Christmas 2010

Christmas this last year was really something I was looking forward to. I thought that Abi would be old enough to really get excited about opening presents. I made lots of homemade gifts. I was able to decorate a little bit. And now it's all over. *sigh* Well, it was great and we had lots of fun. Here's the rundown.

At the Armitstead house, we had Christmas on the 24th because of work conflicts. We had dinner, our annual everybody-bring-something-that's-fun-to-eat potluck. Kevin and I make takoyaki which are little balls (like round pancakes) with stuff inside of them. If anyone has had aebleskivers before, they're sort of the same thing but smaller and they usually have octopus inside of them. We were fresh out of octopus, so we used imitation crab. They were better with the crab, I thought.

After dinner we opened gifts, letting Abi and Savannah open first, since they have the shortest attention span. The first couple of presents they ripped into with as much enthusiasm as I had hoped for, but after not too long the already opened presents became a unanticipated distraction and we had to really coax them to open the rest.

Coloring books

"Trying on" her new jammies

Karina's first Christmas. Doesn't she look excited?

Lots of new clothes

Oakley opening her treats. She's licking her lips in anticipation.

New baby dolls...

and cradles made by Grandpa.

We're taking this one to church. It's a great quiet toy.

Abi's main gift was a kitchen play set which we saved for last, which was a good thing, since it was a hit and all the little girls wanted to play with. In fact, it kept them occupied while us big kids were opening our gifts.

Kevin "wrapped" this one.

The next morning, my younger brother, who is serving a mission in Washington state, got to call home. Kevin had to work early Christmas morning, so Abi and I rushed over to Grandma and Grandpa Schmidt's house to get a chance to talk with him. We made there before he called and were able to talk to him. We each took a turn.




Well, except for Abi. She thought it would be more fun to look for Grandma's cat instead.



Then we made a huge mess opening presents, and just enjoyed each other's company for the rest of the day. My dad was into the homemade present mood this year too and made a table and chairs for Abi, a hutch and animal chairs for Riley and a shelf and crates for Rowan to put his toys in. They are all so neat and Grandpa worked so hard on all of them. (though I didn't get pictures yet, oops)



Later that evening, Kevin stopped by after her got off work and opened his gifts.


And since we were all already there, we took a family portrait.

The only one you can't see is Bridget. She's hiding behind Tim's head.

So, all-in-all, Christmas was great. I can't thing of a better way to spend the end of a year.

Catching Up (Whew!)

I have been getting behind on my posts and I want to blame it on Christmas... so, I will. Not, really. This year I have tried to make a goal to not get stressed out over the holidays. We should be enjoying ourselves and not pulling our hair out. I guess I just have to own up to being lazy on blogging. Here's what's happened so far.

Kevin won Jazz tickets in a raffle at work and the game was a couple of weeks ago. I've never been to a Jazz game before and I had a lot of fun. And look how close close we were to all the action...

You could almost feel the sweat droplets hitting you flinging from Kirilenko's hair as he spun around the court. Just kidding. We were waaaaaaay up there.

What's kind of weird was I guess I didn't think about the fact that they make it sort of entertaining for the spectators. Probably because I'm used to watching the games on t.v. (yes, I do catch an occasional game) and they only show the game and not all the other little contests and performances like they do when you're actually there. Another thing that was different was that I'm used to hearing the game announcers on t.v. and obviously they're not at the actual game. Anyway, like I said, lots of fun.


That same day, not too far from Energy Solutions Arena....


Abi got a new cousin! Mel and Tim had their second baby, another little girl and they named her Bridget. Abi and I went to visit their house a couple of days after they got home from the hospital. Her big sister, Riley was rather large when she was born, but Bridget is much smaller. She weighed 2 whole pounds less than Riley did and it definitely shows.

Naturally, Abi loves all of her cousins and loves to give the new babies lots of kisses.


And...

I finally got around to putting up our Christmas tree. I have been working on lots (well, lots for me) of homemade Christmas gifts this year and had to put away my sewing machine table so we could re-arrange furniture so there would be room for our tree.

