Jolly, Merry, Happy

There's always so many fun Christmas activities during the whole month of December!  Here are a few of the things we did at the very start of the month.

*We went to a Christmas party at the BYU Museum of Art.  We watched a short concert by Noteworthy, the women's a cappella group, ate cheesecake, and looked at the exhibit about devotion to Christ.

*We took the kids to a "Letters to Santa" event at Harmon's.  They got to decorate a cookie, write their letters, and listen to some stories.  Molly wrote about how much she wants a Camille doll (one of the new American Girl Wellie Wishers) and Miles drew a picture of the 1000 Pokemon cards he wants...

Elliott loved frosting his cookie so much he was *almost* disappointed to eat it.

*My favorite activity was the Night in Bethlehem that a local reception center hosts.  When you show up, you have to pay your taxes to Caesar, and then you go learn about lambing season and how to swaddle a baby.  Once they have a large group, you go into Bethlehem.  They have a bunch of different areas where you can make a clothespin camel, weave a cloth, learn about carpentry, do a traditional dance, play with a dreidel, and so many other activities.  We really wished we had another fifteen minutes so we could do them all!  After that, they do a live nativity with Christmas hymns.  It was a beautiful way to start off the Christmas season.

Everyday Adventures

Here's a few peeks into some of the day-to-day fun things that I've done recently with Molly and Elliott.

They both love animals so we stopped in at the pet store after dropping a few things off at DI.  Elliott was captivated by the fish and Molly and I thought these kittens were darling.

Molly loves her art class at the MOA!

It's too cold for the playground for a good four to five months of the year here so I'm grateful for things like this free indoor playground at the Provo Rec Center.

Most of the time, we just have fun at home.  In this picture, I had just sent Molly up to put on some gloves.  She came back down wearing her swimsuit instead.  I really have to stop storing those in the same drawer....

Elliott was throwing his toy cars (some of his most precious possessions) into these bins over and over and then waving at them and saying "Bye cars!"  It was adorable!

Little Man

Elliott gets more and more grown-up by the day.  Look at him sitting in his little chair reading books!

He loves to make people laugh and is so silly.  Putting a giant brown paper bag on his head was good for lots of laughs from Miles!

He gets more words all the time, even long sentences like "No! That's mine!".  Maybe not my first choice of long sentences, but oh well :)

Bold Flavors

When we went to the grand opening of the new Harmon's grocery store in August, they gave me a coupon code for a free cooking class.  These are really nice, hands-on cookings classes so I was super excited!  I was finally able to attend the "Dumplings Around the World" class.

Gerrit and I had talked about going together as a date, but that would have been extra so I just went on my own.  It turns out that everyone goes to these with someone else and I was the only person on my own...You cook in groups of three so I ended up tagging along with part of a large extended family that had an odd number.

We made some really amazing shrimp and pork wontons, beef empanadas, gnocchi caprese skewers, and sesame balls filled with red bean paste called jian dui.  They were all delicious but I think the wontons were my favorite.

There weren't a lot of wontons left for pictures!

I'm not the only person in the family who likes to experiment with flavors :)  I told Miles and Molly they could pick anything they wanted to put on top of their oatmeal.  I was pretty sure they were going to ask for things like cookie butter and chocolate chips.  Miles wanted pomegranate and shredded coconut.  Molly wanted a happy face made out of pepperoni and grapes.  They both ate everything!

Thankful Day

We had a big fun crowd of siblings for this Thanksgiving!  We had my sister and her family, my brother, Gerrit's sister, and his other sister, her family, and her sister-in-law.  I love that we're able to have big family gatherings and enjoy everyone's company.

I started out my Thanksgiving really early so I could finish some cooking before heading to the Turkey Blast at our city rec center.  They host a big two hour workout with different classes so you can exercise before the feast :)  It's definitely worth it to be able to eat more pie!

