The Christmas China Dinner

A recently-added Cruze Christmas tradition is to have dinner at Scott's parents' house some weekend in December. This is a dinner with no kids invited. Kay does all the cooking and we eat on her very special Christmas china. This is my dessert plate with the remains of some red velvet cake:

After dinner we played a Christmas trivia game. Scott and I won. There was an award. A really, really good award. A major award.

Scott took it to work for his desk, that seemed like the best place for it, but next year I think we may need to put it in our front window for the month of December.

Lydia got her first haircut.

Before:

After:

The mullet was getting out of control, so I took just a little length and volume from the very back.

This is the current face that makes me laugh out loud whenever she makes it. It's an acting surprised look. She gasps right before she sets her lips into this tight circle and raises her eyebrows in false alarm and often darts her eyes back and forth as if searching for what has startled her. It cracks me up, pure gold.

Homemade Christmas

This year nearly all of our gifts exchanged with Cruzes (and a couple with the Barbers) were homemade. This was a very fun idea that we hope to repeat at least some of the time in the future. I made Kay a little set of coasters (tutorial here), and Eldon some hot chocolate mix (with tiny bits of Andes mints in it...mmmmmm, minty). The bottom picture is Cally and me, with me sporting the apron she made me which is stitched with the words, "I hate warm fruit". (It's true, I hate any dessert that involves warming up any fruit.) I didn't take pictures of every gift we made, though I kind of wish I had. The one that I am especially lamenting not having to share a photo of is the walking stick that Scott made for Terry. It looked so great and had a cool spot at the very top that could hold a glow stick which would shine through carved out openings. It was way cool.

The Sisters having fun

Design Mom dream come true!

Wowza! Check out the comment on the previous post right down there. That's right, the Design Mom, Gabrielle herself left a comment on my blog. And as if that's not cool enough, she was letting me know I WON A DESIGNMOM GIVEAWAY! I have entered more of those things than I can count. And here's the funny part, it was for a giveaway all the way back in November. She had a big week when she was giving away cool stuff left and right and I entered almost all of them. And every day I very carefully checked her list of the winners hoping to see my name and I never did. But I should have. Because it was there. Right there. How did I miss somthing so fun and exciting?? I won a brand spanking new super cute baby book of Design Mom worthy smartness. The only problem is I have so many pregnant friends, how do I choose who to give it to? Maybe I'll have to hang onto it for #5 someday.
I have to go now to call Cally and brag...

Baby Shower Gift

This bib gave me trouble and the seams are a far cry from straight, but I love the fabrics.

Blown Away

A couple of Saturdays ago we decided it was about time to do something about the leaves. Jake and Andy came over (while Conan went to the mall) to join in the fun. Scott borrowed the Avery's backpack-style heavy-duty leaf blower and took care of our front yard (and the next-door-neighbor's) in no time. It was a perfect day, very mild with the sun shining and all those kids had so much fun playing in the monster-sized leaf piles. They would run and jump in, bury each other, make it into a "leaf fort", and throw big handfuls up in the air. They would take a big handful over to Scott and he would turn the leaf-blower on them and they loved it. Once the whole front yard was in two big piles, the kids helped out by holding the black trash bags open for Scott to stuff full. I don't remember what the final count was, but it was between 15-20 bags. This coming Saturday we're planning to do the back yard, so send your kids on over.

The Fantasy of Trees

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, right before heading to MAYO to get our own Christmas tree, we spent the morning at the Fantasy of Trees at the Knoxville Convention Center. I love going there, we don't do it every year, but may start doing that when the kids are older. It's a charity event to raise money for Children's Hospital. They have lots of crafts and activities for the kids (face painting, a carousel, making ornaments, etc, etc) and a few little knick-knack shops tucked in the corners. They have one section filled with wonderfully detailed gingerbread houses (Emma and Ben are standing by their favorite...the igloo). They have a big stage at one end of the building with dance performances scattered throughout the weekend. But the main thing is the trees. Hundreds of perfectly decorated, usually with some cutesy theme, tall and wonderful Christmas trees. People or businesses or families or 8th grade classrooms or whoever wants to decorates these trees then donates them to be sold (same deal with the gingerbread houses). People like us who are there to look around can choose a tree to purchase and they get to load it up with all the lights and ornaments and whatnot all over it and take it home and put it in their living room and feel good about helping sick kids. I could have stayed and looked at the trees for a long, long time. But we saved it for last and the kids were kind of spent by then. Maybe next year I'll just go by myself.