A tornado has hit...

...well, not really; the house just looks like it has had a tornado rip through it! It's moving day come Saturday, the 2nd of January and we are up to our knees in boxes, stacked all over the house. The kids' toys are everywhere, they are having a hay-day with all this packing. We pack 2 boxes and they have 1 unpacked it seams! Katya is going to Grandma's tomorrow -yippee! We should get the rest of the house packed up for the most part, leaving the essentials for Friday and a nephews birthday party we didn't think we'd make it to.

We had a break from packing today with a trip to the cities (Minneapolis and St. Paul) for a few appointments, including a hair cut for Katya, so adorable she is. In between appointments we went to Como Zoo; what a great time to go to the zoo during the winter! The lions and tiger were so active; it was awesome and hardly any people there. It was like we had the zoo to ourselves, fantastic. So, the tiger climbed up on the big rock next to the window, eye level to Katya and turned around, stuck his butt close to the window, peed and ran back down to play in the snow. He came back up later and sat there for all of us to look and photograph him. Both the lions and tiger roared and growled. It was so much fun, of course the monkeys, Katya's favorite, were fun and funny to watch, too.

Back to packing tomorrow...

My Darling daughter...

...Katya, just over 2 years of age pushed a chair from the dining room table into the kitchen and climbed up onto it. She leaned over slightly, reaching with her eyes and peered into a big stock pot on the stove with a skein of yarn floating in blue water. She exclaimed: yarn soup! From here on out kettle dyeing yarn in our home was called yarn soup.

This was the beginning of my yarn dyeing experience. I loved it. I started with blue food coloring on a worsted weight blend of wool, cashmere and rayon. It's all I had in a neutral color in my small stash. I knew it might not turn out with the rayon, but it did! It is a beautiful turquoise yarn now. Katya said she wants a hat made from it, I have more feminine colors in mind for her, although someday one of my kids will get something knitted from it. In the mean time it's part of my slowly growing stash.