Feeling Christmas

Christmas has arrived to our house this year in a simple, restrained kind of way.  Instead of hauling up all the boxes of decorations from the basement, we have only decorated a few, high impact areas.  Our normal ceiling-height tree became a five-footer.  While I love the usual decorations, I'm finding the simplicity quite nice.

The piano becomes our mantle, as we have no fireplace.  Every year Gus asks, "But how does Santa get into our house?"  Hmmm... the door?  The back door?  Molly the dog lets him in?  As a result, our next house WILL have a chimney. 

The pots this year are a hodge podge of purchased and found, clipped from the yard and imported from up north.  I was going for Scandinavian modern... a bit of Ikea in the candle holder and more sparse than usual.

We inherited six bags of almond bark from a friend who was moving.  Six bags?  Tough to use it all up.  Pretzel decoration with friends for afternoon group fun became presents for school friends.

Trick or Treat

And for the year 2012, we have a Washburn Hockey player (with monster pjs beneath for warmth), a Nordic Viking and a Mermaid, with glittery fake lashes and a lot of eye makeup.  Oh the fun!

July 4th: Welcome to our summer

Yes, I'm back. I've been mentally composing blog entry upon blog entry, even taking all the photos to share with you the fun things we've been doing so far this summer, but that's it. It is all in my brain. Until tonight.

Hope your summer is going well. Many of you are taking trips, growing things, cooking the treats growing in your gardens, sneaking out of work for inpromptu picnics, playing with your children, reading, jamming to summer concerts and loving every single moment of summer. We've been doing a lot of those things, and more!

I'll try to catch up a bit on our ins and outs, but I'll leave you with some highlights from our two days at my parents' cabin in Wisconsin.

My Valentines

On Valentines Day I set the table with all kinds of hearts and red things, just like my own mom used to do for us. I hid behind the fridge to watch their faces when they saw the fun!

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For dinner that night, of course I had to make this loaf of bread.

Happy Halloween

The Shadow Ninja, Witch and Anakin Skywalker are all in bed after a warm evening of trick or treating. I'm coming down off of my sugar rush. Must get to bed. Maybe just one more Almond Joy? They won't notice if I sneak another one, will they?
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And you? What's your favorite thing to score from their loot bags? Special Dark is my other fave!

Mother's Day Happiness

I hope you had a wonderful Mother's day. I felt very loved. When the kids and I returned home from church, Ron (with help from his Dad) had a lovely brunch prepared and ready to serve to his parents and our five. We used fancy dishes and silverware and lingered at the table long after the meal was over.

In the afternoon we went to my parents' house for a fun gathering with the two new babies, my siblings and families, my parents and grandmother. It was low-key and exactly what we all needed. I brought my camera, but unfortunately, forgot to take pictures. Bummer. My Dad had never made a potato salad before and was asking around for a good family recipe. I passed on my mother-in-law's recipe which he made, but also added a few of his own tweaks. Good work, Dad.

Happy Easter

We celebrated Easter today at my parents' house. It was complete with a sunny day, an egg hunt, snuggles with the two new babies and lots of great food.

Have you made the challah from Artisan Bread in Five? Mmmm. What are you waiting for? It is THAT good.

A Bit 'O Green

We're not Irish, but it has never stopped us from celebrating with the best of them. Tonight we're off to an Irish dinner with my family... complete with cabbage, corned beef, onions, carrots, potatoes and soda bread. I've heard rumors that all of the appetizers are going to be green. This should be interesting.

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Last night I got to eat a leprechaun... or, well, Janet's leprechaun bars. Isn't that what makes the green part of the minty chocolately brownies green?

A belated Happy Valentine's Day

We hope you had a day full of warm hearts, sticky kisses, belly laughs, beautiful flowers and cuddly hugs.
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We sure did. Happy day-o-love to you and your loved ones.

I love...

I'm a few days late coming into the game, but I'm joining some friends for a month of "things I love..." posts. You can check in here for a list of other bloggers working toward the same goal. It is meant to be an exercise in daily blogging (or occasional, in my case) and capturing the simple and wonderful aspects of our daily lives that we appreciate and love. Stay tuned.
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My first love for February? Working on projects with my kids. Our pretzel house didn't happen this year at Christmas, so we are calling it a Valentine's house this year. We're on our way. The roof, frosting snow and valentine candy decor happen this afternoon while Louise naps.

