You should know me by now that when this site is left idle too long, life has just gotten crazy.  And although I should be doing some work right now, I just couldn’t let another day go by without putting up a post.

If you want to see what I have been up to head on over to my photo blog and see the gorgeous people I have been blessed to photograph lately.

In addition to a few photo shoots, I rolled my ankle on Saturday as we were heading out the door to pick up the Christmas tree.  Thankfully I was able to hobble around by Sunday and it looks like it was just hyper-extended (I rolled over the top) not torn, broken, sprained or otherwise.  It still hurts, but thankfully it wasn’t worse.

We have been trying hard to continue with our 25 Days of Christmas, so I have made up a photo collage to fill you in.

On day 4 we wrote to Santa and mailed his card.  J even drew Santa a card of his own, it broke my heart to put it in the mail.

Day 5 we went to pick up our Christmas Tree at Ikea.  We get two, one for my Mom & Dad and then we get the gift certificates to use after Christmas.

Day 6 we put up and decorated our Tree, Mantle, Dining Room.

Day 7 we decorated the kids trees for their rooms.

Day 8 we watched a Christmas movie after school and sang carols on our way to swimming (loud enough so the guy next to us started singing along).

And Day 9 the kids played in the snow for two hours before dinner, that was all the Christmas we could do yesterday.

To be sure, I have my own 25 days of Christmas going on in behind this one.  I have made a few batches of cookies, made, ordered and addressed the Christmas cards, picked up some Christmas gifts, sang carols till my throat was sore and started making the Christmas gifts that need to be handmade.

No wonder I am tired.

Ahh, finally I can post about what on earth was keeping me busy in December.  Note to self: do it all in November next year.

The handmade goodies.  So far so good, they are all being enjoyed.  Only two foibles to speak of, one being that the pj’s for the kids were way too long (fine for the kids close to me so I can hem them up, not so fine for those out West, but they are wearing them anyway) and the other being that my Mom and I both thought one of my nephews had a green jacket, so I made a green hat and his jacket is blue!   Not sure how we both thought that, but the green hat looks good on him (still don’t have a photo to share) so he will keep it.

To start with, I decided to do up family PJ’s.  Pink Camo flannel for the girls and Grey Camo flannel for the boys.  I found a pattern that did the whole family, however, in hindsight, I should have measured the kids against J.  I was trying to hide it from him as I did a set for us as well.  Which we all wore on Christmas Eve together.   With the pants I also did a Team T-shirt (which I didn’t show) that has ‘Team XXX”.  XXX being the last name of the family.   I did up some iron on transfers and bought a whack of t-shirts at Wally World.

For the adults, I included my Desk Calendars, I had some trouble getting the guys calendars cut properly, so my Brother-in-Law out West got the square version.   I also attempted my first soap, which turned out neat but I know what I would do differently next time.  So my Sister’s all got a bar of soap in their gift boxes as well.

As well as the Pj’s my nieces and nephews each got a small (read $5) toy and a handmade hat.

Each hat patter was picked with the niece or nephew in mind.  And I chose each colour depending on their snowsuits.  My baby nephew got the cute navy and green one, with three little pompons at the top.  My littlest niece got the pink and white paper bag style.  Which when I put it on Apple’s head I almost kept it for her.  I can do one for he myself now if I want though.  The orange one is for my older nephew, it is the same style as the one I did for some cousins and J.  J insisted that they have the same one.   And last of all (from this batch) is the cherry hat.  This is for my eldest niece and I just thought that the dangling cherries is something that she would like.  That and the fact that her coat is red.

I forgot to take photos of the last two hats I made and have yet to get one of my nephew’s hat (the green one that should have been blue).  But here is a photo of my shy little niece wearing her hat.  She loved it and wouldn’t take it off all Christmas day.  She really hates it when I try to take pictures of her so I have to work at it.  I only have a couple of her face and it usually takes me all day to get to that point.  Funny because all the rest of them love it when I take their pictures.  Hers was a white with flecks of raspberry to match her raspberry coat.

Now what to do for next year?!