A Fish Called Makiah

What a fun evening!  I had all of my kids under one roof, along with a grandkid AND a future son-in-law.  What more could I ask for?  Meri finally made it home after trying out for the spring play and the other kids were chomping at the bit to open their presents.  

Waiting patiently...

We started out with the stockings and then the youngest opening a present as we went around the room one present at a time.  It's always fun when you get the kids the exact same thing for one of their gifts and each act like they never guessed!

Each read their Groundhog Day mug individually when it was their turn to open.

I have that quote engrained in my brain now...

"I'll give you a winter prediction: It's gonna be cold, it's gonna be grey and it's gonna last you for the rest of your life."

But then Meri had to run off to a work Christmas party and the wrapping paper had taken over the room.  What had taken hours to wrap carefully had taken a mere hour to totally trash the living room.  Oh well.  It's been done before and nothing a garbage bag can't handle!

Leon opened a fish tank and fish from Meri and he was over joyed!  "A FISH!!!  JUST WHAT I WANTED!" (he did say that about the underwear I gave him too...)  but it really was what he wanted.  He'd been asking for a fish for a while now and Meri finally got me to cave.  

When he was asked what he'd named it, I was expecting him to make up a crazy made up non-remembering type of name, but nope.

He said, "I'll call her Makiah."  His best friend's name.

I guess it's better than a fish called Wanda.

Well, I've got the next three work days off and have lots of activities planned.  I'll post Robb's Christmas letter before Sunday.  Have a wonderful Christmas!

Faux Christmas and Lapskaus

Friday night, Maddy and Matthew arrived later than expected due to a snow storm system that they were driving through.  Roads were rough and wind was strong.  We had already eaten but had food ready for them when they got here.  I made use of the time with no company and worked on making binding for the two quilts for my folks.  Got it all ready to work on for the weekend.

When they got here, we visited until exhaustion set in for everyone.

Saturday, it was extremely cold, but that wasn't stopping us.  I still had a ton of Christmas shopping left to do so we all climbed into a warmed up car and headed to town.  Left Robb in the coffeeshop and I shopped my heart out in various stores.  Ate out.  The kids and I filled up a plethora of shopping carts and when we got home, a wrapping party ensued with lots of Christmas music on the radio.

DON'T LOOK OVER HERE!!!  I'M WRAPPING YOURS!!!

Then the Maid of Honor asking that I told you about yesterday....  

Then we ate out again.  Sometimes a whole week goes by with us only using the dollar menu at Wendys once and here we've eaten out twice in one day.  What is the world coming to??...

We visited the British pub/restaurant that Ryan works at and he was even our waiter!  Jen met us there and the food was great.  We got the cheese platter because that's just what Maddy and Matthew like to do...  Be cheesy together.

Ryan and Jen met us at home later and we played board games into the night.  A fun one about headlines that I can't remember the name of and Tenzi.  I had purchased Watch Ya Mouth and it was hilarious.  I'm not sure I want to play that all the time, but seeing everyone's teeth vividly and horrid attempts to spit out a weird phrase was quite a treat.  I now know why people keep posting pics of themselves playing this on FB.

Note to everyone.  Brush your teeth and maybe get a drool bib before playing.

Sunday after church, the kids ate out, just them.  I had a billion errands to do before going home and Robb went to pick up the boy.  We all got home roughly at the same time.  I spent part of the afternoon sewing on my dad's quilt binding and got it done. YAY!!!  

Since Sunday's temp was 15 degrees below zero for a high, our Norwegian Christmas dinner with my bestie and her husband was cancelled.  The cold really affects her and she didn't feel like she could leave the nursing home in that.  So we postponed it until Monday night when it would be a whole 20 degrees ABOVE zero.  You know... shorts weather.

So Sunday night, we had Robb's old standby of "Needs Salt Casserole", introducing Matthew to our boring food staples.  It's not ALWAYS steak and cheese platters around here!

Monday night was the Norwegian Christmas dinner.  Mike, Ada's hubs, used to prepare it for us every year at his house, but since their situation has changed, Robb thought we could do it for them instead.  I think we did a good job of it, but it's just NOT Mike's Lapskaus (Norwegian Hash). We'll perfect our version in time.

 Since our kids have such varied schedules and we wanted to include everyone, we're opening presents tonight.  Talk at you all later!  Have a great faux Christmas today!

Spoiled Quilter

I started watching a Johnny Depp thriller from around 2004.  I THINK I've seen it before, but don't remember what the twist was...  I'm half way in, don't spoil it.  

It pays to be forgetful sometimes!  

Robb and I had watched half of the season finale of Suits from Wednesday night and didn't get to the rest until last night.  The Suits FB page posted a spoiler yesterday...  sigh. really?!...  But I watched it anyway and didn't tell Robb I knew part of the ending.  

Oops.  I guess he knows now...

