Oregon Christmas - Day 1

Our flights to Oregon haven't been delayed for years, so we have gotten out of the habit of checking their status before we leave.  Turns out, this time it was delayed about THREE HOURS!  Not so great, since we have a 2 year old who's approaching the time of day when he'd normally be napping.  :P  Thankfully Nathan's parents (our ride to the airport) hadn't gone far after dropping us off, and were able to come back to collect us.  We decided to fritz around in the area for awhile rather than drive all the way home and back.  So first, we went to eat an early lunch at Panda Express - where Luke was thrilled to finish his food when Daddy helped him eat it with chopsticks!

Then, we found a local park a few blocks away from the airport, and played for awhile to let Luke run around.

Finally in the air!  Even though it was quite late in the afternoon, this boy just wasn't going to sleep on the airplane.  He did good though, and was quite the little talker about everything he was experiencing.

Our first stop in Oregon was actually my sister, Heidi's house, where we had our immediate family Christmas time.  We spent a couple nights here all together before heading on to my parent's house.  This is a fun hostess gift for Heidi.  :)

Misc

Luke's trucks frequently join the nativity characters on this end table.  :)

"Watering" my little silk flowers.

Cutie

Just a cute picture of our boy!

Luke's really into steering wheels lately, so when we went to the park a couple weeks ago, he was very excited about these steering wheels on the playground.

He requested raisins on his toast (which also has peanut butter and honey on it) for the first time.  Kind of funny, but not outlandish - just think of the "ants on a log" snack of celery, peanut butter & raisins.  :)

Nathan really wanted to start teaching Luke how to shake presents.  Definitely not my idea!  I would much rather he not learn that.  :P  But, I submitted to Nathan's desire and put one of Luke's gifts under the tree for this "learning process".  This picture is a little fuzzy, but his expression is precious.

Backstitching

Here's some of the back-stitching progress I've made on the advent calender over the past couple weeks.  I wanted to show you a half-way point picture because it's pretty cool to see how much detail is really added with the back-stitching.  I haven't done any back stitching on the ornaments yet, so that's why there's no new picture for that.  :)

Fun & Friends

Yesterday morning when I was on the phone, Luke decided it would be fun to tuck in the teddy bears on our bed to go to sleep.  2 year olds don't seem to care that the bed *was* nicely made.  :P

While we were visiting with Joanna and her kids, Luke kept walking around talking on Vijay's toy cell phone.  It was so cute to see his imagination at work - and to hear the things I could understand from his "conversations".  The picture I managed to capture of this play was when he had laid down for a minute, but most of the time he was walking around the house talking - like Daddy does.  :)

We took a picture together, too, since it was kind of a Christmas visit.  This was the last time we'll see them when there's only two kids!  She's scheduled to deliver baby #3 this Friday - which is also the day we fly out to Oregon, so unfortunately, I'll have to wait a whole week to see the new baby.  :(  God bless you, Jo!

Cute Boy

I figured I should probably take a picture of this ornament because the story behind it is pretty cute.  I received this large stuffed snowman ornament my first year at college.  Our first Christmas married, we used it to top our tree since we couldn't find an angel that we liked.  :P  Most years now, it seems a little large to hang on the tree, so I usually just prop it up somewhere as a decoration.  Well, this year, Luke didn't like that idea.  It had an ornament string, so it needed to get hung on the tree!  The morning after we decorated the tree with ornaments, I suggested to Luke that he hang it on the little knob on our console table, since that could be something he could do himself.  That worked for a little bit, but eventually, I caught him attempting to hang it on the tree anyway!  I came over, fully expecting it to fall to the ground because Luke doesn't ever get the hangers far enough in on sturdy branches which seemed to be a must for this guy.  Much to my surprise, it stayed!  I looked closer, and it was only staying on by some of those little knobby things on the end of the branch!  I figured I'd let it go, since Luke was so proud of himself, but expected it to not last very long - especially considering gravity and our cat.  Again, much to my surprise, that snowman is still hanging strong - the little knobby things are holding, Cinnamon hasn't bothered it, and Luke seems content to leave it there now.  Kind of cute.  :)

Here's some context for where our tree is this year.  So nice not having to rearrange the furniture and deal with a more cramped living room area.  :)

Luke got out his chainsaw and started to "saw" things around the house - bathroom rug, fan, presents, tree, etc.  Very interesting to begin to witness his imagination!

