Some handmade holidays...

I didn't do a perfect job with handmade holidays this year, but I did try to make the large majority of the gifts handmade. I've found with the kids that I have a very hard time especially since they make it known what they want and I'm not sure how they would take to more handmade. The rocket that I made E-Man last year got very little attention except here and there as a house-friendly football. The ones that appreciate the handmade got mostly that this year and again seemed to like their gifts a lot.

The one thing that I got my parents, The Husband's parents, and my brother were gift buckets of Method cleaning supplies and crocheted-by-me dishrags. Everyone seemed to really like this idea, especially the fact that it was a functional gift. I had my father-in-law at the bucket. He couldn't stop commenting how nice of a bucket it was. Gotta love an easy to please one. haha I wanted to do this last year, but for some reason we changed our mind. I rave about Method products a lot, but I know that not all my family would opt for Method (or another environmentally friendly cleaner) for their first choice at the store. I thought this way they could give them a try and see how fantastic they are and hopefully continue to use products that are better for the environment. Each bucket was slightly different with its contents based on who was receiving the gift - dishwasher tabs vs. liquid dish soap etc. Here's one of the buckets...

I included the dishrags in a little bundle of 3. Each person had a different set. This is one of each of the four...

Love how this rainbow yarn worked up!

A set of navy blue ones.

A nice deep red.

And I just loved all the blues in this one!

In addition to the cleaning goodies I made each of the moms a scarf. Somehow I missed getting a picture of the one I made for my mother-in-law, but I made her a short scarf (54") as that is the size that she already used. That one was a cream/off white color. I made my mom a long scarf (84") which is the length that I would use myself. Her scarf was a pretty green color that will match her winter jacket. And I also made my step-mother a really pretty plum color since she remarked how much she liked purple. I only got an action picture of my mom but I snapped a close up to show the purple color.

They were all worked up using Lion Suede Yarn which is such a wonderful yarn for anything warm and snuggly. It's bulky and works up very soft and squishy. Love this stuff and I think it's safe to say they all did too.

Then I saw this camouflage yarn while I was browsing at AC Moore and I just knew that I had to make my dad and brother something out of it. I ended up deciding that beanies would suit them both the best.

and my brother in his...

I unfortunately forgot my camera at home (along with my crochet hook and stuffing that I needed for my current project and the over the seat DVD players for the kids) for the trip north so I wasn't able to get any pictures of our visit there. :(

So there's a look at our handmade holidays for this year. I hope to start earlier (ha ha, procrastinator here) next year and be able to accomplish a little more, but I'd say that I'm happy. The thing about a handmade holiday that appeals to me - how much more you enjoy giving the gifts and how much each gift means to the person that gets it. It's just so much more personal. I just hope that sometime the kids get more into the whole handmade thing and want to participate more.

My Little Barber

Just beware, he's not gentle.

Our Christmas

Christmas is over and although I'm glad to be past the craziness, we had a really great time this year. It was much better than last year, probably because it was slower paced. Here are a few of the highlights.

First we had Christmas with my mom and stepdad on the 23rd. Big toy of the night was K-Girl getting a Zhu Zhu Pet. My mom had heard of these before I saw any commercials. K-Girl thinks that this little hamster is so great! She even did a little impersonation...

Next we went down to The Husband's family Christmas Eve. It was a bit slow paced (to the point of dragging) and the kids got grumpy with being told "soon" way too many times. I never did actually do more than get my camera out.

Christmas morning K-Girl woke us up and we had to wake E-Man up - the boy who is always up by 6:30. Figure Christmas is the day he chooses to sleep in. K-Girl was good though and waited nicely without trying to rush us.

Santa had filled our stockings...

And left special presents under the tree for the kids...

(A DSi plus game and a guitar for K-Girl and a drum pad and Diego playset for E-Man)

The kids were thrilled!!

And then once they were done checking out their gifts from Santa we gave them their presents from mommy and daddy.

A Leapster Diego Game -

A tin of Littlest Pet Shop animals -

They each got a box of books that I had picked up at the school's book fair. K-Girl was thrilled to see the Junie B Journal that she asks for every book order.

E-Man was perhaps most excited by his new Spiderman backpack. Now he doesn't have to use K-Girl's old Angelina Ballerina or Chococat backpack. This is big news! ;)

The biggest disappointment was the Bounce Back Racer. We opened it up and put batteries in it and nothing. We went to Toys R Us the next day and they didn't have any, neither did Target. I looked on Amazon to order one and saw that all the reviews were talking about what junk it is so we've decided not to replace it with the same thing. Now we're trying to find something he'll be just as excited about as he keeps asking for his race car.

