Holiday Recap and Knitting

We had a wonderful Christmas. We stayed home this year again and didn't travel back to Kentucky to visit family. Although we missed our family greatly, we still were able to have a wonderful holiday. The boys were apparently good because Santa did not disappoint. At one point Jacob announced, "Wow Mom, we got everything we wanted!" Music to my ears!

Jacob received a guitar from Santa and a CD player from Mom-mom and Pop-Pop, so there's been a lot of rockin' along with all the new CD's he received too. If he's not listening to The Plain White T's, then he's listening to The Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Uncle Chris sent Mouse Trap and we sat on Christmas afternoon and had a good round of that game. My mouse was quickly trapped by Nathan, and shortly after Jacob's mouse was caught. Jacob and I grew tired of watching Brent and Nathan battle it out. After about 20 minutes of going round and round, they called it a tie and put the game away. It was fun.
Santa brought other awesome toys that the boys wanted. They've done a good job of sharing their toys with each other too!
I have been knitting, I swear I have!!! Let me see what I can show you.
These are Mitt Envy Gloves that I made for Jacob's teachers. I found some little matching magic gloves to put under them because fingerless mitts in New England at this time of year is a bit silly!! Need to cover those digits!
Lacey requested a new Skull hat. We won't mention that my brother put the first one I made her in the dryer and shrunk it. No we won't mention that at all. All I have to say is I'm hopefully off the hook of being reminded about the cardboard box in the oven incident now...hum?? Scott?? ya think?? :)
I also made a Baby Yoda Sweater for Baby Gabriel. He's not here yet, but word on the street is he's going to make a grand appearance within the week!! Good Luck Sarah!
Sleep walker socks. YUM!! Can I just say I love these socks! I used the Claudia Hand Painted Yarns that the Connery girls got me for my birthday. The colorway is called Circus Dancer. I could just dance with these anyway!!
And last but not least, my favorite knit of December is this beautiful braided cable hat made out of Noro Iro yarn that was gifted to me from Uli. I LOVE this hat!! It fits my big melon head and doesn't slip off like other hats!! I saw a hat like this on Ravelry and thought that the cable pattern looked familiar. I looked through the knitting books I had here at home and sure enough, one of the scarves in a book I have was the same braided cable pattern. So I just winged it and this was the outcome. But if your a pattern person there is a pattern on Ravelry for a hat like this. The top of the hat their is a bit different from just the plain stockinette that I did.
Here's wishing you and yours a great new year!

Getting into the Christmas Spirit!!

Happy Holidays!

Snow....and so it begins

This video was taken last year about this time in December.
It's beginning to snow now outside and looks to be a good dumping upon us.

Learning other's traditions - Froehliche Weihnachten

My friend Uli stopped by the house today to pick up some things. For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of meeting her, she is a sweet gal from Germany who has been living here about 2 months or so.
She told me of a tradition in Germany and left some sweets for the boys.
I was very excited for the boys to get home from shopping with Brent so I could share this with them and give them their sweets.
Here is the story Uli told me:
On the Eve of Dec. 6th, little children in Germany shine their shoes, and in the morning they will find a special treat.
This sounded like such fun I had to google this and find out more. Below is what I found:
On the eve of Dec. 6th children place a shoe or boot by the fireplace. During the night, St. Nicholas, the patron saint of children, hops from house to house carrying a book of sins in which all of the misdeeds of the children are written. If they have been good, he fills the shoe or boot with delicious holiday edibles. If they have not been good, their shoe is filled with twigs.
There are some more traditions here that I found interesting and can't wait to share with the boys.


Uli, thanks for opening my eyes to some new and exciting ways to celebrate the season with my boys!!

Above: The boys with their treats from Uli. Below: Mandatory picture my mother makes me take of the boys. She's taken their picture with Santa Hats every Christmas since they were born, and since we are so far, I have to take the photo and send to her. Love this picture. Just might go in the holiday cards this year.

Tis the Season...

To be jolly! And boy am I jolly today!!!! Nathan had his followup visit with the eye Dr. that performed his surgery about 2.5 weeks ago. She is happy with the outcome of his eyes, and believes that with patching and him wearing his glasses, he may get that vision corrected and even get his depth perception back! How wonderful is that?!?!!!! He did a great job today while the assistant measured his eyes, test after test, naming letter after letter. I told him he was doing a great job and winning, so we celebrated by going and buying a toy. He even insisted that we get Jacob a toy. What a great kid! Our next visit is not until April of next year. Isn't that wonderful!! I'm also glad that I had good weather to drive in today, since it snowed yesterday. Luckily most of the snow was washed away, and it was actually in the 50's in the town we were in, in Mass, so Nathan and I took our coats off and enjoyed the sun. Imagine that...no coat on Dec. 1st in New England!! Who would have thought?!?? :o)
The boys got to visit Old St. Nick a week or so ago. I swear that Santa just sends their hair into wild mode!! OK, OK it could have been the hats they were wearing since it was cold outside, but I still blame Santa. ha ha
HAPPY HOLIDAYS! May your days be Merry and Bright.