Santa Came to Visit

My dear Aunt Clause. She's too cute.

When you have a mother who sews you get a lot of perks. For instance you might get a special visit from Mr. and Mrs. Clause because Mrs. Clause needs a new apron and she has some unique specifications (as you would expect). Most children would consider this to be a huge bonus... most children... Indeed, my oldest son was stoked and chatted with the famous pair for quite a while. The neighbor children, while cautious, were soon won over by the jolly man's charms. However, there was Conster, and he was NOT amused. He was so far from enthused that I would venture to say he may be traumatized, not the kind of traumatized that would require psychiatric help but certainly the kind that will dis-sway him from ever having a picture taken with Mickey Mouse.

This is what he did the entire time Santa and Mrs. Clause were at my house. He gave the impression that he was asleep, as he refused to open his eyes at all. However, since his grip was tighter then death, I was fairly certain he was awake. No amount of encouragement or begging would get him to open his eyes. Poor thing. I hope that Mr. and Mrs. Clause aren't offended, I'm sure they're used to this kind of thing and really three out of four kids isn't bad.

What about you? Any traumatized Christmas memories? I find the best thing to assuage the pain of creepy santa's past is to let us laugh with you and presents. Leave a comment on this post telling us your funny holiday memories to enter to win one of these Christmas gifts. I'll pick a winner on boxing day December 26th because it's a very british thing and I'm still finding myself taken with Anglophila

Some goodies for you; aprons, pincushions, nestlaces.
Plenty to go around so leave a comment.

This is amish peanut butter. If you've never had amish peanut butter it's homemade peanut butter mixed with marshmallow cream. It's fantastic. This was made and given to me, along with some other amazing treats from a coworker of Brian's. This woman is pretty great; she homeschool's her kids, works two very demanding jobs and somehow makes time to put together gift baskets of wonderful homemade treats.

Do you know what I am capable of? Eating the peanut butter by dipping saltine crackers straight into the jar. And no I didn't use a plate; just stood there eating it right at the counter filled with dirty dishes. I know it's healthier to eat at the table with silverware but I cut SuperH's pajama top too short, and my hair was falling down in a crazy way and I had not had nearly enough caffeine.

Another friend was telling me how she ate russian tea cakes for breakfast (that's a little cookie covered in powdered sugar). I was instantly jealous as my mom used to make those at Christmas and I haven't had any in years. What does it say about my state of mind that I'm eating straight from a jar, while in a sewing trance, and am jealous of eating something healthy like cookies for breakfast?

Cest' la vi. Where do you fall on the spectrum of Christmas habits? On a scale from I-haven't-brushed-my-hair-in-days to I'm-completely-ready-and-everything's-wrapped (if that's you I sort of hate you, not really but kind of).

Oops I kind of fell off the radar there for a while. Sorry!! Christmas has this effect on me every year. I get so busy. It's a good busy but blogging always falls by the way side. I'm sorry I love you guys! I also find it difficult to blog about projects because I don't want to spoil anyones Christmas presents!!

This is me trying on a super amazing pair of glasses 

during our annual Christmas antiquing trip.

Wish my hair looked better, I keep trying

to get a good pic of the new color.

After Christmas I should have a few to share though. Today I spent the entire morning mending this really cool vintage coat that someone gave me. The lining had so many seams popped. After a couple false starts (where I mended the armhole to the wrong spot) I finally got it finished, yea!! Boy is mending the most boring kind of sewing there is. It's not at all fun like skirts, and toys, and pajamas.

The boys admiring the tree. Conster is

wearing two pair of underwhere here because

he told me that's what Power Ranger's do.

This year we got a real tree. I love it, it smells so good and looks delightfully non-perfect. Brian picked it out and brought it home for me, so sweet. He also stopped and picked up Christmas tree lights and he bought the big ones that look all 1950's. What a great man, he knows me so well! The lights and all my old ornaments really give the tree a vintage look. Simply perfect. This was the first year the boys were into decorating with me. They weren't actually very helpful but they were darn cute! I love that they're old enough to get excited for some of these traditional things.

If I look at this pile of projects too long I have a panic attack!

I hope your having a fabulous December. Any projects you want to share with us? Also, check back next week for a Christmas give-a-way.

Bye for now!

Pinterest Monday.

I know it's suppose to be Pinterest Wednesday but the project I was working on took quite a bit longer then I anticipated. What you see below is an ordinary Altoids tin...

