this week in pictures.

this week our little nuclear family was happily rejoined with its ruling monarch, princess bean, after a nice stay in michigan with her grandparents.  we were all very pleased to see her, but she was especially excited for her reunion with someone in particular...

we celebrated with a nice brunch for her return that happened to coincide with my parents' anniversary. it was a nice gathering with good fall food.  while cutting potatoes i got at the greencity market long ago to roast, i came across this cool little potato tree.  i love finding surprises (good ones...dead insects are less interesting to me) in my produce.

all four of us had sunday and monday totally off together.  david and i have attempted to recall the last time we had two consecutive days off together in chicago...we got as far as july and still couldn't figure it out.  sunday was a perfect day full of knitting, eating, babies and football. 

bean helping prep a kale salad

i gained a new appreciation for football this week...it's the only thing that can captivate david's attention enough to keep him satisfied to do nothing but sit in our apartment for long stretches (which is basically my life outside of work).  not only did he grace us with his company without rushing around to try and do the numerous things he must on his days off, he took on a yarn detangling project i gave up on months ago.  if you look closely at the following picture, you will see all four members of our family with their hands on yarn!

throughout the course of 1.85 football games, david turned this impossibly tangled mess into a number of neatly coiled little spools of yarn.  i was so impressed, i put down my xmas knits to do a small side project in honor of this feat.

 the pre-cut lengths of yarn seemed ideal for stripes, currently on the needles:

in other news, i finally replaced my library card that disappeared mysteriously with the rest of my wallet months ago.  i happened to be at the library sans children (with children in that huge building, finding one book is about all we can manage before the noise level becomes inappropriate), and picked up THREE books.  very exciting.  currently on the nightstand is eating animals by jonathan safran foer...i'm about 50 pages in and i'm truly enjoying a novelist's interesting and very readable take on this vital topic.

two more shifts and then looking forward to a long weekend with the kids.  see you all next week!