11!

Micah turned 11 this week!  At his request I made egg casserole for breakfast and then he opened most of his presents by the Christmas tree.

Grammy and I went in together to get Micah this just released Lego set, which was delivered mid day by our friendly UPS man :)

We rounded out the day with friend chicken and Oreo ice cream pie (yum!)

Happy Birthday, Micah!

When I woke up the other morning, surprisingly Tommy was still sitting on the shelf!  But when I came home from dropping Addie off at preschool this is how I found him, silly elf!

new purse

Tommy decided to do something productive last night instead of getting into mischief.  He's helping me finish up a stack of aprons - this one is itty bitty toddler sized, as in it fits Emmy who is 16 months. Super cute!

Here is the new purse I made last week.  I drew my own pattern, but it was inspired by this, this (from this book) and this (phoebe bag) and for the most part I followed the instructions for the phoebe bag when making it.

I did not take pictures of the inside, but it has 3 large pockets on each side.

Here is the back.  I love, love, love this fabric line.  I am pretty sure I will be buying more of it :)

great wolf lodge

Before Thanksgiving we met up with the kid's cousins (and aunt and uncle) at the Great Wolf Lodge for a few days of water slide fun :)

Everyone had a great time.  The big kids went down the Tornado something like 36 times!

There was much debate over weather it was more fun in the dark (at night) or when you could see where you were going.  I think it was a 50/50 split, but between you and me, it was MUCH more exciting in the dark :)

It wouldn't be vacation (for me) if I didn't get a little sewing in... yes, I brought my sewing machine and this new stack of fat quarters.  I started a new purse for myself, sewing and watching HGTV while Emmaline napped.  I finished up the purse the other night.  I'll post picture of it soon!

Adelaide got hurt while we were at GWL (don't worry, nothing major) and they gave her this stuffed wolf at the first aid station.  Her brother bought her the tiny hedge hog in the gift shop and she's been sleeping with them both every night since we got home. 

Here's the motley crew all together just before we left to come home.

Can't wait til next time :)

*I had this post all written yesterday, but somehow forgot to post it!  Anyway- this is where we found Tommy yesterday morning- scaling the advent calendar!

more of tommy's mischief

I started off so well this month, and then the craziness of two craft show and traveling the weekend before Christmas hit and one the many things that didn't get done was blogging!  Anyway, I couldn't leave you thinking that Tommy was still stuck in our copier, so here are the rest of his hiding places :)

so far this week...

Tommy discovered the copier the other night.

Last night I let the kids eat my gingerbread house...

This is what it looked like before...

 

and after.  They were bouncing off the walls after dinner!

To make up for his earlier mischief, Tommy helped my sew some aprons last night...

Here are some of the ones I am working on for my last craft show on Saturday. 

The holiday craft show season has been fun, but I am ready for a break for awhile!  Maybe I will actually get some of that sewing on my personal "to make" list done!

catch up

Here is where the kids have found Tommy 3 of the past 4 mornings (I totally forgot, and left him sitting on the shelf Sunday night, oops!)

There has been a little bit of running around and a lot of mess making around here the last few days.  I am sewing aprons for my last craft show this Saturday, as well as trying to squeeze in some Christmas sewing.  I keep meaning to take pictures to post, but it just has not happened.  I am also trying to decide what to do about the fact that Blogger is not allowing me to upload my pictures without exporting them from iPhoto and making them smaller... my non-technically-savvy-self is dreading the idea of trying to move my blog, Why can't Blogger just work the way it is supposed to?

I am off to hide my elf!  Maybe one of these days I will actually have something interesting to post!

tommy and emmy

Why is it that Tommy is still smiling, even when he's all tied up and held at gun/sword point?

It's been awhile since I shared a picture of this  cutie.  She's 4 months now.  She is the happiest little girl ever, always quick with a smile :)

advent

Looks like Tommy found our new keyboard... too bad it wasn't plugged in :)

In addition to the fun of hiding our elf, Tommy, we have a few more things that we are doing to celebrate this advent season.  Every night after dinner we light our advent wreath and read a chapter in Jotham's Journey.  This, I think, is the most important part because it is what reminds us why we are celebrating this season.  We are celebrating the best gift ever given in the history of gift giving- Jesus, our Messiah. 

The boys used the boxes from our Playmobil advent calendar to make their own Lego version...

It is the nativity scene.  Each box contains another item to add to the scene.   I love this!

And, lastly, I couldn't resist this cute little advent count down.  I picked it up while we were in Maryland at the little Swedish shop down the road from my mom's house.  The hedgehogs at the bottom are my favorite part :)

elf spotting

I had hoped to post about what our family is doing for Advent this year (besides hiding this silly elf) but it just didn't happen today, hopefully tomorrow!

Our kitchen has been in a state of flux since Emmaline was born.  Our cozy, eat-in kitchen was getting a bit too cozy with 8 people now to fit around our little 4-6 person table, and since our dining room table typically looks like this:

eating in the dining room (schoolroom/craft room/office) really isn't an option.  So, for the last 4 months I've been moving furniture, measuring, and perusing the Ikea catalog in search of some inspiration for how to make our kitchen work a little better for us.  I picked up this dresser at Ikea while we were in Maryland and I think we found a way to better use this space. (this is what our kitchen looked like before.)

I also finally bought some curtains for the kitchen windows.

And the other big kitchen purchase was this 4 slice toaster.  Really we should have gotten one of these a long time ago!  Preparing breakfast goes so much faster with this!

Totally unrelated, here is where we found Tommy this morning :)