A Little Witchy

This year I got to help plan a Halloween party just for women. Everyone had to come dressed up as a witch... the only requirement for the party. Some wore just a hat, others were so witchy they were barely recognizable as themselves.

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As the hostesses, we were in charge of making sure the food also followed the theme. Highlights included: bloody bat wings, sludge and chips, witches hats, vegetation and dip. My spookiest dish? Bedeviled Eyeballs. (Here's the recipe, though I left out the ham!)

Halloween and Letting Go

Growing up I learned that Halloween meant homemade costumes. I know that a lot of my friends had store-bought costumes and loved them, but I love loved my homemade costumes.
My mom was a mostly stay-at-home-mom, but worked convenient hours as a nurse and then as a nursing instructor. In my memory, she was around a lot and had great ideas for fun, easy and creative costumes. After we went to bed my mom would toil at her sewing machine for hours on our mice, cats and robots that we needed to be for the Halloween party the next day. The pictures of these glorious costumes showcase just how happy we were the next day with our tails just so, a medallion of homemade (cardboard) cheese hanging around our necks. We loved them. We loved our mom for making it perfect.

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Welcome to 2009. I still have the notion in my head that homemade costumes are better than store-bought. I know that store costumes can be wonderful and creative and downright perfect, but somehow, I still want to make them. You know, I stay at home with my kids, I have six (gulp!) bins of fabric in my stash that could be the perfect start for a costume. I love to sew. I love a deadline to force me to prioritize my life around projects. I was ready.

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This year, my kids all wore hand-me-down store-bought costumes. Was I bummed? Of course. Did I try to suggest thousands of other homemade costume ideas? Definitely. Am I disappointed that they didn't heed my suggestions? Not a bit.

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You see, this year I finally got it. I've been working on some home organizing and home improvement projects as well as helping out on some projects at Carl's school. Frankly, I didn't have time to work on their costumes. And, they LOVE the costumes that they wore. Carl as a Zombie, Gus as a Power Ranger and Louise as a fairy, or is that a fairy godmother? Instead of bribing them to wear something that I thought they would love, they wore something they chose. And they were free. Yep, I didn't have to spend a dime.

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Next year will I once again drag out the costume box brimming with ideas for a little homemade fun? You bet.

On sharing

Our neighbor brought over some Easter bags full of German chocolates last week. Louise was very interested in the bag that contained three beautiful and colorful egg-filled wonders. She's at an age where carrying bags around is very exciting. Add to that fun the loading and unloading of chocolates into said bag? A dream come true. She sat talking to this bunny for quite a while that day, sharing one of the bags of goodies with him, then telling him in her own almost-two-year-old way that they were yummy. Her brothers were happy that the bunny didn't actually eat their chocolates.

Sharing the Valentine Love

I was bound and determined to come up with a Valentine craft/gift idea that the kids could do themselves. Entirely by themselves. Some friends had made these for Christmas and I realized that the pretzel love can be transformed to match any season or event. We had a bag of mixed colored sprinkles that looked quite Valentines-y when I added plain red, so we went with it. My main job was trying to keep the guys from licking their fingers while doing the sprinkle part. They did pretty well... only one extra trip each to the sink to wash hands. A truly happy little project indeed.

Christmas Season Catch Up

It was a long and wonderful Christmas season, filled with family traditions old and new. We ate, sang, danced, unwrapped, drank, played, cooked, laughed, slept, tickled, crafted, talked and enjoyed our way through the many days and nights together. Thank you to all, and to all a good night.

I am thrilled with the results of my Holiday blog-swap packages! I just received my package from my 2nd swap friend today and can't believe all the wonderful things inside. I didn't get to take a picture of the beautiful things Chrissie made me before they were up in our house, being used or eaten. I'll try to gether them and take a picture to show you.

Here is what Valerie sent from France:

The box is filled with thoughtful goodies... a book on cheese in France (in French!), chocolates galore, some mulling spices, cocoa powder to make her recipe for homemade cocoa, a handmade wreath, ribbon that matched my Christmas colors this year, wooden heart cutouts, a little book about their family's traditions, a cd and more. Wow! Makes me wish I had sent more along in my box. I'll know better for next year.

A huge thank you to Chrissie ( I LOVE the microwave corn-bag!) and Valerie. You made my Christmas season very bright.