"Vacation"

We have been in Virginia with my parents for a little over a week, and have only 4 full days left before we hop on a plane back to Washington. It has been wonderful being surrounded by family and visiting with friends, especially ones I have not seen in years who were just in town for the holidays as well. Christmas was precious! I got a few crochet hooks, 2 pattern books, and a magazine (among other things). My mom has an ample stash of yarn that I didn't know about, and she opened it up for me to take my pick. We need to keep it light when we fly back, so I'm just going to make what I can while we're here. So far, I have made a pattern from each book and I am working on one from the magazine.

My first try at amigurami... From the book Cuddly Crochet.

Booties for my girl, from the book Precious Baby Booties. I have to get some buttons for them when we get back.

A star blanket for my girl... I'm on round 9 of 15. This pattern was in the Jan/Feb '11 issue of Crochet Today magazine. This Red Heart baby clouds yarn is SO SOFT!!! [Side note: I don't know why, but the blog is turning my horizontal pictures vertical.]

The little family and I had an early Christmas before we left. I got hubby a coat and ornament, and he got me an eReader! We weren't supposed to get each other ANYTHING, because we bought a car at the beginning of the month. I was very surprised... he knows me so well! I love it. =)

My son loved opening his gifts from us... He will get to see what Santa brought when we return home.

Back to events here in Virginia...........
The day after Christmas, we woke up to this:

We have had some of this:

I did more eating than baking... but my daughter and I sure enjoyed it!

And some of this:

A day in Colonial Williamsburg for my mom's birthday... Fun family times. :)

Unfortunately I have had to split my remaining time between schoolwork and crochet. I have to get on the ball with the school work, so I can finish my Masters a couple weeks before my due date at the end of March. I am putting both down today (schoolwork & star blanket), because last night my darling niece asked if I would make her baby doll some booties. I told her I would make them for her today! A sweet little request like that gets an immediate turn around. Oh, how have we been spending our evenings, you ask? Like this:

My family loves board games... Luckily, hubby does, too. We have played more Monopoly in the last week than I have played in the last ten years. And of course, the only thing I like about snow, other than the beautiful scenery:

SNOW CREAM!

January 2011 Goal: Begin selling on Etsy... I am going to start with my little white hats, because I can make them so quickly now. I really want to earn some side money to fund my hobbies. First, I want to get an external hard drive to back up my pictures and digital scrapbooking. Second, I want to either get my hubby's Xbox fixed or buy him a new one, and I would love a Kinect. After that, I just want to earn money to fund larger crochet projects (I have yet to make a full afghan) and my digital scrapbooking. I have done tons of it, but haven't ordered the first page yet. I have almost 100 pages completed, and at $3.50 a page, I want to try to order ten or so a month... So, HOPEFULLY I can make enough and sell enough on Etsy. Wish me luck!

This blog post must now come to an end, so I can work on those baby doll booties, star blanket, and the dreaded schoolwork...... before New Year's Eve festivities begin! (Can I make it to midnight? Last year, from the west coast, we watched the ball drop in Times Square at 9pm and went to bed... cheaters! hehe)