Ready for Christmas

So I was somehow miraculously able to send out many, many Christmas greetings far and wide and we were the recipients of many, many cards in return, so thank you all for making my kids' Christmas just a little more Christmas-y.

The advent calendar has proven to be a major pain in the ass. Bah humbug! (But it did turn out pretty cute, didn't it? Okay, maybe all of that felt cutting was worth it. Maybe?) (I am clearly fishing for reassurance here, people. REASSURE ME!) (Also, totally not done with the last two mittens yet. I think I lost my mojo around day 16.)

I had to unearth my sewing machine from a growing pile of unfinished projects in order to even start making the Christmas swag. This meant that I finally finished Sawyer's robe which had been sitting idle for oh, say 6 or so months. But I love how it turned out and if he would have been willing to model it for the camera I might have a better picture than this.

Speaking of pictures, I thought you might enjoy seeing the Christmas card photo outtakes. It was a lot like dressing up and photographing kittens.

You comb our hair, dress us in sweaters, make us sit this close together and THEN you expect us to smile?
Think fast, sucka!

This is what happens when your parents are too cheap to take you to the mall Santa and you happen upon the old guy in front of Bi-Mart. We are not even teenagers yet and our parents are already SO LAME.

Change of venue. So far so good.

Cute. A bit off center, but this seems promising.

Oh yeah. That's what I'm talking about. Christmas cards here we come!

Oooh lights.

The one.

As you can see, we opted for the one photo that truly captures Sawyer's effervescent personality. That kid is something else.

He is almost three (SOB!) and I keep catching myself expecting him to actually start acting like a three-year-old. I think I give him too much credit. This kid is clearly still a terrible two. Last week I decided to forgo our usual method of restraining Sawyer in the booster chair while I showered. Brent and Jack were out walking the dog and I left Sawyer building with blocks in the playroom and hopped into the shower. About a minute later as I lathered my hair I heard the cry. You know the one? The cry that makes you leap from the shower and sprint naked down the hallway to investigate? What I found were big splatters of blood and Sawyer scared silent by the pulsating bleeding of his hands. I grabbed a towel and held his hands tightly, cradling him in my cold, wet lap and all the while trying to keep my tunnel vision at bay. So. Much. Blood. After several attempts I was able to piece together a confession that he had scaled my sewing machine table and captured a most prized and forbidden object: the rotary fabric cutter. I guess we will never know exactly how he managed to slice up BOTH his hands with the thing, but one thing is for sure: those rotary cutters are razor sharp and those tiny cuts bled for a long, long time. I was expecting to see some real carnage after I got the bleeding to stop, but after all the blood was gone it looked like nothing more than a few paper cuts.

(And then we were out of bandaids. Naturally.)

But he is very sweet when he cuddles up on the couch to read Christmas books to his stuffed animals.
Meanwhile Jack had busied himself in the kitchen working on some project which involved hauling various materials from the art closet and hitting us up for dollar bills.

Pretty good forgery for a four year old. Perhaps a career in counterfeiting is in the cards for Jack?


I think I am done with the Christmas sewing and crafting and late night session holed up in the playroom with a stockpile of Sierra Nevada Celebration and homemade chocolates. The Christmas eve jammies are finally done, finished at the last minute no thanks to my summer self who thought she'd get "ahead" and buy the fabric in June only to let it sit in the garage until December 20th. Ha.

I fell in love with the idea of felt cookies to accompany Sawyer's play kitchen and drooled over this tutorial for a good old while before I finally busted them out the other night. They are super easy and really fun, even if you detest cutting felt AND loathe embroidery.

And now I finally feel ready.

Ready to have cocktail hour playdates with my neighbor.

Ready to walk on the wild side by letting Sawyer help us make peppermint bark this year.

Ready to have four different holiday dinners in four different places.

Ready to see if Grandma wants to babysit the kids overnight for New Years.

Ready to drink Irish coffees with Amberlee.

Ready to make fondue, cinnamon rolls, Buche de Noel cake, and spinach balls. I am forever losing the recipe for the spinach balls that my mom always made. Somehow, though, the recipe card always seems to reappear just in time for Christmas dinner. But just in case...


I'm not sure where this magical recipe came from, but I do know that's not my mom's writing because she knew how to spell the word "before." I'm just saying.

I'm also ready to haul myself out of a warm and cozy bed each morning to saddle up Lulu and run through the icy fog just so that I can pig out on peppermint bark later on in the day.

