One beautiful ballerina

Two beautiful ballerinas

Makeup already done--quick change into Mrs. Renee for the PeeWee Party

The cozy comfort at the Sow's Ear helps finish the handmade Christmas projects.

I have finished the handmade Christmas things--but no pictures til after the event.  I really wasn't sure it would all get done in time this year.  Now I only have one more pair of matching Christmas pants to make...that hardly counts as one of the handmade presents, right?  I use a machine for the pants...

better than a sharp stick...

A $2 hat from the local dime store along with scraps of fabric and ribbon in my stash, and I've made my first regency style bonnet.  I hope they get better with experience.

St. Lucia Day, and weekend blizzard

 It's that special day of year, again!  Elise made hot chocolate and served spritz cookies.

Elise learned how to play dreidel from a friend at school, so we used snack bears as counters and played together last night.  Albin's bears are having a street fight.

 Researching the PeeWee costume...

Seven or so inches of snow fell here this weekend, so it was time to clear the driveway and build forts with the neighbors.

7 year aged mac and cheese

Remember that taste test for aged cheddar cheese - ? Goal was to find the cheesiest cheese. We all liked the 7 year cheddar best (except Elise who said it made her stomach not feel right).

And after the 7 year aged cheddar is put into a pot of made-from-scratch macaroni cheese - yummmmm! Now THAT was cheesy!

cheesy taste test and weihnachtsmarkt

 The choices: 7 year sharp, 5 year sharp, and an extra sharp (of unknown vintage).  The winner: 7 years!

 Orange pomander craft at the school festival.

 Violin concert at the school festival.

One of the classrooms set up for kids to choose a gift for a loved one.  The whole festival was very well done, and well attended, too, considering the impending winter storm.  We had a lovely time, and wish I could've stayed longer.  I met a wheelwright, and I just found out yesterday what a wheelwright does!

We could only stay a few hours, as Elise had to be at ballet practice by midafternoon.  That rehearsal went well, and now the blizzard can snow us in, as we have nowhere else to be!

the good, the bad, and the disaster waiting to happen

 Fabulous finds at Half Price Books.  One set is for us to keep, the other for Albin to give as his white elephant present tonight.  I hope you can tell which is which!

Two animals that think my very snaggable netting for my little niece's dress is their own private playground.  Gah!

When the cat is away...oh wait. She's not away.

 Albin made a lair in his closet, now that the floor is clean.

Elise helped finish off the cookie making.  Would you believe that we have 25 dozen packed up for the school?  A lot of those are the pretzel kiss things, and they are so easy they hardly count, but still.  25 dozen.  We also have some for my Grandma in Texas, Karl's coworker who is bringing him home from the airport tonight (yay! he will be home again!), and the ones we will eat or have already eaten.  Unfortunately, the weather looks bad for Saturday, so not sure how many people will make it out for the festival after all.

buried in cookies

Yesterday we made dozens of spritz cookies--all snowflakes with blue sugar sprinkles, and those yummy things that consist of a chocolate kiss melted onto a pretzel with a pecan pushed into it.  Mine look sort of wacko, as the pecan is large and overwhelms the other ingredients, but they taste heavenly (especially the chocolate caramel kisses).   Today I finish the gingersnaps, and do a few batches of oatmeal cranberry white chocolate and seven layer bars.  I love Christmas baking!

We had local Chinese takeout for dinner last night.  We rarely eat out, and half the time we do it's just bringing home some of this lovely fried goodness.  The kids like chicken fried rice without onions, and I had sweet and sour chicken.  That sauce is just amazing.  There is no color like it anywhere in the natural food kingdom.  If I knew what it was, I'm sure I wouldn't eat it, so please, no one tell me.  We must all have our little vices.

For the first time all week, I am done driving by 10 am.  My hand doesn't hurt so much today, so I am off to the Sow's Ear for an hour or two of relaxed knitting and coffee.  Say it with me, everyone.  Aaaaahhh!  If only I can bribe Albin to come with me...

what the??

I need to bake oodles of cookies for Elise's school festival, as I have already mentioned.  The four types I planned to make are gingersnaps, spritz, seven layer bars, and oatmeal cranberry white chocolate cookies.  These are easy, fast, and popular.  So here's what happened to the five dozen gingersnaps I managed to bake so far.
1.  I ate one test cookie of the first batch.  We didn't double the spices right, and I wanted to make sure they didn't taste overwhelmingly of cloves or ginger.  They were fine.
2.  I left three dozen cooling on the table while I took Elise to ballet.  When I got home, Albin had arrived ahead of me and eaten one dozen.  (!!!)
3.   I was making space on the counter to move the cooling racks so that Elise would have the table free to make whipped cream for our pancake supper.  Before I could move the second rack, she whipped powdered sugar and cream over another dozen.  (I guess Great Grandma won't mind a little extra sugar on her cookies.)

