Christmas Captured

So, I seem to have given myself the needed boot in the buttocks by writing about the lack of photos. I picked up the camera this morning to capture a few scenes around the house, the Christmas that has come to rest in different nooks and places in our home. I wrote about the Tree and it's adornments. Here is a look at a few that make me smile. I love them all for different reasons, new or old.

The ginkgo leaf was found in Yosemite, while pregnant and still walking around two seasons ago. The glittered ball made by my Mama so many years ago, still hanging on year after year. The dismembered Santa is always featured, not sure why, but we love him. And a ball from Joann's found at discount and bought to use as a template for future handmade globes. Um, and this little silly one is my attempt to remember the boys' Christmas pants. I think he needs some eyes or something.


Our little freshie tree is wearing a few ornaments, but the boys keep stealing them to cuddle the angels (read: mangle) and play with the googley eyed reindeer, so I did not get too close.

And this garland is just waiting for its sprig of mistletoe so I can steal kisses from Tim and any stray baby that runs beneath.

We are hosting our Christmas Party on Sunday, including a highly anticipated gift exchange between a few of my lovely ladies. The aim was to hand craft something special to give, there are so many possibilities and I cannot wait to see what results. I promise to take photos. My ballet flats came out fantastic, but I will show those as soon as I get through the finishing. Let me tell you, felting in a front loader takes a few cycles, not a few minutes. And I let it go through the spin cycle and they were dry. I know, unconventional felting methods, but very effective.


And here is something that I have been carrying around and showing to every person passing me. It is the card from my little sister. And it is brilliant.

So, I called her to squeal about the absolute gorgeousness of it. And we talked. And she slipped into our conversation that she has a blog. A blog, people. That I knew nothing about until today. She said something about being embarassed, but I think she just did not want to show me up in her crafting excellence (she made the cards from a handmade stamp, self printed background and elephant poop paper...you have to read this post). So I am outing her. Because Emmalien, my absolutely brilliant sister, has a place where she is featuring her absolute loveliness. If you thought I could craft, well, please check her out. Maybe her Thanksgiving table. Or her spectacular jewelry, or her ability to craft a wedding cake. I predict she will have twice the traffic of my blog in a month. She is so awesome and will be home soon. Cannot wait, baby girl. Love you so much.

Now, where is my mobius scarf, huh?

Snow day and other Stuff.

I think I may not be alone in the slowing of posting here, it seems like a lot of Blogland is in suspension as we move closer to the holiday and all of it's wonderments and involvements. I have found a dearth of reading out there and a lack of time to put down on 'paper' all the great things we are doing and trying and seeing and being. Now that we are over our sick days, Time is flying by and if I felt like Alice a few weeks ago, now I feel like that silly Rabbit, running about and feeling just a bit Late.

There are a lot of great craft experiments happening, we have a little fresh tree for the first time as an accompaniment to our big ol' Fakey and it is getting to host handmade ornaments, new and very very old. There is a running joke about all the dismembered Santa ornaments and the limpy angels and elves missing body parts in the ornament box. We cannot seem to get rid of them, they make us laugh every year. And now the boys are helping out in adding to the collection in all their endeavors to pull down the tree. Our big tree has seen quite the abuse since decorated, it stands bare from waist down (naughty tree) as the boys like to denude him of his finery. And they are getting very tricksy and learning to drag table, chairs and toy storage boxes next to said Tree to reach the ever ascending ornaments. I think we will make it to next week, but just barely.

This year I picked up a few inexpensive Advent calenders from Trader's and introduced them to the boys. It only took about three days for Owen to get that there is choc choc behind those little paper doors and we now have a young boy that demands we 'do' the calender....more than once a day. It works out okay because his brother samples the choc, then always spits it to the floor, upon which Owen swoops down and rescues the offensive choc, with his own mouth. Mmmmm.