 Or is it...

It's actually a tiny little mouse house!

Because it's so little I expected it to go a lot faster but turns out because it's so little it's a little slower. There are so many tiny little stitches. Not hard, though, I just have to relax and enjoy the process. I have three mice made and need a total of four, with their homes for Christmas. Two of them will go in my boys' stockings which is perfect since we just finished "The Mouse and the Motorcycle." 

Interesting side note. I was dumping the mints out into a plastic bag and a couple rolled onto the floor. Ranger promptly ate them and his breath smells like NOTHING!! It usually smells like death in the barnyard but, now, it's delightfully neutral. I can't believe it.

I'm happy with the mice and think they're super cute and fun. What kid won't love having a secret mouse bed to tuck his little wool mouse into? The original pin is here and the pattern costs $8 but has been very worth it. 

New Year.

Christmas has come and gone and it was beautiful and full and crazy and warm and cozy all at once.  I enjoyed it immensely and loved all the sewing projects and got so much pleasure out of seeing people open them.... Now I'm done.  We still have one family Christmas left and Brian asked me if I was going to sew some for it and I. just. can't. I don't have any desire. I even made the mistake of starting a read of "The Secret Garden" and now I want all the decorations down (magically, though, because I don't actually wan to do it) and I want it to get warmer so I can plant something.

all in our superhero jammies.

kazoo tune.

vintage robe and pipe for my vintage man.

So tough I can barely stand it.

Vintage Christmas china, Beef Bourguignon, and Christmas cake. 

Family and Friends.

This boy loves his food.

I make my bed every Christmas morning so I can lay
out all of my gifts and look at them.
Isn't that silly?

I should have done something today but all I could manage, beyond taking care of the children, was read and read some more. If I didn't have to change diapers or make macaroni and cheese I do believe I would have stayed in bed the entire day. That would be nice. After all the excitement and running around of Christmas maybe we just all need a few days of nothing to do.

Every year around this time I start seeing all the "Don't take Christ out of Christmas..." posts on Facebook. Which, prompts me to write a post about it on my blog. I'm sorry if you feel you've read this before but it's important. Whether or not a sign in a store says "Happy Holidays" as opposed to "Merry Christmas" does not matter. I do not want to be disrespectful, I love Jesus, I just think it's more important to concentrate our efforts on things that can make a difference in someones life.  Did you know that the word "Holiday" actually means "Holy Day"? and that early Christians used the letter "x" to represent Christ, even referring to themselves as "xians"?  And let's not forget that this time of year is also a time to celebrate Hanukkah, Thanksgiving, and the New Year. It's not such a bad thing to have a phrase to refer to all the milestones we remember this time of year (sort of like "presidents day" only way cooler). And, it's definitely not a bad thing to also honor a miracle that God the father preformed for his people before the time of Christ. Jesus would have celebrated Hanukkah growing up, after all.

Meaning "Holy day" by saying "holidays and xmas" may not be what Wal-mart intends but it's up to us whether or not we're going to buy into the Christmas hype that the only way to have a merry Christmas is to "buy more and spend less". Estimated costs to bring safe clean drinking water and sanitation to the entire world is around 20 billion (that seems like a lot but hang on). Contaminated water kills 2.2 million people a year. Now check out how much Americans spend on Christmas every year; 400 billion! I'm not telling you this to make you feel bad. I love gift giving and watching my kids faces when they see the gifts under the tree is one of the best blessings of the day. I am telling you this to give you confidence to live the season beyond what our society tells us the season is about.  What are we teaching our kids at home about Christmas? Consider pairing down the gift list this year and spending a little of that money on the poor in your community (our food banks are being stretched to their breaking points) or giving the gift of water, live stock, or medicine to people struggling to survive in third world countries. Let's tap into some of the real magic of the season, the kind of magic that stores can't market.

You want to show people that "Jesus is the Reason for the Season"? Christmas is on a Sunday this year, where will you be on Sunday morning? Will you be teaching your children that opening gifts first thing in the morning is the point of Christmas or will you be worshipping God the father for the gift of his son with your brothers and sisters in Christ?