The pair of shorts pattern that I cut out a few days ago is going to take a back seat for a while.  I've got a laundry list of sewing projects coming up, so I want to get Meri's prom dress done now.  

Unfortunately just as I was fixing up the pattern pieces from our sample dress, I realized that I hadn't gotten the muslin squares cut out for my siblings.  So I put aside her pattern pieces again and dug out the muslin fabric I bought on Wednesday.  I am two squares shy of the number that I need.

We're making a hand print quilt for my parents for Christmas.  Well, one for each of them since they live apart these days.  There are 40 grandchildren...  So they'll be big twin sized blankets...

Thank goodness it's an even number!  Unless I counted all my nieces and nephews plus my kids, incorrectly

The quilts will have hand prints of each grandkid in each square.  If that kid has kids, then there will be smaller hand prints over the top of that hand print.  

Sound confusing?  

 I pulled these photos off of Pinterest this morning so you'd get the gist.

You bet!

I've got about 8 packets of squares to mail out sitting on the dining room table right now.  Only one needs an address.  But I'm waiting on a print out to stick in to each one and my printer is on the fritz, so they'll mail on Monday.

As soon as I get them back, I'll sew them together and then get them to a business that does the quilting part professionally.  Since it will take at least 5 weeks to get them quilted, we need to get it going soon.  

A niece had discovered it on Pinterest and asked if we could do this this year.  

YOU BET!  

I think they'll love them.

I hope so.

I'm kind of loving this one, as you don't have to be perfect or match up each corner exactly...

Hmmm.  I won't buy the matching fabric until I see what colors come back.

Don't tell them and spoil the surprise!

Sewn With Love

HERE is the purse that Meri made me for Christmas!!!  The kids hound us before Christmas and birthdays about what we want.  When they were little, we knew they weren't going to pay for it themselves.  Now that they are earning money, they put more thought into things.

Our usual answer is "good kids", but since that's out of the question and they're tired of that answer, I always feel put "on the spot".  I never think of anything really creative, so I go practical.  Socks, Pattern weights, something homemade (trying to save them a little money). 

Meri took that answer to heart.  Literally...

She asked her grandma for some socks she didn't want anymore, bought some pattern weights and dug into the project.  Hiding out around the house before Christmas is a challenge, but she did it...  Growling at me if I came too close.  A lot of "Don't come over here!!!" 

When we went on a long car ride to Christmas with my family, she hid in the way back and sewed by hand.  Getting after me if I so much as turned around to ask her a question.

She cut the socks, sewed them together by hand.  Lined it with some wool fabric from my stash.  Used some ties Grandma had for the handle.  There is elastic around the opening. 

 

Since my sewing machines are temperamental and she didn't want to ask my help to thread them, she did the entire thing hand stitched.  It all took her about a week.

Empty, it weighs about  5 lbs...  So I don't use it very much.  But WILL take it to my next sewing meeting and show off her resourcefulness and creative humor.

And to celebrate Valentine's Day, my hubs made vaguely heart shaped eggs for breakfast!  Isn't HE the romantic??  yumm...

Happy Valentine's Day!

Who's the Jerk Now?

I"m going to tell you what I got my husband for Christmas...  He already knows because it's.after.Christmas...

I got him a Sodastream.  What's that?!  Basically a machine that carbonates water to which you add whatever flavorings you want to make your own pop.  Pretty cool huh?  There are 12 samples that come with it and one of them is Diet Dr. Pete, which is supposed to be equivalent to Diet Dr. Pepper.  And it's not too far off!  A little less flavoring than what they suggest perhaps and then probably more like it.

Last night he cracked open the box and we all tried out a few different flavors.  DDP of course...  The Orange is great!  The Fountain Mist (aka Mountain Dew) is ok.  I'm not a big Mt Dew fan anyway... 

But he's a self proclaimed "Jerk" now!  As in Soda Jerk, but he abbreviated it.

Tonight Maddy is having some friends over for a movie night so Robb is going to pick up some more flavoring stuff today for them for their beverages.  There were just samples that came with the box.  I think they're going for Orange and Root beer. 

So in giving a gift to a man... They're instantly thinking about ways to save MORE money by using this than buying pop.  Have you ever heard of using a paintball canister instead of the actual carbonation canister?  I hear there's an adaptor for it.  Apparently it's CO2 also and only costs a couple dollars as opposed to $30 but we can get it for half off that, so $15.  I'm a little worried...  I guess I watched too much Tim the Toolman Taylor growing up and Red Green...

Anyway, I'm not getting paid to tell you this stuff.  This is NOT a commercial!  Just sharing.  Within 2 canisters that each make about 60 liters of pop, this should pay itself off.

Unfortunately my husband will be taking it to the office to keep there, starting next week.

Now the rest of us want one at the house too.  We've been spoiled... 

It'll take a LOT of canisters to make this break even now...