Christmas Morning

Things are a bit backwards at our house on Christmas morning. My kids are early risers, they rarely sleep past 7:15, and are usually up around 6:45. There are two exceptions to the rule, however, Sundays and Christmas morning. On Christmas morning, I wake up on my own around 6:30, get breakfast into the oven (done the night before), and then get back in bed. Eric and I have always put a baby gate in the kids way to block them from their gifts, but there's really no need. We have to wake up our children on Christmas morning at 7:15 so Eric and I can eat my yummy breakfast at 8 am.

After the usual Christmas morning picture with half asleep children, we release them to their stockings and Santa gifts.

The kids must have been pretty good this year, they got some good stuff from Santa. Santa brought Eme and Maddie a My Little Pony nursery, and for the boys he brought Lego Star Wars for the wii and glowing lightsabers for the remotes. But really, none of that mattered. The boys were so thrilled with their first Bakugan ball found at the bottom of their stockings (just 1 mind you), that they were oblivious to all else. Eme loved the 2 Littlest Pet Shop animals in her stocking so much, that she claimed Maddie's too.

I am super proud of myself this year. I totally surprised Eric! (This should come as no surprise to my family, but I am a horrible secret keeper when it comes to gifts. Oh, I can keep the kids' gifts a secret for ages. But when it comes to a really good gift, I'm so excited that I end up giving the surprise away. I've gotten better in recent years, like two years ago when Eric and I gave each other iPod nanos for Christmas. But this year takes the cake.) We found an old hammock stand in the backyard when we moved in, and having no hammock, it has sat, disassembled in the back corner of our yard. This past August, I found a nice hammock on clearance for way cheep, 75% off. I bought it and then hid it under Ashlee's bed, where it sat until 2 days before Christmas. Eric's first gift was two cans of spray paint: a rust blocking primer coat, and a black satin finish. Next came the hammock, wrapped in three different papers (I refused to go buy more paper for the last gift). He loved it, and has since spent some serious time just lounging about in the backyard.

The rest of Christmas morning past in such a whirl of paper and toys, that I get dizzy when I think about it. But these pictures pretty much sum up our morning. Maddie got a new kitty, the boys got more Bakugan, and the Eme got fairy wings. We could have stopped with just those, and our kids would have been fine.

But we didn't. Eric and I were either really ambitous or really stupid, I'm not sure which. But we built the kids their final gifts. They each recieved a box with a clue in it, and then were sent to go find their last gifts.


The boys found theirs in the garage, were unimpressed, and went back inside to play Bakugan. (it is the first of two desks for the boys)

The girls found theirs in our room. A kitchen that I designed and Eric built. Their reaction was much better than the boys', Eme ran downstairs to bring up armloads of play food to stock her kitchen with.

There was one last surprise in store, and this one was for me. Eric got me Band Hero. I was completely surprised. I did have to fight Maddie for the drum sticks, but it was so worth it.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Christmas Eve

We awoke Christmas Eve morning to find this sitting atop our backyard neighbor's tree. We were all mezmerized by it for a few minutes. It was kind of funny really, you see Eric has always told the kids that the birds were Santa's spys. Who else could fly back up to the north pole? Right before we spotted this guy, the kids had been getting to each other again. Once Eric pointed out the hawk, they quieted down nicely.

It was a quiet day for us, for the most part. Eric spent most of the day out in the garage finishing/making one of the boys' gifts. The kids and I had baked my final batch of cookies the day before, so I was done with the kitchen. And the kids were still happy to be together on break, so the contention was minimal. But they were starting to get bored by lunchtime, as usual.

We waited until Maddie went down for her nap to open our family game/activity to get us through Christmas Eve. It isn't alway easy to find a game that will be easy enough for Eme and yet fun for Aidan, there's a 5 year age difference. But we made a great choice with the Toy Story edition of "Ker-Plunk". It was easy enough for Eme, and fun for everyone, Davin especially loved the aliens. Eric and I had lots of fun playing it too, and "helping" each other to loose more aliens.

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The game got us through the duldrums of the afternoon until it was time to head over to Nana and Papa's house for dinner, a talent show, and the Christmas story. Thankfully, Maddie had been on the anitbiotic eyedrops for more than 24 hours (pink eye), so we could all still make it. It was a bit more challenging this year, having to keep Maddie as much away from the other kids as we could, but we managed. Dinner was wonderful, as always. And the kids did a great job with their parts in the talent show. Aidan had been working on a magic trick of making a scarf disappear for a few days, Davin drew pictures of "gingerbread dinosaurs", and Eme learned "Jingle Bells". I told the Christmas story based on the candles of Advent, with the help of the Little People Christmas sets (8 kids 9 and under), and then we read from Luke.

