Massive Sunday Dump

Oh, there is so much going on here. So many things we've been doing to get ready for Christmas, and so very much left to be completed. It's insanity.

Not to mention that we are all sick again. We had just gotten clear of the November cold, when this new super-duper December cold struck. Sophie has it bad, and my poor sweet little thing is clingy and crabby while her little nose runs like a burbling fountain and she coughs herself awake night and day. I know exactly how she feels, because I have it about the same. My head hurts, my chest hurts, my eyes itch, I'm exhausted. Am going directly to bed after I finish this.

But enough of the whineing. We've been having lots of fun, too, and that's what I'm really here to share. In no particular order, except that which they came off the camera...

We've been baking like crazy. I think I made six or seven different kinds of cookies. Here's the day we did sugar cookies. Poor Sophie wasn't at all happy about being sidelined in the high chair. Julie was frustrated because she wanted to do all the cutting and dough-rolling, but it was almost too sticky for me to handle, so he was relegated to the sprinkles duty. They turned out fine.



I sent cookie care-packages out yesterday to my uncle in Japan (who, it turns out, due to my late sending, his plans to leave town on Christmas, and a Japanese postal holiday on the 22nd, is likely to receive three-week-old stale cookies when he finally returns. Oh well). I also sent a package to my BIL Dave and to my future SIL Jinnie. I think they will receive theirs relatively fresh, and hopefully will especially enjoy the oatmeal-raisin ones that I made on Dave's request (and I loathe oatmeal-raisin cookies, so it truly was an act of love - oatmeal chocolate chip are devine, but oatmeal-raisin are evil - even though I love raisins in my porridge. Go figure.) And Jinnie is getting some brownies, along with all the more festive varieties. I really must remember to take a picture of the plate I plan to put together for serving on Christmas. There are still a ton of cookies in the freezer.

We've been doing our little Playmobile advent calendar every night, and I know it's nowhere near as exciting as all the hand-crafted ones I've seen in blogland, but the girls are enjoying it, and to be honest I think Joe and I are too. I'll have to remember to take a picture of the finished scene after Christmas.



The girls and I went to see the Nutcracker display at Macy's downtown last Thursday. They enjoyed it, and the crowd was not too bad, so we walked through twice. Sophie was already coming down with the cold-from-hell at that point, although I didn't realize just how bad it was going to turn out to be.



Here's Julie's class performing on Thursday night. Julie is in the red dress, sitting on her teacher's lap off to the left. The kids were incredibly cute, and quite well-trained for a bunch of four-year-olds. I really wish Julie had been willing to get up and do it with them. She and Joe had a little tiff right as we were headed over there, so she was grumpy and uncooperative. Oh well.



Here she is after the performance, following her little friend Ben around like a shadow...



And eating cookies...



Why, oh why, did they feel the need to ply our children with Hawaiian Punch and store-bought sugar cookies right before bedtime? Idonotknow.

Friday we saw our favorite little playdate friends and I was able to deliver their new mittens:



In case I didn't cover the details in my earlier posts on these, they are Malabrigo knitted in the round on size 5's, then felted. It's my own concoction, not written up, loosely based on my friend Jean Christensen's Felted Gauntlet Mittens pattern available at the Yarnery - her version has a more interesting cuff.



Little H and big M seemed happy with their gifts. H wore hers around the house for a while, and I hear that she showed them to her "papa" as soon as he came home as well. I'm happy.

And here are the mindless socks I've been working on for the last several weeks. I didn't want to show them here because they were for my friend J's birthday present. She knew she was getting socks, but I wanted the colors to be a surprise.



This is the Regia Galaxy yarn in colorway 1553 that I bought during the shop hop a couple months ago. It was fun to watch the colors do their thing. I used my own toe-up short-row heel and toe pattern on size 0 needles. I'm pretty sure she was pleased too as she put them on right away and kept them on for the rest of the day. I love knitting for people who appreciate my work, and actually put it to good use.



And now that the pretty gifties are done, these ugly things are back out of the pile, on hand for mindless-knitting emergencies...



Really, the socks don't look too bad once they're knit up, it's just the yarn is not so lovely to look at while I'm knitting it, and it's all very boring. Give me some stripes or swirls for the mindless knitting, I say! Still, they will make good warm socks that go with a lot in my wardrobe. So I'm going to finish them up and then move on to something super-fun!

I still have one more knitting project that I'd hoped to complete before Christmas - Joe's clogs. I've only done one of the soles so far, but they don't take all that much knitting. We'll see how far I can get in my "spare" moments this week. Ha!

We did finish the holiday cards tonight. It felt like a little sweat shop sitting there writing them all out - I always have the bigger stack for some reason (there are quite valid reasons for this, don't worry) but Joe did all the sealing and return-address stamping. He's smiling because he had just been hiding his face behind the card to tease me, not because he actually enjoys writing cards out.



D'oh! I was going to either scan or take a photo of our card so you could see it better - must do that for next time. I'm really happy with how it turned out this year. If you look closely you can get an idea - it's just the picture of the girls sitting in the leaves from our pumpkin-hunting day in October, but the layout we picked from Tiny Prints complemented it really well. I also really liked the card stock it's printed on. It's a postcard-style single sheet, but instead of photo stock, it's printed on nice card stock, which was much easier to write on and felt much classier than the photo version - all at about the same price.

The girls and I have been doing a lot of little crafty things - we ate up a good hour or two yesterday making long paper chains to hang on the tree and along the wall in the living room. Julie really liked that, and Sophie was so miserable she sat meekly in my lap and watched.

We've also been putting together some of those cheezy foam ornament kits, but this tree one turned out pretty cute. All three of the trees came from one kit. I have to admit, I finally buckled and bought a hot glue gun, which made the gluing parts much easier. But now I feel a little trashy.



Julie was in charge of the one on the right ,and did all kinds of interesting things with her stickers. Take a good look at the star on top.

And now, my friends in the computer, it is time for bed! I'm exhausted, and I'm betting Sophie will be up complaining at least once tonight. I needs me some sleep!