll for having a bunch for Christmas Eve and night. No such luck. The temperature warmed up to the mid-thirties for the several days and I pretty much lost all of the ones I had made already.

 

I persisted as the temperature went back down in time and made some more. I was able to still have some out and ready to go before dark on Christmas day.

 

So by dark when we were having dinner with our friend it was all shiny!

 

Winter Wonderland Coffee Swap Package

I received my WWCS package from Ingrid on Christmas Eve. I sent her an email right away to thank her, but want to give her a public thanks for such a wonderful package.
Sorry about the flash on the yummy Caribou Coffee Chocolate Mocha bars. There is also some tasty Kona Coffee plus playing cards from Alaska where she lives. Those are a good addition because we play Liverpool Rummy when we have enough people and it takes two to three decks for a game.
This is what was inside the wrapping paper. More coffee, a mug, and two skeins of very exotic yarn. I love the Zoo Yarn and am going to have to come up with something special to make with it. I even get to know the names of the animals it came from! The card with Linus on it is pretty awesome too. I get to hear Linus reading the passage from Luke's gospel from A Charlie Brown Christmas when the card is opened. I love this card, along with everything else! Thank you so much Ingrid!

Snow and Water Cat

Because I have had a couple of family members ask for more pictures of Oribel in general and in particular in the snow, this is a bunch of pictures of said cute subject matter. (I did kind of start this blog to share pictures with the far away family folks after all. Not their fault it has fallen more into the realm of random knitting stuff and swaps. Poor people.)

She really seems to love going out in the snow to play.

 

I am really beginning to think that her fascination with running water could be a problem.

Traditions

I thought I would just take a bit to share two of my favorite family Christmas traditions. The first one is about presents and when they get opened. Neither Hubband or I grew up in families that opened presents on Christmas Eve so we didn't really need to do any figuring out of when to open said gifts. However, there was an established "putting the baby to bed" routine before the first one was even a year old. The standard stuff of pajamas, last drink, mouth cleaning, and a bedtime story/book reading. Yes, I have had people ask me how old my kids were when I started reading out loud to them. The first one, about three or four days. The second, well before she was born she had an older sibling reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears to "the baby in your tummy" complete with showing my tummy the pictures every day.
Anyway, back to traditions. There are a lot of really cool children's books about Christmas out there and though libraries are some of my family's best friends, I do believe in buying books. Especially cool children's picture books. Thus a new tradition began in our family. Every year we get a new Christmas book, the kids get to open it on Christmas Eve, and it is their bedtime story for the night. The Christmas "bed-time" story still gets read to them by their dad. Why him? Well, that is part of the tradition. If he's going to have to finish reading it when I get all choked up while reading it, he might as well start it.

Our other major Christmas tradition is to sing Happy Birthday to Jesus and have birthday cake for breakfast. That tradition has been in our family at least since my mom was little girl, but maybe since my grandmother was a child. I know Mr. A and his brother were singing Happy Birthday this morning too, and I would guess my cousin and his kids were as well.
Happy first day of Christmas!

Finial SP 11 package

Today I got my finial Secret Pall 11 package. Once again my pal has sent me some wonderful gifts as well as finding out who she is! Cordelia sent me more beautiful yarn, a Nancy Bush sock book, stitch markers, and a handmade hot mitt. There is also some "made in Texas" salsa, chocolate, and a photo frame ornament. Some of the stuff is a bit crowded in this picture and hard to see, but I promise, it is all nice stuff!
Here is a better picture of the book, Knitting Vintage Socks and the lace-weight wool and stitch markers. I am looking forward to reading all about how Nancy Bush dissected old patterns and reconstructed them for today's yarns. Well, and finding sock patterns that I want to knit from it. The Salsa is already being enjoyed by all of us, since both girls are home from college as of last night!
So a big public "Thank You" to Cordelia, such a wonderful upstream partner!

She loves it!

DTY really loves her scarf (she keeps telling me so with a cute grin!).




She seems to really like Oribel too.

Why does she keep giving the fish a coaster?

Maybe Oribel thinks it is a rug and it will really tie the room fishbowl together.

A hat for Miss E

It is too small for "The Head" (which really is adult sized).



It is a bit too big for the baby doll (which is a really bit smaller than a real baby).


But I am thinking it will fit my friend Ms. P's new granddaughter Miss E just fine.

 

Hat particulars: Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitting Workshop Heart Hat. Hat knit double stranded on US #8 circular and US #7 double points for single stranded I-Cord and bind off. Knit in Blush and Light Sage Green Lion Brand Microspun. This is the second time I have made this hat and it won't be the last! It is a great pattern and knits up really fast.

I know it is cold outside, but this is ridiculous!

We have had turkeys wandering about in our yard for, well, several years, but here is what they looked like this past September gathered around eating.
Drinking out of the bird bath. (I am sure we will have pictures next spring of more baby turkeys. Just can't find any pictures from this past spring when they were cute little fluff balls.)

 

Here they are, wandering about in the snowy yard.
Yep, they are pretty much here year round.

 

This is a slightly more recent view from Hubband's "office" window. They definitely seem to be moving in closer.
DTY says we wouldn't have this problem if we hadn't moved the bird feeder up here. She may have a valid point.

 

However, if they start knocking to come in out of the cold, I might actually let the dogs out! (Yeah, I am seriously thinking about turning the bird bath into a turkey feeder, out in the yard, for the winter!)
(Oh, BTW- Bloggger fixed their problem and we are back to the proper way of "click on the picture to see it bigger.")

Ice update

Today I was able to find the link that I wanted to give you yesterday for the ice luminaries. Go here for some decent images of how you would make your own (even if you don't use their mold).

Things we have learned recently

1. The people have stopped keeping stuff on their headboard.
2. Kittens can outlast (three) people at fetch.
3. Someone is big enough to jump straight to the kitchen counter from the floor.
4. Someone still doesn't like being squirted with water.

 

5. The very best tasting water is the stuff you get to have a fight with as it comes out of the faucet.
6. Someone doesn't care if her feet and face are soaking wet.

7. It is possible to push Sadie too far after all. Especially if you jump down on her from the stair above one to many times when she really wants to be sleeping. Who knew she would actually bark at you? She puts up with having her ears and nose played with after all.

8. Birds are much better when you are on the same side of the door they are. Even when the people are laughing at you for shivering and you get snowballs stuck to your tummy.
9. Birds being fed on the deck is way better than birds fed out in the yard.

10. If you drop a pony bead in Sadie's food dish, it sounds different than when you drop it on the tile floor. When you keep dropping in her food dish, it makes people look.
11. Dogs don't care how many coasters get dropped in the water dish. They will drink out of it anyway.

12. The garage is a good place to explore, even if it is cold and your feet get salty.
13. The big garage door for the car is loud, scary and worth running inside over.
14. Someone isn't big enough to jump from the floor straight to the top of the speaker. However, if her claws haven't been trimmed recently, she can climb the rest of the way up the front of it.
15. Someone is big enough to jump from the fireplace hearth to the speaker top.
16. Someone is big enough to jump from the top of the speaker to the fireplace mantle.
17. The humans get really upset and make a bunch of noise when someone knocks the painting off of the mantle onto the floor. Someone is lucky that is all she knocked down.
18. The top of the speaker is a good place to store the squirt bottle.