Next time you see a Target or Wal-mart commercial telling us that we must "spend, spend, spend" and then ending with "Happy Holidays" you can smile and think "nice try." The next time your face book friend types "xmas" to save time or try and get you and others annoyed, just smile as you consider how no matter how hard this world tries to hide Jesus he will always be there. He will always show himself.  No corporation, government, or people group is powerful enough to take the greatest gift; the gift of God coming to this earth in the form of a baby, away from us. Amen and Praise to His Name!

This is about to get real.

I mean real whiny.  I think it's important that you know about my faults as well as my mad cooking skills and whacky mind. I don't know why I think you should know all these things about me but apparently I just can't keep any thing to myself.

Any way to begin you must know how much I LOVE Christmas. I love it so do both my sisters and my mom we are very very into Christmas. Real trees we force our husbands to cut down with hand saws, garland, cookies, carols everything. Now my mom and my sisters live quite far away and my husband does not love Christmas the way I do so I feel the need to share with you how now is the perfect time to begin listening to Christmas music. I have been working on Christmas for months now and as soon as Halloween is over I feel it's appropriate to start the Holiday season, Thanksgiving, is after all a celebration of thanks and the birth of Christ makes me very thankful.

Second thing you must know (in order to understand what lead to my very big mishap today) is that I have had about zero luck in getting my husband good gifts. The year we were engaged (keep in mind I was a poor college student) I bought him a very nice Starbucks set only to have him tell me one afternoon that he had given up drinking coffee, so I took it back (FYI his not drinking coffee lasted like a week). So then I bought him a very expensive bottle of cologne thinking that was romantic and he likes cologne. Guess what his mother gave him that year? Oh yea, an even bigger bottle of expensive cologne (sort of a weird thing for her to get him I still think). One year he lost his favorite hat, you know the kind, super disgusting and falling apart, so I bought him a nice new one, I even pre-shaped the bill. Guess what my mother gave him that year? His old hat she had found it and wrapped it up; he didn't even give my hat a second look. This year he turned thirty so I planned for him a surprise party which he specifically told me not too. However, he is a huge jokester so I figured it was about time, plus I got the youth group involved and bought him a (wait for it) Ipad so he wouldn't be able to stay mad at me. Guess who called him on the phone to ask him what time his birthday party was? Oh yea, his mother (I need to say right here that while I was super mad about that she really isn't as horrible as this is making her seem). So when he confronts me about the party he says, "Well I better be getting an Ipad!" I wilted right then and there.

So now you have my very whiny poor me back ground. This year because I am only slightly more well off then when I was in college I began buying gifts towards the end of last month. The very first thing I ordered for him was a Hoodie Buddy. I found one for a really good deal and ordered it. He came home this week and says to me "So I went to the store and bought a Hoodie Buddy." Oh I was so mad, if we hadn't had company he really would have gotten it. Who buys themselves something like that in November with Christmas coming?!

And that brings us to today. There is a rule in our house my bedroom is a toy-free zone. No children are allowed in there unless they ask and if they are in my room it's to watch a movie there is no wrestling on my bed etc. This may sound cruel but our house is small and I need one space where I don't have to worry about stepping on a lego etc.  Also my house is very small (our closets are the size of trash cans) so I have been hiding Christmas presents under my bed. Hunter and Maddie were in my room watching OSO when they come walking into the living room holding Hunter's main gift. At this point things get a little fuzzy, but what I do remember is a little embarrassing. I grabbed the box out of his hand and bellowed "DON'T EVER EVER EVER GO UNDER MY BED AGAIN!!!!!" Maddie's eyes became the size of dinner plates and Hunter went running into his room crying, which for a second just made me more irritated (mom please don't feel too bad for him because that will just irritate me too). Now I yell it's not like I don't, and I get mad but I usually just go in my room and stomp around or hide in the bathroom for a few minutes.  This was something entirely different. I know, believe me I know, how ridiculous this all sounds it's just that it was the tipping point.

This was suppose to be the year my parents sisters come here but dear Courtney just had a baby. I totally get that, I have traveled with all age of babies and it's hard not to mention the fact I totally understand wanting to have that first Christmas morning with your children at your own home. It was Brian's idea that we tell them to stay in MD this year. But still I miss them, the season is well, missing something when they're not here to have coffee with and plan with and laugh with. Now I'll fly out there with two kids by myself (which scares me to death) and we'll go out there and have a big celebration but I know they're going to all get together on Christmas and exchange gifts and eat a big meal with out us. And Brian can't go this year so it's just me making the trip. Brian doesn't always get it (most men don't). I guess what I had been pumping myself up about was the fact that the boys are older now. This was the most fun Halloween I'd had in ages and I'm pretty sure Christmas is going to be even better. We don't have tons of extra cash with tuition costs this year so I've been really making a conscious effort to make each gift count and I was so excited to finally get something for Brian that he would really like and be surprised (I mean he knows he's getting slippers and coffee). When I saw Hunter standing there with that stupid Jessie doll I just lost it. And now all I can see is his excited expression holding that stupid doll just before I screamed at him; oh dear I feel awful!!

