Little Acorn

Finished!

You guys gave me such great feedback on my WIP's and wanted me to finish the quilt, so how could I disappoint you? Plus having to be in Vietnam in 2 weeks is pretty motivating. I thought I was fairly efficient and hardworking before we got this news, but now I am in super speed mode and am getting a lot done. Last night while watching some much needed television I finished hand sewing the binding on the quilt.I love hand sewing, so it was a fun evening. I agonized so much over what to use for the binding, but once I decided it needed to be finished TODAY I just got to it and stopped thinking so much. I think this is the way I need to operate until we go - less thinking, more doing. This was my very first quilt and I'm really happy with how it turned out! It's meant to be a floor quilt for playing on, but since baby Lam has no bedding yet and I just don't like anything I see in the stores, she may be sleeping under this for awhile until I make something different.

A Happy Day, with Cupcakes

I don't know what you guys did, but some combination of wishing on stars, letters to Santa, good thoughts and crossing fingers has worked and we received our travel dates on Friday! Thank you! I thought our absolute best case scenario was to be in Vietnam in late December and January, but instead we are going IN JUST OVER TWO WEEKS. We have a flight booked to Hanoi November 18th and we will welcome sweet baby Lam into our family forever on November 23rd when she is just 15 weeks old. Our return to Canada is scheduled for December 15th, but there is the possibility that we could be finished in Vietnam a week earlier or we may need to stay a week later depending on how fast her immigration paperwork is processed. Either way though, we should be home for Christmas. Home for Christmas!!! There is a possibility that our departure date could be pushed back, so since all your positive thinking worked to get us this far, if you could all take a moment to fix November 23rd in your mind and send along a wish for us, we'd appreciate it. November 23rd is already an important anniversary to us and we celebrate it every year - our family was founded on November 23rd, 2000, when David and I first met and it would be extremely special to have Lam join our family on that day.

Needless to say, David and I are frantic, grinny, spinny messes. There are pages and pages of lists and honestly there are many things that will be left undone which as a perfectionist is really making me anxious. All that really matters is that our girl is coming home. After much discussion, we've decided that our travel blog will be separate from this blog, and it's where we will post a lot of photos and there we will share more personal details about the adoption and our experience in Vietnam. The travel blog will be password protected and I am happy to give any of my readers (even you lurkers) the password so that you can follow along. Just send me a quick email (link is in the sidebar below the picture of me drinking tea) and introduce yourself and ask for the password and it's yours. If you don't want to follow the travel blog, there will be some quick updates here at Little Acorn and of course I couldn't deny you a few photos of our beautiful little one and her happy family. Once we are home then it will be business as usual here at Little Acorn, but with a whole lot more baby girl cuteness and a little more sleep deprived/jet lagged/new parent craziness! 

These cream filled chocolate cupcakes with whipped ganache frosting* were made for a potluck lunch we attended today which was a happy, busy, noisy, gathering of families with children from Vietnam. We're so lucky to have connected with these great people and I love the thought of all the babies growing up together. We thought we'd be there to celebrate our friends who will be meeting their daughter in Vietnam on November 16th, but we never suspected that the celebration would be for us as well!

Okay, off to tackle some things on my list...

* Recipes are available at the Martha Stewart website  cupcakes, cream filling and frosting

*WIP

* That's "works in progress" for those of you who might not know that.

I like calling them "works in progress" rather than half finished attempts at craftiness languishing in the pile 'o shame because of 1) pure laziness or 2) some unforeseen disaster. I was doing a big tidy up of my studio in anticipation of moving it downstairs so that the room off the kitchen can become a playroom and I found a lot of WIP's. Here's just a sampling...

