day of mythbusting

We had a great visit with Karl's family the past few days.  Some of us went to the children's museum yesterday morning.  It was so busy we couldn't really stay together, so I didn't get any pictures of Haley on our camera.  Here's Elise building a wall/bed in the garden.  She got two kids to help her and then bury her.  Great fun, as usual.

The in-laws left after breakfast today--hope they had a safe drive home!, and we have been parked on the couch watching Mythbusters ever since.  Even the little lego guys are watching.  Good times!  I managed to drag myself away long enough to mail the hats and stop by the library (where I browsed as many books as I could carry home...as usual...).  I think we'll continue on with Mythbusters until bedtime, though.

There is the purple hat.  Elise says it is slightly tight, so it should be just right for a younger person.  And there we are playing games, too.  Little Al has just stolen Karl's seat...

More Merry Christmas

Elise found the right number of candles--almost melted the whipped cream frosting before I could blow them out!  Also shown are presents from our family exchange.  Karl bought Elise Christmas socks.  I made Karl socks and bought him some Nutella.  Albin bought me yarn (just ask me how perfect that particular yarn choice was!)  Elise made Albin shrinky dink Magic decorations and bought him some sour candy.

We had Swedish sausage and trimmings for our festive Christmas Eve dinner.  It was ready to eat the same time that the Nutcracker ballet was on PBS, so we moved the table closer to the tv and we could watch and eat at the same time.  It was a pretty good production--Elise really liked it

Santa brought Elise everything she would need to set up her fish tank from Teresa.  Our house is too cold for more beta fish to live happily, so this Aquamarine gets a warm tank, and we'll buy him some tetra friends after Christmas.  Santa brought Albin Runescape t-shirts, hat, and a Star Wars Lego set.

We talked to the families and heard how much snow they got for Christmas so far, while it was just raining here.  Looks like we'll all have a white Christmas this year!

Merry Christmas!

I spent the whole morning at the Sow's Ear, where I had a wonderful caramel drink and made Karl a scarf in three hours.  He needed a scarf.  I had the little laptop, and watched PBS, too (Wired Science and Cranford).  When I got home, Albin helped me shovel...in the rain...I've never shoveled the driveway in the rain before.  Our neighbor came and plowed out the huge pile from the snowplow at the end of the drive.  Have I mentioned what good neighbors we have??  All the trees and bushes are coated with ice, but the roads seem fine.  Hope everyone travels safely today!

By the way, that picture of Albin's room is what approximately 8,000 Magic cards look like when you spread them all over the floor.  Very pretty, isn't it?

Does this look like a hat to you?

There was some mystery crafting this afternoon (even Albin was involved!).  Our fabulous carpenter friend stopped by, and our front door won't be so drafty soon.  Elise and I tried knocking down some of the icicles with a tennis ball, and I threw one too high.  I guess we'll find it in the gutter in the spring.  I did a little shopping at the local grocery store, which was a zoo.  (So busy because of the impending weather or the impending holiday?  Hard to tell.)  And the ice pellets have begun to fall.  Hope Karl makes it home safely!  Maybe he could work from home tomorrow morning if it's really slippery...

Here's the hat progress so far today.  Doesn't really look like one yet, does it?

ear flaps!

I finished the ear flaps just now.  This purple yarn is so wonderful to knit I can hardly stand it...somehow, though, I will try.  (The cupcake hat just needs a cherry, and then it is done.  It fits Elise pretty well, though she says it is slightly tight.  It should be just right for a four-year old, I think.)

The chicken pot pie filling turned out fabulous tonight.  We were too lazy/hungry to make and cook it in a pie crust, so we had it over rice instead.  Gotta love one pot meals!

Albin's floor is covered over with Magic cards.  I think his wall/ceiling would look marvelous papered over with them, but he tends to disagree.  I guess they aren't so playable if you have to peel them off the wall.

quiet day

Albin has two friends over and I think they are sorting out all those Magic cards.  They were up until 3 or 4 a.m., but there was probably a lot of computer playing, as well.  I must be related to my grandma, because I want to keep feeding them.  At least they are good eaters!  I'm going to start a chicken pot pie for supper soon, but meanwhile, more hat knitting!  I didn't do much yesterday (finished up the secret Christmas knitting first), and today I sewed a few things for Christmas gifts, but now I'll sit for an hour and work on the hats.  My book was returned yesterday, so I can start the purple one at any time.

Here's progress on the cupcake one (I went an inch too far and had to rip back a bit.  It helps to read the directions properly, once in a while!):

 Here are some ornaments/gift tags that Elise and I worked on yesterday, too.  They turned out rather cute.

Hat at 3:00

and again at 8:00

Now Cranford is on PBS, and I can knit even longer--yay! 

