Hertzlichen Gluckwunch zum Geburtstag!

This weekend (which isn't yet over thankfully) we were lucky enough to have Will, Sandy and Anders in town to celebrate Anders' first birthday and bring in the 2009 Hawkeye Football Season. The weather was sunny and perfect, the Hawks won (barely) and Anders is already a super-awesome 1-year-old!!


Anders and Eleanor love playing together - they especially enjoyed using these new window-stickies of Eleanor's and standing on opposite sides of our TV room window. It was funny to watch them paw at the stickies regardless of what side they were on.


More window-play.


On Saturday, after the game, we had a great birthday party at City Park where Sandy set up a great afternoon. Mom made this chocolate train birthday cake which was a big hit, especially with the kids.


Look at this little Dude sporting his new Hawkeye outfit. What good taste!


He literally got "wrapped up" playing with his balloon. It was quite hilarious.


Here's a picture of the goings-on in the shelter.


This picture of Anders and his Mom is awesome. He was enjoying frosting-scrapings off of his Angelfood cake.


City Park amusement park rides were next. The train (which is pretty much the same as from my childhood - except it used to be orange and black) was a big hit. Even the adults had to be strapped in.


Eleanor and I had to take a ride on the Merry-Go-Round. She requested the Zebra. It was really topped off by the fact that Rush was blaring from the Carnie-radio.


Eleanor was a daredevil and went on the fish ride with her newest friend Zack. They got along famously. She did lots of waving and Zack did some roller-coaster-tastic both hands in the air action.


She also took a trip on the Ferris Wheel with her cousin Sam and Zack.


To finish up the afternoon, Aunt Jan pitched a couple of heaters which Eleanor promptly took deep out of the park. She especially liked how the bat went "whack" when hitting the ball.

Happy Birthday Anders!! We love you. Thanks for a great weekend and party Sandy and Will. And Grammie, thanks for the cakes and all of the good child care.

on the needles

the latest knitting projects--a version of tasia's cardigan for a friend's baby-on-the-way using baby twist alpaca.
my first felted project, up close because it's a christmas gift, made with noro kureyon.
paton's SWS (soy silk and wool blend) that i found in the sale cart at ben franklin--$2.99 per skein! i think this is destined to become a sweater for eleanor. i'm pretty reliant on two sweater patterns--the cardigan above and knitting pure and simple's baby pull-over--and am on the look-out for something new. it needs to be sized for toddlers and preferably top-down/no sew. ideas? KPS's poncho and neck-down bolero at the link above might prove irresistible.
my palette for a few other baby sweaters that need to be made this fall. the pink, red and green (cascade 128) are leftovers from E's christmas stocking. i added the blue and brown heather (prettier in person than this photo) to make some striped pull-overs.

herb quiz

can you identify the four herbs that went into the chimichurri marinade i concocted this afternoon?

(vacation, knitting and garden catch-up post/s coming soon...okay, maybe soon-ish)

what's on the table

this is my first contribution to the august domestic arts challenge recently posted here. what better way to start than with some lovely sunflowers from the farmer's market? actually, i wish i could say that these were from our yard, but no dice. next year, i think i'm going to plant one of the crazy, giant sunflower varieties next to our fence and see what comes up.
this pint of sun gold cherry tomatoes went into the checca sauce for this "veggie meatloaf" recipe from "everyday italian" which we're eating for dinner tonight. here you can also see the ladybug-covered clear table covering i'm using to protect the linens from a certain unpredictable two-year old eater. hobby lobby was having a sale on "home decorating fabrics" and i guess vinyl qualifies as a fabric. all i had to do was cut it down to size a bit.
drawing more inspiration from ms. de laurentiis, i made this italian style chili (with fennel seeds alongside the cumin, topped with parsley and parmesan cheese) for dinner the other night with sweet corn and swiss chard from the farmer's market. giada called for ground chicken, but there was none to be had at the store, so i went with ground turkey instead. pretty tasty and lighter than the typical ground beef and tomato-based chili, which made it a good summer supper.
i baked up some cornbread with thyme from a recipe in this month's cooking light, but might have gone a little overboard with the thyme, which is growing in a pot on the deck. the bread had a really strong herbal flavor and i think it tasted a little like soap. maybe aveda soap, but soap nonetheless.
a proper post about our new rain garden is long overdue, but i'll leave that to rob, who was the mastermind behind the project. on monday evening, we found this hawkeye caterpillar (black, gold and white! does anyone know the proper name?) eating dinner in our garden--devouring whole leaves and flowers in seconds. it seemed appropriate that this little guy was plowing through butterfly weed in order to fatten up and become...well...you know. so we left him alone. twenty-four hours later, the same caterpillar was in the very same spot and he was still eating. most of the flower buds were gone by this point and that made me a little sad for our fledgling garden. i apologetically remover the hungry little (big) caterpillar to a big weed forest under the deck. we'll see if he finds his way back to the garden...