What else? So much. Last night I huddled in my lovely friend's new home, using her for wine and working oven, in order to churn out 8 dozen or so of the Killer Cookie that will break anyone of watching their WW points. Easiest recipe to share, use the Tollhouse recipe but eliminate the nuts and instead of chips, chop up 2 boxes of Andes mints (Target has them for 1.49, it is like prices from 1999) and mix those in (do not miss scooping up the Andes powder that results from the chopping). Take that, Laura. You better make these cookies. It is only fair for the whole buckeye post.

And in totally unexpected new...(I started this post this morning at 715 or so) I just returned from a day spent on our local mountains, mountains that received a huge dump last night, coming in at about 2 feet plus of fresh pow. My brother mentioned that he was playing hooky and maybe I should join. I floated the idea but thought I was too wiped out and busy to actually go. Then this morning I saw the powdered up mountains behind our house, grabbed my gear and hopped in his truck. Played my own hooky. My Mama and Dad took over the kids for me and we were up in Winter Wonder in a few hours. Worst drive, most excellent ride ever. It is my first ride in three years and I wondered if it would be like a bike. And, oh, it was. Sweet and soaring and surfing and sliding my way down, tumbling a little and trying my hand in some deep pow we hiked to (thanks, little brother for carrying my board). I felt renewed and free and cold and tired and so happy, despite the snot running down my unfeeling face and the wrong goggle lens for the situation.
Here is the two of us heading up the mountain.

There were moments when my mind was completely free of thought, obligation and even children. The focus that comes with fast movement is awesome. Whew. I know I will be toilet hovering from the sore legs, but I could care less.

You might have noticed I have not done the normal, picture interspersed post....no camera action lately. I could kick myself for missing the sun refracting through the sugared trees today, I totally forgot the camera in my frenzy to leave. But we have two more storms a'coming, so I may still get the chance, this time with the boys in the snow.

I will leave you with this gorgeous shot from my gorgeous man. He took this on our trip. The boy knows what to do with a camera, I'd say.

Now, back to the last minute crafting. I really needed today.

On The Mend

What do you do when your kids are sick? I know, sounds like a disingenuous question, but this week was the first time we have had to deal with real sickness in this house. Prior to this our kids have had the occasional runny nose from teething and a few bouts with what might be called a cold. This week was an all out snot fest accompanied with terrible coughing and terrible sleep. It had just about put me over the edge as I caught it right after Mason, but we are all on the mend and it has given me pause, and I have been thinking about sickness a bit tonight.


It started with Mace, he looked funny, then got the craziest green snot exploding out of his nose, then the cough. A few hours later I felt it hit me, and I mean hit me. Like a terrible dark wave of yuck. I rarely get sick, it has been years. I was almost bewildered by how badly I felt. And in the midst of my sickness, I still had to take care of them and work and do other stuff and, uh, function. It was not pretty for a few days and nights round here. The thing was, I could not help thinking of how badly they must feel. When I felt the splitting headache hit, I kept thinking there is no way their little bodies could be feeling the same as mine. And when a triple dose of Motrin dd nothing for me, I thought how awful it must be to not even be able to reason out that Motrin would not help. Then the cough took hold and I would hesitate and wince and try to hold it back to avoid the pain, and I heard them cough and thought there is no way their little bodies should feel as bad as mine did. The pleading looks they gave me while hacking up what sounded like a smoker's lung and the encrusted noses that I could not keep clean and the crying that would come out of nowhere as they shuffled around aimlessly with their Legos, it is a breaking experience.


I guess I have been lucky up until now, this being my first time of witnessing my children in pain that I was quite helpless to stop. I did not bring them to the MD, there was no fever, no indication that the sick, whatever it was, was not just taking it's natural course. I did not always feel as empathetic as I just outlined above, one night, my worst night, I actually yelled at them for climbing all over me as I lay on the couch with ever fiber of my body hurting. They just wanted me to hold them, but I just wanted to be left alone and for Tim to take it all over.
And he was great, stepping into night duty shifts to get us all through, making me tea and dismissing my bad behavior as part of the sickness.

