Christmas Eve Eve

All is quiet, everyone is asleep. All the presents are bought & wrapped, cookies made, house & tree decorated. Not much to do tomorrow except plan christmas meal, shop, enjoy the day and the kids. We're keeping it pretty low key this year, not terribly extravagant on the gifts, sticking close to home. Very peaceful a real change from years past and I'm looking forward to it.

Have several Nick stories to post, will do so soon.

Today...

What a busy day...

• Did four loads of laundry, folded and put away.
• K took Nate to the Lego store to use a gift certificate from LAST Christmas. He bought a small Star Wars ship, a small Mars Mission ship, a large grey baseplate, and a small pick-a-brick. Took him nearly an hour to pick it all out. He's a careful shopper when he's using his own or gift money.
  
• I took M.E. to REI to look for a jacket. Ended up with a North Face furry fleece. "Everyone" has North Face. Nick crawled in a tent and wouldn't come out. He was also kept escaping every time I turned my back, fortunately, he's not quiet and I could find him pretty quickly.
• Baked cornbread and pumpkin muffins.
• Made sweet potato casserole and squash delight casserole.
• Made Shrimp & Hot Root Soup and the Abbots Special Abbey Trifle from the Redwall cookbook. The custard for the trifle didn't set up. Not sure what went wrong. The custard had some solid chunks in it that I pushed through the strainer. Oh well, we have vanilla & raspberry soup in a lady finger bowl.
• Baked pumpkin and apple pies, they look great.
• Not sure how I'll transport all of this. But, I sure won't have to do too much cooking tomorrow.
• Nick, after watching a Bob-the-Builder episode where Loft falls off a bridge, kept racing into the kitchen with his toy shopping cart. Tipping it over saying "Oh no, what a mess." Coming up to me, telling me "Heavy, help, what to do?" And then I'd help him turn it upright. After about the 20th time M.E. was fed up and would upright it before he could. Nick would give her an evil, eye race out of the kitchen and then come back in again, until she was tired of it.
• Just turned out the lights on two readers, was told I was so mean because their books are so good.

Still Chuckling

The period of time after Nick's birth was one of my lowest, I didn't know what he would be capable of and would I love him enough. But, I was sure things were going to be alright and wished my future self could come and reassure me. Today, Nick's teacher told me about something Nick did that would make a good story for the future me to tell to the past me.

Today was the Thanksgiving lunch at Nick's school. As soon as she saw me, Nick's teacher said "I have to tell you what your son did today." "Oh, oh," I said. She replied, "Oh, it's a good story, you will really laugh."

Lately, Nick become much more interactive with others, to the point of ordering us to do what he wants. He's also, been engaging in more pretend and imaginative play.

Apparently, he walked over to his teacher with a broom in one hand and a play microphone in the other. He told his teacher, "Sing, Dog Out." Which means "Sing, 'Who let the dogs out.'" So she did, while he accompanied her pretending to play the guitar using the broom. And wouldn't let her stop for nearly 10 minutes. Boy, do I wish we had a video.

Something else to like about Nick's school

The Michael's near Nick's school has a better selection of yarn than either of the two near us.

I know, I'm a bit shallow and more than little obsessed.

Hooray! Me!!

Sometimes, I think that having as much therapy as Nick has has made him a bit of a praise junky and when he can't get it from someone else he'll praise himself. 

Nick has made great strides with fine motor lately, especially holding a fork & spoon. The other night he had a bowl of cereal after dinner. He ate a few spoonfuls without spilling and suddenly put his hands up in the air and said "Hooray! Me!" He continued to eat a few more spoonfuls and repeat the "Hooray! Me!" several more times. By the end we were all joining in.

What I've been up to

Knitting, knitting, knitting, in preparation for a couple of craft fairs.

Bernat Alpaca blend

Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk (I think)

Made from Debbie Mumm Traditions

Jaegar Luxury Tweed (alpaca/lambswool) in Sea Sky

A felted bag out of Paton's Merino. This is a version of the Ella scarf bag using a mosaic knit pattern.

I need to write up patterns for the cable scarves and put them on my Etsy site.

