Holidaze

Ah. Christmas.

You'll have to excuse this post, as I've been running on very little sleep so it might not be all that coherent. I slept well last night, crashing while putting the little man to sleep, and sleeping most of the night, waking once to realize I was on his bed while my husband and the two little ones were on our bed (Gabriel has a twin size bed that is between our double and the wall. Frequently, there are 6 of us in there, if you count the two cats. But the wee ones always gravitate onto the double, I apparently escaped off to sleep alone).

We started our celebrating by heading out to my parent's place for dinner. Family and friends gathered around a delicious ham (mmmmm...hammmm) and other tasty festive foods. At some point Santa dropped a bag of early presents for the kids onto the deck, Cam was quite excited to get to be the one to retrieve it, but the dogs were the most excited to open them

That's Sam with her head in the bag. She's an old girl (10 yrs old now) and she was so excited to get a new tennis ball she ran laps around the coffee table. Haven't seen her move like that in months, it was great!

Shortly after this we all got into our new Christmas jammies and headed home (Dad laughed and said he hoped we didn't get pulled over...I thought my green striped pants were pretty stylish).

Once home we settled 3 tired kiddos into bed and finished up a few things (why oh why do I wait until Christmas eve to wrap stuff for Phil and the kids? You'd think I'd learn by now) went to bed and waited for Santa to come.

He did not disappoint!


Cameron got a big surprise with a Nintendo DS game system, and FIVE games to go with it for his "big gift". He hadn't considered it for his wish list (all he wanted was Star Wars figures) but seeing as he hasn't stopped playing it since he opened it I'm assuming he loves it


All Grace asked for was a "Nected Barbie", meaning a barbie from the Diamond Castle movie who sings "I feel Connected" when you hold her hand. She got that, as well as the diamond castle horse and carriage and a gigantic doll house to play in

Add to that two Disney Princess baby dolls and a Wall-E toy, she's one happy kid.

Gabriel's "big gift" is a fisher-price train set, as well as a big plush Wall-E toy...and his favourite thing (besides getting into his siblings stuff of course)

His mop and broom set. Kid loves to run a mop!

Phil found a Superhero kit in his stocking


While for me, it was the year of the calendar

(now I have no excuse for not knowing what day it is, lol!)

I also received $90 (between my husband and my parents) in Tangled Skeins gift certificates, and I plan to be at the boxing day sale when the doors open :)

This year I decided that I was not going to knit any gifts. None whatsoever. Not gonna happen.

Then I participated in a mystery knit-a-long for a beret by Wooly Wormhead and as I knit it I realized it would be good for my niece. I made it with my hand spun, and once it was finished I dyed it a funky blue colour (neon food colouring) and added a ribbon

She loves it. And it looks great with her pink hair :)

Then I thought that my mom and dad deserved knits too...

So for Dad a pair of felted clogs

Pattern is the Fibre Trends Felted Clogs. Yarn is KP's Wool of the Andes, and the original colour was Pampas Heather, but it was a bit light, so once they were done I over dyed them (again, with food dye, I'm having a lot of fun with food dye), then I had LK yarns order me in a set of full soles and sewed them on. He was wearing them when we arrived for Christmas dinner, so I can safely assume he likes them.

For Mom I cast on the February Lady Sweater in KP's Comfy Yarn, which is a Pima Cotton blend, in a colour called Cashew. Sort of looks like coffee with milk. It's very very soft, and will likely be my go-to yarn for my wool-sensitive mom.

However...I also had two test knits for Unique Sheep, a couple (OK, 4) afghan squares for the sexy ladies swap, a pair of thrummed mitts commissioned by a family friend and a baby sweater commissioned by one of mom's co-workers. You can see why I didn't want to add a lot of Christmas knitting to that pile, right? I got the other stuff done (except the baby sweater, I ran out of yarn and since it wasn't going to be done in time for Christmas since I had to wait to get said yarn, I gave up on it and now it's just waiting for sleeves), but Mom's sweater was getting close to deadline.

Finally I was down to 16 repeats and the garter border on the second sleeve. It was the 23rd, Phil was working night shift so I wasn't going to sleep anyway, I thought I'm gonna make it. Then...Gabriel woke up. At 11:30. And stayed up, until 3:30am. And he would not let me knit no way no how (even said "NO! NO KNIT!").

So Mom got a mostly done sweater for Christmas

She thought it was pretty funny, and it still beats last year's Christmas sweater, which wasn't so much a sweater as it was a ball of yarn and a pattern...more of an intention to knit a sweater, lol. I'm hoping to finish it up this weekend so she can wear it to work next week.

We had Christmas dinner at mom and dad's, which was great (and so was the big bowl of leftovers she sent me home with...mmmmm). Today we spent with my cousin and her family, who have recently moved back to Nova Scotia, and we enjoyed a delicious (if I do say so myself) maple glazed salmon dinner. We also had SIX kids around the table, so it was an entertaining meal as well, lol.

Well, that was my Christmas. How was yours?