When I told Charles about the Mabel’s Labels contest I entered, he was, of course, curious about what the contest entailed. When I told him that I had to write about my passions, his response, without having read my entry, was “Well, I can name three right off the bat: Abby, knitting, and pugs!”

I guess I really am that transparent!

Unbeknownst to me, he had already used those three things to build a theme for my birthday presents, which I discovered when I opened them this morning:

A yarn ball winder, a knitted toy kit, and a knitting book, which has patterns I can knit for the pugs and the cats! The book also has patterns for turtles, hamsters, rabbits, pond fish … and no, despite the picture on the cover, I’m not talking about patterns of these pets, I mean patterns for these pets! Not that we have any of these as pets right now … although I have had all, except the pond fish, as pets in the past.

I pretty much immediately had to try the ball winder. Isn’t that just a beautifully wound ball of yarn? Clearly Logan thought it was! I can’t wait to try it out with the yarn swift that my dad made for me for my birthday last year.

I decided to continue the theme this morning when I got dressed and I put on my sheep socks and my knitting shirt (which is conveniently also green to help celebrate the other important day today).

If only I could top it off by spending the whole day knitting.

Oh, and his response to my family when they asked if he had any ideas of things I wanted for my birthday: “Well, you never can go wrong with knitting things.”

Can you see why I love this man?