Pink Purls | Esther’s Blog

I love the Christmas holidays. I love how happy the kids get, especially Danny who absolutely, 1000000% believes in Santa Claus and lives, breathes and enjoys all things Christmas the entire month. Not to mention, he’s probably written Santa at least 50 letters…”Exhibit A” - Danny writing letter #50 this weekend:

This weekend we decorated these little foam christmas trees together which of course was fun, but what made it even better was that I received this adorable little handmade “Knitting Thistleonian”

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from this lovely lady isn’t she precious??? I’m in love! Too cute and of course the knitting swatch is in my favorite “pink” color…what more could I ask for??? Go check out her site, she has a beautiful blog and she’s such an amazing artist…

On the knitting front, I’m working on a pair of socks as a yearly xmas gift exchange I do with a certain dear friend so I can’t post any pictures of that WIP. I have another WIP that I need to start up again but I’ll post pics of that later today or tomorrow if I don’t fall asleep on my couch again when I get home from work - so hard to stay awake these days

So turkey day is over..the long weekend was nice. Great to actually have some time to sleep seems like I never get enough of that anymore.

We finished putting up the tree. Usually we put up about four different Christmas village collections, animated figures, music boxes, you name it, however this year we are hoping to use some of our holiday vacation time to finally finish painting our living/dining room so we decide against putting up all our wares.

The cat doesn’t seem to mind a bit…she’s happy with just the tree - just as it is - just the right amount of space for her underneath:

Oh and of course we have to have stockings…

Other than that - nothing but movie watching and a little bit of knitting and some napping…all in all a good weekend I must say.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!

Regardless of life’s hiccups there are always so many things to be thankful for - I know I have many…

I am off to start preparations for the Thanksgiving meal tomorrow at my house. Hope you all have a wonderful holiday surrounded by family and friends and much love and happiness.

I whipped up another hat for Titi - she wanted a plain “big” black hat. Something stretchy and “BIG” because she says without hair her head is TOO TINY for her body..lol. So, I whipped up this simple garter stitch plain hat (I promise to post pattern details later forgot to bring the info). Used the only black yarn I had which was surprisingly soft - Red Heart Black (Acryllic) but it was very soft - double stranded. She loved it…but again, won’t ever get a pic of her wearing it so here are some pics of my daughter wearing it while she and Whimsy cuddle…

The lone hat on the table:

Now, we came back from my niece’s birthday party yesterday and since we had to take advantage of the time we had with my husband at home to help get the Christmas tree out of the attic, we decided to put the tree up last night. That gets my son in the best mood of the year - Christmas is what he lives for - he truly embodies the spirit of Christmas…can you tell?

He made “daddy” wear the Santa hat and we had to put on the Christmas music while we decorated the tree and he danced and swayed and smiled and jumped and laughed and just truly - TRULY enjoyed every single second of it.

My daughter, being in her TWEENS (just having turned 12) is getting to that age where she still loves it but has to act as if she’s being “forced” to love it..ya know, for “appearances sake” and all…

But my husband gives my kids a run for their money - he loves the holidays - we have to do a Disney trip every year around Christmas because if not it just doesn’t feel like Christmas to him - he’s such a kid at heart:

So this year, our tree is up and that will be it. Usually we put up elaborate Christmas villages and animated figures and decorations and garlands on the staircase, etc. but we have to do some DIY this time during our holiday vacation in the living/dining area and the decorations will be in the way so we’re going sparse and just putting up the tree this time (slight ba humbug but oh well…we’ll make up for it next year!).

Pictures of the lonely tree to follow…

Hope everyone had a great weekend.

My dad went for what we thought was going to be the final appointment with his oncologist/surgeon before scheduling the prostate surgery. We were wrong. The doctor told him that the results of his scan show that he has fluid build-up around his heart (my grandfather, “his dad,” died of a massive heart attack at a much younger age than my father is now)…and that he must be cleared by a cardiologist before they will consider moving forward with surgery…

“IF” he is cleared by a cardiologist, the original surgery we were hoping for (less invasive laporoscopy (sp?)) won’t be available to him. The surgeon explained that his cancer is entangled in such a way that they can not guarantee they can remove it all with that method so he’d have to have the old fashioned “open” surgery that would be a 6-8 hour surgery with an approximate recuperation time of 8 weeks afterwards and lots of unpleasant side effects to look forward to like incontinence, and all the others that I won’t get into…(and we’d be looking at at least January before he can undergo the surgery which means continued Lupron injections which he hates…).

We were a bit blindsided by the heart issue and now we’re fighting the HMO system again to get him a referral to a cardiologist asap so we can see how serious this is.

Any good thoughts/prayers this way are as always, very appreciated

This weekend was the first good weekend in a long while…no cold, no headaches, no sick kids, no other familial issues, etc. But the best part - my buddy Betsy came over with goodies from SAFF (since she was one of the lucky ones that went) and she brought yummy home made cookies that we devoured during this happy weekend AND the topper to her fantastic visit - she demonstrated to her sewing challenged friend here how to make a curtain valance from scratch!! She made a valance for my bathroom window - LOOK!!

She did all the sewing - however I watched carefully and took quite a few “mental notes” so I’m hoping next time, should I need a curtain….(who am I kidding??? I’ll still be calling Betsy to come over…hahahhaa!).

Then we knit a bit, watched Mr. Brooks (great movie by the way with Kevin Costner, William Hurt and Demi Moore).

I spent the rest of the weekend finishing the pink baby blanket. I am FINALLY DONE! WOOHOO! I opted out of the frilly extra crochet scallop edging. I did do a row of single crochet all around the edge to give it a more finished look but I ended it there. Here it is pinned out and blocking dry:

and a bit of a close-up (although in reality it is NOT at all this pink):

Feels good to have this done…Now I have the blanket done, the booties done and will knit a simple newborn hat to go with the booties and the baby gift package will be complete. Yippee.

Halloween was a bit thwarted with Tropical Storm Noel…too much lousy weather - too much rain/wind = not much trick o’ treating…and some unhappy campers…oh well…looking forward to next year I guess. But we did trick or treat for about 18 minutes before the skies opened up on us and we had to run home so we managed maybe “three” whole pictures:

First - a photo of our lovely weather before we got rained on:

Now, some pictures of the kiddies…Emy was a “Victorian Vampire” but the fangs wouldn’t stay on because of her braces - lol - drats! Danny was the ghost rider..

The one picture I was able to get with a smile (since the weather and lack of “fangs” had a certain preteen girl a bit moody so I told her she looked constipated - ahhhh the wonders of a good bowel joke to get the mood up):

Anyhoo - hope everyone else had a great Halloween!

Life has a tendency of being a pain in the ass…there is no other way to say it - no other way around it - it is what it is…For the most part it’s wonderful, but we have those bumps in the road (granted sometimes they feel like boulders, not bumps) but then we have moments of lucidity - moments when random acts of kindness of others wake us up and shake us off and bring smiles to our faces - we regain our perspective..much needed in my case I think)…

My dear friend Becky made these beautiful hats for Titi - to help her cover her newly bare little head during these debilitating chemo treatments…

I just got them last night, and I dropped them off for her this morning. I just found out from my mom that when she saw them when she woke up today for her chemo appt she cried…she cried because she couldn’t believe that a total stranger - yes, a friend of mine, but someone who has never even “met her” would have gone through so much trouble for “her” - she was beyond touched - and that just melted my heart…she put the darker hat on today - it matched her outfit perfectly Becky…

Thank you from the bottom of my heart…and she thanks you too - from the bottom of hers…you’ve made our day