Another Decade

On Saturday, we celebrated my father's 60th Birthday with a big family party. We left on Friday night and got to Massachusetts at 1am. We stayed at DH's brother(my BIL) house, but Melody didn't do too well sleeping in a strange place. She was terrified of her uncle and aunt. She was screaming, crying and babbling when they held her, so that we could unload the car and set up her bed. I think she was disoriented due to the long car ride and being woken up at 1am and seeing strangers just really messed up her schedule. By the time we got her calmed down, it was 4am. I only got 4 hours of sleep before I got up and heated up her bottle.She was so much better when she woke up. She was no longer afraid of anyone. My SIL (her aunt) entertained her while I had breakfast. You can't tell in the picture, but my SIL is pregnant and will be giving birth to a baby girl in February.Even the boys were trying to get a Cheerio.She had a lot of fun exploring the house. I was just worried about all the staircases in the house. She has no concept of fear or of falling yet. (Isn't her bib cute? She practically has been living in the bibs that Rebekah made her. They have snaps instead of velcro so she can't tear them off of her neck and get her clothes all wet from her drooling.)
After that, I got ready and my sister came to pick me up. We went to the grocery store and bought all the ingredients we needed for the menu that we had thought up. We brought all the groceries to my father's house to start prepping for that night. Baked Spiral Ham, 10lbs of potatoes which were used for Mashed Potaoes and the Oxtail Soup, Gravy for the mashed potatoes, Baked Ziti which my sister made a delicious homemade sauce for, Sauteed yellow squash, zucchini, mushrooms and onions. We cooked all afternoon and made enough food to serve 18 people. I even broke out in a sweat when I was mashing all those potatoes. We also had 3 babies in the house, which added to the madness when we were serving the food.

Oxtail Soup used to be my mom's specialty. Ever since my parents divorced 4 years ago, I am the one that makes it when we are having a party at my father's house.

We left on Sunday morning and got back to NYC at 3pm. I am still recovering and so is Melody. Travel is hard for babies. She woke up crying again last night because she was over tired. Nothing I did could soothe her.

I hope my father appreciated all the effort that me and my sister made. He is the type of man that can't express how he feels. One of my aunts did email me this morning to thank us for hosting the party and to tell me that my father was smiling all night and looked happy.
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This is my new favorite FO, the Mimosa Neckwarmer. As much as I would love to keep this, I think it will have to go into the Christmas Gift Box. Um, so far, this would be the only thing I have in that box. I started my Christmas gift knitting very late this year.This only took 2 days to knit! The pattern is easy and fast, especially since it is knit with bulky yarn. The main neckwarmer is knit first and then you pick up all the stitches around and knit the cable rib in the round. For me, the longest part of this project was the cable ribbing because I find it tedious to pick up so many stitches.My sister was kind enough to model it for me while I took a ton of photos. I did make a few changes to the pattern. The scarf pattern does not have instructions for the closure, so I made a button hole on one end and sewed a button on the other side. And I did less rows for the cable ribbing because I used a Super Bulky Yarn and it was already getting really big. The pattern calls for Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Chunky, but I used Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Superchunky. As always, Debbie Bliss Cashmerino is lovely to knit with and the final result feels great. BUT each ball had knots in it. So instead of having 2 ends, I had 4 ends to deal to with. Very annoying!
Pattern: Mimosa Neckwarmer PDF pattern link
Needles: US 8 / 5.0 mm and US 10½ / 6.5 mm
Yarn: 2 balls of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Superchunky in color: Red (16011)