We headed home for our traditional Christmas pj's. I love doing this at home, and then sending the kids straight to bed.

the girls

the boys

Delayed

I've promised myself that I'll get the Christmas pics up by this weekend, NO MATTER WHAT. So far, we've battled numerous colds, and now I've got pink eye (ahh, it truely is the gift that keeps on giving). But mostly, I've just been enjoying the time all together with Eric home. Oh, and Eric has been on the computers much of the time, reorganizing the music files onto one computer instead of 3. He's been having so much fun with his new toy-an iPod touch.

It's not Christmas time without...

books, music, and goodies galore!

Each year we add another book or two to our Christmas collection. This year we added the Fancy Nancy Christmas book, and the third in the Auntie Claus series (love this series).

We also added to our music collection: Andrea Bocelli's My Christmas, along with the MoTab's Ring! Christmas Bells. Both are absolutely wonderful. Oh, and we also bought the album Grandma Got Runover By a Reindeer by Elmo and Patsy (I'm still annoyed that I could only find it on iTunes.) We've got the music playing every day, sometimes all day long. I love the sounds of the season!

Thanks to a wonderful tip in The Joy of Cooking, we have turned our normally tasty Poppy Seed quick bread recipe into an amazing and wonderful Caramel Bread. Apparently, in quick breads, you can exchange white and brown sugars equally to alter the taste. So we did that, then removed the poppy seeds, and used Torani's Caramel syrup in lieu of the almond extract. I was a little hesitant, as I'm not usually a recipe tweaker, but I'm glad I did as the result was an instant hit.

Of course, we've also been baking up our favorite cookies. And it's not Christmas here without fudge. I make 2-3 batches over the course of the month. We give lots away, and we eat lots ourselves. My favorite recipe comes from The Better Homes and Garden's Cookbook (the red check cookbook), it's their "Remarkable Fudge" recipe-the one with marshmallow creme. Although, you really have to use a candy thermometer, as they flat out lie about the the time it takes (they say it takes 10 minutes to reach 236, but it is really 20, so be prepared). Other than that, it is a super easy recipe that makes a ton of very smooth and creamy fudge.

Not What I Bargained For

Here's a little tale of woe and warning on Christmas projects gone wild:

Two years ago, while perusing my favorite embroidery web site, I came across these beauties: embroidered lace ornament covers!

It was love at first sight. But I wasn't in love with the price, and at the time, we only had one tree. So, I had to wait. Then last year, with a second tree, and a 50% off coupon, I bought the design pack for the embroidered lace ornament covers. I didn't have the time to work on them last December, nor did I want to pay full price for glass ornaments, so I decided that these would make a great mid-summer project.

Of course, that didn't happen. And by summer I was too hot to babysit my embroidery machine, and it was too loud with all of the other noises my kids were already making. So they sat, untouched until November. Right after Halloween, I remembered that I had still yet to begin this project: make 18, yes 18, embroidered lace ornament covers-one set in brown over gold, the other gold over brown. So, armed with 40 and 50% off coupons I headed to JoAnn's for some Ultra Solvy stabilizer and thread.

At this point let me brief you on free standing lace. It is a pain in the butt. You embroider, using matching top and bottom thread, into a thin sheet of stabilizer (think plastic wrap, 2-3 sheets thick), being careful not to loose any stitches, or the whole thing can unravel when you wash out the stabilizer. The stabilizer tears very easily, and once it does, the whole design is ruined! It took me 7 sets of covers to realize I could embroider into double thickness, thus preventing the tearing.

Also, embroidering free standing lace requires a lot of thread. A LOT. Think about 2 1000m spools worth of thread for just 9 ornaments. It requires so much because you're using top and bottom thread of the same color.

But, wait, it gets worse. Another point I had failed to realize was this: that each half of a cover takes, on average, 45 minutes to stitch. Assuming all goes well, which it rarely does, so it's more like 50-55 minutes/half or in other words ABOUT 2 HOURS FOR 1. So, it then get really frustrating when the stabilizer tears. I figured that I lost about 2 whole designs: about 8 bobbins worth of thread, and 4 hours worth of work.

And on it goes. If those other problems weren't enough, I ran out of thread halfway through one of my designs. And since my machine won't hold my place if I turn it off, I had to leave it on until I could get over to JoAnn's to buy more thread (that happened the day that everyone was home sick). And when I got to JoAnn's, I had just missed the Viking Center closing by 5 minutes, but the lady was nice and hand wrote the order to charge me the next day. Then, a few days later, my machine was making a funny noise, I had to finish the first half of the last ornament, and put my machine away until I can get it serviced. That left me with a half finished ornament (not to mention 4 aprons yet to do), so I borrowed my mother-in-law's machine that I have a love/hate relationship with (I hate the tread system but I love the quiet).

