Signs of Spring

Spring is officially upon us!  Although word has it that the temperature will be dropping again in the next few days, you can't deny it, Winter is over at last.  We spent most of this week outside enjoying the sunshine.  We even went to the zoo!  

 We found this hat in a collection of hand me downs we received from one of my mom's co-workers.  It rocks.  I like that it is stretchy so it stays on Henry's head.   Here we are checking out the penguins swimming by the window (see the tail)?

 But of course, this entry would not be complete without a hat that mommy made.  This hat in honour of spring:

 We even found some little flowers to pose next to!  This is in my Mother's front garden.  My garden also appears to have some daffodils that bloomed this week!  So exciting.

 I couldn't find a suit to match the hat, but it's probably less embarrassing this way.

In other exciting news, Henry got his first tooth this weekend!  I was totally not expecting it, but he smiled at my during bath time on Thursday and there it was!  That first tooth sprouting up on his gums.  Since then it's cut all the way through and is now a razor-sharp addition to his little mouth.  All things considered, he coped like a little champ.  My sweet little boy!

Keep an eye out for some awesome Easter themed hats coming up in the next few weeks!  I've also been instructed to throw in some manly hats, so stay tuned for those as well.

Gillian

Pot of Gold

St. Patrick's Day is upon us.  Green clothes, green beer, leprechauns, Pots of gold and four leaf clovers are everywhere you look and everyone is celebrating their Irish heritage, no matter how distant it is.  

St. Patty's day got me thinking about four leaf clovers.  I've heard some people don't think four leaf clovers exist.  I can assure you they do.  My sister has a strange knack for finding them.  She inherited this ability from my Old Oma who could also walk through a field of grass and find multiple four leaf clovers.  I did some reading, apparently there are 10,000 three leaf clovers for every one four leaf clover. I've watched Chrissy pick out 10 four leaf clovers in as many minutes.  I myself find them occasionally, but Chrissy finds them with reckless abandon.  

Enough about clovers.  Onto the hat.  It was so beautiful outside today.  When I looked out my window, I saw a little leprechaun with a pot of gold:

Funny, right?  Or cheesy, whatever.  It was hard to get a picture of this little munchkin looking at the camera because he was way more interested in nature.  

 Hmm, what's this?  (actually I think it's part of a shrub which collapsed in the winter and is now mushed into the dirt in the garden because I put his bumbo on it).

Finally he looks at me!  I was going to go all lame this week and buy him a leprechaun hat, but then GG said (and I quote) "Everyone's waiting to see what you come up with this week"  Thanks Ma, no pressure right.  In the end, I was glad I made one myself, this hat turned out pretty cute, I made it with no pattern and only a vague plan and hope that it would work out.  Looks like it was my lucky day (must've been a four leaf clover).

G.

Extra! Extra!

Well folks, it looks like the weather is slowly turning into spring like conditions!  Although we've had a few icy cold days we've had enough warm days that we are facing the inevitable hat dilemma where it's too warm for hats, but I still have hats a plenty to create.  

In light of the warmer forecast for the next few days, I made Henry a hat that doesn't quite cover his ears, so he can wear it without having a meltdown because it's too hot.  Hopefully.  

In other exciting news, our good friends welcomed their sweet daughter S to the world this week!   Join me in congratulating J and R on their beautiful little girl!  Henry is looking forward to a lifetime of friendship :)  S's dad, J, and I have known each other since we were only 4 years old, it's kind of incredible that our children might have an even longer friendship than we have maintained. The world is a crazy place!

Here's the little man in the test shot.  Nice chin rolls buddy!

He's only doing this until his acting career takes off...

Thinking about something

Dad is so silly!

Next week is St. Patrick's day, so look out for a St. Patty's Day theme!

G.

King of the Jungle

It was only after I put last week's post up that I realized the frog hat was even more appropriate than I imagined, what with it being a leap year this year.  Thank you subconscious.

