2013? It was awesome

I don't know how I got away with neglecting our family's version of keeping track of what we have done (and sometimes just what I am thinking), but here it is, into a new year and I have neglected some of the finest finishes on 2013.  I will, of course blame it on the end of semester stresses and the flu, which caught us all off guard.  Yet, without dwelling too much on the missed opportunity of the past, here are some of the awesome photo-captured remaining moments of 2013:

A fantastically organized and generous classmate of the kids invited us all over to do a  gingerbread creation entry into the annual gingerbread festival.  Not only was it mega fun to see the kids playing together outside of school and working somewhat on the creation, it motivated us to go to the Gingerbread Festival downtown this year.  I understand it is a fundraiser so I will forgive the entrance fee to see candy piled in one giant room.  Pretty impressive, and the kids won 3rd place in their category for their interpretation of the historical impact of Interstates bypassing Fort Wayne rather than going straight through.

Since the children have recess in a lovely forest with amazing fall colors, like little squirrels they started to bring home their natural spoils.  We determined to put them to good use in one flourish of craftiness (which comes bi-annually for me).  The kids prepared gratitude trees for their classrooms made from the pieces of their very own woods.  It is amazing what some scrap wood and metallic spray paint can do.  I was most excited about the effect of focusing on what we are grateful for had on myself as well as the kids.  It was a good year to remember we are blessed.

Thanksgiving was a much slighter crowd than I prefer, which did not stop me from creating the regular smorgasbord of foods.  Thanksgiving is one of those days in the year when I enjoy making a lot of laborious foods to share with others.  The kids were my favorite companions through all the preparations and their enthusiasm and anticipation made the holiday so much sweeter than my sour attitude may have turned it.  And, low and behold, this year was a fantastic pie year!  Many thanks go to my amazing friend Naomi who has master the art of pie crusts and shared her recipe with me.

The Sunday after Thanksgiving started off our Christmas season with Advent.  I can't say enough how cool it is to have kids in this stage that makes everything magical again.  The kids were enthralled with setting a formal table and all the preparations.  Our dinner guests were hit-and-miss again this year (a very disappointing aspect of sharing a tradition with a modern society), but as Josh says, we have better company with our kids sometimes than if we were to invite others to join us.  Four Sundays of our favorite foods and we are fine either way!

Christmas Eve my darling husband ushered the kids through as many traditions as possible as I lay slave to a porcelain god. The stomach flu which the girls has overcome the week before waited for Christmas Eve to hit Danny and I.  Danny was a better patient than I and pulled out of the pukes within 6 hours.  My aging body was relentless in holding on to some severe inflammation for a few days but hey, I am learning to love and respect my body and its crazy anti-immune disease.  I particularly love this picture because it is a replay of a Christmas picture nearly 3 years old.  Oh they are still just as cute.

Josh's birthday came like clockwork the day after Christmas.  The kids were no less excited about gift opening, even if it were all for Daddy.  We open first thing in the morning so birthdays are like Christmas.  As any old-fogie would, Josh's gifts were practical work clothes and a challenge for a Spartan race in the spring. ;) we won't succumb to age gracefully.

On New Year's Eve, at 8:30pm, when everyone was asleep but myself, I opened up my early birthday present to myself and cuddled up with a kitten to usher in the New Year. As we say, the New Year will come whether  you are awake or not, so we may as well sleep!  I was cozy, and still wearing the pajamas on the 2nd as my birthday rolled around (I changed out of them for the day of New Years but got back in for the sleeping, oh so cozy).  

We had thought the last of our holiday vacation days had come by the end of today, but hooray for snow!  The 'severe weather' storm of the winter hit today, which reminded me of many a day sitting at the cabin in my childhood, lightly falling snow most of the day accumulating nicely up to 12 inches.  Church was cancelled.  Pretty much everything in Fort Wayne is cancelled for the next two days.  I suppose their snow plows are extra clunky? Knowing it was a wet snow the kids and Josh went out to smash as much of it together as possible in cute forms.  Supposedly it will be very cold the next few days after today.  Who cares, we still have more vacation together tomorrow!

Little Stitches

This is as crafty as I get - that is practical uses for fabric.  