We talked about the snow a lot on Monday.  I mentioned it at breakfast when telling Luke about the activities we had planned for our Oregon trip.  He quickly picked up on that, and seemed to think we were going to the snow THAT DAY.  He was quite upset when I kept telling him that we weren't.  :(  We even tried on his snow boots and hat from last year - which was helpful to know they still fit.  :)  I think he'll have a lot of fun in the snow this year, now that he's remembering more of his experiences.  He's ready to come visit Grandpa & Grandma!!!

Family Day

I had a few errands to run, so the three of us headed out together on Saturday to go to a few stores.  We stopped for a snack at the McDonald's in Wal-Mart, and when we where getting ready to leave, this "small bus" pulls up outside our window - much to Luke's extreme joy!  He was fascinated with it, and kept waiting for the doors to open, which they never did.  We eventually got him to leave, and he enjoyed being able to walk next to it when we went back to our car.  :)

Another errand that I thought would be quick, Luke and Nathan stayed in the car since it was raining that day.  When I came back to the car, this is what I found!  Someone was quite upset when he had to go back in his car seat to drive home instead of up front with Daddy.  :(

Peaceful Sleep

I couldn't resist going back for my camera on Friday when I went to wake Luke up from his nap.  Sweet, sleeping boy!

Decorations

Here's our tree all finished and looking nice.

I'm happy to actually have a plant this year to put this super cute snowman plant pick I've had for years.  Now, Mr. Snowman can hang out happily with our "baby" ivy.  :)  It's kind of strange to think about what our Christmas might have looked like this year.  We would have a newborn baby in the house right now (I was due Nov. 23rd), which would have been very special during this particular holiday, but I'm sure our planned festivities would have looked much different than they are now.  For example, we're flying out on Friday to go visit my family in Oregon!!!  Life keeps on moving and there are plenty of blessings to be had with the course of life God has chosen to give us.  :)

At family dinner that night, Grandma Hughes got out her plethora of singing snowmen, which the kids just loved!  This piano-playing one seemed to be Luke's favorite this year.  He would sometimes stick his fingers on the keys and pretend to play along.  :)

Christmasy Day

The day after we got our tree, I was definitely in the Christmas mood!  Now I was able to wrap presents since I'd have somewhere to put them.  So, I got everything out and tried to see if Luke would behave enough to let me get some wrapping done.  He was so good!  Our morning was so nice - Christmas tree up, Christmas music playing in the background, me wrapping presents, and Luke cutting up papers at the table (to be like me as I was cutting paper), helping put on the to/from stickers, and carrying presents to the tree.  Fun time with my little guy!

Cool in blue!  We walked to the mailbox to mail a birthday card, and Luke wanted to carry it since the envelope was blue.  :)

In case you've been wondering about Luke's sometimes more "formal" choice of clothes lately, I would have you know that he has been choosing his own shirts these days.  His favorite color has been brown the last few weeks, so that's often a major factor.  As is the presence of "holes" (or buttons, as the rest of us would say) - which means he often picks a polo or button-up shirt.  I then pick out his pants so that he matches and can be as casual as possible, regardless of his shirt choice.  He's not a very messy or adventurous boy at the moment, so I'm not worried about him ruining these shirts.  And he looks pretty cute!  :)

Helping put ornaments on the tree!

Christmas Tree!

We got our Christmas tree a week ago and we let Luke "help" a little bit this year.  Here, he's helping Daddy saw off the bottom of the trunk.  This is the first year he's been allowed/able to help with any of this, so he was super excited!

Helping screw in the pins on the tree stand.

Helping carry the lights from Daddy to Mommy.