I'm ready to bring out all of the toys and treats and surprises we've been squirreling away and put them under the Christmas tree.

I'm ready to see my kids' faces when they see the things we have lovingly chosen or created for them. I'll be hoping that we've struck the elusive balance between Christmas magic and simplicity. And no, we did not buy the Lego Hogwarts for Jack because ultimately we decided that he will appreciate something like that when he is older and can understand the value of an extra special toy. We are not there yet. And so we bought a smaller (and much more reasonably priced) Harry Potter Lego set and I'm willing to bet he will be just as excited.

(Sawyer is getting a toy weed whacker. And if you have been paying attention and know anything about that kid, you realize that this is the perfect gift for him.)

And right now I am ready to grab another Celebration and finish off that effing advent calendar once and for all. 23 and 24 here I come!

Merry Christmas!

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Thanksgiving, Uncooperative Toilets, and the Moral Dilemma of Legos

Acknowledging that Thanksgiving decor is, like, so two weeks ago, I present you with my fall-themed leaf hangy thingy and then we move on.

When the kids and I embarked on our fall photo shoot I had a tiny seed in my brain planted by some online crafty tutorial I had seen long ago about using the leaves to create some sort of leafy garland to fill the decorating void between Halloween and Christmas. I think I am happy with how this turned out. One thing is for sure, I really hate cutting felt.

(Oh, and by the way, that felt mitten advent calendar that I told you about last time? We are cruising right along with that bad boy one mitten at a time, which I have realized is the true genius behind such an advent calendar because I didn't have to have it all done by December first. It's pretty much the slacker mom's approach to the advent calendar- just my style. After yet another failed attempt at cutting a decent 4, I guilt tripped Brent into using his superior fine motor skills to cut out those damn felt numbers for me. Again, I really hate cutting felt.)

But before we get too far into the Christmas merriment...

Thanksgiving!

We made our second annual Thanksgiving pilgrimage to the beach. Unlike last year when I spent my time drinking late into each night with my long lost cousins and then waking up WAAAY to early with my chipper children, this year was all about the relaxation.

And matching man-buns. And troll dolls.

And training the future baristas of the world.

Drawing, music making, beer drinking.

Blankets, snuggling, and thumbsucking.

Crossword puzzles.

Sunny hikes along the Hobbit Trail.

The vast, open freedom of the beach.

And plenty of couch time.

I am realizing more and more that I have to actually be doing something in order to relax. Counterintuitive? Perhaps. But the need to keep my hands busy these days means that I can get a lot of knitting and sewing and crafting done. I lugged along a sewing machine, a big old pile of that cursed felt, a knitting project, and a basketful of Christmas gifts in progress. This was a good thing, as I quickly discovered that those advent calendar mittens weren't going to cut themselves.

So we all came home from the Thanksgiving weekend refreshed and relaxed and ready to tackle this Christmas holiday thang. And we had somehow, miraculously had the foresight to clean our house from top to bottom before we left and so our return to the homestead was downright peaceful.

Until.

A few nights later as I was getting the kids out of the bathtub and the water swirled down the drain, we heard a strange gurgling sound coming from the other bathroom. Brent (my brave cowboy) went to investigate and when he began to shout out some choice swear words with two big-eared little pitchers at his heels, I feared the worst. (You know what I'm talking about. RATS IN THE TOILET!)

This, however, was not a rodent problem. It was a plumbing problem, and a dire one at that. Toilet overflowing, Brent panicking, kids adding to the chaos by shrieking and seizing the opportunity to bounce on our bed, dog interpreting all of this as some sort of extremely exciting moment worthy of jumping up on everyone with the mistaken belief that all of this chaos is somehow leading up to a WALK or maybe even a RIDE IN THE CAR. And me? I was the calm voice of reason. Hard to believe, I know, but I was the one who calmly suggested that we TURN OFF THE WATER!

Turns out there was some sort of blockage (!?) immobilizing both toilets and the bathtub. What to do? We plunged, we consulted the internet, we plunged some more, we called our dads, and then we plunged again. We gave up and decided to call a plumber in the morning.

Except that wouldn't you know, suddenly EVERYBODY had to poop and certain somebodys are not able to understand concepts like THE TOLIET IS BROKEN! DO NOT POOP IN IT! And so there was some... uh... scooping of the toilet bowl and also some... uh... creative approaches to movement of the bowels, which I'll tell you about if you really want to know but suffice it to say you can never have too many extra plastic bags lying around your house. And that parenting is a filthy and disgusting business and even though they are your own kids it really doesn't make dealing with their poop any less unpleasant.

