The Holidays

Christmas will be different this year. My son and daughter-in-law, after much consideration, and realizing that they are grown-ups, decided to stay home all day on Christmas this year. Usually they come to our house all day. They are, however, spending Thanksgiving with us, which they usually spend with her parents. They just decided to mix it up. I certainly don't blame them-I wish I would have had the guts to change how we celebrated our family holiday celebrations when the kids were young. I finally did, and when I invited my mom to my house, she said, "Of course, your kids never get to stay home and play with their stuff, and besides you don't have a tradition yet." What a wise thing to say!

Anyway it will feel weird, but it'll be nice anyway. Maybe there will be a change in how we do Christmas day, too. We are getting older, and at some point the center of the celebration is bound to shift. One other son will be here, and possibly our good friends Wayne and Connie. My sister for sure, and who knows who else will be here-my door is open. Our house isn't that huge, so maybe we can all fit around one table. We'll still miss them but life just has to change sometimes.

We have never spent Christmas day with Stan's family, because back then I had to give equal time to my family. My mom's gone now, and I'm the old person so I foresee that soon we will be the ones packing up the pumpkin pies and taking them to someone else's house. Not yet-there are others in the family that still count on coming here, but there will come a day.

In the meantime, we have Thanksgiving, and that is an affair to remember! We rent a local Senior Center, show up around noon, mash our potatoes, make our gravy, and carve the turkey. The rest show up, usually between 25 and 50, and we dive into the biggest feeding frenzy you have ever seen! Anyone is invited-we have in-laws and outlaws and the occasional stranger at our door, who usually come back the next years simply because it was such a memorable celebration.

There are traditions involved. I have to bring my homemade Almond Roca. I am not allowed into the building without it! My sister-in-law has to make her heavenly popcorn balls, which she started making the first year she was married and couldn't afford a lot of fancy ingredients for fancy desserts. Stan usually makes the rolls-we're probably neck in neck as to who makes the best ones. Understand that most of these people are fabulous cooks, and many of them have made their living doing that.

After dinner and clean-up, we bring out the games and snacks, including the candy and popcorn balls. Along about 6:00 my mother-in-law will wonder if anyone is hungry. Of course not, but we get food anyway. We heat up the gravy and cut the turkey up into it. We serve it over the rolls, with a big slice of onion, a term commonly known in Stan's family as "turkey buns." THEN we eat the pie we were too full to eat earlier, and look over all the Black Friday ads to decide if we will be alert enough to go shopping the next day. I am cooking a 23 pound turkey, and my sister-in-law is doing the same, and my mother-in-law was worrrying that there wouldn't be enough food. I HAD to say it, "Gram, when have we EVER run out of food?"

I love to cook, so I do look forward to the holidays, stocking up on fancy candies and other treats. It's nice to have a plateful of goodies to give to someone at the last minute. It's also nice to be appreciated for what I do. Well, the holidays are almost here, so away we go!!!!!!!

Welcome, Winter!

We got our snow today-in some areas of the county they got three feet. Here in Manhattan, we get much less-probably about 5". It was beautiful, but what a headache. My daughter-in-law works at the University. It took her 45 minutes to park this morning, after getting stuck three times. She was in a 2 hour zone, so she went out to move her car after 2 hours and got stuck again. She went into her office, got her work and went home to work for the day. That was on top of having a bad cold!

I have been sewing, just not blogging about it much. I'm making a black cardigan out of a nice interlock-kind of a wardrobe stretcher, and I have all the grandkids' PJs cut out:

Now to work through that pile.

...And the rest

I finished the other jumper and pants this week. I used embroidery patterns I had downloaded. I have a Huskystar embroidery machine-a basic machine that just embroiders and monograms. No thread cutting, no quilting stitches, no regular sewing. I also have Viking 500-bought it 1996 if memory serves. It still hums, so why get one of those $8000 machines that does everything? Besides, quite often I sew or serge another project while I'm waiting for an embroidery design to finish. The Huskystar does just fine-someday I'll trade up but for now it serves me well. (As long as I stay away from the dealer when she demos those big machines-drool!) My serger is ready to be traded, it's a White (Viking) that Stan got me for my birthday in 1990, but I still nurse it along and it still is willing to work for me. I'd like to get a serger with a differential feed and a rolled hem that's easier to get to, so I'll be looking soon.

