Luge, and booties in two sizes

First, here is the finished version of the baby quilt. I love it, but then I'm just kind of digging baby things lately. I intentionally left the internal layer of flannel unwashed, so after I laundered the final quilt it puckered up a bit like a soft, old vintage quilt.

Next, Dorothy and I met a new refugee family being sponsored by our church at the airport yesterday. When no one speaks a common language (and the translator is tied up with airport personnel trying to locate lost luggage...ugh), there is nothing like the ice-breaking power of a preschooler to help everyone come together! She was holding hands and dancing around with the teenagers in no time, and in a situation where the (well-meaning) American volunteers seem to hold a little too much of the power, it is so nice to have an international symbol of "I trust you back," to give, in allowing the newcomers access to interact with and touch my own child.

When we came back home (unrelated, but see photo), I helped Dorothy fashion a luge track out of a paper towel tube, and her little dolls competed for gold medals for over an hour. We're normally tv-free at our house, but we've pulled the little 13-incher and the rabbit ears (now with digital box attachment after last summer's switch) up from the basement for the winter games and are enjoying some family time in the evenings watching the athletes.
Finally, a couple nights ago I was having the really annoying kind of contractions--the kind that don't seem to go anywhere, but can't quite be slept through either. So I got out of bed and started another pair of booties for the baby, on the grounds that although he is well stocked, he didn't have a newborn-sized pair that matches his hospital outfit. (We have matching blue and white jammies for our first day together.) So I made the navy booties, above. But then I finished them and thought maybe they were a wee bit big, but by then had grown attached to the idea of booties for the hospital, so I made another smaller pair, out of a not-so-matchy but lovely soft alpaca, and have both pairs packed. So I am ready for his feet, whether they happen to be on the larger or the smaller side for a newborn. The navy are more matchy, but the alpaca ones look more like my own hospital footwear (see crocheted socks, below). Both pair are variations on this pattern, which I have made many times. I think I'm officially a crazy pregnant lady, churning out superfluous booties here in the latter days, but what else am I to do? A mama can only judge baby-doll luge events for so long.