Your Kids Will Remember

 When my kids were little, DH and I tried really hard to live on just his income so that I could be home with the kids.  Sometimes this didn't work, and I would take a job for a while. But often, the cost of child care took the vast majority of my paycheck, and when DH would be traveling for his job and I not only needed a day time babysitter, but a second (typically teenaged) babysitter to pick up my kids from the normal babysitter before 6:00 p.m. so I didn't get charged exorbitant late fees for not getting there on time we questioned the sustainability of that system for our family.

So, for the most part, after DD2 was born, I was a stay at home mom. Money was tight.  We were creative.

One thing we did, several Christmases running, was to make homemade gifts for the kids to give to their teachers, both at school and at Sunday School.  If the kids could participate in the making, they did.  This was, afterall, their gift to their teacher(s).  It was cheaper than buying a token gift, and we didn't even have to leave home to find the right thing. 

Cookie in a jar mixes were quite popular back then (late 1990s- early 2000s), and I found a lot of them by searching online and through borrowing recipe books from the local library.  My kids would choose a recipe or two for that year, we would make sure the ingredients were in our pantry, and then they would get to work reading recipes, measuring ingredients and packing them in the jars in the correct order.  Then they would hand-write labels for the jars with instructions on how to make the cookies.  We even had a catchy name we'd put on the labels:  Four Kids in the Kitchen.

Years later, when I would run into my kids' former teachers who had been recipients of these gifts, they would mention how much they had appreciated the jar mixes (which they could make any time, not have to eat right away at Christmas), and what a unique gift it had been--obviously something the child had put time into.

Fast forward to Christmas 2020.  DS1 and his family arrived to our (pre-quarantined so we could safely pull it off) family Christmas gathering at this little place here with a box full of jars.  Each jar had a printed label on it, signed by K3, Toad, and Rascal.  Together with their dad, those three grandkids had made cookie in a jar mixes for DH & I, DS2, DD1 & Honorary Son, and DD2.

It was a touching gift for me, who was happy to see that DS1 had drawn on that part of his childhood and passed the experience on to his own kids.  And my other kids all had fun reminiscing about when they were little, making the jar mixes themselves, and whose hands fit into the mouth of the jars therefore making them the designated tamper when the ingredients threatened to not fit.

Introducing: Faline

 Our fourth grandchild, and second granddaughter, was born in mid-November. For a variety of reasons, including deer hunting season, some complications DD1 had during labor, and after giving birth (which included sepsis and an emergency hospital stay only 6 days after being released from the hospital postpartum), and of course the craziness that is pre-Christmas, I am finally just now getting this post written.

When DD1 announced, in April, that she was approximately two months pregnant, we were ecstatic.  This daughter has always wanted to have a family of her own.  In her late teens, she was told that she has PCOS and might not be able to conceive/carry a baby to term.  So, nearly two years after she and Honorary Son were married, to be expecting a baby of their own was wonderful!  I had some trepidation about the viability of the pregnancy, given DD1's gynecological pronouncement some seven years earlier, but thankfully everything in that department developed normally, and DD1 is now the mother of a healthy baby girl.

Early on, when DH heard that there would be a new grandbaby with a due date of firearm deer hunting season, he insisted that no matter what DD1 and Honorary Son chose as a name, if it was a boy DH was going to call him Buck.

As you read above, baby is a girl, so Buck isn't happening here.  At least not this time around.  I, however, have chosen to give her the blog moniker of Faline, who in the movies is the name of Bambi's doe friend.  Interestingly enough, when I look up the origin of the name Faline, it means 'like a cat', which to me is hilarious as Honorary Son and DD1 have two cats all ready, whom they both spoil and adore.  So it's sort of ironic that in this space, I'm going to refer to their daughter as Faline.  So far, she's very cat-like in that when she isn't eating, she spends much of her time sleeping.

Anyway, Faline is growing well.  She looks very much like DD1 did as a newborn, and we are all absolutely in love with her.

Before Faline was born, DD1 asked me if I still had the baptism gown that DD1 herself had worn for her own baptism.  Being that my mom had made the gown, at my request when DS1 was a newborn, and I had used it for all four of my children to be baptized in, I of course had saved it.  I was thrilled at the idea of my granddaughter also being baptized in that gown.

As you can see, it's nothing fancy. Simple, white batiste fabric that is both gauzy and durable.  Pin-tucks on the front bodice, with a small ribbon bow and lace sewn on the hem.  There is also a plain white slip (also made of batiste) that goes underneath the gown. Traditional, for babies of either gender.  Being that it's been worn by babies in two generations, I guess it is now a family heirloom.

Yarn Along: December

 I am joining with Ginny for the final Yarn Along of 2020.  Can you believe we made it to December?!?

The baby sweater I was knitting last month is finished, with exception of blocking and sewing on the buttons.  I have some buttons that will work size-wise, but I'm not in love with them.  Which is why it's not totally completed yet.  I need to get out and do some button shopping.  Or online and do some button shopping ASAP, considering shipping is taking a while this year.

My orange hat I use for deer hunting had gotten stretched out and didn't fit well anymore, so I found some blaze orange yarn from Jimmy Beans and made myself a new one.  The yarn is wool, and I love how warm and cozy it keeps me, for the most part (40 mph wind gusts off the field being the exception to toasty warm ears).  The pattern I used was Christina which has mock cables made with yarn overs and k2tog or ssk.  I'm thinking the wind gust air leakage is because of the yarn overs; my only regret is that I didn't use a pattern with real cables.

More small projects I have been knitting are some dish cloths.  Many of my dish cloths in the kitchen seem to have bitten the dust in recent months, leaving me with less than a week's worth.  I dug out my bag of scrap cotton yarn (from making dish cloths in previous years) and have been piecing together color combinations.  The finished sage green one is the pattern Honeycomb dish cloth, and the one on the needles is Copycat dish cloth.  

I also began a pair of socks, intended as a Christmas present for Surprise, although I may end up finishing them next year and keeping them for myself.  Long story, possibly a future blog post, maybe not, we'll see how things turn out.  The pattern for those is Branching socks, the yarn is some Knit Picks Stroll Gradient yarn I've had for a while, the color is discontinued, but I think was called Star Dust.

Not a whole lot of reading has gone on since the last Yarn Along. I read two books, one of which was the one I picked to take to the deer stand with me (I typically bring a book out to help me sit still and quiet; it has to be a book small enough to fit into my hunting bag, and not have a crinkly or shiny cover).

The hunting book this season was Snow Country by Kristin Neva.  While the story line was kind of predictable, I did enjoy this book because it is set in an area of Michigan that I am very familiar with and it was fun to recognize real places in the fictionalized towns.

The other book was Among the Wicked by Linda Castillo.  I love her Kate Burkholder series of books and absolutely devoured this one.