Comfy Knitting and Irish Food

Thank you to everyone who took the time to read my previous post about our Peace March activities and leave such thoughtful comments. It was so nice to hear from so many of you on this issue, and to have it confirmed again that we're not alone in our desire to have this war over.
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Jackson has taken a such a keen interest in my knitting lately that I'm starting to wonder if he'll be a young knitter soon. He loves looking at my current knitting book and usually sits quietly next to me on the couch flipping through it while I knit. He tells me what all the babies in the book are doing. He also tells me that every baby is "Baby Amelia." It's hard to know what his 2-year-old mind really understands about how drastically his life is going to change this summer, but he sure likes to talk about Baby Amelia right now. Fun all around.
Speaking of Baby Amelia, her very first sweater is done and ready for her for this fall:
Amelia's Kimono Sweater
Pattern: "Harvey Kimono" from Natural Knits for Babies + Moms
Yarn: Sublime Organic Cotton DK in "nutmeg" and "scumble"
Needles: US4 + US5 straights
Gauge: 6 sts/in (not on gauge; pattern called for 5.5 sts/in)
Size: 6-month size, though I followed the pattern for 12-month size due to having a smaller gauge
Notes: I correctly guesstimated all of the width issues with gauge, but sort of checked out mentally when it came to the row gauge. This means that Amelia's sweater is a bit more...uh...revealing in the neckline than it's supposed to be. Oh well, what baby wears a sweater without a onesie underneath anyway? I think the sleeves are too long too, but they look cute rolled up.

Here's Jackson again, loving my knitting (he snuck into the photo so quickly that I didn't even notice him until after I shot it!).
Dan and I always like to have an Irish-themed meal for St. Patrick's Day and tonight was the night (we're busy tomorrow). We're in love with the vintage Dubliner cheese that Whole Foods sells each year so we picked up a hunk of that today. I had potatoes, parsnips and carrots in the house, which I knew could also be turned into some sort of lovely Irish-y thing. I ended up putting all of the veggies together with a whole bunch of the Dubliner cheese in a root vegetable gratin similar to this recipe and it was not bad...not bad at all.
I think the best part of the meal though was the Irish Breakfast Bread from my favorite muffin cookbook. I've made this bread many times and it never disappoints. It was wise to make it the day before St. Patty's anyway, since the recipe itself admits that it's better the next day. We ate a couple of hunks of it with dinner (even though it's a breakfast bread), but most of the loaf is waiting for us for tomorrow morning with some strawberry jam. Mmm.
Erin Go Bragh, everyone. May the luck o' the Irish be with you.