Post Christmas blog

We had a nice 3 day long Christmas.

Christmas Eve we went to the children's mass & 2 parties.

Christmas morning we enjoyed family time and playing with Santa gifts. I think the biggest hit was guitar hero.




Christmas afternoon, we went to the ILs house. There was plenty of presents, food & fun. The kids got remote control trucks & planes & robots. They had a lot of fun playing with them until they drained the batteries!

Monster Truck



The day after Christmas we spent with my family. There was tons of mexican food, yummy tamales & fajitas. The kids exchanged presents.

Batman



I spent 5 hours yesterday morning making my gifts for sisters 2,4 & 5 plus Mom & Dad. Luckily I had to send gifts to sister #1 last week so only had 5 to make. My fingers are still sore from cutting all that paper. I got the template from A Little Hut. I've always loved her paper art but I have a new found respect for it. I didn't realize what it took to cut paper while following a dotted line. It was not as easy as I thought it would be. My pictures aren't great, lighting was bad, so it is hard to tell. Each month has the initial cut out and it is backed with a "theme" paper. I'm happy with how they turned out.


January - December


5 calendars done



So now that Christmas is over, I have to start planning for J's birthday. Only 3 more days to go.

Twas the day before Christmas

All through the house, the mother is scurrying ...

I don't have time to write a poem! I have so much to do today.

This morning the kids and I baked cutout cookies. I found the recipe through a comment on my friend's blog. I'm happy with the cookies. They are soft, puffy sugar cookies. I prefer them to hard crunchy ones.



I nixed the idea of making my own icing and letting the kids decorate with tips, etc. I asked DH to pick up 2 cans of icing on his way home. They can ice & use sprinkles. Santa will be happy.

I got an status email from job #2 which sent me into a panic. Luckily Backyardigans captured the attention of all 3 kids and I was able to handle it.

I've got the rest of my list to tackle

• wrap presents
  
• make presents
  
• laundry
  
• ice cookies
  
• bathe children (better put it on the list, lest I forget)
  

Last night I was able to finish my cowl.



At least that's one less thing on my list. Of course, now that I've got the knitting itch back, I'm sitting here thinking of what I can start knitting next instead doing all of the above. I think it will be a shawl for the school casino night. Is anyone up for a Melon-along?

Close to Christmas

The Christmas countdown is 6 days. The cousin countdown is 2 days.

Both kids had their Christmas performances and today is the last day of school.






I have tons of things to do that I'm avoiding. Mostly work. I'm going to have to hunker down and get some done one of these nights. I also have to finish making family Christmas presents, wrapping presents, buying presents, baking cookies, etc.

What I have been doing is knitting.


I finished A's scarf


I made another ornament for a teacher gift


I started this cowl with leftover yarn from A&J's scarves. I think the color is interesting, but I'm not superthrilled with it. I may dye it again.

Cabled Ornament

Yesterday I decided to knit an ornament. I think it turned out cute. We have a Christmas party to go to tonight. It will make a nice hostess gift.

Home from Vegas

We arrived home yesterday from our weekend in Vegas. I survived the marathon. It went much better than last year. I wasn't in nearly as much pain the next day and I cut almost 10 minutes off of my time. I not so nearly inclined to say that I would never do it again.

Vegas was Vegas. It will never be my favorite spot. I got enough of it to last me another 5-10 years. I did gamble, a little craps & blackjack plus some betting on the ponies. I was down about $150 until the last night I got a streak going at blackjack and I managed to come home $1.00 down. That's a feat for Vegas. We stayed at the Bellagio which was very nice. Here's the view from our hotel window.



My favorite part of the trip was going to see Hoover Dam. I wanted see it the last time I went to Vegas and that didn't work out. DH planned our trip so I could go this time. Isn't he sweet?

The side of the dam. I had my big lens on and I couldn't capture the whole thing. It was too big.


The turbines


View from the vent tunnel


Statue


Sunset

Off to Vegas

I'm off to Vegas tomorrow morning. We're going to run the half marathon. It's been a whole year since we went to Jamaica. I'm seriously crazy. I said I would never do that again. I'm not sure why I am. I lost my motivation about 2 weeks ago. Hopefully I'll finish, but there's a sag wagon in case I totally break down.

Even if I do poorly, I'm ready for sleeping with no interruption by wet toddlers & playing some craps.

Next year, when DH & BIL propose another trip like this, I'm insisting on a place with a 10K. No more 13 miles for me! I swear it this time.