#1 Crocheted Baby Blocks

 

Project started: end of May 2009, when I was so very sick

Reason for stall: too lazy to go to the foam shop

Likelihood of finishing: I even have all the ends woven in, so I think it's pretty likely these will get finished

#2 Baby Beret/Tam/Slouchy Hat

Project started: Thanksgiving weekend

Reason for stall: I think I'm going to run out of yarn and that makes me anxious

Likelihood of finishing: I like knitting small gauge in the round, the yarn is pretty and a baby in a slouchy hat (possibly with a pom pom) is too cute, so I think this is the most likely of these projects to get finished quickly

#3 Booties?

Project started: no idea...If I had to guess I would say Autumn of 08

Reason for stall: lost in pile of other stuff

Likelihood of finishing: After I took the picture I did find the soles and lining for these, so if I can come up with the pattern I was using I suppose I could finish them...but I probably won't

#4 Jumper Dress

Project started: July 2009

Reason for stall: we didn't know if the small person was going to be a boy or a girl, so I thought I should wait before making too much girl stuff

Likelihood of finishing: I'm intimidated by this project for some reason, but I suppose I'll give it a try at some point

#5 Play/Floor Quilt

Project started: August 2009

Reason for stall: I don't know what fabric to use for the binding and the vintage linen I used for part of it got all stretchy and weird so it's not very square anymore which bothers me

Likelihood of finishing: It's too big a project to just leave, so I'm going to have to just pick something and finish the binding and live with the less-than-square aspects of it

#6 Crib Blanket

Project started: October 2009

Reason for stall: I lost my crochet hook down the heat vent, am discouraged by the amount of ends I have to weave in, I didn't buy enough of the teal yarn and it's turning out way crunchier than I'd hoped (I went with acrylic for practicality and it's just awful)

Likelihood of finishing: The colours are perfect for our girl's room, but once I lost my hook I lost all enthusiasm for this project. It will end up at least a dolly blanket, but I may not finish the crib sized one

There are more, but I just have to leave it at that. All creative people have WIP's right? I probably have an average amount, yes? How many do you have? What's your oldest WIP? I will definitely absolutely probably finish up some of these soon, I hope. Or maybe I'll just start some new projects. The WIP's are patient...

A Sad Day, with Cupcakes

I know that sad days and cupcakes don't usually go together, but today they do. Today our baby girl turns 3 months old and she is 6,750 miles away from home and it's unlikely that anyone is marking her special day. I made cupcakes and we're going to go eat some Pho to mark her day, but it's hard to call it celebrating. I know I shouldn't be sad, but I am. Lam is just a wee baby, and while we are waiting and counting each minute until we can be together, she is just living her life and isn't pining for us at all. She's sleeping on her reed mat snuggled close with the other babies to stay warm as the weather cools in northern Vietnam, she's  drinking her bottles while being held by women who care for her greatly. She's hanging out in her bouncy seat and learning from everything around her. Sometimes she is crying, but I know there is someone there to comfort her. I know that the orphanage is taking good care of our girl, but I can't help but be sad at all that we are missing. They change so much in these early months that I feel a loss at every day that goes by that Lam isn't with us and today I am feeling it more acutely than most days. If they could just tell us WHEN we could go, it would help immensely. Right now it's still anyone's guess when it will be. If we had a date, then we could start counting down the days until we're united, but not knowing is just hard. I know I'm setting myself up for ending up in a black hole of disappointment, but all I'm asking Santa for this year is to have Lam in my arms by Christmas.

Happy 3 Monthaversary, sweet baby girl. We're coming as soon as we can.

Any ideas?

David is very excited about Lam. VERY. Daddy to a little girl is the role he was born to play. He is ALL ABOUT pink and tea parties and dollies. He's working hard to get the house ready for her and he is also a willing and happy shopper, so we've been filling her closet with cuteness and trying to ward off baby-stuff-itis, but it's hard. To be honest though, when it comes to clothes, mostly what we buy comes down to me to decide. He knows that Lam is going to be cute no matter what she wears and he says he doesn't trust himself to match colours (I don't know why since the man had a great sense of style when we met which somehow disappeared over the years). Anyway, there's not much he wants to see his baby wearing...except he has declared that Lam MUST have a shirt with this on it ...

