Today I am thankful for our family, in duck form (which Little Evan lined up and named all by himself during bath time)

I am a knitting machine! Well, no, not an actual knitting machine – which is a thing – but someone who has been doing a lot of knitting. I am BETTER than a machine, because all my stuff is made with love. And baby slobber. And dog hair. But mostly love.

Here’s what’s been on my needles:

I saw a pair of knit leggings on Pinterest a few weeks ago (which of course I didn’t repin, so I can’t link to the picture now) and thought “hey, I could totally do that”. So I did. Patternless, off the top of my head. Unfortunately, although he was EXTREMELY happy to model them for these photos, yellow leggings don’t really go with the rest of Little Evan’s wardrobe – so these have been shipped off to someone who I know will look even cuter in them.

Pumpkin hat. Caroline’s got one too. Pattern half made up in my head, half from this site.

My first try at this adorable knit necklace my friend Megan made based on the pattern here. It’s two strips knit separately and woven together. You can wear it this way or reverse it for a different braid pattern. I’m going to make a dozen more.

I was afraid I had waited too long to finish this dress I started in the spring, and Caroline would have grown out of the small size before I was done, but with a onesie and leggings it’s still perfect for fall. I’ve never knitted pleats before and was worried they were above my skill level but it turns out they’re totally manageable – even for the kind of disjointed, interrupted, stop and start knitting I do most of the time. (The pattern is called Fiona Baby Sundress and is available for free on Ravelry as a download.)

Classic nautical pea coat buttons in fun colors

Love the pointed hood

If you’ve been around for a while, you might remember me knitting Phoebe Mouse and Phoebe’s sweater. The book also included a toddler sized version of the doll sweater – unfortunately, it was for a 2 year old and my baby is a peanut. So I used the pattern for the mouse-sized coat and did a little math and made it Caroline sized. I’m SO EXCITED that it fits and that she has a beautiful fall coat now. It makes me feel like Caroline Ingalls (who is honest to God one of my actual heroes) that something I made is so FUNCTIONAL. It’s more than a hobby! I make CLOTHES.

I wanted to finish this cowl before I wrote a post about what I was knitting, so I sped through the last 2 inches during every spare minute yesterday. My husband literally took this picture for me at 9:30 last night. It’s the most basic cowl you can possibly make (cast on an odd number of stitches, knit 1 purl 1 until it’s long enough, bind off) but I help the multi-toned yarn double so it’s super warm and comfy.

And finally, one more quick bunny I’ve had 50% finished on a stitch holder since BlogHer in August. It took less than 10 minutes to finish and it feels SO GOOD to now having it staring at me every time I open my knitting bag. FACELESS BUNNY WAS JUDGING ME.

Now all I have to do is finish the sweater I started for E a full year ago – and the one I started for myself even longer ago than that. WHY can’t person-sized sweaters be as fast and fun and easy as baby stuff?! But I will get them done. It’s what Ma Ingalls would want.

We had a super busy day planned for Sunday so of course both of my children went completely insane. Caroline woke at 3 am all HAI GUISE I’M HERE LET’S PARTY. We took turns trying to get her back to sleep for two hours, until I gave up and brought her downstairs so I could at least watch TV while she boogied. We were on our second Law & Order rerun when I watched her nod off to sleep sitting on the floor and fall right over onto her head. I’m not gonna lie, I laughed pretty hard. I blame the exhaustion and also the hilarious look on her face.

Luckily, she forgave me and we took a little couch nap before we had to head out to our friend Thomas’s 3rd birthday party.

Unluckily, Little Evan took one look at the karate studio where the party was being held and ran away shouting “NO THANK YOU MAMA NO THANK YOU”. I eventually coaxed him into the room where he stood in a corner fake sobbing (he is TERRIBLE at fake sobbing, which is how I know it is fake) until the instructors got out a giant box of balls and encouraged the kids to throw them at each other. Apparently that’s just too much fun to pass up.

In the mean time, I gave up on trying to keep Caroline in my lap and let her enjoy the party in her own 10 month old way.

I LOVE YOU BABY IN THE MIRROR

Probably not what this guy signed up for when he agreed to work at the party

I can't stop laughing at this face

Pizza makes all his nervousness disappear

Oh! And! Because our attendance was sort of a last minute decision I was scrambling for a 3rd birthday gift. After having awesome success with the glow stick bath tub thing on Saturday night (here’s the whole scoop: turn down the lights and give your kid glow sticks to play with in the tub) I came up with this:

All found at Target in the $1 section or in the baby shampoo aisle. No risk of giving the birthday boy a toy he already has or a piece of junk that breaks after 5 minutes, and hey, every kid takes baths!

After the party we ran home for a quick nap, threw my gnocchi casserole in the oven and headed over to our CSA for an end-of-season potluck.

Evan was obsessed with the apple cider.

Caroline was obsessed with our cups of wine.

Trying to blow out the fire

It was a super fun, super busy, super exhausting, super long day but I can’t really complain. Having too many friends is the kind of problem everyone ought to have.

Bonus:

Jumping!

And we wouldn’t want Caroline to feel left out:

Cracker Face

The place that has the sunflowers in the summer also does a corn maze and hay ride in the fall. I talked my friends into dragging their toddlers out into the cold evening for some ice cream (obviously the snack of choice when it’s 50 degrees out) and some fall fun and ended up having pretty much the best night I’ve had since having kids. Or at least right up until my friend Jessica lost her engagement ring in the GIANT CORN PIT. Her yellow gold engagement ring. (Spoiler alert: they found it!) But even sifting through a literally ton of corn kernels couldn’t ruin the rest of it.

Here’s the rest of it:

I totally forgot to get a steppin’ out picture until AFTER I’d been rolling around in the corn for an hour, so I am FILTHY with corn starch.

On Caroline: Head to toe hand-me-downs
Pumpkin hat seen in other photos hand-knit by me
(Although it’s really too small already. I’m making her another one & need to find someone with a small-headed baby for this one. Or at least a slightly younger baby. Do YOU have a 4 or 5 month old who needs a hat?)

On Me:
Fake fake Uggs – Walmart, at least 2 years ago and damn do I love them
Jeans – Old Navy
Shirt – Target
Hoodie – Target (half of a very sexy sweat suit set)
Necklace – Lisa Leonard swag from The Creative Connection last year

p.s. Every time I start to feel really good about the quality of my photos I end up lost in a Pinterest wormhole of truly gorgeous and professional pictures and realize I know NOTHING about photography. All the fancy lenses in the world aren’t going to make me a better photographer until I sit down and actually LEARN THE BASICS that my brain seems so reluctant to absorb. Plus even if I DID learn all the things, there’s a level of natural talent involved that I just don’t think I have.  My only consolation is that on a night like this one I was having too much fun participating to stop and set up every shot I wanted to capture. I’m just a MWAC (mom with a camera), and I’m mostly OK with that.

p.p.s. It also helps that E has finally gotten on board with playing assistant photographer, which is why I’m actually IN half of these shots. If only he understood how to take a more flattering photo of my double chin I’d be golden.