scenes from christmas with the greats

Smiles all around from and for the baby. And then a violin concert to wrap up the gifts. So nice to have everyone together around the tree for the morning.

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We asked E a few days before Christmas if this Christmas, or any Christmas for that matter, could stack up to last year's. Last Christmas Eve, when she thought she couldn't possibly get any more excited for the morning to come, she found out that she was going to become a big sister. An hour or two later she lost her very first tooth, commenting afterwards "Could this night get any better?" She said she was perfectly fine this year with being excited by normal things like pirate ships and race cars on the list, but I noticed that she was wiggling loose tooth #7 quite a bit in the week leading up to the holiday, and when I got a touch of road food nausea / sickness on the way home from our visit, she pumped her fist in the air and said "Yes! Another baby!" The tooth stuck and the belly aches passed and the pirate ship seems to be a perfectly good substitute.

Thank goodness.

Some posts to follow on some of the projects we've been doing around here, including some fun holiday ones. Happy New Year (That decade just flew by, didn't it? Wow.) and thanks for all the cards and gifts and goodies and visits along the way.

scenes from a christmas morning

Pirate bounty, new art supplies, some books and #3 on the list "Ten Rolls of Scotch Tape, please". A little one's first doll and the discovery of wrapping paper. A great morning all around.

scenes from a christmas eve

Beloved car sheets, race car track and books of course. Cookies for Santa, some oats for his reindeer and "Whaaaaaat was that?" Two little ones posing for photos get a bit spooked by a sudden sound in the fireplace. Time for bed, this Christmas Eve.

scenes from a christmas

I told myself I'd take a break from blogging until the new year but it goes against my nature not to sort through photos as we sort through the new gifts and laundry piles. Here are a few shots from an attempt to get a shot of six smiling people, all facing the same direction and with no closed eyes or weird faces. Mildly successful, and a gathering that was lots of fun. That's a baby who's saying "What in the world is going on in here, and why am I still not in bed?"

holiday message 2009

The finished quilt, the pieces now scattered a hundred different ways.
 

Inspired by these quilts that I saw at a local museum and were once on first class stamps that I bought up when they were issued, I sat down to make something in a similar vein. I had sorted and stacked papers countless times this year, always hoping to reduce the pile, but never seeming to make much headway. I pulled the papers out again and this time took to them with a sharp cutting knife, a metal straightedge and not a single measured mark. I cut strips for several nights in a row, only once removing a bit of fingertip in the process. I joked that I should be wearing a thimble to do this kind of "sewing", but just vowed to slow down a bit and not remove any additional skin along the way. Once I had piles upon piles of strips, short and long ones, I started gluing the vertical ones to a starter strip and then weaving in the horizontal ones. Each one required quite a bit of time, a lot of edge glue and a brief visit under a stack of heavy cookbooks to dry straight and flat.
 

 

Later, after stacking up a pile of ragged edged pieces, I trimmed them to size and made sure the edges were still affixed. Then I laid them out in front of me and watched the whole composition take shape.

Fueled by a lot of coffee and occasionally a bit of the stronger stuff, the table slowly filled and then spilled over.
 

I worked while the kids were sleeping, while my husband was on the second floor working on Christmas presents for the girls, while the radio played in the background and my thoughts spun in the foreground. I thought about the birthday invitations that had been made by these papers, the gifts, the birth announcements, previous Christmas cards and thank you notes. I thought about how quickly those birthdays stack up and blur together and how long ago the baby's announcement seems, a July of another era, not just five short months ago. I thought about previous holiday cards and how I've been doing this tradition now for ten years and how I look forward to it as much as I do the annual tree. I thought about how I need to get back to starting this just after Halloween and not right before Thanksgiving amongst the baking powder and flour dusted December that we always seem to have. I thought about my grandmother and her countless piecing of fabrics, tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of shapes cut and arranged and stitched into place. How she can no longer sit at that table and quilt those endless squares but how the evidence of her talents surrounds us in our homes and our lives and courses through our veins and how unbelievably thankful I am for that. How I can see beauty and meaning and feel such joy in a line of icing or a stack of cards, and how content and at peace I am when lost in those tasks. How I lucked into sharing a life with three others that see it and appreciate it and love it (and tiptoe around it) as much as I do.

Thank you for your support and your friendship and for your visits here occasionally or each day. Have a wonderful holiday with those that you love and we'll meet again in the new year.

i beat my own record

Because I like to take photos of the scrap pile...

I went to look up the last photos I remembered taking of the remnants of Christmas cards and discovered that I had broken my own record for latest date to send them out. That would be the 21st, thank you, and they should still land in everyone's mailbox on or before the eve of Christmas so all is well in the world.

But alas, all is not well, as in the littlest one around here. She's feeling pretty crummy, but managing to smile through her puffy, running eyes. Poor thing. Even the colorful strips of paper draping over every flat surface around here weren't enough to distract her from the discomfort. I hope tomorrow she's feeling better. Hey wait, it is tomorrow already. Just waiting until the baked goodies cool in my kitchen and then I'm off to bed. The pile above is long gone in the recycling bin now, but I do so enjoy that final pile and then the clean, clear table once again.

on the mend

Post-fever, pre-conjunctivitis, everpresent teething drool, but now we're on the mend.

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The baby bouncer on baby #4... first she watches the toys, then she plays with them. Nice to meet you dog and car. Pictures by M.

Update: today we're not quite so smiley and cute. First cold, first pink eye, first day home from school. Hopefully we'll get this nonsense out of the way before the big day Friday!

Christmas strings

E's holiday violin concert was Friday night, and the kids did a spectacular job. We've really enjoyed her progress this year - quite a bit easier on the ears. The kids were so serious and prepared and it's fun to watch them all play together in their Christmas best. And those little violins are just so darn cute.

This is a great ending to the first half of the school year, and some Christmas goodies and hot chocolate after the concert gave us a chance to say happy holidays to all our friends at school and celebrate with both sets of grandparents who made the long drive to listen to six sweet songs.

pomegranate and green tea

A bit of a strange color combination to see in the mixing bowl, but stunning nonetheless.

Way more adorable in the baked and topped form. Pink little frothy clouds of pomegranate infused meringue on green tea and pomegranate cupcakes. Yum.

360 of these little guys boxed up and delivered on their merry little ways to clients and friends. Sweet little bites, we're sorry that they're now all gone.

Chocolate with red adzuki bean paste filling and green matcha tea frosting

Chocolate with mint infused ganache filling and mint buttercream frosting

Eggnog cupcakes with bourbon eggnog pastry filling and bourbon caramel cream cheese frosting, plus some pine nut and candied orange cupcakes with Christmas spice buttercream and some old fashioned chocolate with coconut buttercream to round off the set.

Early morning merry little elves to help assemble and clean up the frosting messes behind me (and sample the wayward ones).

Organized, then boxed and wrapped and delivered. Then collapse.

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Lots of fun, but nice to have the kitchen back. (And the dining room and the living room...)

Last minute elf-ing to go, have a nice weekend.