Christmas holidays

I'm really enjoying Christmas holidays and having my 3 kids home all day.  First off, I don't have to make lunches and snacks for school - a huge deal!  Secondly, there's no need to rush in the mornings.  A couple of days this week we haven't gotten our act together until noon.  I love it.  The kids seem content for the most part, to play and play and play.  They make paper wings for all their stuffies.  They cut out paper tiaras for them too.  J is super into paper airplanes and he makes about 50 per day, all makes, all models!  You can imagine how much paper there is around the house.  Little bits everywhere, airplanes everywhere amidst Polly Pockets, Lego dudes and all their accessories.  I am so happy that my children love creative play, but I feel overwhelmed with the messes that happen.  It is good when clean up time happens.  I have to remind myself to relax and let my kids be in the space in their way.  We took a break from playing and had time to have tea in these fine China tea cups I scored at a garage sale in the summer.  I put them in the girls'stockings and couldn't resist getting one for myself too.



I've also had some time to crochet.  I have fallen in love with crochet lately.  I made some hats for Christmas presents.  These are two of them for my little nieces. 

As of late, I'm really inspired and completely smitten with Lucy's life and work over at Attic 24.  I want to spend all of my money on beautiful shades of yarn and crochet everything I see there!  I can't stop thinking about the colors, the possibilities, the fun.  A couple of days ago I bought some cotton yarn in hopes of crocheting some samples of Lucy's patterns and using them as dishcloths.  The fun!  The joy!! 

This one's already in use.  It is beautiful to use, so soft and cushy.  Here's a better picture:

This is Lucy's Ripple pattern found here.  Love it.



This is the Granny Stripe.  Not finished yet.  It'll make a cheerful addition to the dishcloth collection!  And this here is the Hexagon.

I really enjoyed the challenge of this one, especially joining the hexagons while making them.  I grabbed a few minutes and curled up in my favorite chair today to finish this one.  Who says dishcloths have to have four sides anyway?  This one has a great feeling attached to it because while I was hooking, my little M curled up in the comfy chair beside mine and worked on her finger knitting project. 

It was a wonderfully peaceful time together, the two of us with our projects, soft Christmas music filling in the silence.

Christmas highlights!

No matter how tired or stressed I've been before Christmas, the day is always perfect.  It is hands down my favorite day of the year because it's a day of relaxation.  We stay in our jammies most of the day.  We eat and lounge around as if there are no other cares in the world.  Everybody is content.  It's a day I can be with the ones I love most - and I can just be.  Breakfast is always awesome.  G made his delicious cinnamon buns - he often does on weekends, but they were extra awesome.  He added last night's birthday nachos to the scrambled eggs.  Sooo good!  The turkey bacon rounded off the meal.



I let myself drink as much coffee nog as I wanted...all day.  It was divine.  We got 2 packages from Japan which made our day extra special.  One from our exchange student's parents, all wrapped up beautifully with many gifts inside like Hello Kitty snacks, lego, pottery, and the like. 

The second package that arrived from Japan was from our previous exchange student who is now in her second year of university in Tokyo.  It was actually a New Year's package, but she gave us permission to open it on Christmas! 

Snacks, snacks, and more snacks!!  Creamy, sweet, salty, delectable.  All kinds of tastes and textures.  Pretzel sticks.  Suckers.  Cream filled cookies.  Vanilla cream filled tubes of goodness.  Chocolate covered strawberries.  Candy.  Wow.  But the best part of the gift was this card. 

And inside...

It's a sushi bar, my friends, a sushi bar!!  The Santas are all enjoying some Christmas Day sushi!!

It is the bestest Christmas card I've ever received...I will keep it forever!

In the days after Christmas, I'm always thinking about the New Year and my goals.  I love the idea of starting fresh, stopping to reflect on and reevaluate life, thinking about where I am right now and where I'd like to be in the near future and beyond.  As I get older, I'm learning the sweetness of moderation.  Don't go at anything too hard.  Do a little at a time.  Life isn't meant to be a strain and stress.  I worry about exercising enough, but if I don't snack in the evenings, I don't need to exercise so often.  I worry about areas of mess and clutter in the house.  But if I clean up a little here and there and throw a load of laundry in the washing machine everyday, the clutter and overwhelmedness won't build up.  I have so many creative projects I want to try, and NOW, and complete them all NOW.  Again, one project at a time, 30 minutes here and there.  The process of enjoyment is so much more important than the actual thing.  Oh, I'm learning.  More about resolutions later...

A warm Christmas Eve

Today was a beautiful day.  Clear skies, spring-like weather, really.  A pleasant surprise and a nice change from the bitter cold it usually is around this time.  A perfect day for a family trip to the "purple park" as my kids call it - a lovely park with sprawling jungle gyms by the kids' school.  We brought the football and tossed it around.  It was a perfect Christmas Eve morning. 

It was M's birthday today.  She requested Pad Thai and Nachos for supper - an odd combination!!  G made a double layer chocolate cake for dessert.  Super yummy.  He was not too happy about how the lettering spilled over the edge but I thought it was perfect.



Guess what?  My wish came true.  I'm sitting in my favorite chair with my egg nog and rum, the tree lit, peaceful Christmas music surrounding me.   All is as it should be.  Merry Christmas.

 

Getting ready

Hello! This morning the girls and I made gift tags, inspired by this cute idea on Pinterest.  I think we made lots...we kindof got carried away. 



I cut out little pieces of pear-shaped fabric for the reindeer\bird animal's body then drew the details with an ultra fine sharpie pen.  The girls got out the ink pads and were doing fingerprints.  You can see the wreath at the bottom done by M...

C (age 3) went to town with the fingerprints!  She diligently fingerprinted entire gift tags!

Love M's Rudolph (above)!  One final view of the kids' creations:

I got out the Santa sacks, which are reusable fabric bags that I put gifts in every year, and ribbons....

Mustering up the energy to wade through the pile of gifts and put them in Santa sacks with tags is a challenge.  And yet, I find that every Christmas Eve instead of enjoying the lights on the tree with a mug of warm egg nog and rum, I'm madly wrapping, cleaning up, and doing other random chores to get ready for the big day.  I hope this year might be different.

Kiddies Christmas Tidbits

I have been up to my eyeballs with little sewing projects for the kids.  J needed black pants for his Christmas show at school.   I found some incredible black fabric at the ReUse Centre.   



 

The fabric has a tight weave and is shiny, giving a more dressy feel to the pants.  I found this wonderful sewing blog, packed with tutorials with easy instructions.  I used the flat front pants tutorial.  It's like it sounds: flat in the front, elastic in the back. 

[caption id="attachment_11" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="flat front, elastic back"][/caption]

 G picked up these black shoes at Value Village for $4 and gave them a shine with some black shoe polish.  Good as new! 

Now onto my little projects for the girls:

Sooooooooooo fun!!!!  Wheeeeeeeeee!  My heart was singing as I put these together!  I singed the edges of each fabric circle - lots of great youtube videos on how to do this.  I covered the first hairband with black - a bit fiddly.  The purple one came like that so I was glad!  Oh, and by the way, this fabric too, came from the ReUse centre.  I love that place!