Socks for Giants

It isn't even December and I have FINISHED A STOCKING!!!

 boom!

It's far from perfect, but the fact that it's complete is miraculous to me.

So this is basically a sock (go figure), which is something that I never in a million years thought I'd be compelled to attempt--I honestly never thought I'd have the balls to try anything other than scarves.  As it turns out, socks are easy!  I had this book to help me along, as well as my trusty Stitch n' Bitch.  I only stalled during the picking-up-stitches portion and knittinghelp.com mostly cleared up that confusion. 

Here's a not-that-great picture for context:

And here is the post that started it all in June.  I ended up working with this pattern (free!) which sort of fit the bill, though I obviously made some length and color variations.  I'm not entirely happy with it, so there will be some finagling in attempt number two. 

Number two!  I'm on fire!

I don't think I'll have three coordinating stockings by Christmas (especially in light of the fact that I want to remake the first), but I'm satisfied with having a enough stockings for the three of us for now.

Just look at the size of that thing!  Finley's going to make out like a bandit.

Video Evidence

The first video is purely informational: Finley crawls.  The second is proof that I have a funny martian baby.

Thankfulness (a Little Belated)

Wormhole

How else can I explain how I ended up here?

Listen, this duck happened upon me; I did not seek it.  But while we're here:

Duck cribbage boards are a dime a dozen, it would seem.

So this is the cribbage board that started it all:

I saw this and thought want and then thought hey, there are probably a lot of beautiful cribbage boards that I can write a post about.  That thought of beautiful boards quickly devolved to ducks.  And here we are.  

Not ducks, I know!  But I'm sincerely tempted by these cribbage coffee tables--they look very much like the one we have now, just nicer.  And now you have an idea of the state of our current coffee table. 

I linked all of the pictures for you, so if you're wondering where you can get a duck cribbage board of your very own, click away!

Ornaments

I've held off long enough, haven't I?  You know I've been obsessing over Christmas since June, so give me a little credit for holding off this long before inundating you with my crazy.

I know a lot of 2011 babies (both here and pending), so I thought I'd compile my results in case anyone else is shopping.  This certainly isn't comprehensive, but I did have to filter through quite a few regrettable creations to get these.  If I weren't such a nice person, I'd post some of the bad ones for a laugh. (Meh. Who am I kidding?)

You'll notice that I'm in to the customizable, but not too babyfied ornaments.  Also, I like a little natural wood on a Christmas tree. From Timber Green Woods.

This ornament went crazy when I posted it to pinterest and, alas, it looks like someone bought it up--but maybe the talent behind Little Wee Shop will make you another if you ask nicely?

This is the only specifically diy ornament in the whole group.  It's simple and personal. There's just that matter of wrangling my squirmy 9-month old whilst forcing a glass ornament into his hands.  Can't see how that would be a problem.  From a sorta fairytale.

Paloma has a lot of ceramic options, but, in case you haven't noticed, I'm smitten with hands.

You can choose from this rhododendron, a gingko or a dogwood leaf in pewter at Metal Pressions.

It doesn't get much more personalized than this.  At Pottery Barn.

A nice variation on your everyday picture at le papier studio.

It took me a while to figure out why I'm so drawn to this one, but it recently dawned on me that it's very much like my baby ornament (circa 1981). Ah, nostalgia.  It's by Susan Winget and you can get it here.

I am a sucker for crystal. Swarovski has a new one annually, so you can go crazy and get one for every banner year.  They make a small version too. 

So there you have my brain-splosion of baby ornaments.  Anyone want to guess what I ended up with? (The selections in my parenthetical are fair game too!)

Turkey Duck

Seems sort of suicidal to dress up as a turkey this time of year. Mark is one ballsy bird.

Good News/Bad News Cake

I know a lot of Scorpios.  Lucky for them, I like making cake. 

Also probably lucky for them, I don't like eating it so much.  I mean, I'll eat it in a pinch, but there are so many other superior sweets out there.

The one above is Beatty's Chocolate Cake from Ina Garten.  I don't know that I've ever made a chocolate cake before, but I'd read good things about this one so I thought I'd give it a shot.  It delivered (as much as a chocolate cake can, of course); it's super moist and very chocolatey.  I will say that it has a lot of coffee going on--not subtle at all--but I'm on board the chocolate + coffee train. 

And then there's this:

This one doesn't warrant a close-up.  It isn't pretty (not that the first one is, but this one is decidedly less so).  This to me is a good news/bad news cake: the top is cheesecake.  This is definitely good news.  The bottom is carrot cake.  BAD NEWS.

But what am I going to do?  Birthday boy's choice!  I've been making him this cake for five years (maybe more?) and you'd think I'd have figured out how to get the carrot cake cooked all the way through by now.  Oh well, slightly gooey carrot cake isn't half bad and the whole cheesecake-on-top thing generally redeems it. 

I can give you the recipe if you want, but it amounts to graham cracker crust + 1/2 good carrot cake (oxymoron!) + 1/2 good cheesecake + sour cream and sugar icing (if you're feeling fancy).

This whole post has me feeling unsettled.  It's a good thing Thanksgiving is only a week away; I'm going to have to redeem myself with some pie.

Biggest Attraction in NY

...well, he's starting to feel that way anyway.  We're trying to not let it go to his head.

After this weekend, I'm thinking that Finley is wishing his grandparents lived a lot closer.  Spoiled baby!  The return to plain old mom and dad has been tough.

 

Finley misses you, grandma and grandpa!  

9 Months

The most entertaining development this month is that he loves turning the pages when we read to him.  He's always been into reading, but this new interactive feature only sweetens the deal.  He's also making all sorts of new babbling sounds.  Unfortunately, da is much preferred to ma.