 

Yes. Sweet baby Lam must have a "Know Your Pork Parts" onesie. When he found the vintage brochure from the Alberta Pork Producers down in his basement o' stuff he just knew that it would make the most rockin' awesome baby gear ever. David is a big fan of pork and this is one of his favourite places to eat, so it makes sense, I guess. I admit, it's a great graphic and you'd certainly never see anything like it at the Gap. Anyway, to get back to the part where I need help... I scanned the image and worked on it in photoshop to erase all the fold marks, but now that I've got the image, I don't know how to make it be on a shirt.  We've used the inkjet t-shirt transfers before, but I found that they're stiff and after just one wash they're starting to look trashed already. If that's the only option though I will do it. David doesn't make many requests, so I really feel like I need to make this happen for him. I don't have the knowledge/skill/equipment to silkscreen (oh, gocco...I never even had one, but I miss it so). I could do the pig as a freezer paper stencil, but the "parts" is the whole point. I'd like something that looks fairly professional, but am out of ideas. Anyone have a good plan for me?

Putting the Garden to Bed

It finally stopped raining long enough to dry things out so that I could get out into the garden and give the grass one last mow, plant some bulbs, mulch the vegetable beds and do one final organization of the tool shed before this gardening season is declared done. It seemed to become Autumn really quickly after the Thanksgiving weekend and I was worried that the rain wouldn't stop long enough for me to get my projects done, but today was a picture-perfect beautiful day. Autumn is my favourite season and today it was at it's best - sunny but crisp and cool, with colour everywhere and that very particular smell of Fall in the air. As I was mowing, it suddenly washed over me that I had a daughter and that she'd be here soon. The next time I mow the lawn, she'll be here. When the daffodils that I planted today bloom, she'll be here. I've been working on the garden since we moved to this house in 2005. Back then it was nothing but a muddy dog run, with amazingly vigorous weeds of all sorts and a few shrubs planted in all the wrong places (including the poor little palm tree I found languishing in the deep shade back in the far corner), but over the years the garden has been transformed and now there are flowers to smell almost year round and grass to lay on while you cloud gaze and places to grow vegetables and herbs. One of my favourite spots is a tiny secret garden just right for reading books in the shade in the summertime while the honeysuckle blooms overhead and the birds watch from the tree tops. I always knew I wasn't just making this garden for myself, but for my family and I can't wait until we can explore it together.

Random Kitty Picture

Musette just wanted a few people to tell her how beautiful she is...

Hope everyone is having a great weekend. For us it's a mix of house renovations, putting the garden to bed for the winter, getting ready for the small person and trying to catch up on sleep so we can shake the sniffles that have been plaguing us for the last few weeks. We're also meeting some friends for Vietnamese food so that we can hear all about their plans for their upcoming trip to Vietnam to be united with their daughter! Their sweet girl is just 2 weeks younger than our Lam, so it's amazing and wonderful that they will have each other as they grow up. I hope the two girls will be great friends - I can just picture their two dark heads pressed close together as they whisper secrets to each other.

knitknitknitknitknit

Fresh off the needles this morning is this "Kaia Babydoll" knit from the pattern at Crafty Wee Wifey.

