52 Weeks of Happy (11/52)

A very happy spring break.  Although I only took Monday and Friday off, we tried to squeeze in as much fun as possible!









Did you know a giraffe's tongue was purple?



Sleepy lion...








Then a trip to the city and the Walt Disney Family Museum....so cool!







Awesome miniature of what Walt envisioned Disneyland to be like.





The crookedest street and a lil' tourist :)



A very fun week filled with lots of happy....

and now back to the daily grind....when is summer???

Happy happy!
xoxo Irishgirlieknits

Six

Happy happy 6th birthday to Little Guy!!



7 months



6 years!

I'm exhausted from a fabulous day celebrating Lil' Guy's birthday a day early at the Sacramento Zoo! Lots more pictures to share, but I just had to wish him a happy birthday!

One of my favorite pictures of the two kiddos....



Today...



I'm not sure what the heck they are doing, but boy do these two have fun together!!! So silly!!

Happy happy birthday Bubby!! Auntie IGK loves you soooo much!!
xoxo Irishgirlieknits

Happy Easter!

It was a lovely holiday today.  A relaxing morning and then an afternoon at Lil' Guy's house for more celebrating!  I hope you all had a lovely day too.






(she really did have a fancy Easter basket, but left it at home filled with eggs from a different egg hunt. promise.)



The Easter Bunny brought a fun new game, Beat The Parents.  And they did. Well, they beat the auntie.

Tomorrow we'll do some type of adventuring if it doesn't rain to celebrate Lil' Guy turning 6! Seriously, 6 years old?!?!

Oh, and an Easter treat for you guys.  I just released my new design, Blue Lake Springs Shawlette, and it is on sale for $4.50 through April 8, 2013.   





A proper post about it to come later this week, but I wanted to be sure to let those of you who've been waiting for it to know it was available!

Time for bed now as those kids will be up early.....

Happy Easter!
xoxo Irishgirlieknits

p.s. You know I'm a huge fan of women's college basketball, and especially Notre Dame and Skylar Diggins, who are on their way to the Elite 8 after a win this morning and hopefully the final four like last year. They lost to Baylor and the amazing Brittney Griner last year in the championship game, so I can't help but say how thrilled we were to see Baylor lose tonight!! (ok, a bit sad for Brittney)  We watched the last two minutes of the game....so exciting!! So this week will be all about the Irish!!!

52 Weeks of Happy (10/52)

There has been lots of happy this week! I almost feel like I'm getting everything balanced again...work, exercise, cooking and eating right, family, knitting....  Highlights from this week include:

• lounging in the sun doggies

• another Good Eggs delivery, which turned into an amazing frittata made from the eggs, goat cheese with chives, green onions and asparagus that was in my delivery

• unexpected, lovely spring flowers

•  a long walk earlier in the week and an awesome swim this afternoon!! Yay!! Back on track!

• leftover rotisserie chicken from my delivery turned into tonight's yummy dinner of Chicken Pot Pie from my new favorite cookbook, Homemade with Love.  An absolutely perfect review and the recipe can be found here.  I may have just done the full drop biscuit recipe to make a few extras and "extra" cover the pot pie :)  If you aren't reading In Jennie's Kitchen blog, you really are missing out. I made this tonight because I knew that dad would LOVE this and since I've never made it for him, I surprised him with it tonight. Everyone loved it! I can't wait to try more recipes from this cookbook....I'll be sure to tell you guys about them. Oh, and the drop biscuits. SO easy and to die for.

• Happy Easter!!  We'll be headed up to Folsom to celebrate with Lil' Guy and then we'll do something fun on Monday while he and Lil' Snowboarder are on spring break.  Auntie fun!!!

What happy has been happening in your life?
xoxo Irishgirlieknits

Deadlines

I love them and hate them all at the same time. You?

I'm definitely one who can work well under pressure most of the time, and I think that may be why I find myself waiting until the last minute to start certain deadline projects. I think I'm also a glass half-full kind of gal because technically someone could observe my behavior and say I'm good at procrastinating. Ha! I'm going with working well under pressure.


Saturday morning status, BMFA STR, colorway Peek-a-boo Peony

So this week's deadline...was it a super secret project? Nope. New design? Nope. It was a baby shower for a dear co-worker. There's a group of us at work who've worked together for over 10 years and I just couldn't not knit something for the baby.



Here it is this morning, still drying a bit before the shower at lunch.  Down to the wire, that's me. I've been enjoying the stitch pattern on my new infinity scarf design, so I thought I'd try it with a variegated yarn in the baby sweater.







I love the texture here, but for the baby sweater, I'm not sure it was what I had in mind. I'm going to think on it a bit. That's the fun part with knitting this....perfect for a gift and a chance to play around with a potential new design.



The mommy-to-be loved the sweater and especially loved the washing instructions on the Knitterella gift tag.  The best thing she said though was that baby Penelope would now have two IGK handknits to wear, since I knit her older daughter this.  She then said, "Don't worry. Her sister will get hers back when she is older, and now Penelope will have her own when she is older."  She's already thinking baby heirlooms. Now you can see why I knit for her, right?

Even with a last minute deadline :)

Happy Knitting!!
xoxo Irishgirlieknits

P.S.  As with any deadline knitting, there was some marathon tv watching that helped get this project done. This baby knit brought to you by catching up on Law and Order SVU, a new series on the Sundance channel called Top of the Lake, and Wallander (on amazon prime). A bit macabre for baby knits, but hey, whatever works.

52 Weeks of Happy (9/52)

• spring is here

• a lovely morning with Debbi, enjoying DavidsTea, a cupcake and catching up 

• taking the doggies on an "adventure" on the busy main street of one of our neighborhoods; they did quite well with all the attention

• Puddles plopped down right in the middle of the sidewalk as if she owned the place and everyone just stopped to pet her 

• that soda bread really was delicious. I might need to make more this weeekend.

• reading all of your kind thoughts about Shadow.  Thank you. 

• March Madness!! Go Irish!! 

This was an emotional week, an up and down emotional week, for a variety of reasons. I guess this is why the 52 weeks of happiness project is there.  It really is one of those weeks where it is important to focus on the happy. I hope you guys are too.  I'd love to hear about the happy in your lives.

And it is just about Friday. Now that is another reason for the happy!

Happy Friday!
xoxo Irishgirlieknits

Shadow

Some sad news tonight.  My brother called to tell us that Shadow passed away.  She'd been suffering from cancer the past few months.  Everyone is heartbroken, especially since we just saw her last weekend and she seemed to be responding to the chemo and doing well.  She was such a good dog.





This is probably one of my favorites.  Pa always let Shadow up on his chair.  A special treat she only got when she was here.  She knew right away that there was a spot for her.



This was naive IGK back in the day, thinking I could walk 3 dogs and push a stroller.  Ha. I learned quickly.



This was Shadow and Lil' Guy at New Years Eve.

Shadow is going to be missed so much. I know for my dear sister in law, her morning runs just aren't going to be the same without her.

Dogs leave paw prints on our hearts and forever change our lives.

We'll miss you Shadow! I know you are on the Rainbow Bridge though :)
xoxo Irishgirlieknits