The End of 2009

And what an end it is. It is apparently too much to ask that we be healthy long enough to host the New Year's Eve party we'd planned. We'd already had one person down with food poisoning at the beginning of the week, and then Bean woke up just before midnight last night, threw up three times all over her room. Daddy-o spent the rest of the night with Bean and a bowl, not getting much sleep.

Then, at 6 a.m., Daddy-o started feeling sick and needed me to relieve him so he could spend the rest of the day in bed. Our plans have obviously changed and now we're just hoping everyone else in the house stays healthy.

We can only hope that 2010 starts better.

And just in case people who read these on one of the readers are confused as to why new posts are popping up, but aren't the latest on this website, I'm trying to fill in everything that I missed this last few weeks for our family history. So you can decide if you feel like reading about Thanksgiving and Christmas plans a few weeks later.

Christmas Crafts

I meant to post more as we went, but honestly, we were just lucky to get much done this year. Probably because I spent a lot of my crafting energy and time on the JYC class (which I stayed pretty caught up with through Christmas, but need to finish up the last week when illnesses took over). And I made several crayon rolls and story dice as well, so I was busy, even if we didn't get to all the crafts I wanted to do. But we did make a few cards to give to teachers,

cinnamon cornstarch dough ornaments, which I liked their color so much that I didn't want to have the kids paint them,

And three wise men hangings--these were actually thanks to Bean's Circle Time class, and her teacher who sent home all the supplies for a second one so Bugaboo could make one too. Then we did these carollers--they are just toilet paper rolls painted, with a face drawn on (I used masking tape to block off the face before we painted), old socks tied with ribbons as hats, and paper mittens and song books.I was happy to have something to do with the holey socks I keep finding in the kids' drawers, but didn't think about the cute designs being upside down on the hats--oh well.Bugaboo needed some help with the faces, but not with picking out the colors! And he came up with the idea to add ties to a couple of his. We decorated cookies, which I know I said I was done with. But in a very low key, actually enjoyable way, unlike some of my other cookie decorating endeavors. Bean made the one above for me--I was impressed with how well she was able to write with the frosting.And Uncle D. did quite a few cookies that were a little nicer looking than the rest. He does have an unfair advantage of having learned how to pipe when he was in cooking school. But he also is just very creative and came up with a lot of fun designs. And then there was the gingerbread house--my favorite parts were the melted snowman,

and the kids' gingerbread men. They both worked painstakingly on these, making sure they had exactly the right colors in the right places, which once again involved a lot of yellow for Bugaboo.

I'll just save the felt ornaments and other ideas for next year. We may start making our decorations in July to fit them all in.

Christmas Eve

Little snuggle time watching Rudolph with Rara,
Getting excited because the day we've been talking about for 2 months is finally almost here!
And an evening trip to McAdenville, the self-named Christmas Town of these parts. Looking at lights isn't part of our normal Christmas Eve traditions, but we hadn't made it over there yet, all our guests were in town, and it gets dark so early that we actually did this before dinner, which was a good thing since there was a lot longer line, backed up about a mile on the freeway to see these lights when we were on the way home.

Our appetizer dinner of mini-pizzas, fondue, spinach dip and all the dippers was pretty fast to pull together when we got home so we had time to read Luke 2 and 'Twas the Night before Christmas (which, by the way, our favorite versions are the Pirate's Night Before Christmas and An Aussie's Night Before Christmas, although we also have a few copies of the traditional poem as well) and the kids were still in bed before 9, with visions of sugar plums, or more likely, huge amounts of chocolate and candy canes, dancing in their heads.

2009 Ice Storm

We were hoping for snow, but woke to fing a glittery world of ice.

A Day of Christmas Parties

A busy day of parties. . .our neighbors annual brunch, and a little Christmas carolling, and fun with our neighbors and friends.