It was an easy, quick and mindless knit, and I love the lack of seaming. It took exactly 2 balls of Baby Cashmerino, which is a satisfyingly soft and squishy yarn to work with. The lace part at the bottom got nixed after my first attempt ended with me having to frog back 3 rows. Lesson: lace and television don't mix. I think it's one of those patterns that I'll make again and again, but there are definitely changes I'd like to make. In all the pictures that accompany the pattern the neckline definitely rolls and I can't say I like that. Mine is rolling a bit too, but I'm hoping once it's blocked it will straighten out. Why am I so delusional about things like that? It's not like I didn't notice the roll...I just thought mine wouldn't do that, which is just plain denial of the facts. Next time I'll work a few more rows of garter stitch or maybe moss stitch (my all time favourite) which will hopefully stop the rolling. I think I'll also try it in a smaller gauge as the bottom is just too loosely knit and drapey for my taste. I'd also like to try it with the whole skirt portion in a lace pattern, but with the increases every 5 rows, this might prove too tricky for me. All in all I'm happy enough with it, and of course once our small person is wearing it, no one will notice if the neckline rolls or if I forgot one of the increases.
Next I'm looking for a pattern for a 3-6 month sized shrug/bolero/short fitted cardigan, hopefully in a really easy lace pattern. And while I'm wishing I'd like it to be knit top down, with no seams. Is that too much to wish for? Or it could be a crochet pattern, but then I'll have to learn how to crochet more than granny squares. In Vietnam the ceremony at the government office where Vietnam's Lam becomes our daughter forever is called the "Giving and Receiving Ceremony" and of course we want her to be dressed beautifully to start her new life with us. These are clothes we will keep forever and hopefully someday they will be special to her too, so it feels really important to us to choose just the right thing. In my fantasies she is in beautiful handmade clothing from top to bottom, but although I have a rich imagination, I DO know my limitations, and sewing fancy baby clothes isn't within my skill set. I wish it was possible and I feel a touch guilty about having store bought clothes for such a momentous occasion, but I know I'm setting myself up for disappointment if I try and make her a special occasion dress. We have bought her a really lovely little jumper dress and blouse, and because it will be winter and cold in Northern Vietnam she needs to have at least a sweater to go over it for the ceremony, and that I know I can manage. Now just to find the right pattern...

Thankful

As we celebrate Thanksgiving today I am thankful for so many things...

All my family

The Baby, of course, and all she will bring to our lives

My two crazy, lovely, Cats

David, of course, because he's a good man and a great husband

My fridge is always full and I never have to wonder if I'm going to Eat today

All the new Friends I've made this year

My Garden, the source of so much beauty and peace in my life

My House, which keeps us warm and safe at night

Ice Cream, especially the "Loads of Peanut Butter Cups" that I am OBSESSED with

Thinking about the future brings me a lot of Joy lately, and it hasn't always been that way

I am the recipient of a lot of Kindness, and it never goes unappreciated

The Library, which lets me take books and movies and keep them at my house for free, no strings attached

Mom, of course

Nesting is more fun than I ever imagined

Once when I was going for a walk I saw Otters playing on the little island. It was pretty magical to watch them using the slippery rocks as a water slide. I love living near the Ocean.

We haven't had to call a Plumber since 2005. I also adore Potatoes.

I love Quiet, and am always thankful for it and I know once our girl is here that it will be even more precious to me so I'm appreciating it more than ever

Reading, which helps me escape and opens up the world to me

The Sun just won't stop shining this autumn

I've had the opportunity to Travel in my life and will soon head across the ocean to Vietnam

I haven't used an Umbrella yet this year because the autumn weather has been freakishly nice

I'm thankful for Vietnam, where my daughter was born and where we will become a family

Clean Water is something I never have to think about and I can have a hot shower anytime I want

I didn't need any X-Rays this year!

Yarn makes me happy and knitting quiets my monkey-mind

Zephyr, the kitty with the gentlest soul and softest belly finally likes to sit on my lap and that makes me extremely happy!

 

That baby sure has a lot of hats...

Can't...stop...knitting...baby hats...

When you 've got something to celebrate (or someone to woo)

My David is a romantic guy and a great cook. Yes, I'm a lucky, lucky woman. He's not a frequent cook, but whenever he makes us a meal you know it's going to be DELICIOUS and the kitchen is going to be clean when he's done and it's going to be way past your bedtime. David is a slow and careful cook who can follow any recipe and he has impressed many people with his signature dishes. This amazing White Chocolate Satin Tart has a shortbread crust, fresh berries and a white chocolate ganache. It's the dessert that he wooed me with on our very first Valentine's Day and it certainly worked on me! He made it recently for a potluck and since we had raspberries left over he decided to make another one just for us! Turns out that the day he made it we did have something to celebrate, as it was the day we got THE EMAIL. Of course we were both too excited to eat, but it was nice to have it waiting for us the next day once our stomachs had stopped flopping. This beautiful and decadent recipe is EASY, but you don't have to tell anyone.

