I made a fabulous pancake the other day. Do you remember the cheese sandwich sold on ebay a few years ago because it had an image of Mary in it (even though there was a bite taken out of the sandwich)? Well, my pancake had an image, too. Can you tell what it is? (And yes, we ate the pancake, so no selling it for us now!)

Well, we are almost ready for our trip....sort of. We've been going over our clothes, lists of things to do, and how to say a few things in Greek. Just so you know our priorities are in order, yes, my travel knitting project is now ready to be packed. I'll be working on a lace scarf, and spent a few days knitting up the tricky end piece from the chart. We also bought two Redwall paperbacks to read on the plane and at the house, so I think we are set for that.

Yesterday, Albin did some work with Karl on his chemistry set. He had to get some chemicals ready to sit overnight before he could do his experiments. Today, then, we can blow up the dining room. Well, maybe we don't have time to completely blow it up, because we need to make yummy snacks to share at a New Year's Party with friends tonight. We will eat supper together and play games, then the kids will spend the night there. Karl and I will make a quick appearance at our friend's coffeeshop New Year's party, then head home to go to sleep. I don't feel inspired to stay awake until midnight this year.

There's a great show on Wisconsin Public Radio right now about the usefulness of college, and how/why it's become the norm in our society lately...and maybe it's not the right thing for everyone. Hmmmm. I may have to get that one on the podcast. It's Kathleen Dunn's 10:00 hour, if you are interested.

We just got the hot water heater fixed. The element had burned out. Whew! We want to replace it sometime, but would rather wait until after we refinance, and are home again, too. Maybe it'll last long enough that we can save up for the replacement--that'd be nice!

We had a fun weekend. My parents were visiting for a few days, and brought the sausage maker! Yay! I had been hoarding the only sausage from last year, so we could have the traditional Christmas Eve dinner. Now we have six fresh ones in the freezer--yumm!

We also made cookies last week from Grandpa Albin's homemade cookie cutters, and Grandma Rosella's little chick cookie cutter. We used Tasha Tudor's Christmas Cookie Receipt, and that is a fabulous cookie...used lots of butter, though.

Thursday afternoon was Elise's scene study performance. She was fabulous, as all the kids were! It was really a great show. Elise did have curly hair for the performance, and it was fun rolling her hair in rags the night before. Thursday night and Friday morning we got almost a foot of snow, but managed to get the driveway clear in time to get Albin to the doctor (ear infection), and out to Stoughton again to see Riders in the Sky. That, too, was a great show. I'm so glad Mom and Dad were able to come visit and see it with us. My kids would like to go again, but they aren't coming back to Stoughton next year. They will be in WI again in April and September, so we'll have to see about that...

Elise has her scene study dress rehearsal this afternoon. The performance is next week, then she is all done with her acting class for the year. She had a hard time at first, but she really knows her scene now. I wonder if she'll want to do it again next year...

Albin has been invited to go with friends to the homeschool sledding outing. He'd rather do that than sit in Stoughton with me, so I'm going to make muffins to send along with him. There will be horde of children in that van, mostly teenage boys, and I imagine they will get hungry from sledding for a few hours.

The PeeWee party is Friday, and I still haven't come up with a costume. I'll have to look on Youtube and see what Annette Funicello is wearing in the show. Karl is going as Jambi, and if Albin does dress up, he'll be the kite. Albin has a Magic Club at the library all Friday afternoon, so we'll have to finish getting ready tonight or tomorrow morning.

We did some of our shopping yesterday for the kids at the local Resource Center. There is no place in town to buy pajamas, I'll have to get those at Target while Elise is in gymnastics tonight, but we did find some of the other things. We picked up a football, Barbie, hair clips, and the most gaudy set of play make-up I have ever seen. It's made by the company that I boycott at all other times, and the colors in it are amazingly...bright. The 5 year-old girl who had it on her list will love it. (Elise received a similar set when she was about that age, and had a fabulous time with it. I would not have bought her one, so goes to show what I know! Playing with sparkly eye shadow at age five does not seem to have affected her self-confidence at age nine.)