Also, a shout out to my wonderful husband who had a birthday today.  Happy 11-11-11/Veteran's Day/Corduroy Appreciation/Andrew's Birthday to you all!

Nag and You Shall Receive

Hooray!  Pictures!  (The ones that I so nicely requested a couple of weeks ago.  You should go look at them; they're lovely.)

Goose Art

This lady has been blowing up the internets lately.  Pretty awesome.

But something about her work looked familiar to me.  Hmm.

Oh hey!  Finley's Geese!  I should work on getting a good picture of Finley's room, but in the meantime you'll have to take my word for it: these geese live above Finley's crib and they are amazing.

She does way more than waterfowl, so if you're in the market for some animal art, you should check her out. 

Oh, and Finley's particular print is sold at the Working Proof, which has its own selection of amazing prints.  If you're in the market for art--animal or non--I recommend shopping there too. 

Marky Mark

I didn't see him, but I saw his trailer.  I took a picture out of my bedroom window for you.

fancy trailer at sunset

Broken City was filming in our neighborhood on Monday.  This sort of thing happens all the time--we had Men in Black III all over the 'hood this summer--but I haven't had the pleasure of seeing movie magic happening on my actual street before.

I'm disappointed that I didn't get to see Mr. Wahlberg.  We did plenty of gawking out the window and yelled for each other whenever an Escalade pulled in front of the house, but alas, no dice.   It seemed the crew was just driving their fancy cars in circles to toy with us.

****

Related to both today and yesterday's post, I did happen to see Mario Lopez on his 26.2-mile run on Sunday.  He, however, was not messing around with decoy Escalades; this celebrity wanted to be seen.

This is mostly on Road Runners since they're the enablers here, but Mario got a special bib with his name on it and an entourage of runners holding up little pennants on sticks to single him out.  And, while I only saw him for a moment, he had sort of smug, beatific* look on his face--all yes New York, I am running your marathon.  You're welcome.

I shouldn't begrudge Mario.  Clearly he just accepted the special treatment that was offered to him.  If anything, it makes me more impressed with my celebrity encounter last year.  No entourage for that guy, no sir.  And that made me all the more excited for having spotted him.

Oh yes, and because I know you're wondering, Andrew came in ahead of A.C. Slater.  My man. 

* This description may seem contradictory, but it's the best way to describe it.  He actually seemed to be glowing a bit too.  

Finish Line

I just looked through my pictures from Sunday and they're pretty pathetic.  I didn't have high expectations--I didn't even try to capture Andy as he blazed past us--but jeesh, you can barely tell that I saw a marathon.

Finley had a blast!

Hrm.  You wouldn't know it from this picture, but he's feeling a lot better.  I got him to perk up when the police motorcycles went by, but he decided to take a nap just as Andrew made his appearance.  Poor guy was cooped up in the Ergo all day as we shlepped up and down the city (tough on mom too, believe me) and when I finally released him as we made the long trek to the finish line, he celebrated by making 57 lady friends on the C train. 

The weather was perfect and Andy did admirably.

This guy!  He's great!

He's feeling remarkably well today and taking a some much-deserved vacation time.  I finally have my husband back!  Yes, Finley, you have a father! 

And thanks to all the friends who made it out.  You guys are the best.

Running Man

This picture is relevant because it was taken after Andy ran a half-marathon.  Also, duck!

So you want to watch Andrew run a marathon? Here's where you go for info on tracking him electronically (his bib number is 22086).  There is a free option, but it looks like you won't have access to that until Sunday.  I've downloaded the app* in spite of the horrible reviews--hopefully everything'll work well and I'll know all sorts of things about Andy's location while Finley and I wait for him on 4th Avenue.

Speaking of which, if you're local and want to spend your Sunday morning watching thousands of people run their asses off while you drink coffee (or perhaps even something more interesting than coffee) on the sidelines, you should head to 4th and St. Johns Douglass sometime between 11 and 11:30. We'll be on the east side of the street, so if you're coming from the Cobble Hill area, cross 4th Avenue; if you're coming from Park Slope, don't. Extra points for fancy signs!

Also, I'll be tweeting my location (though with Finley being under the weather we may not be marathon-hopping as much as I'd originally planned).  Follow me @blitzedtobklyn. 

See you Sunday!

* Bonus!  You get to track up to 10 runners so you can simultaneously stalk Apollo Ohno, Christy Turlington, and holy! $#@%!  Omar's runnin'! 

Baby's First ER Visit

Oy.  No pictures--I'm not sure if this makes me a good parent or a bad parent, but I didn't feel quite right packing along the camera.

So, there's good news for all those people Finley slobbered on when we thought it was ok to take him out because he appeared to be on the mend: Finley wasn't infectious.  Bacterial.  Yum.

The bad news (aside from the actual illness which may still have some complications that we need to suss out) is that the poor guy got something stuck in every possible orifice in his body.  Actually, strangely, nothing got stuck up his nose.  So there.  But really, what a way to spend a Thursday.

Maybe we can give Finley a little break now?  Other people in this family happen to be doing things too, you know.

Tomorrow!  Stay tuned!  Everything you could possibly want to know about tracking Andrew during the marathon!  

Spoke Too Soon

This guy is still sick. We had a 48-hour stretch of near-perfect health, then kaplowy. Our couch may never be the same.

Anyway, he doesn't seem as miserable this time around.  But we're all tired of it. 

These pictures, by the way, were taken in happier, healthier, goofier times. Here's hoping they come our way again.

Quack!

Ha!

Also, why did they stage this photo with a sleeping Brett Farve?

(via lil magoolie)