White Chocolate Satin Tart

Ingredients:

Crust:

1 cup all purpose flour

1/3 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter, slightly softened

1/4 tsp vanilla

Filling:

12 squares white chocolate, chopped (use the boxed baking chocolate - good quality Callebaut is yummier but the texture wasn't quite right the one time it was tried)

1/2 cup whipping cream

1/4 cup butter

2 cups fresh raspberries

For the crust, combine flour and sugar. Cut in butter and vanilla until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. You can do this in the food processor if you want, but it's easy to do by hand. Form the pastry into a ball. Press on to bottom and about 1 inch up the sides of a 9 inch tart pan or springform pan. That's right - NO ROLLING OUT PASTRY! Chill the pastry for 30 minutes then bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes and then cool. The pastry might get a slight golden hue, but don't let it brown. 

For the filling, melt white chocolate, cream and butter in the microwave on medium for 3 to 4 minutes, remove and stir until well blended or just put it all in a pot on the stove at medium until everything is melted and blended. Spread the raspberries evenly over the baked and cooled tart shell and then pour the chocolate mixture over evenly, making sure each raspberry has a silky white coating. Refrigerate until firm (about 2 hours) and then let stand at room temperature a little before slicing it into 10 to 12 servings. No garnish is necessary, but whipped cream, white chocolate curls and some reserved raspberries never hurt anyone.

More Gnome-y Goodness

Remember the Gnome Hat? I was so excited that Yetta at Lang Lang Creations was inspired by me and has made them for her gorgeous children. Head on over there and have a look...beautiful knitting and two of the world's cutest small people... Maybe if we all ask really nicely she'll share pictures of her and her husband wearing their Gnome Hats too?

Tet Trung Thu

Happy Mid Autumn Moon Festival to all! Tet Trung Thu as it is known in Vietnam, is being celebrated with mooncakes, lanterns and moon gazing at our house. Autumn Festival is a time for children, when traditionally parents turn their attention back to the family after the hard work of bringing in the harvest is done for the year. It's also a time to think of those who are missing and not there to celebrate with you, as no matter where they are in the world they are looking up at exactly the same moon. Today of course we are thinking about Lam who is watching the full moon rise far, far away from us and our thoughts also turn to Lam's birth family who will be celebrating Tet Trung Thu without her for the first time. I will likely never speak to the woman who gave birth to our daughter, or meet the man who fathered her, or the many other men, women and children who are a part of her first family, but I wish them all peace, and I promise that I will love your girl with the fiercest, kindest love and she will be given every opportunity to grow and become the amazing person she was born to be. She is too little to have any memories of you, but you will always be with her, and we will always honour you.

