Crafty Christmas

This year was a Christmas filled with crafts! And, this thrilled me to no end!! There is just something wonderful about home-made projects - fun to give and fun to receive...and fun to EAT!
Katey with her Christmas cookie creations. We also did chocolate covered pretzels that Katey decorated with sprinkles and Mike and Uncle Jason worked on a gingerbread house with the kids (I forgot to get pictures).

While we were in Middlebury, Indiana for a wedding (more on that in a later post) Jen picked up a craft called Locker Hook. It uses scrap fabric and a crochet-like hook. After just a couple of hours the trivet project was finished:
I picked up some more base material to do a little rug for the bathroom next!!

Katey got a weaving loom for potholders for Christmas and has already put it to good use:
She is pretty crafty! She also did a bunch of finger-knitting and is getting good at that. Wish I had snapped some shots of her in process, but here is some of the finished project:
Finally, the hand-crafted gifts. I made this out of ribbon and loved the way it turned out.
I have been able to cross stitch since I was young but hadn't done any projects in about a decade. So, I decided to pick it back up and do a piece for Mike's parents. The picture doesn't do the color justice - the matting is a sage green color with dark brown along the inside.
Next come the gifts that were received! Mom Averill is a master quilter and did this lap quilt with matching pillow for Seth. Isn't it beautiful?!?! Seth really likes his special quilt!
And, a couple of years ago, Mom A did a Christmas wall hanging for me. This year she used the leftover pieces and did a pillow to coordinate with it. So very festive!!
Finally, we made a trip to the craft store yesterday to get some knitting needles and yarn. Mike's sister, Joanna, is teaching me and our sister-in-law, Annie, how to knit!! Maybe pictures will follow soon. :-)

'Tis the Season

'Tis the season for running...
Running in a 5K (for the 3rd time in a year!). Katey and Mike completed the Girls on the Run 5K in right at 40 minutes - a 5-6 minute improvement over the run in the Spring!! Way to go Katey and Daddy!
By the way, it was a horribly cold morning and there were even some snow flurries seen!

'Tis the season for spelling...
Katey won her class spelling bee for the 2nd year in a row! She went on to compete at the school-wide level but unfortunately didn't win it...her stumbling word this time was: testimony. Rats! One great thing though was that Katey was much more confident and relaxed than last year. Maybe 5th grade will be her year!

This is her, "Whew, I'm done" pose!

And on that note:

'Tis the season for being silly...

Seth is 7!

Seven years ago Seth was our Thanksgiving Day surprise!

This year Seth turned 7!! At his request we threw a party at Sports Connection - every young (and not-so-young) boy's dream party location!

We bounced in the Jump Zone:
And played Laser Tag:
Acted Goofy with friends:
And ate yummy ice cream cake from Bruster's:

There were presents to be opened:

A rock wall to conquer:
And birthday spankings to be had:

But Seth wasn't too thrilled about the spankings so he decided to fight back this year:

Happy birthday to our sweet and loving and kind little ball of fire!

Thankful!

Don't you just love Thanksgiving traditions?!?

The (almost) annual roll bake-off
Jen vs. Shannon
We each make a batch of Grandma's delicious rolls and the family gets to decide who came closest to the way Grandma actually makes them. We didn't get a picture of Jen's but these are Shannon's:In case you were wondering, these don't look a thing like Grandma's! Someone may have dropped the baking dish upon removal from the oven and may (or may not) have sent them falling onto the burner below. :-) Jen's looked like Grandma's but Mike says Shannon's tasted better. Drat! (We still swear that Grandma has left out a key ingredient as we can't seem to get them as light and fluffy as hers!)

After completing the rolls we need butter to top them. It has been a fun tradition to make our own butter each Thanksgiving! All the kids get really into it...

But none are as...um...zealous at it as Mike!

Once all the preparations are done it is time to EAT!!
And a wonderful feast was had by all!!

But as much as we look forward to the meal, we also love the proverbial turkey coma that follows:
(Sweet dreams!)

Just the girls...and other kids

I had the wonderful privilege of accompanying my sweet daughter on not just one, but TWO field trips a couple of weeks ago!

The first trip was with 6 classes of 4th graders and we all headed to Old Salem, NC (just a mere 2 hour bus trip on school activity buses...containing 40+ 9 year olds...). I was given charge over 6 kids and they really were a great group. We got to wander around the beautiful and quaint town and learn about the history of Old Salem. I didn't take many pictures, but here are the few I snapped:

Not sure why, but many of the porches were raised with these little cut-outs below. Had to get a picture with all the kids jammed into one.

One of the favorite stops in the town - the water pump! All the kids got to pump the handle to make the water flow and lots of them took drinks as well.

One really cool part of the day was learning how to play games that kids used to play way back in the day (like in the very late 1700's-early 1800's??) Above is Katey mastering one of them and below are many of the kids trying out different things. These were all harder than they look!

While I didn't get any pictures of the buildings, they were beautiful! And, we got to go into the tavern. For me it was the most fascinating stop on the tour. The tavern used to be run by the Moravian Church (who, incidentally, ran the entire town!) and it was the local bar as well as hotel. George Washington stayed there for 2 nights when he was president. Pretty cool! Katey says her favorite part was the BAKERY! She is officially in love with the chocolate pound cake that they sell. :-)

So, the very next day Katey and I headed to Peachland, NC with her Sunday School class. We got to see all sorts of cool things like:

An amazon parrot

A miniature horse that liked to buck and kick

A cute little ferret

A python and other snakes which make my skin crawl. Katey refuse to touch them. That's my girl!! (In case you were wondering, I did touch the python. And my skin crawled the entire time.)

Jacob's sheep (the kids were chasing them, trying to catch one. Did you know that sheep run really fast? Faster than kids.)

How to spin the wool of the Jacob's sheep. Very cool.

The chicken house. One barn contained around 20,000 chickens. Did you know that chickens stink? Really, really stink.

Katey's favorite part of the trip to the farm was climbing on a tree house ladder that was there as well as riding on the miniature horse. My favorite part was watching all the faces of the kids as they experienced so many cool things. That and passing out the hand sanitizer. :-)

Thus ended the weekend of field trips but we had such a wonderful time on both adventures and enjoyed spending time with Katey's friends!

Snapshots of Fall