Then, off to see "If You Take a Mouse to the Movies".which the kids LOVED,even if waiting was hard.And then we ended the day with Bugaboo's playgroup's Christas dinner. Good food, a fun gift exchange, and only a small incident where Bugaboo decided he needed a candy cane off the tree, even if he had to take the whole tree down to get it. But no one was hurt, only a few non-heirloom ornaments were lost, and I think we'll even be invited back.

Hair Sculpture

Another great de-stresser: "The Mo-hawk"

"Little Devil"

"Love"

"The Queen"

And finally, a little something we just like to call, "Crazy".

Christmas Catch-up

Day 8--the sights of Christmas

Day 9--Christmas traditions

Day 10--I decided to skip writing about our gift wrap because honestly, I just don't care much about gift wrap, although I could write about how my dad used to carefully cut off each piece of tape as he slowly opened his gifts and then would fold it neatly for next year. Maybe another year. For this year, I just wanted to record my state of panic that day.

And finally, because I'm sure you've been DYING to see this, what my desk looks like when I'm scrapping daily:

Yikes.

It's Not All a Waste

I think this is mostly to make myself feel better, because even if I did waste a lot of time (curse you, Facebook!), I still got a lot done today.

I baked a loaf of bread (I think it turned out pretty great, if I do say so myself. New recipe--I have two friends who make this bread and I have been meaning to try it out for months--it is fabulous, although a little more involved than my normal bread),

made pumpkin pies,

Journaled my Christmas (and tried to remember that this is to bring me more peace and joy this season, not to send me into a fit of panic),

bathed the kids, tended to a bloody lip (play got a little exhuberant around here today), emptied trashcans, vacuumed floors, made meals, completed a load of laundry (and for once, its not sitting in the basket in the corner of my room), and was spiritually fed at our church women's group Christmas dinner and program. That always help put a little perspective back into Christmas, although presents for the kids is still not optional.

Oh, and part of why I haven't been sleeping good is just because I keep staying up late, but I just finished a fantastic book--

The Help by Kathryn Stockett. I loved loved loved this book. In fact, I've read a lot of good books this year--I'll have to get some reviews up here when things die down at the end of the year.

Panic

That's about where we're at right now. I haven't been sleeping very well, and now have this pit in my stomach, which, rather than spur me to action, seems to be driving me to spend endless hours checking everyone's facebook profiles today so I can ignore my to do list.

One of the moms from our Wednesday playgroup said she wasn't coming this week because she had to finish up some last minute shopping. Her words: "I am so last minute."

Wanna know a secret? I have bought exactly one book for each of my kids and one gift for Daddy-o. That's it. I know several other gifts that I'm buying, but as for gifts I actually have in my possession as of this day just 2 weeks before Christmas, that's it. And some of these gifts--including ones that need to be mailed next week--are even supposed to be handmade, so its not even a matter of a few clicks of the mouse to have them shipped on their way.

I started out so organized last month. I have been picking up stocking stuffers for months now and I started Christmas shopping weeks ago, but I just haven't had much luck coming up with the perfect gifts for everyone I love. Some years it comes so easy, and other years I really struggle and keep putting off the actual purchasing because I'm always looking for something better. And somehow, Christmas is catching up with me this year.

Please, someone else (besides my husband, who seems very content to do Christmas Eve shopping--he's even been at out at Walmart at midnight before picking up one last gift) tell me you haven't really started your shopping yet.

Niess-ness

Bean wrote out this note by herself tonight--It was fun to see the creative spelling, especially since she hasn't been willing to try spelling on her own very often, but prefers to ask me about each word.
"Everybody (I love that she left out the "r"--she still can't really say that sound, so I guess she doesn't even recognize that it is there in a lot of words.) has to be nice to make Jesus' bed be soft."

In an attempt to improve the way we have been treating each other in our home, and to focus on the birth of the Savior as the reason behind Christmas, we introduced a little game last week--whenever any of us do something nice or helpful for someone else, we get to put a piece of straw into a basket that is going to be our manger for baby Jesus. We hope we'll have a soft bed for him by Christmas (although I haven't seen the changes in attitude I was hoping for, but maybe it will at least help me notice that there are good things mixed in with the hitting, biting, and body slams.)

