Last evening and this morning, I’ve been spending every spare minute knitting on the washcloths I’m making for the Sew, Mama, Sew Giveaway. This yarn is quite possibly my favorite variegated cotton yarn I’ve bought for making dishcloths to date. I love green. It makes me happy. I feel so refreshed walking into my green kitchen every morning. Green is such an invigorating color for me…or maybe it’s just that it goes so well with my hair since I have the ginger curse.

Variegated Greens Dischcloth in Progress

If you want to get in on the giveaway action, feel free to follow the link to my previous post and enter the giveaway, or if you want to see the full listing of giveaway items, check out Sew, Mama, Sew. There are hundreds of giveaways listed, and I’m pretty sure there is still time to get involved if you want to give something away on your own blog.

In other news, I’m really thankful this week because we’ve been finding out some great things at my husband’s new command. He will have to go on short jaunts out to ships and back and forth to D.C., but it’s looking like he won’t have many deployments at all at this post. The babies are so very thrilled about this. I don’t think their relief even comes close to the relief I feel, though. Mostly because they don’t have to do any of the keeping things from unraveling that I do during deployments.

Also, Eddie worked so hard to get certifications at his last post, that he got some far in advance of all but one person at his new command. Because of this, he is getting the opportunity to get some additional training that only five people in the command can get. It’s going to be a lot of work for him, but it’s a huge boon because this particular certification is in high demand in government contractor jobs or even in civilian IT jobs. This translates to: “Whew! You’re really employable once you’re out of the military.”

The kids are getting really excited for the Christmas party we’re throwing here for them and some of the neighborhood kids. We haven’t had any parties since moving here, so they’re, understandably, driving me bonkers about it.

I still have to come up with some decorations for the party, though. I found some cute, printable cupcake wrappers and toppers, but still haven’t pinned down which ones I’ll use, for certain.

Do any of you have great holiday party ideas for kids? I want to do a fairly simple craft (let’s face it, I need something to keep a dozen or more kids busy during the three plus hours they’ll be here), but not all kids enjoy crafts. Is it a bad idea or a good one to attempt crafts with a gaggle of kids? If you’ve had a kid party with crafts (boys and girls both) how did it turn out? Did you lose your sanity after the first ten minutes?

Last, but certainly not least, I have so enjoyed reading each and every comment that you all have left on yesterday’s giveaway post. I’m admittedly a little bit bonkers for Christmas, so getting to share some of your favorite holiday memories tickles me pink.  Thank you all so very much for your comments. It means a lot that you took the time to visit and leave your mark here. I may not get to answer them all individually (my schedule is insane right about now with holiday prep), but I’m reading each one.

I’ll be back tomorrow with a pattern (very basic and easy enough for beginner knitters) for a knit cowl that I made a couple of weeks ago. I messed my first one up because I miscounted my stitches, so you get to see exactly what not to do when you’re knitting in the round. This was my first time knitting with circular needles, so it was quite an adventure.