Christmas 2011

Even though our Christmas decorations are already packed up neatly and tucked away for next year, looking back through our kids' Christmas pictures makes me miss the prettiness of the season.  After being surrounded by Christmas spirit since the day after Thanksgiving, I was good and ready to nix the clutter and cleanse the house of sugar!  Anticipating a baby's imminent arrival added to my angst.  By the way, the Christmas season and the last month of pregnancy are a perfect combination for packing on a few more pounds of "baby" on your hips and thighs.

Excuse Owen's head melting into the wall.  I had precious few moments to snap pictures, as we were late for church, and didn't take the time to adjust the window shades.  These pictures were taken the week before Christmas.  Helen's dress was a hand-me-down from a cousin, Jack's flannel an Economy Shop find, and Owen's sport coat was purchased from a friend of a friend. 

Jack is my snuggly buddy.  I'm afraid he's not excited about his new baby brother. 

Here I am, all glorious, round and sparkly at 37 weeks.  And yes, I hear, "You're not that big!!" all the time, referring of course to my baby belly.  Spare me.  I'm 5' 8 1/2", this kid is everywhere at the same time, and he's been baking in there and displacing my vital organs for a long time.  OK.  Grumping over.

Helen is her daddy's girl!  He took her for a day of present shopping.  In the middle of J.C. Penney's jewelry section, he asked her which necklace she wanted.  She said, "I have enough necklaces.  I'm ready to go.  Can we go to Bass Pro?"

My kids have no idea what a great dad they have.  He works hard to provide for us, he takes time to play with them and he treats me very well.

On Christmas morning, our family traveled to church in waves.  Jason was playing bass on the worship team, Helen was singing in a kids' choir, and Owen was accompanying on his guitar.  These two were so excited, and both felt very grown up. 

Jack felt left out, and was extremely disappointed not to be able to stand by the drummer on stage.  The extra PBS programming he enjoyed all by himself apparently didn't make up for it.

 At least Owen thought he was accompanying; he had all the motions down but none of the chords. 

Of course, Helen had to adjust her elastic headband right before she got on stage; thus the hair pouf.  Oh well.  It's just my pride.  Afterward, she told me she had admired her cousin Abby's skirt (extreme right) and her friend Kathlyn's dress (green dress, left screen.)  "I wish there were two dresses, necklaces and bracelets like Kathlyn's, and then we could wear them at the same time!"

We had a wonderful, warm, quiet celebration with family on Christmas day, participating in the awe and joy of the Savior of the World born so many years ago.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you, whatever the state of your decorations!  May you have true Peace settled deep in your hearts.

Salt Dough Ornaments with Cinnamon

 Snowflakes are so pretty, especially when it comes to Christmas decorations.  I have crocheted snowflakes, paper snowflakes, plastic-and-glitter snowflakes and a metal snowflake on display.  I learned to cut six-sided snowflakes in elementary school, and I've been fascinated with them ever since, maybe more so now because I'm not shoveling them out of my driveway.

So when I saw these pretty (unpainted) salt-dough snowflakes, I had to try them.  I cringe at detailed painting with craft paint and tiny paintbrushes, and these snowflakes had pen! doodles! on them.  I had the idea to create some words with alphabet cutters, too, and Helen helped me plan those the night before.  Unfortunately, when it came down to cutting out the ornaments, my time (and patience) were thin, evidenced by my tardiness in the school pick-up line.  I was determined to use all the dough I had mixed, so I hand-shaped some initials for the kids and a dove for Quinn. I also rolled out a candy cane and remembered why I stink at play-doh.

I substituted cinnamon for part of the flour, to see what it would do.  Some of the salt crystallized at the surface.  It looks like frost.

I strung the letters together with embroidery floss.

 

Helen suggested we write "beauty."  I couldn't resist her.

They ended up looking more countrified than I would have liked, but they're cute in their own way.  I think they would make great package tie-ons.

I ended up painting the candy cane with a tiny paintbrush and some craft paint.  It's cute.  Jack's thoughts were, "Look!  A candyland is on our tree!" 

So what happened to the snowflakes?  They didn't turn out like my inspiration, to say the least.  I plan to try again later, when my unofficial Cookie Plate Week is over.

Late Christmas Projects

This Christmas, we filled stockings for the kids. As usual, I wanted to make my own version.

I found the perfect fabric at JoAnn, so perfect in fact that I bought more to make myself a blanket. I drafted a pattern for the stockings, and cut out and sewed one late at night while watching the latest Bond movie. Neither turned out well. I gave up for several days, then finished the other two later. Of course, each stocking needed to be marked with its owner's initial. And once again, no crafting supplies have my heart as much as felt and embroidery floss. Since I've learned to move when inspiration strikes, I scissored up the initials in between adding product to and blow-drying my hair one morning. I used a diamond-shaped cookie cutter as a pattern for the ornament, and frantically sewed them the day the kids opened their stockings.
The cookie cutter pattern gave me an idea:


A gingerbread man in the hand is worth two in the....cookie jar? This poor guy will have to wait a whole year to join the ornaments on my tree, since I made him in January during our Life Group's getaway to Pine Mountain, Georgia.

On our way home from Pine Mountain, we stopped in Auburn for lunch and some shopping. Do you think the kids love their new shirts?

More Felt Christmas Ornaments

Mom helped me with these while she was here. Thanks, Mom!