K-Girl had been begging for the Biggest Littlest Pet Shop since she first saw it at a trip to Sam's Club a few months ago. She was going to ask Santa for it, but she decided that she needed to ask for the DS more so we decided to surprise her. If we thought she loved the tin she was even more excited by this.

There was a moment of quiet when we unpacked the DS and E-Man wanted to watch -

And we experienced some major Christmas magic when I decided we needed to get a family picture and only had to take 2.

I got a sleeve for my laptop, Ani DiFranco's Canon, A gift certificate for our local yarn store, $20 to buy another Ani CD because the only one he could find was Canon, and this awesome crochet hook organizer from http://www.hi-howareyou.com/ (sarahkincheloe on Etsy).

My mom and stepdad got me a self-healing cutting mat that is 24x36 which I just love along with a clear mat to lay over the fabric while you are cutting. She also got me a crochet hook organizer from the same Etsy shop. Seems that both my mom and husband were paying attention to my blog post and ended up with the same idea. And since I don't need two and I really wanted a matching zipper pouch I returned the one from my mom and exchanged it for 2 zipper pouches (a small and a larger one) that will match the green lotus organizer that The Husband got. I was definitely spoiled a bit this Christmas and I just love all my gifts!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

Merry Christmas

I wish you all a very merry Christmas and happy New Year! I hope you all are safe in your travels, indulge in goodies, and enjoy your time with family and friends!

Fun with Hats

Installment #2 on E-Man's silliness. The boy loves dressing up. Whether it's putting on his own clothes (a new and fantastic development, although he almost never takes the current clothes off in order to do this), imagination play items, or ransacking the box of cold weather gear, he loves it all.

He's laid claim to my old hat and has moved on to K-Girl's items...

Don't mind the chaos behind him. The boy is also a tornado. Where ever he goes destruction occurs. ;)

It's going to be a White Christmas

No Tofu Tuesday today, come back next week. :)

I'm excited that for the first year in many we will be having a White Christmas, well I'm pretty sure about that.

Late Friday night the snow started and it didn't let up till about midnight on Saturday. We ended up with roughly 18" of snow. It was very exciting. The snow was the light fluffy stuff that you hope for (easier clean up).

We, umm ok The Husband (I helped dress them but I prefer staying warm), took the kids out to play Saturday early before there was too much accumulation. Regardless, E-Man was not impressed. He thought it was cool but he was cold and couldn't walk right and after a few times of falling he had enough and wanted to go in. K-Girl hung in a little longer, but also not too long.

Yes, E-Man is the unfortunate product of having an older sister. We didn't have good heavy mittens for him as I couldn't find anything that matched at the store so he ended up with K-Girl's old mittens and a pink scarf to boot. Not that he minds.

Here's a picture of the front while the kids were playing Saturday morning...

And this is what it currently looks like having been 3 days and some melting. I wish I would have remembered to take a picture just after it stopped. The pile was a few inches higher at that point.

We only ended up being snowed in until Sunday night. We live on one of the last streets in the township so we don't get plowed till very last. The first plow only came through after 4:00 Sunday evening. And I've also learned the valuable lesson that my car is not a snow car. The Husband moved my car (although I told him not to) down the driveway to move it over to make room for his and ended up needing to push it back up into it's spot. Ah well, there's not that many snow days anyway. :)

Santa Deserves Extra Cookies

Hosted by Cecily and Honey Mommy
Last night we went to visit Santa. Both kids were so excited rattling off what they were asking Santa for - K-Girl wants a guitar and a DS & E-Man wants "Diego and Diego Movie". We got to the mall and had to wait 20 minutes because Santa was "feeding his reindeer". Luckily it didn't take too long and the kids were still excited. However when they saw Santa, E-Man was still all about it but K-Girl decided she wasn't too sure about the whole thing any more.

When we made it up to our turn K-Girl walked over and got up, but E-Man was instantly not feeling it. You would have thought that Santa had electrocuted the kid when contact was made. I place E-Man on his lap and instant hysteria. So I picked him up and told him that K-Girl would make sure to tell Santa what he wanted (which she did). So last year we have a picture of Santa with K-Girl and E-Man crying. This year was just Santa and K-Girl. We'll try again next year.

