New Year project!

Hope you all had a great new year. As I predicted we went to bed early, exhausted, only to be woken up by the massive explosions of fireworks all around. Actually I'll re phrase that, I was woken up, Tony snoozed on thanks to his earplugs!! I got out of bed and watched the displays going off  and was amazed to see lots of golden chinese lanterns floating through the night sky too. Eventually the noise stopped and I was able to get back off to sleep.Tony got up early to go to the gym and I managed to get two baskets full of ironing done prior to going outside into the garden to do a bit of tidying up. It was a lovely bright morning, cold but sunny. I know the experts say you should leave the top growth of summer flowering plants for the birds to eat the seeds and to protect the crowns of perennial plants but the garden looked such a mess I couldn't bear to leave it any longer. Lots of spring bulbs have pushed their way through the soil and it is so mild at the moment that it really does feel as if spring is just around the corner.
I have been working on a crocheted stripey baby pram blanket this week. Tony's niece is expecting her first baby in March and I thought it would be nice to do something for her. I didn't want to do neutral or pinky colours (we know she is having a girl) so I decided to use really bright colours. I have never done a stripey pattern before so had to surf the internet to start with to find out how to and having had a practice run with a single colour the blanket is coming along nicely. Do you want to see it?

What do you think? I need to buy another two or three balls of wool tomorrow in town to go any further with it, definitely another orange colour, possibly a jade green and lavender too. I hope she will like it.
A couple of months before Christmas I knitted these little owl egg cup cosies. Now I know I saw them on a blog I read and I can't for the life of me think whose it was, so if it was yours let me know!! Don't you think they are cute? Owl shaped things seem to be everywhere at the moment.

Wednesday was youngest granddaughter O's 2nd birthday and we all went out to celebrate. She had a Gruffalo birthday cake  and here she is in her Tinkerbell costume with Auntie D opening  one of her presents.

January is a busy month for birthdays for us. Eldest grandson A is 7 later this month too.

I have been reading some of the resolutions some of you have made. I haven't made any in particular this year though I would like to lose some weight....yawn!!!....yawn!!! (unfortunately my willpower is somewhat lacking) and I want to get into the savings habit again this year.
This weekend is going to be another busy one for us, food shopping to do, christmas decorations to take down and the house to clean. I have already taken down the tree in our lounge, it was looking very sorry for itself and starting to shed some needles. What have you got planned for the weekend?