Felt Christmas Ornaments

Every year, I buy each of the kids a new ornament for the tree. I try to find one that fits them for the year. For example, I found a rooster for Owen one year since he was fascinated by their crowing. They love this tradition and so do I. They hang their own ornaments, usually in one big clump to be spaced out later by Mommy, and proceed to admire them the rest of the Christmas season. This year I once again began the search for the right ornaments. And then I stopped in my tracks. Why was I wanting to spend (too much) money for a little trinket that had no previous meaning? Especially when I had all my inexpensive crafty resources laying around?

Here's what I came up with for this year, and I just might stick with making their ornaments from here on out!
I made my own pattern and cut two felt pieces for each crayon's color. I stitched the kids' names with embroidery floss onto black felt, cut them out in an oval shape, cut out some black squiggly lines for the crayon paper, and handstitched everything onto one crayon shape. I embellished it with a few more simple stab stitches, then put it all together with a wee bit of stuffing in the middle, adding an embroidery floss hanger. Easy, peasy! And a whole lotta fun too.

Some Christmas Crafting

Here are a few of the things I made this Christmas:
Helen's Christmas dress, made from a hand-me-down pattern from Kim Rudd and some pass-along fabric from Lisa. I intentionally made it big, so she could wear it next year too, provided she follow my plan of growth for her. Ha ha.

Superteeth now has a pajama shirt. I did this with freezer paper stencils. It was nearly the most fun project ever, like I caught myself wanting to jump up and down in the kitchen as I peeled the stencil off the shirt.



And Christmas cheesecake. This little stinker grabbed my fork off the table! He hasn't even mastered baby cereal yet, and here he goes for caramelized sugar, Ghiradelli chocolate and cream cheese. From the accidental tastes I've had of baby cereal, I can't say that I blame him.

Merry Christmas from us to you, albeit a late greeting!

And Jack just turned six months old. He has four teeth and a great sense of humor.

Cleaning the Living Room

Yesterday I removed three nails from the trim above my living room window. They had held up a sheet in lieu of a more traditional window treatment, but the sheet had been down for, oh I don't know, maybe a year?

Last night we put up the Christmas tree. I found busy weevils snacking on a gold spray-painted pasta ornament I had made with my students 8 years ago. Because I'm sentimental, I:

a) air-hosed it off and hung it from a light fixture.
b) repaired it with glue and dried beans.
c) thanked God for the chance to get rid of it, and junked it along with the box.

You decide.

The Cliffs of Insanity

Yesterday was full. Today is full. I am looking forward to vacation--Grandpa and Grandma B love to help with their lovable grandchildren!

My mother in law and I put cookie plates together, on behalf of the farm. Jason and his dad are delivering them this morning to the busy businesses they do business with. I guess Hendrix Tractor will still get one, the dealership that sold them the ill-fated International!

On each plate are monster cookies, peanut blossoms, chocolate-chocolate chip, mint chocolate chip, chocolate-ginger crinkles, chocolate-almond spritz, Rice Krispie squares, candy cane fudge, decorated gingerbread cookies and dipped pretzel sticks. Peanut butter balls dipped in chocolate were added later.

Last night, our family opened presents after a candlelit meal of fish sticks and tater tots. (My family's old tradition.) We also added potato chips to the menu. Hey, if you wanna make it fun for the kids... Besides, we don't normally eat that kind of food, so a little part of me gets excited too at the delicious goodness of cruising through the frozen section at the grocery store, and the indulgence of potato chips...yum.

Helen got an "H" pillow, made by Mommy out of hot pink velour. She also got a supercute set of stainless steel pots, pans and utensils, which was were the hit of the evening with both kids. Mommy got a toaster oven, and I let Owen play with it, with the new dishes of course. Today he is having a difficult time realizing that the toaster oven is not a toy. I made him a play toaster oven out of the box, but when he realized it was not like the real thing, he burst into tears all over again. Then he played with it until it got smashed several times and he burst into tears again.

Owen got a toy combine and a tractor mat. He had been playing with the mat while I was making it. It wasn't the hit I was hoping it would be. Oh well. Just my ego. He played with it a few minutes this morning.

Rude Noises

Yesterday and today Owen finally figured out how to hold air in his mouth and "spit" it out noisily, and he's been entertaining all of us in the house, in the car, at the table, and playing in the livingroom. We're just so proud of ourselves. He's been spurting water like this in the tub for a long time, but couldn't do it with air until now. I feel like calling his speech therapist and breaking out in celebration. We've got a long way to go, but finally a start! Tonight I walked into Owen's room while his daddy was putting him to bed. "He's making rude noises during prayer, and I don't even care!" Jason announced.

His speech therapist, Mrs. Stafford, or Mrs. Wendy because it's easier to say, comes every week. So far sessions have been less than great, mostly due to a certain little someone's attitude. Mrs. Wendy brings lots of fun stuff to do, but Mr. Owen likes to do anything but what she brings. We've been working and working on P and B sounds, and all the little mechanics that go into them. Put your lips together!

Owen's pretty solid on H, M, N and a little on W, all sounds that require very little effort. We're trying to get a referral to a different ENT who would be able to evaluate his palate, but so far haven't had good luck getting an appointment with the one of our choice. We really don't know what is going on with his oral mechanics, so I find myself in a hard spot with the speech therapy. How much progress is he capable of achieving, how much is he just refusing to cooperate, and how hard do we push him?

On a different note, we had Jason's family Christmas yesterday. I got some treasures, I tell ya! My sis in law is quite crafty, and made some matching earrings for Jan and me. I'm thinking about asking her for a coordinating necklace for my birthday. If you're having trouble seeing the picture, Les passed over the fancy beads and chose useful bobby pins instead.