holidays

yea, so those last two of DPP? They aren't going anywhere, so I'm going to recover from my guilt-fest. Post them already, and move on to New Years posts and all that.

December 24

I thought that after the cardboard box "presents" under the tree picture, I ought to prove that the children were, indeed, well-endowed on Christmas morning. Much thanks to the paternal unit for doing pretty much all the wrapping. (Though I had to rewrap a couple that Marlowe "practiced" opening while we were waiting for Grammy and Poppy to arrive on Cmas morning)

December 25--The Big Day!

So this may be a totally uninspiring photo. Out of all possible pictures that could be had on Christmas, I had to choose one that had to be edited to smithereens because it was so hard to make out. But it captures one of my favorite moments of the day. After all that wonderful time with my wonderful family, of course. I had gotten Ellis a couple of art books, like with projects in them, not the kind with color plates and you leave on your coffee table. One of them was Good Earth Art by MaryAnn Kohl (love her!!!), with art projects focused on the world around us, either taking in nature, or clever ways for reusing materials. In the pile of Christmas Awesomeness, these books took a back seat. I figured they were more of a do-with-mom thing anyway, which was fine. As evening drew on, though, I looked over to the dining room table to see Ellis studying this book intently and then setting about on a project to make this little house from one of the many boxes then littering the premises. He's more of a Line the Cars up Rows Over and Over kind of kid, and not really a Making Projects kind of kid, so this had an extra measure of beam and joy from me. Definitely a highlight of my day.

I hereby declare today Swedish day.

My energy is waning, and the to-do list is getting short either by completion or deletion. I needed to keep today a little bit simpler. My main task for today was to make Swedish Coffee buns (after the Rayburn's recipe). My college roomie and I bonded over Christmas and our shared Swedish heritage. I love these coffee buns she made every Christmas. The secret is cardamom. I made a pile for our Christmas breakfast and sent a text to her. She was making them, too.

And then, of all the perfect timing, my package arrived with my amber necklace that I had ordered. How perfectly Scandinavian!

The only thing missing was a trip to IKEA......

Ellis is into playing Santa. He rides around on his Tonka truck (aka Sleigh) delivering cardboard bricks (aka presents) to good little mommies and daddies. Then he carefully arranges them underneath the tree. Dress rehearsal?

This morning he bounded into my room at 6.30 with a loud "ho! ho! ho!" and then snuggled in bed with me asking me to make him a Santa costume.

I just better keep an eye out before he recruits Marlowe for Rudolph duty.

Speaking of Marlowe and ornaments. He has to say "hi" to all his friends in the ornament aisle of Target every time we go there.

Whoops. Got really behind on posting. But I have a bunch of pictures. So here's my catch-up.

I had to use this day to share one of my new favorite ornaments. This beaded T. Rex that we got at the Natural History museum in NYC over Tday weekend. Or, as Marlowe says, T. Wex.

On Friday evening, Chris and I actually had a date night. I think our third for 2010. My kids went to my parents' for the night, and we went to an Anonymous 4 concert.

We made chocolate covered pretzels. As you can imagine, Marlowe loved it. I melt some chocolate in the crock pot (which I actually stuck in the microwave--the crock part), because it was nice and big for lots of hands to be dipping in. I gave the kids bamboo skewers I had leftover from the summer. M had a blast fishing pretzels out of the chocolate with his skewer. E had fun until he got too many chocolate smudges on his hands, and I kept making him wash his hands after he licked his fingers. We made these as gifts, so I was super vigilant on the mouth plus chocolate thing, if you know what I mean.

Got these fun lighty toys for the Wreath o' Fun. The kids are having so much fun with them. Might snag a couple for the Fourth of July, too.

My boys love to snuggle in blankets--even Marlowe, the Not Snuggly One (he takes after me). The caterpillar around the house in their comforters, and it totally drives me crazy! I don't know what it is about blanket/pillow mess. But I love their snuggling.

So somewhere between hating comforters and loving snuggling, I decided that they needed Christmas blankies. And since I'm toning down Handmade Holidays this year, there is, apparently, a crafting void. The need for Christmas blankies come upon me so strongly, that I actually took both of my boys to a fabric shop at 4.30 pm, which, if you've ever taken your child into any store--least of all a fabric store--at that hour, you will know is the first step on the road to Crazy.

Honestly my vision was simple: a couple strips of festive for the top, and fleece on the bottom. But then I ended up being super cheap about it, and only buying 2 yards of top fabric (4 half yards, which yielded 4 fat quarters per quilt). This is was not nearly enough for snuggling. So then I had to dig around in my stash, which is so extensive that I really have no business being in a fabric store ever again. I had some white fleece, which served as a border. And I had gotten a half yard of some festive Merry Christmas fabric on sale from Sew, Mama, Sew. In my stash, I luckily found the Jay MacCarroll Winter Wonderland, of which I think I had a whole yard! and some other Christmasy fabric that came from my mom's. So the total size ended up being 2 x 3 fat quarters with four inch borders. You do the math. But it's a perfect size for little boys. Since I used fleece as the back, I didn't bother with batting. And I sewed the top and bottom right sides together, turned it right side out through the little hole I left, and then stitched around the border (like you would for a bag). So SUPER simple. Not even bound. I did a little "machine quilting" that wasn't very successful. I'll probably hand quilt a little design on a couple squares one of these evenings I find myself watching a favorite holiday movie.

It only took me a few evenings to make both little quilts. They went together quickly. I love them. And the boys love them. And they are very snuggly. I have visions of pulling out the Christmas blankies every year. (And plans for spring blankies and summer blankies....oh will someone just shoot me?)

I'm cheating a little since I took this pic over a week ago. But I had to share the snowflake project of 2010. It's not Christmas without snowflakes. Lots of them. Creating a magical wonderland. I crossed ribbon over the dining room table around the hanging lamp. So walking through the dining room is walking under a canopy of snowflakes.

It warmed this mama's heart to have Ellis really join in for the first time in snowflake making this year.

Last night we went to get the Christmas Tree. It's a bit early for us, and impulsive. But we went ahead and did it. Got a huge Douglas Fir from a fire dept tree sale. It's gorgeous and full. Ellis wanted a BIG one, and we got a big one. His grin shines brightly in the dim light of streetlights illuminating the early darkened December evening.

And today, I got our Wreath o' Fun fully established (which has got to be a first), and we put the tree up and let the kids toss some ornaments. I splurged and got LED lights for the tree. Freaking out over the 30% raise in rates from the electric company.

December Photo Project