Mr. A’s Beauty Shots

One negative to finishing projects at midnight-30 on Christmas morning, besides the lack of sleep, is forgetting to take finished pics. 

Usually it’s not a big deal. I borrow the thing back, bribe a grandkid to hold it, take some quick shots and… done. 

Since Mr A lives in Colorado now, I had to beg Rachel to take pics, and it looks like she bribed The Teenager* to be quilt holder. I love seeing a fine family tradition carried down thru the generations. 😂

Doesn’t he look good? This turned into one of my all time fav projects. So funny to see Mr A on vacation.

The mountains quilting pattern looks just like the CO Rockies, right??

* She won’t be a teen much longer, having turned 19(!) on her November birthday. Scary how fast the time has flown. 

Notes: Mr A is from Elizabeth Hartman’s ‘Legendary’ pattern. Trees are from the FPP pattern ‘Forest’ by Easy Piece Patterns. The center panel is ‘Legendary Loner’ by 3 Wishes Fabric. Side fabric stripped are ‘Legendary Loner Peekaboo’ also by 3 Wishes Fabric. 

Christmas Day

What a great week. 

All the kids and grandkids were here, at least part of the time, with bonus niece and grandnephews to top it off. 

It’s been 11 years since we were all together at Christmas 

and with Matt, Mary and Donovan moving to S. Carolina in the next few months,

who knows when it will happen again. So happy to have this time together. 

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate and best wishes to everyone for a happy new year. 

On the Eve

Such a great day. 

We’d planned to do a big family picture today 

Isaac, 9, challenged Pop to a game of chess; me and Breanne; Travis outgrew his kicks so now they belong to mom!

before Leia left to spend Christmas with her mom,

but the weather and logistics conspired against us. 

So we hung out, 

took smaller family group shots, 

ate, 

laughed, 

crafted 

Crafting Christmas gnomes

and ate some more. 

 These two are always silly together. Posing in the style of a  J.C. Penney’s photo shoot circa 1980. 😂

Then I stayed up until midnight-30 to finish one last gift. 

So perfect.

 

Travis, 14 and Isaac, 9

Button snowflakes looking great on the tree

Last of the snowflakes. Clockwise from top left: Cyrus’s, Isaac’s, Leo’s and Travis’s.

Christmas Checklist

Happy Christmas Adam! (This year’s the first time I’ve heard that phrase but Mary said her family has used it forever.) Today was for going and seeing and crafting and baking. 

The Colorado branch drove over to CSUCI to check out the campus. Everything was closed but Cyrus got to see where she will be attending come August. She’ll come back in the spring for the official “tour”.

She also went to Leia’s house to play with snakes and check out all the lizards. Big hit! 

Pop, the littles and the Coloradians went to Ventura Harbor for lunch at Andria’s, 

then walked down to Channel Islands National Park headquarters for educational purposes. 

Not. Rachel wanted a park sticker while Jac and Donovan talked Uncle John into augmenting their stuffie collection. 

They’re pretty pleased with their new friends.

At least 4 of these stuffies were acquired in the last 2 days. 

The button snowflakes were a big hit and easy enough that Jac and Donovan had fun making them too. 

Leo and Cyrus were still working on their masterpieces when I went to bed, so more pictures tomorrow.

Craft #2, macrame gnomes, takes more concentration so we’ll try them tomorrow or Thursday when I’m not jumping up every few minutes to check whatever’s baking. (So far we have cookies, two kinds of cake, zucchini bread, brownies, German chocolate bars… Cyrus still wants to make focaccia so that’s on the agenda for tomorrow.) Can’t believe Christmas is almost here and then everyone will be leaving. We gotta pack even more fun into these days! 

First Day of Christmas

Forget partridges and pear trees, we’ve got all the grandkids in the house so Christmas starts today. 

Pop picked up the Colorado crew from LAX at 8:30 am.

Then the Idaho crew, including Iddy the Cat,

rolled in around 2:30 this afternoon.

I don’t think Jaclyn and Donovan have stopped talking (seriously, 8 straight hours of chatter and giggles 😍)

and playing together, since Jac walked in the door.

I’m so happy to have that soundtrack in the house again. So much joy and silliness.

Gotta make the most of it before they (almost) all vanish again on Friday.

Pie Day

 I've never really gotten into making pies.  

If we had a big family event, my MIL made the pies. She enjoyed it and they were very, very good. 

Hubby loves pie, it’s probably his favorite dessert. He was also a fan of Marie Callender’s, so over the years, when we wanted pie, that’s where we went. (Most of the restaurants are gone now, at least in our area. We have one here in town - probably a franchise? - but it is awful. Such a shame.)

So once I got my fancy schmancy pie dish, and discovered Sally’s Baking Addiction (such great recipes and instructions), I had to try my hand at his second favorite- apple pie. 

It’s not especially pretty but it is delicious. Not bad at all for a first effort. 

Disaster Averted

Bad news: My faithful hand mixer died yesterday, with one week left til Christmas, and me with 12 different recipes (maybe more…) I want to bake starting this weekend. 

Good news: K0hl’s had a newer model of the same mixer in stock and the out-the-door cost, with the sale price, K0hl’s cash and a discount code,  was…. drum roll… $8.07. For a $40+ mixer. I love K0hl’s holiday sales.

 Bright pink poinsettia from Matt & Mary

Bad news: My car’s check engine light came on, and stayed on. Hubby is making at least one run to LAX on Monday to pick up kids and grandkids, it’s 7-ish days before Christmas and we have important grandkid things to do this week. 

Old, cute pic from when we first got the car

Good news: service guy says, “Great timing!” They just got the software fix for the recalled back-up camera and they can do that, the 10,000 mile maintenance, fix the check engine problem and get it back to us the same afternoon. For free-ish since we have a maintenance contract. Whoop!

Bad news: it’s fridge cleaning time. I always do it at Christmas because then I can remember when I did it last. Doesn’t matter when I do it in the middle of the year because, come December, I’m doing it again. Good news: it’s done, was less of a hassle than expected and looks so pretty!

Good news: my ‘full-fat real cheese is its own food group’ diet is healthy! At least right now and according to this study. Who knows what it will be in 6 months. But I’ll take it!