Wish me well with the rest of the baking.  If this continues, the school will sadly get fewer cookies, and we will have far too many mishaps to eat ourselves...unless you are a growing teen aged boy (and then there is no such thing as too many mishaps).

mythbusters morning

Albin and I got two episodes in this morning.  (I saw lots of hand knit socks in one of them--I'd heard of those socks on Ravelry!)  We would watch all day, but he's off to math games this afternoon, and I'm meeting with the boiler people to talk about installing new equipment in the basement.  We also have two batches of gingersnap dough cooling in the fridge.  I hope to make lots of cookies for the festival at Elise's school this Saturday.

p.s.  Doesn't it look like Tiny is about to eat Albin's cereal?

science museum in Chicago

downtown Madison

cleaning Albin's closet

tree decorating--Christmas explosion in our dining room

animals everywhere!

more tree decorating

Albin celebrating 14 years with friends

5K walk

Christmas tree, 2010--one we could all agree upon

What's that you say?  You want a humongous mushroom for dinner?  Raw?  Coming right up!

Frosted orange rolls, almost as good as mom makes

learning all the time

I had an hour and a half at home today before I had to be off driving again, and I did something new and practically unbelievable.  I did not wash the dishes.  I did not pick up my room.  I did not do laundry, sweep, cook, or clean in any way...even though this was my only free hour at home until after supper.  I sat down to knit and watch Hercule Poirot's Christmas.  It was only 10:00 in the morning, too.  Egad.

In other learning, Elise did start at the local Waldorf school.  She'll decide at Christmas if she would like to continue for the year, but she likes it so far.

Albin is going gangbusters with his physics class, too.  Not only do they meet for over an hour three times a week, they have decided to hold a study group after each class as well.  We'll see how it goes, but at this rate, he could easily be spending nine hours a week on this class.  Good thing he likes it so much!

We are experiencing technical difficulties...

There are a few last pictures from our trip that I could post, and Karl took several other small movies, but until my Techno Superhero is home from his business trip, I can't get the pictures from the camera to the computer.  When his Techno Sidekick wakes up, I can ask if he knows what to do.  Having just started his training, though, he might say, "I don't know.  Wait til Dad gets home."  In the meantime, enjoy this video.  It speaks pretty well to the problems we both face...

Albin went to his other two classes yesterday, physics and biology.  He said, "As long as I don't have to dissect anything, I'll have fun."  At least last night, they didn't dissect anything...  Elise and I brought home a huge pile of books from the library, and she started her next gingerbread project.  I'm making a basket for my favorite yarn store's 10th anniversary giveaway, and finishing a knitting project.  We'd better bring in our sugar snap pea and Christmas lima bean seeds from the garden, too.

Balloon shapes

Balloon race (latest)

On the field (late in the takeoff)
Elise's favorite - before his teeth inflated
Dawn Patrol! I went out with Albin. Now we all need a nap.

Up early. Guess we should see the balloons, while we're here during the balloon festival and our hotel is just down the street and all. :-)

At last, the pictures of the big ol' canyon

Mt. Zion National Park

swimming in the Virgin River at Mt. Zion park

Albin's early birthday celebration in Utah

Meteor Crater

Petrified Forest National Park

Bandera Volcano

Grand Canyon

We forgot the camera card in the laptop, which we left in the car, so we couldn't take pictures most of our first day here.  Good.  We enjoyed the scenery, weather, and everything else without obsessing about taking pictures of it.  In the end, we'll take very few of the canyon itself.  We can buy postcards which will look much better than anything we take with our dinky camera.  The scenery I most want will have some of us (or knitting) in front of it...  That said, here are some that we did manage to take last night or today.

Karl and Albin hiked down into the canyon a little bit twice.  Elise and I rode the shuttle all the way to the end of the line this morning, while the boys were on their longer hike.  Karl and I went out ourselves last night and this morning, to catch both a sunset and sunrise view.  Lots of walking, but lots of beautiful things to see!


Pictures coming later...

Slide Rock

We drove a long time yesterday in order to be near Slide Rock State Park today.  It was worth it.  The water was freezing and the rocks very slippery--just the thing to slide down on a very hot day.  It got up to 94 degrees at the park today.  A bit hot for us chickens, but the cold water helped! 

We took a short walk at Griffin's Spring before heading back to the hotel, and everyone napped or rested until dinner time.  We couldn't talk most of us into having dinner at the restaurant with singing waiters and a 6 oz. sirloin on the kids' menu, but went to historic downtown and found burgers instead.  Elise said it was the best burger she had ever had.  They were served on an English muffin.  Karl took me to a yarn store afterward, and I found my souvenir yarn for the trip.