the loot

here are the poor, deprived, otto children who only get wooden toys for christmas. life is hard. i mean, what does christmas amount to without batteries and yummy, chinese plastic?

bamboo, apparently. but gideon likes it (poor, naive child). they both like it, surprisingly. the bamboo “creata” set here was made by hape. i think i will check out some of the other things they make, even daddy liked it (to a point).

it came with a booklet with all the things you could build. the boys liked to put in requests, “make this one, make this one!”. unfortunately, daddy failed us when it came to the little, bamboo hut. maybe when uncle reuben comes over, he can try his hand. or maybe, since those particular instructions had to be computer modeled (while all the others were actual photos), it was just a cruel hoax to make architects feel bad about themselves. “i can’t even stack children’s toys, what am i doing with my life?” (if you want to view daddy’s, long, painful and futile attempts, check the new video in the sidebar.)

my aunt made the boys the sock monkeys. there is nothing like a hand stitched, sock monkey. i was going to buy a fake one once and thought, “nah, this just isn’t the same.” (but did i make one? no, thank goodness, that’s a long tail to stuff.)

also in the loot pile; books, tinker toys, board games, duplos, “cat” bull dozers and dump trucks (which are currently out in the mud and snow),

a wooden easel (also from auntie piolet), christmas sweaters (being sported),

lincoln logs, wooden tonka trucks,

a wooden tool set,

and more, hand made, ugly dolls from kandi. jehu calls his the “ugly fish”. i also got them this boat from play mobil, which got overlooked, because i keep it hidden under the bed where it and all it’s small, tiny parts will never be found.

totes

i counted, and i made 15 of these for christmas presents. it’s nice to have a pattern down, that whips out fast and doesn’t cause you any trouble. but i still don’t want to make any more for quite a while.

i like the idea of attractive, reusable, shopping bags. the dimensions are 17″ wide, 14 1/2″ tall with a 3″ gusset and 11 1/2″ handles.  i lined these ones and made them reversible. by the way, i used this tutorial and it was a breeze.) i had such a fun time picking out the fabric too. the black pair went to my sister violet, and the green went to my sister sarah.

then i made up some green and red ones for my aunt and mother-in-law and a hodge podge assortment of others.

other than that, i’m just kind of glad christmas is over. time to get ready for baby. two more months!

at the otto’s (the real ones)

we skipped down to jerome for christmas, to stay with boy’s parents. i’m putting up some of the pictures on my picasa, if anyone wants to see. otherwise, you can just look at my coat here, which has nothing to do with christmas, but orange and teal go so lovely together.

this is gideon, out on the farm, chasing cows with his daddy.

daddy doesn’t like chasing cows (or me, chasing him around with the camera, telling him how sexy he is next to tractors, brain dead bovines or pole fences. “could you put your leg up and then turn and look smoky at me?” and this is what i get.)

here are the boys christmas morning (not all the way awake). jehu is a little bunged up from falling down the concrete steps, the fault of a too poofy coat. i don’t believe he could see his feet.

here they are packing some of their loot. which i think i will get around to posting. they got such neat toys, spoiled little scroms.

new video in the sidebar too.

hubby waxes festive

actually, he is mostly just accommodating.  with really long side burns.

some whores d’oeuvres

my favorite. they’re a crescent roll stuffed with bacon, cream cheese and parmesan. they’re easy to make too.

you whip up the filling, roll it in crescent rolls, and bake it for about 15 minutes. (just a note, the rolls come 8 to a container, and you want 16. so when you unroll the crescents, you want to smush together the perforations [where you're supposed to separate them] and make your own [you need to come up with 16 squares].)

also, i use fake bacon and no one has seemed to notice, but you can kill a real piggy if you like.

some scavaging and sewing

bible study had it’s christmas party last night. gideon drew the name of a little girl, so i sewed up this apron using leftovers from my old hooter hider. it was fun to root through my closet and see all the things i could make.

anyways, now i know how not to sew an apron. it looked all right in theory, but it didn’t look good on. it needed to be much shorter with some pleats for added flair. so, next on the list, i sewed yet another bag/sachet combo. i used some upholstery leftovers from my friend’s couch and an old tapestry that my mother had given me. i had washed it once and the fringe became a positive mess. so it worked great for this, as i just cut it all off.

and here they are, all ready to go. (we made a few santa stops on the way.)

