Party Time

Well today wasn't exactly party time -- I stayed home sick from work because of violent nausea resulting in some dashes to the loo and subsequent multi-hour naps -- but I did promise to share some fund party time news.

Last weekend was my younger great-nephew Nicky's 1st birthday. See the nifty cake?

I converted some hanks of Blue Sky Cotton into a sweater vest for him. Or rather, I used half of the hanks, it turns out. Bonus! Another project for the remainder lies in the future.

Happily, my niece (mom of the cute munchkin) seems to like the resulting vest. See?

We had a fun, mellow birthday party at my sister's house last weekend, with 16 adults and 4 babies (!!!) all of whom were extremely well behaved. Amazing: 4 kids 3 years or younger and ZERO tempter tantrums over the course of an entire afternoon. As my sweetie the engineer quipped, "It's called good parenting."

One of my favorite photos from the day was this one with my nephew's daughter Lillian, and my mom. Soooo cute! It's like a matching image to the one of her and Nicky at her 80th birthday dinner. It's the mutual fascination society of the senior citizen and pre-toddler.

Lately, I've taken up cross stitch thanks to watching my sweetie's mom at the hospital last summer, when his dad was in for surgery.

Mine is very large stitch (I'm not overly ambitious/crazy -- can you see which portions have already been sewn? The only downside is that it's not exactly portable) but I'm finding it soothing and thinking of giving the finished pillow as a present to my mom later this year. What else to get for the cranky parent except some you personally made?