Getting Ready

Thank you so much for all your well wishes and for sharing our joy and excitement that our small person is on her way home! Unfortunately the timelines between receiving the child's information and when you can travel have slowed down a bit, so it will be December or January (or maybe even February, but don't even say it because that is just too horrible to contemplate) before we can hold sweet Lam in our arms. It is HARD to wait, but we know that the steps that are being taken now are important to make sure that this adoption is legal and ethical, and we certainly wouldn't want anything else but that. What is happening now is that Lam's information is being transferred from the orphanage to the central adoption authority who then undertake a thorough investigation with the cooperation of the provincial authorities where she is from to make sure that she is legally available for adoption and that we are suitable to adopt her and that all the correct procedures have been followed. This can take anywhere from 2 to 5 months, with 3 to 4 months being the average. We take comfort that she is being cared for by a group of very loving women who take great pride in keeping the babies happy and healthy, but she needs her Mama and Daddy and we can't wait to go. Here at home we still have many things to do to get ready for our daughter's arrival. Since we found out that it was a girl, there have been shopping sprees a'plenty, especially for clothes.While we were waiting we would look at all the lovely tiny girly clothes, but we didn't buy anything because we knew that it could be either a girl or a boy, but now we're filling her closet! We may not need to shop again until she's 3. It's a joyous explosion of red, yellow, orange, blue, brown and of course PINK in there. It's really hard to buy things for little girls that aren't pink, isn't it? I'm certainly not anti pink, but you can certainly get overloaded with it pretty quickly. I'm still on the lookout for black onesies or baby t-shirts. A black t-shirt and a pair of jeans is sort of our family uniform, so she needs to have them too! Speaking of closets... what I was doing on September 22nd at 5:07 when the email that changed our life arrived, was working in Photoshop on a picture of her closet so that I could do a post on how her room is coming along.
The room is blue/aqua...sort of a Tiffany's box blue, I think, although I didn't think of that until after it was painted, and we plan to add lots of white and little touches of red and pink. The painting is all finished and the closet system is put together (there's a rod for hanging clothes around the corner - it's a big, weird shaped closet). In the room we have a rug which those bad cats are working on wrecking already and my Nanny's rocking chair  and the crib is waiting to be put together. David is painting a dresser and refinishing the doors and has a list of projects after that as long as his arm. I need to get busy as I've got lots of things I want to make for our girl, including quilts and blankets for her bed. Her room needs artwork and a mobile, of course. Then I need to make her softies, knit her sweaters and hats and try my hand at sewing some clothes. I'll also be shopping on etsy as there are just so many amazing things there for babies. I think keeping busy is the only way I'm going to cope with being separated from my daughter for the next few months...

I have seen the future...

...and the future is cute!

You may have wondered why it got so quiet around here all of a sudden, and some of you might have guessed the reason. Last Tuesday, at 5:07 we received the email that changed our life, telling us there was a baby waiting for us in Vietnam. We have been waiting until a Doctor specializing in internationally adopted children could look at the medical reports and give us an all-clear before we shared our news with the world. Our plan was that as soon as I saw that it was "the email" I would turn off the computer without reading it and call David immediately so that he could rush home and we would open it together and see our child's face for the first time and find out if it was a boy or girl together. My heart was beating so loudly I could hear it and after not being able to figure out how a telephone works for a few minutes I finally managed to call David at work where he was just finishing up for the day. He rushed home, but that still takes 20 minutes, so I did some manic tidying up while my thoughts raced. Is it a boy? A girl? How old? When David got home we set up the video camera so we could capture our reactions as we opened the email... A shout went up from David almost immediately - "It's a GIRL!". There was instant crying (me), ear to ear grinning (David) and an attempt to distract us by walking in front of the computer screen (Musette). We found out her name and that she was born July 27th. Then there was a minor panic as we realized that there was no picture or medical file attached. Finally we noticed that a large file was downloading and all of a sudden there she was... So so beautiful. Some wispy black baby hair. Sleepy eyes. A button nose. A perfect rosebud of a mouth. A sweet double chin. OUR BABY...a very small person. We have just one tiny, blurry, low resolution picture, but as soon as we saw her we started to fall in love immediately. She just looked right and it felt like we recognized her. We continued to videotape ourselves for about half an hour as we laughed, cried, hugged, exclaimed "She's so beautiful!" and "It's a girl" over and over. Her Vietnamese name is Lam, which means Forest, and she is just sweet baby Lam to us for now. We are working on her Canadian name but we still have a long way to go before we have it decided. We hope by the time we arrive in Vietnam to have it at least narrowed down to a one page list. The Vietnamese government discourages the public sharing of photos before the adoption is complete, so as much as I want you all to see how lovely she is, I just can't take the chance of making anyone mad, so here is just a wee peek at our sweet daughter.

What's your story little baby? Where did you come from? What have you seen in your little life?  We feel so honoured to have been given the important job of being your parents. We're going to love you SO MUCH.