in the end, i came home with a horrific christmas cd, “o holy night, an audio feast that will make you weep.” which sounds like someone recorded my little sister and brother mutilating christmas songs in the back seat of the car, just for fun. boy, on the other hand, scored a sweet little pocket knife and now the kids have even more, obnoxious, noisy toys. but we’ll see about that…

some late night sewing

at 1:00 in the morning one isn’t too concerned with blogging. but i was sad to send my bag off to the mailman without so much as a parting shot. so i threw it on the stove (the only clean spot) and took it’s picture.

i was mostly excited about how it turned out because it was just an old shirt of my mother’s. i used some of the scrappy bits to make a matching sachet with my favorite mix; lavender, spearmint, chamomille, rose buds and a dash of spearmint, essential oil (it’s made of sterner stuff to hold the flavor).

i think it’s fun to have matching sachets for your purse. that way when you reach for your keys, rushing out the door, you get a whiff of something good. purses are pretty much disasters otherwise (a bottomless pit, presumably containing keys, but it’s hard to say for sure. they should at least smell good while you waste all that time looking.)

anyways, now it’s off to another hard day of shopping. i also have to try my hand at a children’s apron for a christmas party tonight. so i’ll show you how that goes tomorrow.

(sigh. i can’t wait to go to my mother-in-law’s for christmas. so i can veg out on the couch all day, crochet and watch clint eastwood while she makes me food. mmm.)

i heart customer service

we just picked up our new bike trailer. our old one was having problems with the fabric and peeling in places, so i called the dealer. they tracked down the company, who called me and arranged a swap. i only had to make one call and in two weeks, new bike trailer. fabulous.

i would recommend this trailer too, if you’re interested in something that doubles well as a stroller and is higher quality than what you usually pick up retail. but not too high (if you haven’t noticed, chariot’s run about $600 when all is said and done). this is about $375. has a nifty swivel wheel in front too. pushes like a dream.

i also had to call kitchen aid this morning because my breakfast smoothie was interrupted by the shocking realization that there was a crack in the pitcher on my blender. horrors. i ran straight to the computer, and after chatting my husband to find out how he had destroyed my pride and joy, i called kitchen aid. they are sending me a new one in the mail. huzzah. and last night i had to call amazon because my order seemed to be hinting at me that it wouldn’t arrive by christmas. the nice folks there (even though they barely spoke english) upgraded my shipping for me for free. i feel so loved. idaho camera also dished out the love and reprinted my family pictures for free after they screwed them up the first time. but i still have to spend all day cutting them out by hand because their chopper (although it missed the picture this time) still left entirely wacky borders around them. i think it will amount to about 500 chops by hand, and i don’t know if the love is sufficient. someone else needs to love me to make up for this.

here are the scroms at breakfast this morning. who have recently decided all serving dishes and cutlery must match. “mom! i need the yellow cup, to go with my yellow bowl and my yellow spoon.” really. their father is not impressed with this development. i agree, i think diverse color combinations are actually more attractive and hopefully they will grow out of this short stint of misguided tastes.

isn’t christmas great?

we excavated all the decorations december 5th or so and put up the tree. i was even able to find pink tinsel, after i had all but given up hope. maybe next year i can find pink christmas lights. mmm.

here is my favorite. it is a little light up camper my mother-in-law bought us a few years ago. it is the same size as the airstream where gideon was born (back in the day). next are the neat-o, vintage ornaments i scored at a yard sale a few summers back. they are my pride and joy (even though destined for certain extinction). gideon actually tried to eat one once.

my mother-in-law also hooked me up with the fun nativity (out of her collection of a hundred or so). fortunately, it is fairly indestructible and the boys like to play with it.

this is my little pregnant, fairy ornament my sister got me when gideon was born and another of my favorite (not yet broken) antique ornaments.

and this is me at…actually, i don’t know how far i am along. isn’t that great? everyone should be fatly pregnant at christmas, you hardly notice. time flies when you’re busy spending all your husband’s money.

(just checked the calendar, make that 28 weeks baby.)

cookie scroms

today we made cookies.

with grandma’s recipe.  they are soft and chewy with a hint of nutmeg. not hard as a rock and made out of straight sugar (nasty things).  who likes sugar cookies anyways?  i guess you do what you gotta do.

and here is gideon, later wondering about cause and effect. one smart kid, that one.