Daisy & Nick

Daisy, the dog, and Nick have a relationship that can best be explained as sibling rivalry. They seem to tussle over toys just like sibs do. The other day, Nick commandeered one of my laundry baskets and was pretending to be a turtle.
Daisy came in with a toy. And before she knew what happened, a small arm shot out from under the laundry basket and snatched away her toy.
Where'd it go? She could smell it, and hear Nick's giggles.
Ah, there it is..
It's just Nick. This went on for several more rounds until Daisy ran off with her toy.

Carving Pumpkins

Not only did the big kids carve their pumpkins all by themselves, Nick was able to help with the scooping out of the pumpkin. He wasn't thrilled with the texture of the "guts" but he had a lot of fun scooping up the seeds. 

Halloween

Too tired to write much, but here are some pictures from Halloween...

Everyone impatient to Trick or Treat 

M.E.'s Pumpkin

Nate's Pumpkin on the left, Nick's on the right.

M.E.'s pumpkin all lit up. 'Cary to quote Nick

Rascal

Nick is a thumb and finger sucker. We've been working on getting him to stop, with little success. When told to take his hand out of his mouth, he used to take his hand out. Lately, when reminded he will put BOTH hands in his mouth, and adds a saucy grin!

Blustery Day

Today is a beautiful, if slightly cold fall day. More typical of November here than October. But, November is just around the corner. Yikes! The good news is this blasted campaign will be over. The bad news is then Christmas is just weeks away.

Going Back to Work

When M.E. was born, I became a stay-at-home mom. In my mind, I was sure I'd return to work when my youngest was in school full time, which in Georgia is kindergarten. Nick's not in kindergarten but he is kindergarten age. Now, Nick has been in school more or less full time for the past 2 plus years, so I could have started before this.

But, this fall has brought home the advantages and value of having one parent at home. Nick was out for a week probably with shigella. Nate for a week with his foot and then now another couple of days. We don't have a lot of family close by.

So far, I've applied for a few positions listed in our local newspaper, but haven't been looking very actively. Also, I'm not really sure what I want to do. I was product manager for a biotechnology instrumentation company. There aren't a lot of those types of companies here.

These are all excuses, I know. Oh well, maybe a fabulous job will fall into my lap. Or we'll win the lottery, of course, we don't play.

Halloween Party

Every year the kids' Uncle B hosts a ginormous Halloween party at his farm. There are hay rides, a corn maze, a treasure hunt, horses, and of course pumpkins.

Eww, pumpkin guts.

Nate's handy work!

What happened to M.E.'s face?

Nick showing off his bad haircut and the pumpkin he likes. (At least we didn't pay for it)

Happy Birthday Honey!

It's K's birthday. Won't tell you how old he is. But his present was all 6 years of "Hogan's Heroes" and german chocolate cake.

One Man Band

This is from this summer, I can't figure out how to turn upright, it so here it is anyway.

'Ni 'Ni

Tonight I helped serve at the middle school youth group mystery dinner. The kids are given a menu with 16 items such as "butcher's helper(knife)", "Golden rod (carrots). The kids each chose 4 items per course for 4 courses. Some kids had a knife to eat corn with or a toothpick to eat jello with. They all had a blast.

We came home to K, Nate & Nick watching Star Wars Episode 1. Nick said "Ni Ni, sleep" so, he hugged everyone and I took him up and put him to bed. He is so sweet and he likes his sleep.

A fun day, Nate is recovering, a little bored since I kept him home today to recover some more.

Splinter

Nate had his surgery today to remove the piece of wood. Here is the result. He's now home and happily building Legos

CTTD #1

That's Cute Things They Do. Last week Nick rediscovered the viewmaster. He was walking around looking into it bumping into walls. Of course, he has to share.

Update Post #4: Nate Turned 10

Last week Nate turned 10. We celebrated as a family with a trip to Chuck E Cheese. But Nick was disappointed that the presents weren't for him.

Fortunately big brother let him help unwrap...
He's getting really good at unwrapping presents.
Nate's fav, now he only has 110 pages to go.
Cookie cake! Unfortunately, mom forgot to buy candles

Over the weekend Nate & a few buddies played Lazer Tag and of course, there were more presents.
And a cake, this time with candles.

A Dog's Life