New Addition to the Toman Household

We have great neighbors. Within the first hour of moving in we had a plate of brownies and within the next couple of weeks many of our neighbors stopped in to say hi and introduce themselves with more cookies and treats. Our next door neighbors decided that with three kids and three fish tanks their home was a little too crowded so last week we adopted a 10 gallon tank with guppies and platies. We now have a fish room and Cadie loves watching them. She learned a sign for fish and wakes up in the morning doing the sign.

Knitting Again
A Hanna Andersson catalog that came a few weeks ago had the most adorable sweater dress on the cover. It reminded me of the hand-knit Norwegian sweaters that my grandmother made. I was inspired to dust off my needles and start some new projects. The first: Cadie's leggies.
This is my first attempt at creating a pattern and I'm "publishing" it here so I can link to it from ravelry.
Cadie's Leggies, size 12 months.
Materials.
Set of size 5 double sided needles.
Sport-weight yarn, I used a "baby soft" cotton/polyester blend.
Stitch Glossary.
k=knit
p=purl
Pattern.
Cast on 60 stitches, divide among 3 needles.
Row 1: Join round, *k2, p3, repeat from * to end.
Row 2: *k2, p1, k1, p1, repeat from * to end.
Rows 3-20: Repeat rows 1 and 2.
Rows 21-60: k60
Rows 61-80: repeat rows 1 and 2.
Bind off and weave in ends.
Changes I'll try next time
These turned out a little short and stubby for my 11-month old's long skinnies. Next time I'll decrease the total stitches from 60 to 50 and add about 20 rows to the middle section.

Shoe Obsession
She likes heels and furry ones the best.

Yummy for my Tummy Halloween Style

Dinner in a pumpkin

1 smallish pumpkin
2 lbs. sausage or ground meat
1 onion
3 cups cooked wild rice
8 oz baby bella mushrooms
1 can cream of mushroom soup
8 oz sliced water chestnuts
Good glug of worcestershire sauce

Cut off a lid on the pumpkin and clean out. Slice onions and saute until tender, add meat and worcestershire and brown. Combine meat mixture with remaining ingredients and spoon into hollowed pumpkin. Put lid on, place pumpkin on a baking sheet and cook at 350 for 1 hour or until the inside meat of the pumpkin is tender.
Enjoy eating the pumpkin meat as well.

Monkey See Monkey Do
I didn't realize that I talk on the cell phone while walking around that often...

Fun Fall Weekend
We had a crisp fall weekend and enjoyed the weather and outdoors. Cadie finally got a helmet and she had her first ride in the bike trailer. She didn't like the helmet much but once we got moving she was happy and babbled along talking to her doll and anyone else that we saw. We visited small town Ohio (Circleville) for a pumpkin festival and were amazed at the crowds and at the HUGE pumpkins - the winner was 1375.5 lbs. We tried out the pumpkin fudge and pumpkin pie but couldn't find the famous pumpkin burgers. We didn't stay around long enough to watch the parade but did see "Miss Pumpkin," or maybe it was one of her attendants, walking through the crowds.

Cadie Version 2.0 (Walking!)

This is my hair.
This is Eric's favorite story-time book.

We found it at the greatest book store, Powell's, in Portland. My favorite bits are "This is my hair when I see a bear" and "This is my hair when my brother cut it."
One of Paige's last duties while she was staying with us was to cut my hair into a cute A-line, chopping about 8 inches off the back. She made it so cute with her drying techniques and straight-iron. However, now that she is gone I'm having problems replicating the style. So I'd like to add a couple of pages to the hair book.
This is my hair when Paige does it:

This is my hair when Paige is gone:

We miss you Paige!