...Later that same day...

I did some more thrift store shopping while Elise was at scene study this afternoon. I found the perfect skirt for the Pee Wee party It was a size 24 red circle skirt, pure wool, and it just needed elastic to gather it into a 5os style and fit me better. (I also found a new winter coat for $15. Yay, I can finally zip up a coat again! I forget how many years the other one didn't work properly.) Erika is lending us a few things for Albin's costume, so he's almost set, too. We just don't know what Karl is planning to do. His chosen character is a bit elaborate, and he hasn't done any work on it yet. We'll see what he comes up with in the end--he's pretty amazing that way!

We are snowed in today, yay! Albin has sniffles that developed a sore throat last night, so I was going to keep him home from chemistry anyway. I will trudge over to the store for popsicles, but don't imagine we'll be driving anywhere today. Elise's Suzuki lesson may even be canceled tonight, and we won't have our date night, either, with Albin under the weather. Karl was extra tired last night, which is usually his symptom of getting sick, and I feel a little funny this morning. Maybe we'll all catch it. As long as we're better by the weekend--we don't want to miss the PeeWee Herman Christmas special party!

Friends were over yesterday afternoon, and we had a lovely discussion about sensitive children and people. I've been reading up on it, as it fits my profile very well, and I bet Albin's too. I've been reading some books on it by Elaine Aron, and we all took the basic quiz for ourselves and our children--that was interesting. Karl and I did the same last night. There are 22 questions for the adult to check for levels of sensitivity, and he got six true questions, while I got sixteen (thirteen is the threshold for a highly sensitive person). Now I know why I fell apart in Boson at the crowded market when I was really hungry : )!

I'm also reading Natural Learning Rhythms, about children's developmental stages. Wish I'd read it earlier! It's very helpful to understand what stages of growth children go through, and ways to support that growth, especially as they change from one stage to another. Well, we've got a few years left, so maybe all is not lost. After we get back from Karl's sabbatical, I'm going to look into attending a seminar or family camp at the EnCompass Institute. Perhaps we can do that sometime next year.

I think the rest of today will be spent in reading a lot of Redwall, drinking tea and soup, and trying not to get too sick. We'll probably throw in some math games as well. (We also had a good conversation yesterday about math, how it is so much more than arithmetic. There are many people who think that because they are not good at arithmetic they are bad at math, even if they can do logic, patterns, statistics, etc. That's true for a few people in my family, as well as some friends of ours. So I think we'll do a little more hands-on math today, maybe play a game of Set while drinking our tea...)

We had another lovely and quiet day at home yesterday. I think we spent much of our time up in Albin's room. He made several more Magic decks, we finished reading Nicholas, and Elise read other things, too. At 4:45, we walked over to the Senior Center for the tree-lighting and chili supper. If we'd known how cold that wind was, Elise would've worn snow pants! She and I watched from the tv inside the Senior Center, and Karl and Albin braved the cold. The chili supper was pretty good, especially the lemon bars for dessert. Elise made several new crafts, and had her polaraid picture taken with Santa Claus.

After that, Elise and I went off to log-rolling, where we found out that she had missed Science Sisters that afternoon. Oh well! I'd better update the calendar for December. We stopped at Erika's store afterward, as she was having a local artists' gallery night. I thought we could find something for Brenda's birthday, but I couldn't bring myself to buy her more stuff to fit in her house that she doesn't really need, even if it was locally made. Oh well, again!

The kids stayed up until almost 1:00 am last night. Elise was working hard to finish her Christmas list for the elves, and Albin was doing math stuff on the laptop. She got it done in time, though, and the elves must've come sometime after that, because there was candy in place of the list today.