Ta-da!  We decided to try to find a skinny tree this year so that we wouldn't have to rearrange our living room.  And the first one we looked at was tall and skinny- perfect for our space!  Since there wasn't a lot of time left with having dinner, getting the tree, putting it up and Luke's bedtime, we opted to just put the lights on this first night.  Then, Luke could help us with the ornaments the following night. After he went to bed, I put on the tree skirt and angel, since that makes it look a lot more completed.

Somersault

So Luke actually taught himself to do a somersault on Sunday! He was messing around, putting his head on the ground while standing, then sticking his hands out to the side saying "Mommy, watch!" Then, at one point, he pushed himself forward enough that he flopped over onto his back! Of course, I cheered and such, so he kept trying it and did it several times. I got a video of it too - it's super cute! Now he has a new "trick" to share with the Oregon family when we visit NEXT WEEK!!!

6 New Dresses

So, in preparation for the elementary school gift shop I'm participating in next week, I wanted to fill out my inventory a bit.  Since cross-stitched items take longer to do, I opted to make a few more doll dresses.  I also wanted to keep the worth of the dresses down a bit, since they wanted the price range of the gift shop to be $10 or less.  Most of my doll dresses were at least $12, so I chose to include a few existing $12 dresses that I'd had for awhile, and knock their price down to $10 for this event.  Then, I made six new sleeveless dresses that were going to be worth $10 to start with.

The first three dresses are unique dresses, and won't be able to be duplicated if they sell.  All of my dresses are created out of my "stash" - using fabric and trims that I already own - which is how I am forced to get creative to come up with combinations that look good from what's available.  These first three, however, used fabric scraps from previous projects, so the fabric used is virtually all that's left of that fabric.  There are a few small pieces left that might go into another patchwork dress at some point. but not enough for another dress.

The latter three dresses came from larger pieces of fabric, so if any of these fabric/embellishment combinations is particularly pleasing to you, let me know - because I can make another one for you or for my Etsy shop!

I'm also interested in any suggestions regarding these dresses.  Centered mainly in the following areas:
1. Should I do more sleeveless dresses, or do you prefer the short, puffed sleeves that I had been doing?
2. Are any of the embellishment styles particularly pleasing to you?
3. Are any of the embellishment styles sadly lacking?
I'm open to feedback and comments.  Keep in mind that part of my decisions regarding which trims I used on the dresses is based on what I have on hand, so a particular design may or may not be able to be duplicated without buying more of a trim (for example the dark purple rick-rack on the pink dress and the green rick-rack on the daisy dress was from Nathan's grandma's old sewing stash!).  And I may not have been able to embellish a certain dress in the nicest way possible because of what I was limited to.  However, I still hope to create nice designs that people like, so if I'm way off base, I'd love to know!  :)

Matching

I wanted to take a picture together with Luke on this particular day last week because we happened to be matching somewhat.  But, since it was just us, I attempted a self-portrait.  None of them turned out all that well, but it was still fun.  :)

And here's a cute shot of Luke running back to me in the grass.  :)

Happy Boy

Just a fun picture of Luke enjoying all the fall leaves on the first day of December!

So Close...

Well, I got *this close* to finishing my advent calendar for using this year.  As of November 30th, I finished stitching all the cross-stitches.  Too bad there is also quite a bit of necessary back-stitching to do.  Oh well.  I made great progress, and we can for sure use it next year!  The first week of December, I put this project on the back burner so that I could focus on sewing some new dresses for the elementary school gift shop my stuff is in the week of the 14th.  I still was surprised at how much progress I made on the back stitching when just working on it for a few minutes while Luke watched his shows after naptime.  I actually was only able to do this the first half of the week, because toward the end of the week, I started to feel the pressure of the deadline looming, and began to work on gift shop related preparations during his tv time instead.  :)  But, now that my inventory has been delivered, I can happily pick this back up when I'm not busy getting caught up on other things around the house (blogs, laundry, pots & pans, 3 weeks of unread newspapers, etc.).

I'll be sure to post more pictures when I've finished the back-stitching.  I'm actually thinking of taking a picture when I'm half-way finished back-stitching the main scene picture, because it's so interesting to see how much that detailing changes the picture.  Stay tuned!