Before calling the plumber the next morning, Brent gave the toilet one last chance to cooperate and wouldn't you know it? Flush. Mystery blockage mysteriously cleared.

And I am simply left to wonder why the universe feels the need to fuck with us like that.

Anyway. I found Jack close to tears the other day and when I asked him what was wrong, he replied, "I don't think Santa will bring me any presents this year. I haven't been very good." Gah. Poor kid. He stressed out about this last year, too. I'm not sure where all of this guilt comes from, but it's very difficult to reassure him with a straight face, especially when he's just been on a time out for calling his brother stupid. Again with this parenting thing.

Another parenting dilemma we have recently encountered is that elusive balance between giving the right Christmas gift and spoiling your children rotten. Jack is a Lego kind of kid and has been coveting the Hogwarts Lego set for many months now. We usually stop to pay homage to it whenever we shop at Fred Meyer and he admires its many features while I wince in physical pain at the $139.99 price tag. It's not the money so much... well, okay it's that too, but it's really more the idea of buying my kid such an expensive gift. I mean, can we really set the bar this high at the age of four? Then again, I've heard that Legos are a worthy investment, and I have to admit that the Hogwarts castle is pretty dope, as far as Lego sets go.

Will an extravagant gift during the preschool years lead to a life of materialistic consumerism? Are Legos the gateway to Wall Street? Will my toilet continue to flush properly? And, will I ever get through those advent calendar mittens?

(PS: Haven't even STARTED the Christmas cards yet.)

Most wonderful time of the year.

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The Final Days of Sun

First of all, that moment? The one I told you about last week? In case you wanted to share it too...

Anyway.

Moving on.

I took the camera out on that sunny Saturday because it suddenly occurred to me that this might be The Last Sunny Fall Saturday for awhile and I had better get cracking on our fall photo opportunities.

Also, Christmas is only, like, 5 weeks away now (who's counting?) and I need our annual Christmas Card Picture, because I plan to BOMBARD my friends and family with Christmas cards. Why the special interest in Christmas cards? To enrich the lives of others? To spread holiday cheer? Well yeah, that too, but mostly I am just hoping that you all will reciprocate and our mailbox will be teeming with Christmas greetings from far and wide and that my kids will rush outside each day to meet the mailman with that feeling of festive anticipation that I remember so well from my own childhood.

I think that this last year we got maybe 5 or 6 cards total, which led to a lackluster display on our mantle, which then served as a daily reminder that either our friends and family forgot to send us a card OR that maybe, just maybe, horrible thought that it is, perhaps Christmas cards have become passe?

(Gasp. I certainly hope not!)

And so, friends and family, mentally prepare yourselves for a season of Christmas card sending. Let's revive this tradition! Who's with me? Christmas Cards 2011!

If I already have your address, expect a card. If I don't have your address or you think I might not have your address (I am not the best at keeping track of these things, let's be honest here), email, Facebook, text, send an owl, or whatever it takes to get me your address because like I said, I plan to get this party started.

(Some of you are probably thinking this sounds vaguely familiar, as if once long ago I pledged something similar to this. Forget about the birthday cards already! It's Christmastime!)

My attempt at a fall themed photo shoot resulted mostly in grouchy and cold kids. We were also nearly killed by a passing bicyclist who was texting and listening to his iPod and somehow DID NOT SEE THE THREE OF US. Note my festively dressed children? I suppose they do sort of blend into the fall foliage. Still.

We gathered a big basket full of leaves because I had a crafty ulterior motive which I will share with you another time when I have more than 30 minutes on the computer. Brent and I share a laptop and let's just say it might be time for me to get my own. Santa?

Just when our toes had frozen and the memory card was just about maxed, we ran into my friend Amberlee and were treated to an impromptu tour of the UO Geophysics/Geology/Oh Hell I Don't Know They Had a Bunch of Rocks department.

They also had prism glasses. Sweet ass prism glasses, oh yes. Geology rocks. Or is it Geophysics that rocks?

And then there was Mount Pisgah's annual Play in the Rain Day. It was, of course, unseasonably sunny. Natch.