The nights, I want to talk about the nights. In some way or another each of the boys have needed one of us to sleep with them at some point in the night. I doubt I have actually shared this here but we get in their crib with them, well, because we can. We are not overly tall/large people, and we seem to fit in there and we have no extra space, so that is what we do. In the past it has always been a rare occurrence but this past week it has been pretty frequent. I actually do not mind it terribly until limbs start to fall asleep. The boys have never slept in our bed in our room, it just has not happened. So our sleep together time happens in their room. I also have this really strong feeling about taking one out of their room with out taking the other. It makes me feel bad, like I did as a kid when one of my sisters would leave the room, it was always for bad reason (asthma attacks, etc) and I always felt sad and awake.

So anyway, the whole disturbed sleep, us sleeping with them brought up a few things in my mind. Like, they really like sleeping with one of us. And that I hope they would not get too used to it because I do not really sleep when with them because, you know, they are toddlers with unpredictable movements and very pokey elbows and hard hard foreheads. But here is the thing, I really like sleeping with someone (my husband, of course) I like the feeling of his warthm, of rubbing his feet with mine when I wake from bad dream, of not being alone. I am not surprised they like sleeping with another warm body, it seems to be part of our nature to huddle. And it makes me a little sad that we cannot always be there for them, to cuddle up to, sick or not, and feel that safe warm protection that one gets when sleeping with another. I am hoping that when they do graduate to toddler beds, they find comfort in each other and we walk into scenes of them stuffed into a bed, limbs all askew, happily warmed by the one they once shared the smallest space with inside of me. Sure, I expect a few round house kicks to their brother's head (remind me to upload a clip of the one 3D ultrasound we did record...all peaceful until Mace took a huge hit to the head from Owen's heel. I half expected him to be born with a dent in his head from that one).

So, yeah, musing on sick children. I do so love them, seeing them hurting was a very hard and humbling experience. I hope to not have to see (or go through that) again anytime soon. Shut up, Murphy, you did not hear that.

Friday Finishing : Christmas Countdown

Trying to get back on the proverbial horse around here. I seem to have ditched the Cranial Pounding Elves a bit, having passed it onto my sweet Timmy. It is nice to not see the world through a haze of sickness, I am really bad at being sick. It just pisses me off to no end.

The boys have been wearing their hats because it is my belief this helps spped the sickness along and out. I know, I have some crazy notions. But they have been leaving them on, so maybe there is something to it.

I have tried to stay true to my handmade holiday pledge and make a bit of something for most of the family. It has been mostly fun and, at some times, a little overwhelming and tedious. I placed Tim and the boys at the end of the list, figuring I can make them something anytime and the wee ones are still too little to comprehend the volume and timing of stuff. It is making me feel a little guilty though as I would love to have all the planned projects done for them. There is one project in the works that I sewed terribly wrong and had to seam rip apart to restart. That was an ouch. Still not re sewn yet, but in the queue.

I did make up their holiday pants for the season.

I seem to be ascribing to a tradition to make a pair of pants for them each season...these I am loving in their bold print with a bit of flair in the pant leg. Poor boys, they are too young to know most do not wear belled pants.

I figure I can dress them as I will until they are old enough to protest. Just so you know, this is a super easy non pattern sew that just requires a pair of fitting pants and fabric of your choice. Here is a link if you want to explore making your own. I cannot wait for Paddy's Day, I have to find little leprechauns drinking Guinness for sure.


The Christmas clogs have finally been completed.

I only started them in October (per Rav). It is not that they are a long or hard knit, just not very fun. Double stranded worsted weight yarn on large needles does hurt the ezcemic hands, especially as I seem to be developing a sensitivity to wool. I would recommend the pattern if you can commit to the multiple steps.

There is a lot of fiddly stuff, stitches to pick up, extra needles required, sewing and then the felting. I had to felt them for upward of 40 minutes due to the front loading washer. But the end result is worth it, they are comfy and quite cute. These, of course, are going to someone special, but I may have to make another pair for my feet.


And I have already cast on for these little slippers, always a sucker for a ballet slipper. Now, back to the knits and a bit more TV to accompany it all. Celebrity Rehab, anyone? Crack on the roof is not a good sign.