With that machine, I was able to finish the other half, and get the other set of 9 covers done. Unfortunately, I now realize how old and loud my machine is, and now I want a new one (it only costs $1800!!!), but I don't see that happening any time soon.

So here's the total rundown of my simple project that got totally out of control:

2 pks ornaments on clearance last year ($3 total); 5 spools of 1000m thread ($30); 2 pks stabilizer ($20); embroidery design ($5).

ARE YOU TELLING ME THAT I JUST SPENT $60 ON 18 ORNAMENTS?! Please don't tell Eric. They do look good though.

Winter Garden

Because I know you all have been waiting with bated breath, here are the latest pics of our little garden.

First of all, here's what's left of our lovely Mimosa tree. I can hear the collective cry of "why" coming from you all. Here's why, we're getting two apple trees for Christmas (along with 2 grapes), and that is exactly where our new Pink Lady apple tree should go. And more importantly, our poor tree was infected. Severely. Over the course of this past year, we've lost two main branches (about one-third of the tree.) Just think, in 3-5 years, we'll have massive amounts of apples, citrus, and grapes, in addition to our growing garden.

I love that our garden gets bigger, and more efficient, each year. Last spring we added another 5' square, and this next spring we'll add the final section to give us a good 300-350 sq ft garden. Eric wants to claim some more "unused space", but I've put my foot down. That's for my rose garden. In all fairness though, he was thinking of 1 or 2 plants, but I had my heart on something closer to 6 to 8 plants. My heart just melts thinking of how amazing it will look in a few years...Okay, back to the tour.

New to our fall garden this year are peppers: 1 yellow and 1 orange bell, 2 anaheims, and 1 jalepeno. We also tried cucumbers this year. They've made some amazing pickles (along with the anaheims). Since the pumpkins did so well last spring, we thought we'd have them again. I'm sure they would have done better, had they not gotten powdery mildew on their leaves-we'll be lucky to get 5 fully ripened before the vine dies off. I got some beets in this year, but only 6-8 plants came up. Hopefully, I'll get more next year.


Some of our returning favorites include: beans (three varieties: wax, blue lake, and tender green improved), peas (we tried a dwarf variety, not too pleased with it), lettuce (mmm, salad), spinach, carrots (not quite ready, wait until Christmas), and of course, tomatoes. Two varieties this year: beefsteak and a cherry (if you look closely, you'll see more than a dozen cherry tomatoes on the plant).

Well, that's where we're at this year. Hope you enjoyed the little tour. By the way, any thoughts for pea varieties? Or other suggestions for plants to try? We love to try new things to see what works best here.

Davin's 6th Birthday

Davin had a great birthday (it lasted all week at school). Sunday evening I made his "poster" for being king of the week at school. I did 2 12" pages, so I can just slip them into my scrapbook later, all about our crazy kid. For his snack at school, he asked for Cheetos. Not cupcakes, or brownies, or anything else. Just Cheetos. Because, as Davin told me, he "just love(s) thier delicious cheesiness." How could I say no to that?


We started the day off with our usual first gift. This year it was "Spots", Stripes' big brother. (Spots is as stuffed Jaguar, and Stripes is a tiger). He has been asking for a Jaguar for months, since June, I think. So he was quite happy with his newest friend.


After school, I got to work on his cake. This cake has been debated over for months and months. Since Eme's birthday, seriously. He has wanted dinosaurs, a castle, pirates, a Kimodo Dragon (not kidding), and a forest cake (they do make a tree bundt pan, wouldn't have been hard). Davin was changing his mind several times a day up until the day before his birthday. I made him nail down the idea, and then wouldn't let him change his mind. He wanted an Oviraptor, one of his favorite dinosaurs. What he got was a Deinonycus (a raptor), that we called an Oviraptor (thank you Dinosaur Train for the coloring book page). He chose the colors, and asked for the volcano. This was perhaps the easiest cake I've done so far this year; all told, I decorated it in under 30 miutes!


After a lovely dinner of personal pizzas, green beans, and lemonade, we had family come over for cake and presents. Davin had a blast! It was lots of fun to have Eric's parents, Grandpa J, Aunt Rachel and cousin Owen, and Ashlee all there to eat cake, and help play (remove from packaging) with Davin's gifts.


After everyone had gone home, and most of the cake consumed, we got ready for bed. Davin, in his prayers thanked Heavenly Father for a "very, very, very, very, very, very good day." I'm glad it was a good day, dear boy. We were happy to do it.