As I recognized that I was in a glum mood and didn't really want to do much, I figured it would be a nice time to sit in a sunny part of the kitchen and stitch.  As most projects turn out, the kids were not far behind.  Thanks to the inspiration of reading Little House on the Prairie, I realized it was certainly appropriate that they learn how to sew as well.  Yes, I gave a sharp small object to each of my kids in a small space and taught them a basic loop stitch to attatch elastic to ribbon for head bands.  I was amazed by the dexterity and determination of their little hands.  They also felt extremely invested because they were making their own accessories.  Certainly at times it was tedious to be moving from one tutorial about tying off to the next, but as most projects go, they lost interest after awhile and I was left to my stitching while they fed themselves applesauce.  

I felt grateful sitting amidst these small industrious people on a sunny afternoon stitching away.  I was glad for their skill.  I was happy they wanted to be near.  I was impressed by how quickly they learned.  I triumphed with them when they finally threaded that tiny little needle with that disappearing thread.  I loved the moments of quiet silence as the thread rushed through multiple fabrics and little tongues kept busy keeping the concentration on the needle.  If the silence was broken it was for a reposed moment of question relevant to the past and present.  

The kids always love knowing more stories of my childhood and remembering how and why I first learned to stitch (creating doll clothes from remnant fabrics of my mothers and then making patchwork quilts) and remembering the lessons of keeping our hands busy so our minds could do their work.  Growing up we always had a something going on in hand if we were watching something on the television.  I remember hot summer afternoons in the cool basement watching old movies to the rythm of  everyone cutting green beans or shelling peas.  Or the numerous General Conference with all sorts of needle work being preformed.  The soothing feeling of letting your hands move about as they want to create something beautiful is the very feeling I pulled out my much neglected bins of ribbons and thread that day.

Most remarkable to me was seeing how much they accomplished!  Danny was the mot precise stitcher and actually finished two headbands for me before needing some refreshment.  After consuming sufficient amounts of applesauce he found the pipe cleaners and some beads and sat without prompting threading a bracelet for me.  Viv made it through a headband and a half before succumbing to the distracting applesauce and the frustration of not keeping up with Faith.  Faith did two ribbon headbands and then began learning a straight stitch to be able to do gathers (we called it the dolphin stitch since the needle goes under the fabric then comes back up from the same side like a dolphin hopping in and out of the water), which was more technical on a lace fabric she had chosen, and she succeeded.  When all the desired stitching was done they snacked and fingered the beautiful ribbons until Daddy came home for dinner while I made a couple of ribbon shamrock tie tacks for the boys.

There are so many fond memories connected to working with my hands in my childhood that I felt absolutely blessed, despite my grumpiness, to be sharing that simple pleasure with my kids.

It's Curtain's for you

Saturday's project was to be building a new room in the basement.  However, our contractor helper was tied up in another job, and what resulted was just a lovely day of switching curtains around.  It is amazing the difference that a proper window treatment can make in a room.  When we initially moved in we just threw up the curtains we had for practicality.  Now we are settling in to things better I had the gumption to bump everything around to where it ought to be.  So here is how the switch-o went:

Everything is staged now to build a bedroom in this corner of the basement.  The curtains over the very drafty window I had initially put in the kids' room because they are light/heat blocking curtains, but they didn't fit the windows.

The curtains I needed for the kids room were hanging around the makeshift bathroom here in the corner of the basement.  I found the large red curtain and hung it on the important side, and with moving the food storage into that corner it created a fourth wall on the other side of the 'bathroom'.  Note that the wooden cupboards on the left have no doors on them any longer.

I had got some thermal sheers for the kids' room a while back so now I could move the appropriate size and color window treatments into the kids' room that is coming together, slowly, but coming.  Looks better with the right curtains to match the window sizes.

My favorite result of it all was our master bedroom, which now feels like a master retreat, thanks to the doors we took of the cupboards to make a head board and the sheers from he basement 'bathroom' to finally allow some privacy and daylight in the room.  Josh was skeptical when I told him about moving the bed angled in the corner to get away from the draft under the window, but just as I suspected, by creating triangular floor space rather than rectangular pathways the room looks and feels twice as large!  Always rethink a room, you may be surprised.  And of course the cats now prefer our bed for the softness and sunlight.

At Christmas I had found the fabric to create the valances for the dining and kitchen area, which Josh and I created on Christmas day.  I love the pattern and color (which can play both orange and red) and love how cozy it makes this end of the house.  I have only the window in the kitchen and the back door to finish dressing and everything will look so fine!

All this fine home improvement with only the cost of the fabric for the kitchen windows.  The rest of the window treatments I had from previous moves (way back to our first apartment in Mildred's basement) and the curtain rods were often splits of ones I had used before.  It all worked out.  As we are staying within budget it is fun to rethink our house over and over again to get the maximum benefit.

