Photo Friday: Christmas Fun

We have two of our Christmases(three actually, but the first was earlier this month) done for this year. One more to go tomorrow. On Wednesday, we went to my MiL’s for our Christmas with her. We had pizza for our Christmas Eve dinner then opened presents.

When we got home, the kids found Santa’s elves had snuck into the house again and left them each a new pair of pajamas. They put them on and we read The Night Before Christmas. Actually this year the girl read it to us, instead of me reading it.

In the morning, the girl was awake at 5:30, but the boy wasn’t. So, I told her to go in her room and read one of her new books until he got up. Which was about half an hour later. And she’d finished another 3 chapters. They didn’t get a whole lot, but Santa was a little mean and even wrapped some of the candy in their stockings(was trying to make it last longer than 10 minutes). The boy got a new bike and the girl a Kindle Fire, which didn’t leave a lot of money in the budget for other gifts. But, they didn’t seem too upset that they each only had a couple things under the tree. We’ve always kept things small at home, though. They also got gifts from “grandma carol”(husband’s stepmom’s stepmom who lives next to us, but is in Florida for the winter). And the girl got each of us a gift from the Christmas shop at school.

After they were done, we had doughnuts for breakfast and got ready to go down to my mom’s. This was about 6:30 and we didn’t have to be there until 10:30. So, we wasted some time and didn’t leave until 9:30. The first thing we did on getting there, of course, was dig into the sticky rolls my mom makes every year(this may sound familiar for anyone who’s read Flames of Redemption).

one half gone batch of sticky rolls

Once my oldest sister got there, we went downstairs to open presents. I don’t know why, but the clashing voices of 6 kids(aged 3-11) and the adults really triggers my anxiety. A few times I thought I’d lose it. I actually had to go upstairs to get control of it again.

We have nothing to do today, but tomorrow we have our Christmas with my husband’s stepmom and his siblings. Then, our Christmases will be over and it will be time to recharge after all the socialness of the last days.

Knitting Monday: Baby Shower Gifts

I have a cousin who is due with her first baby, a girl, in May. This will be the first baby in our family that is not from me or one of my sisters. And this is the first baby shower I’ve been to since I started knitting. So, I decided to make a few things to give her.

The first was a hat that I made a couple months back but always intended to give her as a gift. It was different than the other hats I have done. First of all, it was knit from the top down instead of starting with the brim. That made it a little difficult at first. But, it turned out really nice. Now, hopefully her kid won’t be like mine and have a bigger head, since it’s made to fit a newborn, and I know my kids had like 3-6 month heads at birth.

I didn’t work on any more gifts until the end of March since I had been trying to get some Easter items done. But, the next one I worked on was a little headband. This was the first headband I had ever knit. And I made a little flower to attach to it. The one I ended up going with was actually the second one I made. The first attempt was a rose, but as I was trying to knit it together to look like a rose, it all fell apart. So, I decided to go with a different flower design instead. I may try to do another rose sometime and hopefully it will work better.

I still wanted to make something else to give to her, so I made a little square blanket. Not big enough to cover up with, but something her little girl could cuddle with a little later.

And I still wanted a little something else to put in with the gift, but we were only two days away from the shower. So, I looked through my list of patterns I’ve collected and found one for a bib with a cabled edge and strap that I didn’t think would take me too long to finish. I was a little worried though because I haven’t really done much cabling before. It turned out to not be too difficult though and actually ended up looking really nice. I had that finished on Friday, so still had plenty of time to get it all put together for the shower.

I’d had a couple of other items that I had planned to give her as well, but neither of them turned out as well as I had hoped so decided against including them.