This week's hat was requested by Trevor.  He said March is coming in like a lion (or winter is going out like one) so we need a lion hat.  Once I completed the hat and showed it to him, he immediately regretted requesting it and told me he is worried that the kids are going to tease Henry for all his awesome hats some day.  I find this unlikely, and once he's in school, we'll tone the hats down a little.  Might as well put him in the funny hats while he is too young to protest, right?

For this hat I did the usual crochet base then added ears and a mane as well as some earflaps with braids to match so it looks like an extension of the mane.  I think it turned out pretty cute.

Trevor thinks this hat looks like Luna's Gryffindor hat in Harry Potter:

I think he's exaggerating.  It's nowhere near that outrageous.  Here we go, you can judge for yourselves:

Checking out the weird plant.  Then we had a minor fail which resulted in the next image:

Help me dad!  There was also a certain kitty cat trying to photobomb us the whole time (please note, the photobomb link can be NSFW so beware if you decide to click).  

Henry practicing his roar (or running out of patience for the photoshoot).  I've saved the best picture for last:

Success!  Wishing you all a wonderful week!

G.

The Frog Prince

Since we've been dreaming of spring lately, I thought it only appropriate that we have a spring-ish themed hat this week (one that our Granny would definitely approve of).  GG on the other hand has a different opinion of frogs.  I encourage you to listen to the audio in that link, so you get the full idea, there was a spring peeper living outside my parents home for weeks last year, and looks like the time is soon arriving when he'll be back!  

This hat was pretty simple, I just made a beanie and added eyes and a mouth.  I was going to put earflaps on it, but I ran out of yarn.  I've been sticking with the crocheted hats because they lend themselves beter to caricatures than knitted hats (crocheting holds its form better).  I'm beginning to wonder what we're going to do in the summer when it's too hot for hats.  I suppose we could just pose with them.  Anyone have any good ideas for summer hats we could create?  

Today I had a smiley little "snack pirate,"  enjoy! 

 Henry's eyes look a little like frog eyes here:

Froggy pose!

Family Day's a hoot!

Monday February 20th marks Family Day in Ontario.  My family celebrated a little early this year on a day when we could all be together.  We had an excellent day with the greater family and it looks like we'll get to have our own little family day on Monday with just our little family which will be lovely as well.

Here we are:

Oh no wait, that's just our shoes...Adidas all the way :)

Big thanks to Justin for being our photographer for these shots (we're being photobombed, can you see it)?:

 A slightly more obvious photobomb, oh Rosie:

Here's a closer shot of the owl hat

That handsome man (next to the little handsome man) is my dad, aka Poppa J.

Remember you can check out my etsy store now through the links on the right or at www.etsy.com/shop/hatsofftohenry 

Even if Monday isn't Family day for you, I hope this post made you think of yours!  Wishing you all a great weekend!

G.

Will you be my Valentine?

I know there are a lot of Valentine's Day haters out there.  But I don't hate Valentine's Day.  Sure, it's commercial and expensive, but it's also nice to have a day set aside just for lots of love.  I thought today I would first share a few pictures from my own love story:

This is a super oldie from my Aunt Judy's wedding.  Check out that long blonde hair!

 This is probably one of my favourite pictures of Trevor and I.  It's from our engagement photoshoot, I don't know what T said, but I was clearly not impressed (but still amused):

Here we are at our wedding which was the most incredible day ever:

Another wedding pic, laughing like a maniac

And now, our little family, finally home together!

You may notice that I have added a link to my etsy shop at the top of the sidebar.  Not too much to see yet, but please go take a look!  More to come of course, but I thought I may as well start somewhere.

Henry's hat this week is once again knit.  I was going for more of a skull and heart pattern, but I had some challenges carrying 3 colours, so I had to incorporate the red more which makes it look more like skeletons and hearts.  It seems to look ok though.  Here he is, posing with some chocolates:

He's such a cutie, how could you resist being his Valentine?  For the record, his sleeper says I love Mommy, looks like I'm the lucky girl this year :)

Love Valentine's Day or hate it, I hope you all have a wonderful week!

G.