The Best Gifts of Christmas 2012

Tis' the season for the holiday looting recap.  In reviewing 'the best' of this year I am awestruck, in all sincerity, of the simplicity of joys that were not packaged.

Those who know me best know that I LOVE to give gifts.  It comes quite close in hand with I love shopping.  Although I don't feel myself to be much of a materialistic person, I do like come stuff (shoes and clothes) in more abundance than others (gadgets and gizmos).  I got closer than ever this year to my touted 3 gifts per person.  Luckily I have been maintaining my education in self-sufficient simplicity and thus was more apt to feel that less really is more.  And it has been!  It also helps that I was a bit more selfishly Scroogish because I am saving up for a big trip for my to NYC in two weeks.  However the means by which I accomplished it this year, I am so grateful!

The kids got their Christmas Eve jammies: ain't they cute.
Beyond that they are supposed to get 3 gifts: one experience, one something homemade and one special toy from Santa.  I always throw in a matching Sunday ensemble for the whole family.  This year was a magical year of belief in Santa.  Danny's eye's popped out of his head when he found legos in his stocking and Faith sat back in amazement when she saw that there was the perfect dolly for her to do its hair from Santa.

Viv was happy to be getting gifts and receiving input on gracious receiving also.  By her last gift she said thank you and some happy words without even being prompted.  She is getting used to the slower pace of group gift opening and experiencing the happiness of shared joys instead of giant looting.

I finally finished the kids' matching quilts, started nearly 2 years ago, thanks to a brain wave of making the girls quilts into duvet covers and thus not having to quilt them.  I was totally gratified when Faith woke up two days later and recounted to me that she had had a bad dream in the night and instead of getting out of bed to come be comforted by me, she just wrapped her quilt around her tighter and felt my love wrapping her up warmly and wasn't scared anymore.

The experience gift this year was to be piano lessons for all, but we ended up giving them all sleeping bags and they are more excited about the upcoming experience of camping a lot this summer. I am too! It is exciting to think of this family phase of life when we are going to make memories that they actually remember without me having to tell them!  Plus it put us one step closer to having our emergency preparedness prepared.

Our family gift was the cats, which has given us all more enjoyment for our dollar.  They are the toy the kids can't get enough time playing with.

Josh and I spent our gift budget on Advent dinners, a tradition that we prefer to share with others.  It helps us get into the true meaning of Christmas better than anything else and well worth the money spent on some fabulous cheese, meats, and company.

Josh as always, just wanted money in the bank for Christmas.  It is always super hard for me not to express my love to him in my love language (gifts), but to just speak in his language (physical touch and words of affirmation).  My gift to him this year was honoring his wish and really not getting him anything.  He got to read through 'his book' which is a journal I try to keep daily of the wonderful things he does for me.  I started it when we got married, forgot/lost it for 6 years and picked back up this year to help focus on the positive things about our marriage.

My gift is forthcoming as a combined birthday and Christmas gift.  What I enjoyed most about this Christmas, which was a true gift for me, was the amount of happiness and energy I felt.  After 3 years of depression and chronic fatigue it was amazing to finally feel myself again.  Josh and I spent Christmas day playing with the kids as much as they wanted to (kids all had influenza) and still made valance curtains for the kitchen windows.  I thought, gee I could do more tomorrow!  For the first time in a long time I am making To-Do lists and feeling as though I can tackle them.  It has been a learning adventure to figure out my own body and how to maximize on my own energy potential: combination of better sleep and understanding how to get it, taking the proper vitamins daily, listening to the input my body is giving me and respecting that, and less exercise.  Life is so positive and upbeat and we are all enjoying it.

Second best gift of this Christmas season: snow the day after Christmas!  I am in wintery heaven.

Stockings hung all in a row

I came on the dilemma of not having a Christmas stocking for Vivy this year. Up to this point I had not formally gotten stockings for the family, just used some gifts that had been given and such. Of course I hat things being non-matching. So, instead of just getting a stocking for Viv to match the other non-matching hand-me-downs, I was compeled to put off my other needed Christmas crafts to make a shiny new stocking for everyone in the family! Figuring that was the only way that I could continue the matching tradition each year even if we have different family members every year. And, since I always look at things and wish I had done a something different, I can hold off and put a little something more on the repeat family members each year. I am pleased and it gave me some hand stitching to do, which is my favorite.