Christmas 2013

I have a few pictures from Christmas 2013.  The girls, especially Grace and Anna, grip and rip so quickly, I can't keep up while taking pictures and I usually don't know who gave them what!  Jeremy had to work Christmas Eve night and Christmas night.  I helped the girls put out the cookies and milk for Santa and we sprinkled reindeer food in the yard.  We opened all of our gifts when Jeremy got home Christmas morning.  A few pictures...

A few days before Christmas 

Leah didn't want to put on her jammies, but ran to get in the picture

Grace in action 

Leah showing me her peppermint stick, love that face!

Anna and her money tree

The girls are currently hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa Yearout.  Jeremy's working today and I just don't know what to do with myself in this quiet, empty house!

More knitting!

I've been knitting up a storm, as usual, lately.  I have a few things to share.  First is a cowl I made.  I originally made it with buttons on one short side.  I wore it once and didn't like it with the buttons when compared to the original pattern, blah, blah, blah.  So I ripped back the button holes and made it a circle cowl by grafting the ends together.  I like it much more this way.  However, I would still like to make this similar to the original pattern where it knits up a bit stiffer.  I have the yarn and it's on the list...for someday.

my Brick Road Cowl

And I made some socks (what else is new?).  The yarn I picked happened to sort of match the holiday season, so these are my Christmas socks.  I like how the red and yellow kind of did a stripe-y, pool-y thing.

I knitting another pair of socks (again, what else is new?!), and a gnome hat for myself.

Three-fer

Today you get a 3 for 1!

Friday was Grace's birthday and we let her open presents that morning.  We also had cake for breakfast.

Then we went out to see Frozen 3D at the theatre on Friday night.  I've never seen a movie in 3D and that was pretty cool.  I thought the movie was pretty good as well.

Monday was the girls Christmas concert at school.  All my pictures turned out crappy...except one that wasn't blurry...although it's a little kooky.  Anna's pretty intense and Grace is elsewhere.

The kindergarteners sang 3 songs and did a good job.  The 1st and 2nd graders put on a little play, but you couldn't hear what most of them said.  Which isn't a very entertaining program.  While at the school, we picked up Anna's gingerbread house.

She said it was a sad gingerbread house.  Can you see the eyes and non-smiley face on it?  Click here to see Grace's kindergarten gingerbread house.

Grace

Eight years ago today I became a mom for the first time.  Grace was born in the afternoon on a cold, snowy day.  And I couldn’t have been more in love.  Watching her grow and discover herself and who she is has been a joy.  Of course, there’ve been the challenging times and the “piece of cake” times.  She’s grown into a young lady who loves school and reading, writing and math.  Hates fish and sweet potatoes and is scared of the chickens.  She knows which buttons to push to make me mad and also the buttons that bring smiles to my face.  I wouldn’t give her up for the world.  I few pictures through the years….

Don't think less of us because we had cake for breakfast this morning!

A Birthday Party

Thanksgiving happened to fall between Grandpa Y's birthday and Grace's birthday.  We took the time to celebrate them together while we were all gathered for turkey day.  Grace scored some books and an archery bow.  With the nice weather, they went outside and did some shooting.  I think Jeremy may have had more fun with the bow than Grace, :)

Tuesday Randomness

On Sunday we took the girls out for pizza, then we went to see Free Birds in the theatre.  I think the girls enjoyed it, even if it was super loud.  How they managed to eat a bucket of popcorn and cotton candy after just having lunch is beyond me.  Leah fell asleep on my lap during the previews and didn’t wake up until the movie was over and we were leaving.

Lizzy has figured out how to scale the fence in the front yard.  She’s hasn’t gone too far that we are aware of, but we’ve had plenty of dog mishaps and don’t want it to happen again.  So Jeremy rigged up a bit of electric fence to go on top of the chain link.  Both he and Lizzy got zapped testing it out.  Hopefully we will only have to keep it hot for a bit so she knows not to climb the fence.  Then just keep it up on the fence, but not hot.

The chicken coop now has permanent electricity.  We always ran extension cords so the chickens would have heat lamps and to keep the water from freezing in previous winters.  Jeremy and his dad got it all wired so we don’t have to string extension cords anymore.  This has been about 7 years in the making!

Most of my Christmas shopping and crafting is done.  Time to start wrapping and take stock of what I have left to do.

Olympic rings socks

My latest finished project, Olympian socks.  They have little rings that remind me of the Olympic rings.  It also reminds me of faux cables.  And it's hard to take pictures of your feet!  They are are boring brown/green/blue color which will go perfectly with my drab wardrobe  :)