Friday Mishmash - Yarn!

It was a very knitty Christmas for me this year, and I loved it!  I got yarn, beautiful yarn...I've already started on a cowl with one skein, and have nearly finished a hat with two more skeins.  Plus I have enough yarn to make a sweater - eeek!  I've had my eye on a couple of different patterns for a pullover, and am working on getting my nerve up to attempt one.  All yarn came from my mom - she really came through for me!

An armful of yarn, wheee! 

Jeff gave me a yarn swift, a yarn winder, and some blocking mats.  All items that I've been wanting, but waited to make sure that I liked knitting enough to stick with it before requesting them.  Here's a couple shots of me winding my first "cake" of yarn (the ball winder makes yarn look like little cakes, hence the term):

A yummy cake...of yarn!

I also received several knitting books that were on my Amazon wish list:

Sam gave me the three books, and a dear friend gave me the perpetual calendar - I feel very indulged!

I am so pleased with everything - I've really come to love knitting, and all of these goodies will help me enjoy my hobby even more!

I also received a couple of other fun gifts - Max gave me a Fiestaware spoon rest for my stove, in Peacock green:

And Jeff gave me this cute Lego set, which appropriately, is sitting on my desk:

Will I ever outgrow the thrill of getting a new toy at Christmas?  Probably not. :)

Speaking of new toys, Paco got his present:

 

While he's quite adept at unwrapping his gift, Paco was a very good dog and did not unwrap any of the other presents under the tree.  Maybe he knew Santa was watching?

Everyone posed with their favorite present:

I gave Jeff a mile marker from the half marathon we just did - they were auctioned off afterward with the proceeds going to the race charities.  I thought this one was very symbolic of our year of running together and was really glad to win the auction - bidding was going on right up to the deadline!  I framed it so he can hang it in his office.

Sam only asked for two things - a pair of sharp kitchen scissors, and new clothes.  We gave him an IOU for a shopping trip for the clothes, so on Christmas day, his favorite item was the scissors:

Goofy Sam, as usual...

Max wanted a pet rat, so we got him all the accessories and will take him to Petco next week to pick out the rat (we're going out of town this weekend and didn't want to leave the new rat alone so soon).  Here he is with the rat food (Fiesta Max, how appropriate):

If he looks ill, it's because he was.  The stomach bug (norovirus?) started with Sam last Tuesday night - he was really sick until Saturday.  Then poor Max got it Christmas Eve...he wasn't feeling very good here.  Heck, he'd been up most of the night tossing his cookies, so when he finally fell asleep, he didn't wake up until nearly noon on Christmas day - it was the latest we'd ever waited to open gifts!

Dinner picture - we'd just popped our Christmas Crackers, and my prize (a shoe horn, lol) was sitting on my plate.  Paco got in on the picture action, too:

Ham and all the fixin's - it was good!  

We're headed up to the Dallas area this weekend for a quick trip - it's going to be freezing up there, so I need to finish knitting that hat today!

Have a great weekend!