I feel like just canceling the whole damn thing. And I know that carols will be sung, way to many cookies consumed, gifts wrapped, stockings stuffed, friends for dinner. I know that the glow will come back, but right now all I feel is disappointment and guilt and that's not how Jesus birthday is suppose to feel. Oh well I'm sorry to put you through this, thanks for listening.

I'm signing off,
Bah Humbug in Battle Creek.

Siblings

1-18-07
Before I get to the real point of my entry today I would like to vent about the sleeping habits, or lack there of for my almost four month old. Ever since he was brand new he would sleep 3-4 hours at a stretch during the night and sometimes if we were really lucky five. As annoying as getting up to anything less then eight is to someone like me it was dooable. Now all of a sudden he's decided he can only go two hours without waking up. Now before you start giving me your expert advice let me just say, I let him cry during the day and make sure he has time on the floor to stretch his limbs. He stays awake most of the evening and also gets a bath before bed. During the day he'll go 2.5-3 hours between feedings and sometimes his afternoon nap will even be 3-4 hours long. He goes down at night easy as pie... for two hours when he decides he's starving but will only eat four ounces leaving him starving again in a couple of hours. I'm not sure if he doesn't like the formula or he's just being extremely difficult, but I don't know how much more I can take. He's suppose to be sleeping longer not less, and babies on formula supposedly can go longer!!

Now the real point of my entry today is about siblings. Today is my youngest sister's birthday, she's twenty which my husband likes to point out means that when she's my age I'll be thirty. I pointed out that I could make his life miserable and beat the crap out of him. Brian and I can't imagine having another child what with all the crying and eating it seems near impossible, and right now Brian's saying he really just wants one kid. I think that means he's in the midst of baby and can't imagine more then one but I'm in no hurry to have another one right now any way so we'll just see.

It's easy to imagine my life with one child, I love him so much. I can see how it would be easier to devote my self to his growth and development. It's kind of fun to think of my family like the three muskateers, a little triangle full of love and fun, but then I think about my sister (and those boxes of girl clothes I have in the basement) and I wonder if that's what I want for him. My sisters are great and I'm not just saying that because it's Heather's birthday I really mean it. We had our fights when we were growing up (although not as much as some) but now that we're older they're my friends. We have a lot of fun together and if we could just live close together it would be awesome. Siblings teach you so many things about life starting with sharing and on down to devotion and protection and love.

I loved being the oldest getting to watch my sisters grow and become mature adults was so cool. Walking Heather to school when she was little with her little mittened hand in my pocket will always be one of my best memories. Remembering staying up late with Courtney talking about boys and laughing until Dad came in all eyebrows will always make me smile. Christmas wouldn't have been as great as it was if I didn't have two people to stay up with late so excited we couldn't sleep, and just as excited about my presents as I was.

When we moved to Coldwater we weren't living in our house yet (it was being remodeled) but we put a tree up anyway and the three of us slept on the floor in Courtney's future room, with the big ugly yellow flowers on the wall and that wierd empty house smell. It was great! Now that would not have been totally awesome if they weren't there.

I think siblings are important, I know mine are. They're not only great sisters there great Aunts. If I had been an only child my life would have been a lot more dull but what about Hunter he would be missing out on so much; noisy and messy toys (the kind no parent in their right mind would buy for their own child) sleep overs with his cousins, movies and late night snacks before they have children of their own and know better, and mostly love.

I thank God for my siblings, when I look back on our lives together my heart just swells. I want that for Hunter I just hope he's as blessed as I am.

P.S. Just because I think siblings are a good idea in no way means I'm pregnant or am planning on getting pregnant any time soon, so don't get your hopes up mom and Grammy. My body and my sanity needs rest.

P.S.S. Happy Birthday Heather, I wish I could be there with you to celebrate you bring so much joy to our lives!!!!