Here's our Santa picture this time around...

E-Man was all upset afterwards worrying that, because he didn't tell Santa what he wanted he wouldn't get a present. I assured him that K-Girl took care of it and Santa knows what he wanted. That seemed to make it better again.

Oh and I don't dare forget to write about this. Wednesday night K-Girl wanted to write Santa a letter. She needed some help with the word "bad", but otherwise did it by herself. When she was finished she shared it with The Husband...

She was going to hand deliver it to Santa last night but I had to talk to her about if she really thought that was a nice thing to do to her brother. She finally decided that she would leave it at home. The girl was trying to black list her own brother.

No Tears Shed

It's amazing. No, seriously, A-MAZING!

Even though we are in the single digit countdown to Christmas, I've decided that we are still doing Christmas cards. Monday night The Husband was working late so I decided to tackle this one on my own. I was feeling brave. Typically these photo sessions with a purpose end in tears out of one, two, or more of us (yes including parents). It's typically a time of stress and fighting and just all around very un-Christmaslike conduct.

This year I told the kids we were taking our Christmas card photo and if they did a good job they could have a candy cane off of the tree. I didn't think it was that good of a bribe but it worked. Now granted it still took 30+ pictures to get the right picture, but no temper tantrums or anything and typically I'm running in the 100+ photos to get one that works. This is cause for celebration!!

Of course there were the not so good ones...

(I realized after the first several pictures that my camera was on the completely wrong setting so I'm glad the good one didn't happen until after I figured that out.)

I need to preface this one by saying right before I snapped this picture I asked K-Girl to give E-Man a kiss...

HAHAHA! Look at those expressions!

Oops I lost a kid in this one...

And of course there's the "Hey Mom take a silly one!" picture...

And the ham that likes to try to steal the show...

But like I said, there was a perfect picture in there somewhere. ;) Promise.

Now you don't think I'd go and ruin the Christmas card for all of you that might be receiving a card from us, did you?!
Nahh, I only do stuff like that on Facebook. ;) haha

Tofu Tuesday #34

Brought to you by...
Kaci@Ellyphant & Kelli@Gohn Crazy

Tofu Tuesday is the place to share all of your vegetarian secrets. If you have a great recipe to share, a product to rave or rant about, or anything that has made being a vegetarian easier for you please share it. (And vegans of course are welcome too!!) Feel free to grab the little button over there to the right. After you post come back here and link up with your address in the comments. I'm looking forward to reading all your posts!

Image from Google Images at grubgrade.com

I had a slight obsession with these little things. Incase you haven't had the pleasure to meet one yet, this is a "Wake Up Wrap" from Dunkin Donuts. And as the little image says they are $0.99 each. Yum. They make you feel better about yourself than when you're scarfing down 2 boston cream donuts. ;) So after a bunch of trips to DD for them I decided that I needed to start making them myself. It's not like they are that hard to make. All they are is a tortilla with egg and cheese. They are now something I enjoy at home for breakfast, lunch, or a quick snack. Of course the DD ones still taste slightly better (why is that with everything you get out rather than make at home?), but they are close enough for me.

I typically make two at a time (unless I'm making a quick snack) and this is how I do it...

Scramble two eggs in a bowl and add a little milk to make them fluffy and just a little salt and pepper.
Spray a pan with cooking spray (or use butter) and fry up your eggs. Don't scramble the eggs in the pan. Instead cook them like you would an omelet.
Once your egg is cooked then I cut it down the middle to make two halves and sprinkle with some shredded cheddar cheese (although you could just lay a slice of american on it as well).
I let that melt a little bit and then slide each half out onto a tortilla. I fold the tortilla over on the egg and put them back in the pan just to fully melt the cheese and warm the tortilla.
After that they are all finished and you can take them out of the pan and enjoy!

They are so quick and easy. And most of all they are yummy too!

Enjoy!

My Silly Boy

He's in love with my silly hat. I think he wears it much better than I do. He loves jumping around like a crazy boy to make the pompoms shake. I love watching him act like a nut. It's good cheap entertainment.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Hosted by Cecily and Rachael

This week has been a busy one. But I'm feeling accomplished. Things are not perfect, but it's getting there. And the proof is the feeling that I'm getting from my home. It's shaking the chaotic feeling and starting to feel comfy. Christmas is right around the corner. I'm not sure how it snuck up again this year. Two weeks to pull everything together. But at least the tree is up and fully decorated...

