Finished another

I crocheted another hat last night. This time it turned out like I wanted it to. After doing two and ripping them both out, this one turned out. I wanted to make a hat that fit close to the head and down over the forehead. The patterns I had just weren't working. So I ripped them out and followed one pattern for the first six rows, then I made it up the rest of the way. I wanted something open around the lower part anyway. I'm hoping to get a photo later on today of someone wearing it.

To change the subject. Den has a friend at work who is crazy about kids' movies. He keeps loaning them to Denny and then asking if we've watched it yet. Last night's movie was KungFu Panda. It was pretty cute. Evil guy subdued by witless warrior trained by a Yoda character. Jack Black is the voice of the "Dragon Warrior". He so fits the part.

I got started on another scarf.....

Coffee with a friend later. No other plans this week. I got the house all cleaned up yesterday. With all that gorgeous sunshine, I couldn't help but feel like spring cleaning! Then I went for a walk.

Holiday handiwork

Like I mentioned earlier, I've picked up crochet and cross-stitch again after a 20 year hiatus! Guess I was too busy homeschooling and raising kids to do it.

This is what got accomplished so far in the last week or so. To give credit where credit is due, however, I only did the outline on the cross-stitch. It took me FOREVER and it is not very clean looking! My dear daughter picked it up while watching John Adams and whipped it up perfectly! sigh. Oh, for young eyes again! I thought about giving it away as a gift, but since it has Linnea's loving touch, I'm keepin' it!!

The hat my boys have dubbed a "Gramma hat". Guess it's not too chic, but it's warm. Better keep it and hope for the Gramma part some day! The scarves were really fun. Shall I put tassels on the pink one? I think I'm giving that one to Andrew's girlfriend. It's made with a kind of soft suede wool/yarn. It was really easy to work with. The blue one is really soft, but has a thread around the yarn that catches occasionally making it a bit frustrating. I've started another scarf made of that same stuff only warm yellows, greens, browns and oranges. Maybe I'll send them to the Ukraine....

It's been really fun to sit and do this. I feel like I'm learning something new as well as making something useful while using my time better. No more just sitting and watching movies! Well, I take that back. We watched Mamma Mia the other night and the scenery and action are so fun, I couldn't take my eyes off. It's only about an hour and a half....

Boy, do I wish I had a couple of fun girlfriends like that....!!! I can think of a couple of sisters that could get into Dancin' Girl!! *smile*

What do YOUR gingerbread look like?

Linnea and Will have a tradition of making gingerbread "men" every year. Many times the theme of the men is the movie series that is currently going. One year it was The Lord of the Rings series, so we had Aragorn, Eowyn, Gimli, and so on. You get the idea.

So you must be guessing what this years' theme is, John Adams. They decided they would do United States Presidents. The lower photo is of George Washington (get the hat?) Abraham Lincoln (hat is also a giveaway) and of course they had to do the president-elect Barak Obama! He has a modern tie and his arm is raised. That's how you can tell who it it. The top photo they will have to describe. I know the one in the dress is Abigail Adams, and I THINK that's John colored the same. The guy in the glasses, hmmmm, he's the only one with a face. Who could that be? Maybe it's Ben Franklin. So they must've done others besides Presidents!

Andrew walked by them and said, "What other family makes Presidents gingerbread men?????

Flaming Christmas Pudding

The joy of eating plum pudding for Christmas dinner is not in the eating, but in the fire! We pulled the blinds shut, poured on the brandy and torched it! We have quite a show because we kept adding brandy because we couldn't see the fire at first.

The second photo is family photo (ach, do we HAVE to do this??) number two, taken before we went out for our annual Chinese Christmas Eve dinner.

To explain the tradition....

When we lived in Italy we had a wonderful, close chapel community. Probably for at least four years, maybe more, we had a Christmas fellowship dinner as a chapel community. The menu was set so we had a normal meal instead of "potluck" food. Afterwards we had our Christmas Eve service followed by dessert. By this time it probably was around 9pm. We drove home on absolutely deserted streets because every Italian was at home celebrating their Christmas Eve with family before going out to midnight mass. We then opened one present before going to bed.

When we moved to America our church didn't have a Christmas Eve service. We don't have any family living nearby, so we decided that we would go out for Chinese and then go to a local church's Christmas Eve service. That has continued since, and this was our 10th year!!! Only difference this year was that our church had an early Christmas Eve service. We went home after Chinese.

Now we drink champagne, eat panettone, open a present, and then watch "It's a Wonderful Life". Some of us get too tired before It's a Wonderful Life get over. Will and Linnea are our tradition watchdogs!

Trial run for family photos

This year we're starting off early. Last night we had a Christmas Eve Eve service at our church. Lots of music, readings of the Christmas story and a good message from our minister. Since the whole family was there and dressed up, we thought we'd try for a photo. Not everyone likes this one, but we still have tonight to try again! At least all five of us are together in one place for a change. It's great to have all three of our children together. They seem to have so much fun! Seems like the boys caught up to "big sister" Linnea.

Yesterday Linnea and I got some last minute shopping done, for ourselves this time. We had gift cards, coupons or whatever and the sales are amazing. I bought that jacket and pants in the photo for $11 because I had a gift card and they were on sale. woohoo!

Today is baking day. Mince pies, sweet rolls for breakfast tomorrow, gingerbread men. And Linnea and Will still want to watch all their Christmas movies like Christmas Eve on Sesame Street and.....ending with It's a Wonderful Life after dinner tonight.

The sun is shining brightly. The temp is 6!! But it's suppose to warm up today. At least we have a white Christmas. Aw, there's a junco on the deck!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Let the celebration begin!

Linnea arrived home LATE last night, maybe I should say EARLY this morning. Denny and I began our 29th anniversary very early this morning. We went to the airport about 12:30am and were home again an hour later. She was detained in Detroit for four hours. We wondered if they were even going to be able to leave.

So I gave Denny his anniversary present after we got home. Hey, it WAS our anniversary already! It was a DVD of the John Adams program that was on HBO last spring. He really enjoyed it, so I thought that would be a good surprise. And it was! I also had another motive for making it his anniversary present: Linnea had said that she wanted to see that while she was home this week.

We usually have some movie series that we watch through Christmas break like Jeeves and Wooster, Monarch of the Glen, Gilmore Girls, The Storyteller, All Creatures Great and Small...just to name a few, so this needed to be the one for this year. And Denny needed to open it early in the week so we could watch it all week. :)

It's a brilliant sunny morning, -7 when I got up, but climbing and that's a good thing! Instead of going out for our anniversary dinner, I'm going to make an Italian dinner for the family with all the courses, fancier than our regular fare. Well, that's the plan at 10am this morning. We'll see how it goes once I get out of here!

Have a biscuit!

Too cold for ya? I just curl up with my pot of tea and my special treat, chocolate Hobnobs. Every once in awhile I can find one of my Scottish favorite. I found these at World Market last week. I rationed them out. Who cares if it's only 5 degrees outside; inside there's a good book, a hot pot and, mmmmm, a chocolate Hobnob!