And tonights Christmas Journalling was right up my alley. I am a list maker, so this just meant copying down my bits and pieces of To Do lists I have all over the place and putting them in one place for posterity to see just how OCD I really was. There's a list tucked into each of the envelopes, which is also nice because it makes this functional--I can pull out a shopping list and take it with me if I want.

Christmas Journalling

I am really loving doing this. I haven't really scrapped anything for over a year, so its fun to get back into that and I love spending my evenings reflecting on different parts of our Christmas celebrations--so far, I've covered the weather, Christmas correspondence (you might remember the great debate of '08--just to warn everyone, we decided to go with mostly virtual greetings this year. We wanted to buy a fake tree and that was quite the investment), a perfect Christmas (or in our case, those perfect moments), and how we count down to Christmas, which is my favorite page I've done so far, and I love that I could use up some of the leftover numbers.

The only part I'm really behind on is the pictures, which I'm just not including on all the layouts, and then leaving space for the ones I want to go back and fill in. I should have been ready with the printer, but hey, I did a lot of prep work on the album pages, so I'm just glad that I had that much done and at least have something to show for each day.

Counting Down

(There will be a picture of our advent calendar on the red paper when I can get it printed--our printer is almost out of ink so I need a new cartridge, or to send my pictures somewhere else to be printed this week.)

When I got today's JYC prompt, about our various countdown traditions, I realized that its already December 5th, and I hadn't pulled out our advent calendar which lets us move Mary and Joseph closer to the manger each day, we hadn't started reading our nightly scripture about Jesus, and I hadn't finished the advent book I was going to make for this year with a Christmas story or poem to go with each day. We're starting a little late, but no pressure for perfection!

And as long as we're at it, here's a list of our things to do this season. There are plenty more, I'm sure but since we've only done 3 or 4 so far, I think that we're going to be busy.

25. Make hot chocolate mix for last minute cocoa needs.
24. Trim the tree.
23. Make salt dough ornaments with the kids.
22. Cookie baking.
21. Sing and dance to the Christmas radio station all month long.
20. Serve at a soup kitchen.
19. Put up the icicle lights.
18. Watch It's a Wonderful Life.
17. Finish making presents.
16. Wrap presents.
15. Go ice skating.
14. Make felt ornaments.
13. Play games.
12. Get the chimney swept.
11. Visit the Biltmore.
10. Scrapbook and journal.
9. Read Christmas stories.
8. Make peanut brittle.
7. Christmas at Latta Plantation.
6. Help the kids paint Christmas wrapping paper.
5. Church Christmas devotional.
4. Make fudge.
3. Read Luke 2.
2. Enjoy all the family time.
1. Take lots of pictures!

Perfect Christmas

The prompt today was about our idealized, perfect Christmas. I decided to approach this by taking little snippets from our day--the perfect moments. And it was all going so well as I watched the sunrise through the bare trees in our yard, listened to Bean sing Christmas songs along with the radio and played with the kids in the yard. I was thinking how easy it is to see the good if you are looking.

And then the dog ran off, rolled in something completely rank and I had to spend an hour bathing her and then myself, which completely threw off our very tight morning schedule. And then Bugaboo dumped his full cup of milk all over the floor, which now needs to be mopped, and I only have one hour until my neighbor's 3 older kids decend on us for the next 24 hours, to join their little sister, who's already here (their parents are in Italy and the grandparents don't get here until tomorrow afternoon to take over so we offered to keep them for a night--which means we'll have 6 kids in our house--something we've never done overnight before!). Not sure how to spin the last few hours in a perfect light, but I do know that by looking for it, its kept me from total dispair and tears today.

I'm hoping that after all the kids are in bed tonight, I'll be able to scrap this prompt--but either way, at least I've been living it! And who needs a truly perfect Christmas. If everything was beautiful and quiet and still, it wouldn't feel like home.

