Anyone know how to make a coonskin cap?

The raccoon saga continues. Last night, I was surfing some blogs when Bill called from the living room that I had to come see something. I joined him at the front door and peeked around the corner with him, and there was a pair of glowing eyes peering back at me from out of a little black mask, right by the steps that lead up to our front porch. He had just seen another one run for the back yard, and when we checked the trap, there was a third one inside. So apparently we have a whole family shacked up under our porch. It's a bummer, because it costs $50 for each one they haul away. The critter lady came this morning and set a new trap to try to catch some of the imprisoned coon's buddies.

I've always thought raccoons were pretty cute, but they sure are stinky and destructive. And kind of scary, when they're living on your turf. The critter folks told us that they can be very territorial and aggressive. Not the kind of thing you want living in your crawlspace!

I forgot to post about the yarn shopping I did while on vacation. Here is my booty:

I'm going to use the Mountain Colors Weaver's Wool for another attempt at Friday Harbor (this is the yarn called for in the pattern, and it's thicker than the Bearfoot). The Jo Sharp is for a scarf, yet to be designed, and the Noro is for this, which I'm going to do the next time I need a little relaxation knitting. All this is from a neat little shop in Knife River, MN, called Playing With Yarn. If you know the North Shore of Lake Superior and Knife River at all, it is in the middle of nowhere. I was surprised at what a lovely and varied selection she had. If you're ever up there, check it out. It's just north of the town of Knife River and the Scenic Drive. Look for the blue highway sign that says "Yarn Store". How I wish I had gotten a picture of that!

The new version of Mag Knits is up. I love to check it out, even though I'll never have time to knit anything from it. Alison's Thing shirts are in it, and she's written out the pattern as a generic kid t-shirt complete w/ a shaped girly shirt. I would love to make one of these for Sydney, but you know how that goes...

Finally, since my mom always mentions that she looks forward to my blog posts all day so she can see pictures of the kids (she's less excited about the knitting, sadly), here are the gratuitous cute kid pics.

Owen trying to break out of his little jail pen:

Sydney playing with her favorite Xmas book which she loves because of all the noise it makes.

You can see from her eyes how sick she is... The fever seems to be going down, and now she's just busy producing gallons and gallons of snot. Ah, the joys of parenthood. At least Owen slept last night, for the most part. He doesn't want to nurse as much these nights because he's too stuffed up. Poor little guy! I hate cold season.