Complete with Jackers underneath...

There's something so cozy about kitties napping beneath the tree. At least no one has decided to roost higher in the tree so far.

...but there is plenty of time for that still. ;)

I Can't Not

I wasn't going to post this here, but decided that I just absolutely can't not. So because I don't want to post anyone who hasn't given permission on the blog (especially with incriminating photos like this) I just tweaked it a bit and now I just have to post.

So yesterday afternoon I get this picture in my e-mail...

That's my hubby and yes he's got his head very nearly resting on her boob. Lovely. ;) It's always nice to know that, while out of town, he's working so hard. You know, while I'm home tending to kids and the house and all. But after our conversation last night I have found that the real reason they just had to have the picture is because they were identical twins, um the girls I'm referring to. ;) And all along he's been saying that the only appeal of Hooter's is really their wings. Busted! haha

But you know what? It's ok. I'm totally fine with it. Because little does he know who I've been hanging with while he's away...

So yeah, he can have his twins. I'll be just fine.

Tofu Tuesday #33

Brought to you by...
Kaci@Ellyphant & Kelli@Gohn Crazy

Tofu Tuesday is the place to share all of your vegetarian secrets. If you have a great recipe to share, a product to rave or rant about, or anything that has made being a vegetarian easier for you please share it. (And vegans of course are welcome too!!) Feel free to grab the little button over there to the right. After you post come back here and link up with your address in the comments. I'm looking forward to reading all your posts!

Image Credit - Found HERE

This was my first Thanksgiving as a vegetarian. No turkey for me. No gravy for me. No stuffed inside the turkey stuffing. And you know what, it was a wonderful meal and wonderful holiday.

From EatingAnimals.com:

If our holiday meals are supposed to serve as a reflection of our gratefulness, can a turkey that spends its life crammed by the tens of thousands into giant warehouses, on antibiotics, that has been bred to suffer-as is true for more than 99% of turkeys sold in America-be the choice we feel best about?

This holiday season, consider the turkey. Take this conversation in any direction you'd like. The most important thing is that our choices be deliberate.

I've never really taken the time to think about this before, or maybe it was just another one of those things I pushed to the back of my mind as not to think about it. But I totally agree with the above statement. What does turkey have to do with the reason we celebrate Thanksgiving? And honestly, the best part of the meal for me has always been all the yummy sides. I've never had a problem filling up on all the yummies that sit around the turkey on the table. This year I had a wonderful reason for filling up on those yummies and foregoing the turkey.

I would not have made a turkey this year. The Husband was alright with that, but I don't know he would have been completely happy. But my mother invited us to Thanksgiving at her house this year so there was a turkey. The rest of the family had turkey but I had none and I'm alright with that. But I think next year I may try my hand at making the meal and also inviting family to our house, where there will be no turkey. I don't know that it would go over well, but we'll see.

How was your Thanksgiving? Did you try a turkey alternative? Did you have a turkey for the rest of your family? I'd love to hear about your vegetarian/vegan Thanksgivings.

K-Girl Plays Dress-Up

This weekend, K-Girl's new fascination was getting her brother dressed. They decided that they wanted to play upstairs so I sat in the living room where I could easily see and hear up the steps to know that they were actually playing and not fighting like it more typically turns into. After a little while playing, K-Girl decided that it was time to get dressed so she dressed herself. Once she was done she held E-Man by the hand and led him to his room telling him "Let's get dressed". I chuckled to myself wondering what this would result in and left them go. After hearing her struggle with something (I'm guessing pants) she went and picked out a new outfit. E-Man came out of the room and over to the steps where he loudly proclaimed "TAADAA!!" This is the outfit that resulted...

Not too bad other than obviously he wasn't leaving the house in shorts. But I asked him if he liked his outfit and he replied "Yes! Comfy!" So he spent most of the day in his shorts.

And much the same on Sunday K-Girl decided that she was getting E-Man dressed again, although he was not as excited about it that day. After she picked him up and dragged him to his room and wrestled to get one arm free of his sleeper resulting in tears from E-Man she gave up and also was crying. Have I mentioned that crying is K-Girl's new super talent?! The girl cries when she's yelled at, cries when she's just told to do something differently, cries when she's overwhelmed, when her feelings are hurt, cries when she's angry. Of course anger usually brings the flaring of her amazing temper along with tears. I truly am scared of what the teenage years will bring with her. She's quite the drama princess at just 5 years old. Lord, help us!