This is looking to be a good, relaxing week.  We had a wonderful visit with my parents last week (note the sausage-making and show photos--that's Woody Paul from Riders in the Sky with Elise).  Albin might have friends over to divvy out Magic cards.  There are a few classes to finish tomorrow, more cookies to make, meals to plan with Karl's family visiting soon, and just a whole lot of Christmas joy to partake of.  I'm really looking forward to this week!

hat progress

This is the yarn I bought at the Sow's Ear today for the daughter of a friend.  (That's a gauge swatch--not the real hat!)  It is so luscious to knit I may have to get more.  I also bought

to make another

which looks like this, on my little bookworm (who says she's not really a bookworm)

Aaron, I'm starting the cupcake hat first because I need to get my book returned that has the earflap hat in it.  No charge for cupcake hat, as half of it is yarn from my stash, and I'll be able to use that gold skein for more hats than this one.  (Let me know if your daughter really doesn't like the look of it, though--I'll find someone else to wear it...)  I'll probably start the purple hat this week--as soon as I get the book back.

more christmassy things

christmassy things

Somehow, I misplaced the instructions for the girl's edwardian apron pattern, but found it later in my email.  So we didn't get any sewing done today, but both aprons are now cut out and are ready to go.  Elise had a chance to play with two new girls, and we hope to see them again soon.

On a different note, our tree has leaned slightly ever since we put it up.  It seems to be leaning even more than usual, and Karl said it is pretty close to it's tipping point.  Just now it was making a few odd popping noises.  I can't decide whether to get the fire extinguisher closer in case it's the old string of lights, or remove all the glass ornaments before it hits the floor.  I think I'll get the glass ornaments off and unplug it for now.  Albin and Karl are out questing for thousands of Magic cards from a craigslist ad, so we'll have to fix it when they get back.

Yay, neighbor with the riding snow blower!  That saved Karl hours of work.  Whew!

Elise played outside until she got cold.  We need to find new boots for her, though she lasted longer than I thought she would.  She even made a snow fort in the pile behind Karl before she came in.  Albin said he would come out today, but it is cold--have to be careful about frostbite, I think.

We cut out and baked half of Tasha's cookie recipe yesterday.  They seemed a bit chewy right out of the oven.  I'll have to try one for breakfast and see if it passes muster now.  I hope they are okay--I wanted to bring some over to that neighbor with the snow blower...

Today we make aprons with people from our homeschool group whom we meet at our woodstove cooking class.  Good times ahead!

Here's the view out our front door this morning.  I'll post more pictures of the backyard later, as it is just beautiful.  But first, I have to get dressed, make breakfast, and help Karl shovel.  It's time to start that path across the yard for the mailman again!

waiting for the snow

Things that happened in or near our house, while the first blizzard of the seeason wends its way north:

-Tasha Tudor's christmas cookie dough was mixed and is waiting in the refrigerator for subsequent cutting and decorating
-living room windows that had window marker on them were washed for the first time in  almost 6 months
-paper snowflakes were made and hung on the clean windows
-five Christmas cards were written out
-computer games were played
-violin was played at the grocery store to earn money for the Red Kettle campaign
-Karl's hat from my Greek souvenir yarn was completed and is ready for blizzard wear (I only had reknit the top once today)
-the first chapter of a PG Wodehouse novel was listened to on Librivox
-pieces of Albin's birthday cake were found in the freezer and devoured.  Fabulous frosting!  (I know there's some fudge in there, too...)

We have yet to eat together tonight or figure out what else we'll do.  Now that I found our lost Netflix movie, maybe we'll watch that (it's Buster Keaton).

Elise went to her first volunteer shift at Angel's Wish yesterday.  She said there wasn't much work for her to do, so she played with cats and puppies for two hours.  We stopped at a holiday craft fair at the local nursing home on our way home, and she found a bucket of Christmas trinkets, and a big red candle surrounded by plastic holly--it will fit in perfectly with our Chrismas decor.

We finished decorating the tree (or almost, as I think Albin still has a few of his ornaments left to hang), and we put every single ornament up somewhere.  I didn't know we had so many.  Some of the Christmas balls are hung on wall or the lights strung in the living room, and the bottom branch that we had to cut off to get the tree in the stand is also hanging up and full of ornaments.  It's all quite lovely.  We also bought another creche at Tuvalu, so now we have four.  (We're still thinking about making a new one for this year, too).

Albin zipped off to a friend's house for the afternoon to work on their joint physics lab report.  I hear they messed around a lot, but finished their report, too.  Yay, boys!  (In the short interval that both children were out of the house, Karl and I finished the family-pie Christmas presents, and they are wrapped and under the tree!)

Elise and I stayed home from church tonight.  She played computer games while I sewed, then we made a batch of beautiful orange playdough, and tried our hand at sushi.  I think we'll get better with practice.  She doesn't want to eat it, but I'm looking forward to lunch!.

random pictures

I've waited all day to have a chance on the little laptop, because that's the computer with the most recent pictures saved on it.  It's either been in use or we've been out of the house.  So now that I have access, I'll just put in a random sample of photos from the past month.  (We toodled around Stoughton today, spending money recklessly on candy mice, olivewood tongs, lingonberry juice and fabulous salmon dip...mmmmmm...salmon dip!  We spent a long time in the toy store looking at fun new games, and almost didn't make it to the tree farm in time to cut down our tree.   Should've brought our camera today, really.)