I have been really crafty this year and am pretty proud of myself. I know that I have already shared my crocheted Gromit and Shaun the Sheep dolls, but that was really just the tip of the iceberg. I have done lots more since then and have taken pictures of all my projects. It's sort of like a photo log of all my projects this year. BUT, I'm not going to show them off just yet. Don't want to spoil anyone's Christmas do we?


A couple of weeks ago Abi was in her room playing by herself while I was busy doing other things when it started to get quiet. Anyone that has kids knows that when it gets quiet is the time to go check on the kids because usually they're into something or who knows what. So I walk around the corner to see what she's up to. As it turned out she had just emptied her toys out of the toy box so she could sit inside of it to "comfortably" read a book. It was so cute I had to grab the camera.

Let It Snow!!

It's nearly December here, and technically, it's still fall, but we have had a couple of big snow storms that have made it very winter-like. I love the snow and am really happy when this time of year rolls around. A lot of people grumble about the cold, or the road conditions when it snows, but I don't mind a bit. Kevin says that he's the same way. As long as we all just slow down and give each other plenty of space we'll be fine. Our first big snow that stuck was last week. A few days before on the news, the weather-man was forecasting a huge blizzard-like snow storm with lots of high winds and snow. It didn't disappoint, at least at my house.

I happened to be working my "sometimes" job that week (figures) and had to stay a little later that night the storm was supposed to hit. My boss pushed us all out at 5 o'clock, at which time the wind had picked up, but wasn't really snowing at all. Since I only live 10 minutes from work, I though, "good, maybe I'll make it home before the craziness starts." I was wrong. I was on the road for no longer than a couple of minutes and BAM! Tons of snow was swirling around my car in the wind and I couldn't see more than a couple of feet in front of me. Over the next few minutes it just came down harder. Once I got onto the surface streets, visibility had decreased even more, so I slowed down and took my time getting home. Like I said, I don't really get anxiety driving in the snow, but the other drivers who think they are exempt from same driving make me a little nervous.

The rest of the way home I had some jerk right on my tail swerving left and right, to see if he could get around me?? Are you serious? I can barely see a few inches in front of my car and this guy wants to pass me? It's not like I was at a snail crawl or anything; I was going 25 or 30 mph. (I checked). When I finally got to our street, the guy blows past me (I knew he would) so I honked. Take that, tailgating guy! Well, what else was I supposed to do to express my frustration to that bozo? Anyway, the moral of my story is slow down and give each other plenty of space and we should all be fine. That that extra time in your car to enjoy the beauty of the snow.

So, that was the first big storm. Here's what our street looked like the next, morning.



We are right in the middle of the next storm, which seems like it's bigger. It's not as windy, but we have had tons of snow. Kevin and I went out this afternoon when we thought that the snow was dying down to shovel the sidewalks and driveway. Even though the snow had slowed, we still couldn't keep up with it. I'll take picture tomorrow morning to see how we fared this time.

You want to know the best part of this whole chilly, snowy time? Or water heater broke and has been leaking water under the wall to our new carpet downstairs. Yay! The carpet had been wet for a couple of days, but we have a toddler and a dog, so I thought that one of the two spilled something or was licking the carpet. Then, last night, I put a towel down to soak up the water, and the towel was sopping wet after I stepped on it a couple of times. I didn't think there was something leaking from the ceiling, that would have been obvious, so I checked the storage room on the other side of the wall where the furnace and water heater were and sure enough, water was coming out of the top of the water heater. A valve on top was all corroded and leaking. One of the many great things about Magna water. It corrodes all of your appliances if you don't have a water softener.

Anyway, Kevin and his dad are going to get a new water heater tomorrow, but I think we may have to run over to my parents' house to take a shower tomorrow morning.