But at least it was cute the first day. ;)

Mama’s Holiday Wish List Meme

I've seen this meme traveling around a lot so I figured that I would check it out. Holy gifts, Batman!! So because answering questions is fun and the prizes are amazing, I'm totally playing along.

Mama’s Holiday Wish List Meme
TodaysMama and Provo Craft are giving away a sleighful of gifts this holiday season and to enter I’m sharing this meme with you.

1. What 5 items are on your holiday wish list this year?

1. A personalized necklace similar to this or this from Etsy with the kids' names. I love the silver/pearl combination.
   
2. This owl bag is adorable!
3. A crochet hook organizer something like this and maybe a little zipper pouch like this to put my stitch markers, needles, tape measure in.
   
4. True Blood Season 2 on DVD
5. Love all the fun little things here or here. ;) Especially fond of the sparkly Edward. I can already see it on my laptop. Those bookends are awesome! And the other store just has a bunch of great items!
   

2. What is your favorite handmade gift you have received?
My best friend and I made each other these collages from magazines inspired by each other. It was one of the neatest things I've ever received. I think I have a picture of it somewhere that I may have to dig out and share. I'm only sad that in all my moving it ended up not with me at some point.

3. What handmade gift have you always wanted to tackle?
Hmm honestly the list is never ending. I always think "wow I'd love to make that for ____" and then I either forget, run out of time, or just lack the talent needed for that item. Up until recently I've really wished I could knit, especially socks or clothing, but I think I'm getting over that and am a very contented crocheter. ;)

4. What was the best Christmas gift you received as a child?
Is it bad that I don't really have something standing out to me right now? I know I was pretty nuts about Rainbow Bright and went pretty bananas about getting a Rainbow Bright doll and Sprite one year, but I don't know that it was the best gift. In my defence I have a TERRIBLE memory.

5. What items are on your kid’s wish list this year?
K-Girl wants The Littlest Pet Shop Biggest Littlest Pet Shop (wow that's a mouthful!), a Nintendo DS, and a Guitar.
E-Man wants the Bounce Back Racer Remote Control Car, Diego Leapster Game, and anything else Deigo for that matter.
There's more on those lists but I think those are some of the big ones.

6. What is your favorite holiday food?
Oh that's too hard. Christmas cookies? Pumpkin Roll? Pumpkin Pie? Macaroni & Cheese (the kind that takes more work so only gets made at special occassions), Sweet Potatoes, all those yummy sides!

7. What will you be hand-crafting for the holidays?
I've got a list to see if I can get to. I've been crafting for a lot of other people's Christmas presents but haven't started my own yet. I have a blanket on my list, some crocheted items, and a few other things that I really can't speak of due to readers of my blog.

8. What is your favorite holiday movie?
You'll shoot your eye out, kid! A Christmas Story for sure. :)

9. Favorite holiday song?
Hands down it's Silent Night

10. Favorite holiday pastime?
Eating? Baking (although there's usually quite a bit of stress involved with that)? Crafting?

Under Construction

Don't mind the mess. I'm changing my layout. It'll be worked out shortly.
Thanks!

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Ok. I think it's all fixed. If anyone finds anything that doesn't work or something along those lines please let me know! :)

PSF - Apple Picking Now and Then

Hosted by Cecily

On October 1st, E-Man and I went on a wagon ride to pick apples, gourds, and pumpkins with our playgroup. We did the same thing last year and it has been so much fun both times. There's nothing that makes it really feel like fall than a cool, crisp hayride. Don't you just love Fall?!

This year he was fascinated with picking the apples and always wanted the higher ones. At least he was a little less focused on the apples laying on the ground this year. ;)

...and he was incredibly pleased with himself when he got one off all by himself.

Bruising...er I mean showing off his apple booty...

Hello from the pumpkin patch!

There's nothing like enjoying the fruits of your labor on the wagon ride back...

It's so much fun to look at pictures from an event that we have done two years in a row. It helps remind me at how fast kids grow up. This year E-Man was all about picking apples and was right there with me in the pumpkin patch picking out which ones he wanted. And while noticing all the differences I love looking at the similarities like in this picture I grabbed from last year's post...

Next year it'll be fun to look at the past three years' comparisons.