This is my fourth time hosting Thanksgiving and I think it's gotten a little easier every time.  I'm not as terrified of cooking a turkey any more (even though I still do put Gerrit in charge of taking out the neck and giblets.  That has not stopped making me queasy.)  I have a pretty good idea of how much food to make and we finally have a table big enough to seat most of the crowd!  Plus, many of our guests brought chairs and that helped a lot.

I was in charge of the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, roasted cauliflower, and cranberry sauce.  I also made a cheese tray for appetizers for anyone who came early (which ended up being most of our group) with cranberry-hazelnut crisps, a black pepper cheese, a honey/sea salt cheese, and pomegranates.

My favorite contribution was the five pies!  This year I made pumpkin with pecan praline sauce, apple-almond tart, sweet and salty truffle pie, cranberry streusel pie, and lemon meringue pie.  I wanted there to be something that everyone would enjoy!

Brooke was incredibly helpful and came early to help peel, chop, and cook.  I think it would have taken me at least a full hour longer (if not more) without her help!  Joel made some amazing potato rolls, John brought a tasty green bean casserole, and Paul and Marinda brought some big yummy salads.

This was the funniest thing!  Elliott missed his nap because dinner was at 2 and he just wanted to play with everyone.  He fell asleep in the middle of eating his pie with chocolate smeared all over his face.  He smiled a little in his sleep, then kept nodding.  He briefly woke up, shoved a handful of chocolate truffle in his mouth, and fell right back asleep.  I couldn't stop laughing!

We had a great time chatting and the kids especially loved playing with their cousins.  Molly and Will are great buddies and basically the same size! Consider that they are two full years apart in age...

 These two kept singing their "We love pie!" song

I feel like Molly looks at least 8 years old in this picture...

Lots of fun with aunts and uncles!

 Molly stole my phone mid-party and took a bunch of pictures, so you get a full sense of the chaos and mess I would usually try to leave out of the pictures :)

 We kept our Black Friday activities pretty low key.  We did a very small amount of shopping at Target.  The kids particularly liked the four-foot storm troopers :)

 That was one of the last warm and sunny days we knew we'd have for a long time, so we also headed to the playground.  You can still see snow in the background but I promise it was close to 50 degrees!

Father-son tumbleweed wars are the best :)

Fall Sewing

Here are my three most recent sewing projects!

First up is this Union Street tee.  I knew I had to do something simple after my Halloween sewing.  That always involves a lot of complicated items and making up my own patterns and is equal parts fun and difficult.  I've wanted a slouchy olive green v-neck for a while.  I picked a rayon jersey, which is a little heavier and kind of drapey.  It's not see through, either.  I've made a lot of t-shirts so it was pretty simple.  The trickiest part was the v-neck.  That's actually a lot more complicated to sew than a crew neck!  I'm extremely happy with how this one turned out. I raised the neckline an inch but might raise it another half inch in the future.

My next project was a Brumby skirt.  It's a high-waisted, gathered skirt with big front pockets.  You can't see the back but it has an exposed black zipper.  The instructions on the zipper were great.  I've made other things with an exposed zipper but not as nice as this one!  My fabric is actually a hemp-cotton ticking and has a really thin navy stripe.  The pattern has options for knee-length and midi-length and I cut between the two to go right below my kneecaps.

Side note: I really love these shoes.  Gerrit calls them my "elf shoes." :(

My third project was the one I've been excited about for a long, long time.  The pattern is something called a Building Block dress.  It's actually a book that gives you a basic block pattern and then teaches you how to do so many different alterations to that.  I made Molly the basic dress but moved the buttons to the front, changed the cuff slightly, added a front pocket, raised the waistline, and took off the collar.  I was trying to copy a dress I'd seen a few months ago.  The fabric is lawn (a little thinner and drapier of a cotton) in slate gray with tiny little pink, yellow, and white diamonds.  I had so much fun playing with this pattern and have been looking through all of the variations and planning many, many future dresses :)

Molly is far and away the most cooperative model of my children.  She was a really good sport even though it was a little scratchy in some areas.