Dancing Queen

I think that watching 5 year olds, with their facial expressions and general squirrely-ness, doing ballet has got to be some of the best entertainment out there. Parent visiting night was awesome--I laughed so hard I almost cried (And unfortunately I missed most of the good stuff with the camera). Even though I've been looking forward to the end of this class, so our Tuesday afternoons won't be quite so crazy, I now find myself hoping Bean will change her mind and want to keep taking ballet. At least for a couple more years until it gets serious and they stop being so funny.

Taking Back Christmas

I signed up for an online scrapbooking class, Journal Your Christmas, last year, with the idea that it would help me take back a little of the magical Christmas spirit that tends to get lost in the hustle and bustle that now signifies Christmas for me. Of course, the logical, boring side of me was screaming, "But that means one more thing to add to an already stuffed schedule!!!!" Which is why I told myself that I had no obligations and that it was purely to help me spend a little time thinking about the holidays and my traditions.

I didn't get too far, although a couple of posts last Decemer were inspired by the daily prompts, but this year I've done a lot of prep work getting an album ready, and as of December 1st, I'm still on schedule! :)

The text reads: "Christmas has always been one of my favorite holidays. The twinkling lights, the Christmas trees, the sweet smell of baking holiday goodies. And even as a pretty young child, I loved the deeper meanings of Christmas—finding that perfect gift for someone, spending time with family and friends, sharing the love of Christ with others. But now, there are too many years that I spend all my energy trying to create the perfect Christmas and not enough enjoying the celebrations as I go or reflecting on the activities and traditions I am creating with my family. This year will be different. This year we will bake the cookies, and document the event; make cards and discuss; put up lights and remember. This year the memories will be relived, and then recorded for future enjoyment. I’m looking forward to sipping hot cocoa as I try to capture a little of the magic each day this season."

So here we go--the Christmas coutdown is on. I feel a little like I'm running to catch up right now, but I'm determined to enjoy the season and the time with my family this year. There's always time to go back and catch up with all the other stuff later (including the Thanksgiving blog post that I haven't gotten to yet.)

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas--Updated!

Various forms of this sign now decorate half the doors in our home. The Christmas secrets are in full swing. Bean is just so excited that she can't wait until we have the actual supplies to make gifts, or have time to go shopping, so she is creating her own gifts for all of us and wrapping them and hiding them all over the place. I have a feeling we'll be finding Christmas gifts for months to come.

This is one of the few crafts I can post right now--baby gift for a friend who I don't think ever has the time to get on here, especially now that she has a new baby girl in the house. I love how easy these skirts are and how fast they come together--wish I could talk Bean into one for Christmas, but after declaring how much she loved this one, she refuses to let me make one in her size. I never know what is going on in that girl's head.

Updated with directions for the skirt:

For a 3-6 month size, you need 19 inch elastic piece (I used 1", but would probably try 1/2", I just didn't have any), 1 piece of fabric, 9" by 40-45", one piece of ribbon same length as your fabric, plus more ribbon for the bow at the waist if you want. You can adjust these sizes for a bigger skirt--I measured a skirt I had in the size I wanted to get the waist size and length.

Fold one long side of the fabric down a little more than the width of the elastic (I did about 1 1/4") and sew, making the waistband. If you wanted a nicer edge, you could fold it under slightly before you fold for the waistband, but I skipped this. Thread the elastic through, pinning one end once its all the way in and then gathering the material until you can get the other end. Sew ends and then put right sides together and sew the side seam of the skirt. Then hem the skirt--this one I did fold up twice, and ironed for each fold so I'd have a nice hem.

For the ribbon, first make sure you seal the ends so they don't fray--I just use a lighter. I guess you could add the ribbon on before you sew the side seam and then the ends wouldn't be exposed. Just thought of that now. Either way, pin the ribbon around the bottom and topstitch all the way around on both the top and bottom of the ribbon. For the bow at the waist, I just handstitched it on, mostly at the knot, but with a few stitches on the top of each loop as well to keep it from flopping down.

Post pictures and let me know if you make one!