Daddy's home

After a long month in Beijing, Daddy has finally come home. Savannah's excitement has already worn off as Kev's already too busy dealing with his separation from the Air Force to play pirates with her or listen to her read all day long. She loves the presents he brought back though. He brought her HuanHuan, the Olympic Torce doll, JingJing, the Panda doll, and Nana and Grampa sent her YingYing, the Tibetan Yak. She loves them so much she requested that I make each of them matching doll-sized quilts and made room for them in her bed tonight by kicking out my childhood bear (who I thought I was never going to get back even though I remind her it's only on loan). Fortunately, I do have some Asian fabric in my stash that match her dolls since she wants each to have its own matching quilt. Today she said, while waiting for the Torch doll's quilt in my project room, "Mom, I really love it when you make nice things for me and our family." Of course this was followed two minutes later by, "Mom, sometimes when I'm waiting for you to make something for me, I get really tired..."

HuanHuan, the Olympic Torch doll



Thank you Nana & Grampa!

Thank you Nana & Grampa for YingYing, the Tibetan Yak doll!

Loves for her new family of Chinese dolls.

I also received some wonderful gifts, which is rare since Kev maintains that I'm very difficult to shop for mainly as an excuse to never get anything for me. (I don't think I'm hard to shop for; I love good chocolate and good tea and every country has one or the other. I also love yarn, fabric, books and stationery and for the totally hopeless, I have my ongoing Amazon list.) This time I got lucky! Kev brought me some green and jasmine tea, some small rice bowls in my favorite blue and white porcelain, which I can't wait to use as soon as they pass the lead-free test, and two pearl necklaces, one of which is long overdue, since it was supposed to be my engagement gift years ago instead of a ring. The necklaces were made just for me and are also my birthday present. I'm just glad I can wear them now! I'm a pearl necklace kind of girl. I will wear pearls with anything and for any occasion.

Today we made matching scrappy fabric bracelets, which was fun even if it didn't match my pearls.

I'm also working on knitting a top-down shrug that I put down at the beginning of the summer. I guess I'm feeling the need (or guilt?) to finish what I've started these days. There have been times where I've had so many projects in the works that I've had to go out and buy a third pair of the same size knitting needles, simply because all my others are "busy" holding onto projects I'm not working on. Ahh, I'm getting better with age though and perhaps that's all that matters, progress.