Christmas Projects

A couple of posts ago I shared a picture of a Gromit doll that I had decided to undertake myself as a Christmas gift for Abi. I'm happy to say that I have finished it. It actually has been finished for some time. I was surprised how easy it really was. The hardest part was probably assembling the whole thing. Now, this was my very first attempt at crocheting a doll, so here are some of my flaws that I noticed right off the bat. First, my stitches probably should have been tighter. I say that because when I began to stuff it, you can sort of see through the stitching to the batting underneath. That's probably the main thing, but the limbs aren't exactly symmetrical, and his neck is a little weak, but I think that it turned out cute and would like to share.



Ta-dah! What do you think? I changed the ears a little bit. The ears for the pattern I used were a little too small so I tweaked it to make them bigger. Here's the difference.



The completion of this project made me feel good, and a little ambitious. I decided that if I could make Gromit, I could probably do Shaun the Sheep as well. (One of Abi's other favorite shows) So I used the Gromit pattern as a base and made up the rest. I'm proud to confess that I have finished that one as well and it turned out just as cute, if not more.

This picture kind of looks funny.

He has a little bit better posture when you look at him from the back. And yes, his tail really is that long, see.


Trust me, I know. I watch the show enough.

Being crafty these past few weeks has made me feel really good and accomplishing something has made me feel even better. I'm really excited for Christmas to be here so I can see what Abi will think of her new friends.

Halloween 2010

This year, since Halloween was on Sunday, we celebrated on Saturday. I opted for the homemade costume again this year for Abi. My mom made her's last year, and I was just planning on buying one this year, but I was looking and couldn't find anything that I liked that was her size. Besides, everyone wanted too much money for their costumes anyway. I don't know why, the material on them is usually paper-thin or mostly foam.

Anyway, I was thinking of what Abi could dress up as, when we took a trip to the dollar movie to see Toy Story 3. I thought that Barbie would be kind of cute and pretty easy. So, I searched online for legwarmer patterns for babies (she ended up dressing up as "Workout Barbie") to get some ideas and made up a sweatband pattern to match. The result: one pretty cute baby who wouldn't leave the sweatband on for more than a couple of minutes. (sigh) Why do we parents even bother? Oh, yeah. Because it's cute. Anyway, here's what she looked like.

...and a back view

Abi is still a little young to really understand Halloween (but really, how many people know the "true meaning" of Halloween, besides dressing up and getting candy?) but Kevin took her trick-or treating anyway to a few houses. While she may not understand Halloween, she does understand candy and when people start giving it to her by the handful, she thinks it's a pretty sweet (get it "sweet") deal. So, needless to say, she really enjoyed herself.

Kevin and I weren't as festive. He threw on a Red Sox shirt and was a Red Sox fan and I wore normal clothes and went as Barbie's mom.

Another fun thing about Halloween is the time Abi gets to spend with her cousins. Savannah and Karina came over to our house to visit dressed up as a horse (yes, it's a horse, not a cow) and a white tiger. Uncle Aaron thought they all looked so cute he wanted a picture with them.

Uncle Aaron, great with the kids, and yes ladies, he's single! (wink, wink)

Savannah the "horse"

Abi has a hard time keeping her hands (and face) off baby Karina.

Later we went over to my parent's house where all of my siblings and Abi's other cousins were. Mel found a cute little pumpkin princess costume for Riley and Rowan was "Woody" from Toy Story.



We all wanted pictures of the kids and thought it would be cute if they each sat with a pumpkin, but since they all can get up and walk on their own, it didn't quite work out how we would have liked. This is what I got.





Not exactly what we had in mind. The only way to get them to hold still for a few seconds was with candy.

Riley was concentrating SO hard to get that last piece of candy out of the box.

Angela came over to my parent's house a little later so my mom and sisters could see Karina. Abi was excited to share her "daddy-side" cousins with her "mommy-side" cousins.

Rowan wanted a turn holding the baby (love that face).

Abi introducing Riley and Savannah to each other.

Riley's pretty happy about it.

All in all, I think that everyone had a great time. I hope this will become a tradition for us every Halloween!