I'm bringing my spinning wheel, drop spindle, and various fleece and roving to the library this afternoon. They are having some sort of knitting/yarn/sewing demonstrations for older kids. I'm supposed to be there with my things from 12:30 to 1:30 (I assume others will be there, too), and at 1:30, someone from the Home Ec department at UW will be talking about the Apparel Design degree they offer. That should be interesting! I don't know what else we'll do today. There are a gazillion craft shows in the area this weekend, but again, I don't know what we'd buy or why! Elise has a concert tomorrow afternoon with Suzuki, so tomorrow will be a busier day. (She was practicing at midnight last night. She played her violin for a long time for her hamster!)

Yay, Karl arrived home safe and sound! Both the children were determined to wait up for his midnight arrival, which was more than I could do. I was drooping over while reading our Nicholas book to them at 9:30. Elise and I managed to finish watching The Apple Dumpling Gang (gotta love Tim Conway and Don Knotts!), and then the kids sat in bed with me to watch Nova on Netflix while I snoozed. Elise fell asleep, too, but Albin was still awake when Karl came home!

Tonight is going to be busy. It's our hometown's Holiday weekend, and we've gone every year since we moved. There's a tree-lighting ceremony at 5:30 (sometimes broadcast on the the local news), quickly followed by a chili supper at the Senior Center. There are crafts to do, too, and a visit with Santa, if you want. Then Erika's store has a local art gallery night, Elise has log-rolling, and the Sow's Ear has late night knit. Whew! Good thing we can hang around at home today, reading and maybe making more cookies.

Our church helps our a local resource center buy gifts for kids, and we've participated with our kids for several years. Albin helps pick out gifts for a boy, and Elise shops for a girl. We just got their ages and gift requests last night, so we can do that soon, too. Albin's boy asked for Poster Hot Wheels, and we're not sure what that is. Is it a poster of the toys, or a version of the play car itself? Elise's girl wants Barbies and play makeup. Not sure what we'll do about that--she's only five! Maybe we'll find some pretty hair things and lip gloss... Elise is ready to give her Barbies away, so we'll pass on some of her dolls, and buy a few new accessories to go with it. They also asked for pajamas, and I think there are some really cute footies out this year. This is one of the joys of the season, being Santa for someone who cannot do it themselves this year.

Oh, one more thing about tonight--it's the eve of St. Nicholas Day! Right before bedtime, the kids leave their Santa wish lists in their boots by the door. Sometime in the night, the elves come to take the lists to Santa and leave candy in the boot. Elise is so excited. She's been working hard on her list all week. (If any of the relatives want to know what's on those lists, send me an email, and I'll take a peek before the elves make away with them : )..).

We had a lovely Thanksgiving visit with Karl's family. (I hope Brenda, Russ and Haley are feeling better by now! It's never fun to travel when you're not up to snuff.) We had a nice, quiet weekend in, though. The kids played games with everyone--chess, checkers, airplane flying, etc.(Albin wiped me out in chess, even though I had better pieces than he did). Haley opened her Christmas present from us, and had fun serving tea around. Our family and Elizabeth went to Hanns' Christmas Tree Farm and bought our greenery to make a wreath. We had popcorn and cider, walked through the ornament shop, and played in the tunnels set up for kids. It was a good weekend!

Karl left for Omaha Monday afternoon. He gets back around midnight tonight. While he was gone, we finished decorating the living room walls with ornaments. We also finished reading Loamhedge. What a good book! We went to the library and picked up the first Redwall book, and I found a new Nicholas book, too. Treasure! Albin and I cleared the driveway yesterday, as it snowed much of the morning, he started on his algebra, and we also watched lots of Mythbusters. I finished sewing fifteen bags for our church Advent worship series (they are making fun kits for the littler ones, like your church has, Mom). Six of them need handles, then I'll be done. Elizabeth's sewing machine works pretty well, thank goodness! The bags are needed this Sunday, and I was almost worried I wouldn't finish in time.