I kind of got off the subject. Here are the two garments I just finished:

The pants that were the reason for the meltdown only had the flowers on one leg, but I'm the kind of person that likes symmetry, so the new pants got it in both legs:


The desgn I put on the jumper-in the center, of course:

I also finished Sam's hat and mittens. I used a camo colored knitting worsted with a sport weight yarn as the second thread. They went together nicely. I'm working on Isaac's mittens right now, then will do Sydney's. I'm getting a little tired of mittens, but all the grandkids will have warm hands this winter.

Stuff for the Girl

A few weeks ago, Gracie had a before-school meltdown. Her VERY FAVORITE pants, the tan ones with the pink flowers embroidered on the legs, did not fit anymore-she couldn't even get them snapped. The only way Mommy could settle her down was to promise that Grandma would make her a copy.

So off to Jo-Ann's we go. I found the tan corduroy, but I also found another piece that Gracie liked. This one is a soft gray with tiny purple and burgundy flowers already embroidered on it. It came home with me too-I took what what left on the bolt. That meant that I could cut out a jumper for the girl as well.



I spent a bit of time looking for a burgundy or purple turtleneck with coordinating tights, but gave up and just gave them to her. I made a point of telling her that the pants and jumper were not made to wear together! She is really into layers and Mom has to monitor what she wears to school.

I also made her a pair of mittens and a hat. She got a new winter coat and snowpants that are chocolate brown and pink, so I made the hat and mittens to match.

This really is chocolate brown and a pink/white variegated. My camera was in a mood.

I make mittens really warm by using two strands with my favorite mitten pattern. One strand is worsted weight and one is sport or baby weight. Check your gauge and make adjustments in the size. Gracie is 5 and I made the child's size 6 so I'm not too far off. The pattern calls for worsted weight. It takes a bit of trial and error, but these mittens are some of the warmest you could knit. I could use a super-bulky yarn, but I feel the two strands creates that air pocket that is much warmer. (Kind of like layering your clothes)

I'm working on the other kids' hats and mittens, and I have Gracies pants embroidered, so hopefully soon I can blog about the rest of my current projects.

Update: Mommy just took this mobile picture of the girl in her jumper. Gotta love technology!

35 Years Ago Today....

I gave birth to my youngest son. He joined two brothers and was probably the bane of their existence! He was a pretty cute kid, though, and since the other boys went off to school, he became my constant companion and buddy. He captured the hearts of all the ladies I came in contact with, kind of like his son does. (That nut didn't fall too far from the tree!)

Napping, with his best friend guarding.

Grade school.

Steve has always had a bunch of friends. In fact, the kids he went to school with are still really good friends. When one of their group lost his wife recently, Steve was right there to give Jody comfort and keeps showing up just to make sure he's OK.

He's a super dad, not only to his son, but to his stepson Danny.

His little family in 2006

He's always been kind of stubborn, but it has actually served him well all these years. He likes to have fun, but didn't go beyond a certain point in that fun. He didn't do anything he didn't want to do. That list may have been more comprehensive than Mom would have liked, but he came out fine on the other end. He's always been the one that tested us, and stretched our ideas and beliefs. The phrase, "unconditional love" came into our minds many times during the teen years.

Steve, we're so glad we didn't stop at two kids, even if we were trying for a girl. Not a bit sorry that you're a boy now.

Father and son on Syd's first day of school.

Happy birthday son!

A Boy and His Fish

Stan took some of his boys fishing today. Those boys took three of their boys-Isaac, Sam and Sydney. Sydney caught his first fish-a real nice trout, about 2 1/2 or 3 pounds. That trout is almost as big as Syd is. There's fish for dinner at their house tomorrow!

I Met Another Bloggy Friend!

Last night Chris played his last football game for the season. It just happened to be against the Livingston Cougars. One of the Cougars' moms is Jenn Claar. We got to finally meet after the game-she's a bubbly, lovely lady and her daughter is pretty cute, too. AND her son did a great job playing football. The Panthers won, but the Cougars did a fine job.

Hope to see you again soon, Jenn, maybe you could teach Millie and me how to scrapbook. Or just get together for a gab fest.