Family Birthday Month

Our family believes in getting those pesky birthdays out of the way in record time! I start things off for us on February 7; husband follows along on February 12; and daughter brings up the end on February 13. Of course, then we can coast into Valentine's Day.

We celebrated daughter's 14th birthday with dinner out at a nice little Italian place followed by cake and ice cream at home. Here are my sweetehearts posing with their cake (strawberry jello cake).


You can't see it in the photo, but daughter got a great gift from us for her birthday. A necklace similar to this one We got her necklace locally, and it looks to be better quality than the photo, but you get the idea.

A picture is worth a thousand words, and this picture contains so many things that it must top that thousand word count.


The hat and scarf are birthday and Valentine gifts I made for husband with my handspun yarn. The scarf pattern is Yarn Harlot's infamous one row scarf pattern. I liked the pattern. It's so simple and looks good. The hat is a simple ribbed hat.

The silver pin was a Valentine gift from husband--a heart shaped shawl pin from Designs by Romi. I have my eye on a few other things at that website!

The tiny little sock was a birthday gift to me from husband. Actually, he gave me the miniature sock blocker key chain and pattern, and I knitted the tiny little sock on tiny little size 0 5 inch long needles! That was fun!

We have contractors in the house...well, sort of. We're re-doing our garage to transform it from an outdated, too small two car garage (vintage 1962) into a fantastic, sparkling new (complete with disco ball, I'm told!) second family room. They showed up yesterday and ripped out the ugly vinyl siding slats that served as the ceiling and took out some hideous 1970s era kitchen cabinets that the previous owners had "installed" in the garage. (Did I ever mention that there was lime green shag carpeting on the floor of the garage when we bought the place? The previous owners had taken it out of the house and put it in the garage to keep the concrete clean. What a mess!) The contractors showed up this morning about 9 AM, boss gave worker bee instructions, they backed up a trailer full of brand new wood in front of the garage, told me they'd need money later today, promised to return before long with the full crew, and that's the last I've seen of them. It's almost 3 PM. Hmmmm. I'd be worried, except this guy comes highly recommended and does beautiful work.

We are also going to have an old rickety shed torn down and a beautiful 3-bay pole building put up in its place. We'll use that to store the outdoor equipment and husband's wood working equipment. This will leave his 600 square foot workshop open to fiber and fiber alone--all the looms, the picker, the drum carder, etc. I think he's even going to have room for "social" activities with fiber friends. That should be some fun!

Edited to add: No sooner had I hit the publish button than I heard a loud crash outside. It was the contractor and crew. They are here to put up the "strips" on which our new sheet rock will go. Our new French doors are here, and they are gorgeous! We talked again about where all the can lights will be placed. He's going to put in maple cabinets in the wet bar area. I'm so psyched! This place is going to look fabulous once it's done.

My plan is that this is going to be a teen retreat/noisy den. We're going to have the foosball table, air hockey, and table tennis as well as a wet bar with counter space and a fridge for food. It will be a perfect party zone. Husband swears he is buying a lighted disco ball. Miss Phoebe will also inhabit this area.