Moved by the spirit of Christmas, I have had visions of homemade advent calendars dancing in my head. We have a Playmobil advent calendar that contains millions of microscopic pieces that are eventually assembled into a wintery forest scene, but they come in these flimsy cardboard boxes that have not been able to withstand the excited hands of toddlers over the past few years. I think it's time for something new in the advent calendar department. I want to try this, but I don't know how I will ever cut the felt numbers out- they seem so small and my hands and scissors are often an awkward combination. Aunt Bobbi? Liz? Can I do this? Do I need a scalpel?

Okay, well, I have cards to make. Or addresses to search for. Or stamps to buy. Or something. Peace out.

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This is Halloween

Halloween! It came, it went. And to think: all those hours spent knitting that damn scarf for just a single evening’s pleasure. The many seams ripped and resewn on that slippery and unforgiving black and red Harry Potter robe. The epic battle of seamstress vs. snaps on the cowboy shirt. Oh yes, the fruits of all my labor were devoured in a twenty four hour time period.

The fruits of my labor, AND about five pounds of Halloween candy.

Sigh.

I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for Christmas.

I made some pretty kick ass roasted pumpkin seeds using this recipe. Too bad I burned most of them. While I was stomping around muttering about all my hard work going straight to the trash, I burned a batch of homemade granola. So then I just gave up, cracked open a beer, and sat by the fire with my dog.

Somebody remind me of this thought next year: would it kill us if the kids had store bought costumes? I mean really, is all this sewing and craftiness really necessary?

Also, I’m teaching a new class! NEW CLASS! Woohoo! And guess what? It’s a HOME EC CLASS! A dream come true, right? I’ve often lamented the tragic loss of home economics and other electives from our public education system. I loathed middle school math, social studies was a snooze, and you already know my thoughts on 7th grade PE, but I recall fondly the many extra curricular classes that my classmates and I were exposed to. Art, music, Spanish, home ec, and of course shop.

(Although now that I am a teacher I really have to question our shop teacher’s judgment. I remember that we made these little plastic keychain thingies, which seems reasonable enough, though I don't remember exactly how we fused the plastic together, just that it smelled really bad. But then there was that one project with involved a lathe and ultimately produced a baseball bat. A baseball bat? And then we walked out the door with those things? What were they thinking, equipping a herd of six graders with baseball bats? Also, sixth grade me operated a lathe? Wtf? I am lucky to be alive.)

So we’re bringing home ec back, which seems like a really cool idea until you sit down and think about how you’re going to organize twenty or so teens into cooking groups, oversee an outdated and somewhat grimy kitchen, purchase supplies on a shoestring, and then make sure nobody burns themselves or gets food poisoning.

Maybe the lathe wasn’t so scary after all.

And then there is the sewing component! My personal favorite until, again, you look at the logistical aspects of twenty or so girls doing any actual sewing on the few machines that I’ve managed to rustle up.

But I’m not known to be intimidated by these pesky details and so forward I march! Day one: Fluffy Buttermilk Pancakes! And they were a hit, because, well, they are awesome. Also, super easy on my part and the kids loved them. Win win.

Sewing has been trickier. We are making reusable snack bags (!!) and there’s nothing like watching a group of inexperienced seamstresses take the helm of a machine for the first time. Some dive right in and plow through the material, narrowly missing their precariously stationed fingertips, while others have to be coaxed to apply even the slightest hint of pressure to the gas pedal, then recoil in fear when the needle starts jumping and the feed dogs pull at the fabric.

Then funny thing about teaching kids how to sew is that I’ve realized that I really don’t remember ever not knowing how to do it. I guess because I was surrounded by sewing as I grew up and it was such a natural part of our lives. My mom sewed all of our Halloween costumes and so, on the day of, as I am furiously tying the last of the fringes to Jack’s Gryffindor scarf in my carpool on the way home from work, I know that there’s really no other way to do this. To me, sewing and mothering go hand in hand.

I was reminded of this when my dad surprised me the other day by bringing over two of my dusty old dresses that had been forgotten in a closet for the last few decades. These dresses were, of course, homemade and I inspected them through my seamstress lens, admiring the attention to detail, the heart shaped buttons, the hand stitching to reinforce the zipper, the perfectly aligned ruffle. And then I took those dresses into my own room for a private moment and I breathed in their musty smell, willing that fabric to share some forgotten memories. For a few seconds the world stopped spinning and I held those dresses and closed my eyes and wondered what will be left of me someday when I am gone.

A Harry Potter costume. A cowboy shirt. Two boys who will remember that their mom got really excited for Halloween.

Twenty something snack bags.

So yeah, to answer my own question, I guess all of this sewing and craftiness really is necessary after all.

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