christmas at home

i could get used to this... in fact i think not going anywhere for christmas may be our new family tradition... i can't believe we've never done this before.... so peaceful... by the way, in the picture above... those are hair ties layla's wearing on her ankles... silly girl! merry christmas everybody! i hope you had one as wonderful as mine was :)

daddy love

eislee update! she's getting so big... five months old on the 28th... just about to cut her second tooth! and she's been rolling over here and there and sitting up a bit on her own! she is wonderful! we all love her so much!

stockings for the family... here's my method

layla's stocking is the red sock and maiko's is the green sock, i'm going to make one for eislee, matt and me too... so i'm gonna share how i made them in case anyone else wants to do the same...

first i drew out a pattern... i used the ruler to measure the top of the sock nine inches and the top of the cuff nine inches... then i drew the rest free hand... i just made the sock come in a little and made the cuff come out a little....

see comes out like this... the tops will sew together nicely since they are both nine inches... which will end up being about sixteen inches around with the half inch seam allowances...

now it's time to cut the fabric... i just folded the fabric in half with the selvage edges lined up and pinned my pattern down and cut around it... so you need to cut two main sock pieces and then i cut out two sock pieces of another fabric for a lining and i cut out four cuff pieces with the same fabric i used for the lining...(i tryed my pattern out on some old fabric just to make sure it would come together nice before i cut my new christmas fabric)

then you pin the sock pieces right sides together and sew a half inch seam around the sock leaving the top open and do the same with the lining...

the cuff is a little tricky so i will explain the best i can... you match up the cuff pieces like so (right sides together) and sew the sides together half inch seams leaving the top and bottom open...

then you take the two sewn cuff pieces and pin the bottom together (which is the jagged edge in case your at all confused) :) and then you sew with half inch seams (when i come to the corner i just make sure my needle is down in the fabric and i pull up the presser foot and do a little pivot with the fabric and put the presser foot back down and continue sewing.... when you finish sewing this part you need the clip the corners...

and when you turn it inside out it looks like this...

then i cut a three by five rectangle (this is for the little loop where you hang the stocking) and i folded the rectangle in half length wise, right sides together and stitched a quarter inch seam, then trimmed the excess fabric and turned the loop right side out... then you pin the cuff and sock together with the loop in between... you want to pin it so the excess fabric will be under the cuff and so that the loop will come in between the cuff and lining then you sew it together and fold down the cuff and voila! your finished! now, i'm not so great at explaining so if anyone wants to make this and dosen't understand any part of my instructions feel free to email me or leave a comment if you don't have my email :) merry christmas everybody!

a few things christmas...

this is not any ordinary milk carton, this is what's left of maiko's gingerbread house he made at school (or i guess it was technically a gram cracker house)... they ate the entire thing except the milk carton base in about fifteen minutes.... so i didn't get a "real" picture of it... sigh... it was so cute! i'm glad the kids didn't have to eat stale crackers and frosting though...

when we went shopping for our christmas tree maiko found this little one "he loved so much" and carried it around while we were looking, with high hopes of taking it home... he forgot about it when the lady at the tree lot gave him a candy cane though...

my favorite picture from layla's christmas play :) they passed out like this on the way there! luckily we were pretty earily so me and matt just sat in the parking lot awhile enjoying the calm before the crazy storm....

eislee even got her own seat :)

it was such a cute play... the polar express.... the line-up of wagons is the train and there were elves and reindeer and santa of course... then they sang christmas songs for us including john lennon's happy xmas (war is over)... love it.... it's funny layla has been singing the christmas songs and knows them so well and all the little hand gestures that go with them.... we thought for sure that she would do such a good job... but once she was on stage she pretty much just sat there staring at the audience... it was pretty funny... we brought the video camera and everything and half the time you couldn't even see her because she was leaning behind her friend chloe, haha, go figure... i really enjoy listening to her singing those christmas songs, just this morning she was singing happy xmas....i can't tell you how nice it is to listen to her singing that song... thanks linda, thanks john :) merry christmas everybody!

more maiko...

such a camera hog these days, but he's so cute you can't help but take lots of pictures of him.

maiko the magnificent

the last pictures of fall... enjoy!

sorry for the absence, is it really two weeks until christmas?!?

time has really flown by the past two weeks, but we've been having a lot of fun... here's a little of what we've been up to, and more projects and some super cute maiko pictures coming soon... do you like my christmas wreath? my mom is the best when it comes to christmas :) she helped me make the wreath above and the centerpiece below... so much fun getting to spend the special time together with her and my cousins, i have many memories of her and my aunt getting together at christmas and making christmas decorations out of beautiful greenery while me and my cousins played and now the tradition continues... thanks mom :)

and below is the special centerpiece that maiko made :) my mom was so sweet to let him make one too (he used pretty much every pretty decoration she had!)... it looks so beautiful up on top of the piano....

also... my sister amber finally came for a visit, we love her so... she joined us in some fun activities like selecting and decorating a christmas tree and drinking warm wassel (wassle?) by the cozy fire and making a really wonderful dinner, which was quite a treat since we have been tending to go more for the quick and easy recently... thanks for coming amber we miss you already! also we are excited for the other many visitors coming to stay over the next few weeks...

can you believe this once newborn baby will be five months old soon? whew! that went fast!

so... that special dinner i mentioned above... yeah, i took pictures, probably overkill but oh well (i was really hungry and we spent a lot of time on it so bear with me here)... see those meatballs? matt ground fresh elk meat for those (see i told you we spent a lot of time on it)... and the roasted butternut squash mmmm...

i made a marinara sauce with our canned tomato sauce that we made with fresh summer tomatoes and we simmered those yummy meatballs in it...

and the motivation for all of this was to use matt's new kitchenaid attachment that makes homemade noodles (see lots and lots of time)...

and wouldn't you know it, after matt rolled the dough that amber made something went wrong with the kitchenaid, yeah, go figure huh? so... matt cut the noodles with a pizza slicer and they were great... also, he already fixed the kitchenaid, is he great or what? well, that made me hungry so i'm gonna go eat something now...

hope we will be seeing you all over the holidays! happy christmas :)

happy 27 matt

thanks for being my best friend, don't know what i'd do without you :) you are such an important part of this family, we love you! (can you believe eislee will be that big this summer? sigh. just goes so fast.)

good dinosaur

it's a good thing he's getting the full wear out of that costume, because come next halloween it won't fit anymore, and look at how his baby sister loves him... just melts my heart.