perfection

Please gaze upon the loveliness of this child.

Oh, those little lips.

That curl.

Be still my heart.

santa

This guy recently came home with the GREATEST letter to Santa. So great, I HAD to share it with you. Punctuation and spelling intact.

December 3, 2009

Dear Santa,

How are your reindeer? Is Ruddolph doing well? You have gone for a test flight, haven’t you? You and Mrs. Claws should deliver the presents together. How are your elves. Are they working yet and together. I play three Christmas songs! I’ll tell you what they are. We wish you a merry Christmas, Away in the manger and Jingel Bells. What is your favourite cookie? My mom makes excellent sugar cookies! We onley have white milk. Are you alegeck (allergic) to any dairy? We have silk milk and just plane milk.

Love,

Me

Please tell me you love that letter! I think it’s the cutest thing going. Love that he asks about possible allergies and that he is so busy chatting (which if you know our guy, that is so very him), he forgets to actually ask for anything for Christmas!

Oh, Buddy! I love you so.

bags

This Christmas I have been making “night-night” bags for all the special little boys in our life (ok, not AAALLL of them but a bunch!). The idea behind them came from our little guy. He’s got some pretty specific “stuff” that he requires when he goes “night-night”. Unless he’s got Guy, Oma-bear, Gay-see-bear, Huskie, Little-Tiny-Bebe-bear, Oma blank and “water-cup” he ain’t settling! When we have a babysitter or when we go sleep overnight somewhere, it’s a challenge to remember everything! The idea behind these bags is to toss in everything your little monkey needs for bed when they are off to Grandma’s for a sleepover or when you are off for date night (or if you just feel like being organized at home).

Each one is customized with their initial on the front of the bag. I used the skaterdudes font for all of the letters and attached them with heat and bond lite and then a zig-zag stitch.

Inside you’ll find a little pocket for a soother or board book and a key fob to attach a favourite toy.

I’m pretty excited about how these are turning out. This is my first attempt at designing my own pattern so I’m pretty happy with how they look.

This particular bag is for our daughter’s teachers son. Hope they both like it!

elf

When I climbed into bed last night I found a little elf crashed out on my pillow.

Just makes me love Christmas all the more!

jump

This morning I heard riotous laughter coming from upstairs. I found the most fun wedding with hands down the best attire I’ve ever seen!

Love those kids of mine!

sprouts

The other day when I was grocery shopping with my daughter she spotted a large pile of brussel sprouts and started loudly exclaiming over them. “Mommy! Mommy! Brussel sprouts! You HAVE to buy them. I LOVE brussel sprouts!”. You can imagine the looks her comments drew from some of the other shoppers.

It’s true. Since I’ve started making Heidi’s golden crusted brussel sprout recipe our kids are MAD for them. They BEG me to make them. They FIGHT over them at the table. Last night there were very nearly tears when someone dared to scoop up the last few bites. These brussel sprouts are so good that even my brother in law the caveman just might like them (he’s going to get to try them on Christmas Day, the LUCKY guy!).

Please, do yourself a big favour. Go get a big pile of brussel sprouts at your earliest convenience and give Heidi’s recipe a try. You won’t be disappointed.

P.S. I am a terrible food photographer. Somehow I managed to make the sprouts in the pan look oily. Trust me, they are not! Bear with me while I figure this out.

nose

Oh my goodness! Has it really been nearly a week since I posted? I wasn’t kidding when I said we have been busy!

Instead of boring you with tales of our crazy schedule, let me tell you about my youngest child.

This morning he saddled up to his Daddy and whispered that his Cheerio was all gone. He said it was in fact, all gone UP ‘DAIR and vaguely pointed into the sky with an impish grin.

Up there where, little man?

In your nose? Show Daddy where you put the Cheerio.

This is when a somewhat frantic search ensued for the missing Cheerio and then for a flashlight to try to see the missing Cheerio. This is also when my help was enlisted.

We could not see the Cheerio but when we got close, we could smell it! Even so, I decided that it wasn’t that big of a deal since it would probably disintegrate and come out in the next day or two (and really, even if I took him to the doctor, how would she extract a soggy Cheerio from his nose?) and we didn’t know FOR SURE that he put it up there. OH, BROTHER! It’s a darn good thing that kid is so CUTE!

Thanks for keeping life interesting. We love you!

busy

The last few days have been really busy- kids, cleaning, organizing, prepping for our big Christmas party, sorting files for the accountant, making our Christmas gifts. Somehow I need to turn that big stack of fabric into a big pile of gifts in the next couple of weeks. It’s gonna be fun!

Tonight while we were putting the kids to bed our little guy was really clingy. He just wanted to be snuggled. Who am I to deny such cuteness a hug? After a few minutes, I handed him back to his Daddy and moved on to the next kid. He kept asking for me and calling me back. After a few minutes, I slipped back into his room and found him sitting on the little vintage chair by his bookshelf. “Hold me, Mommy? Hold me tight?”. He lifted his arms up to me so I picked him up and carried him to the bed. “Hold me like a baby, Mommy. Rocky me”. We climbed into the bed together and I held him like a baby. I rocked him like I used to when he was tiny. I stroked his hair and sang him a little song. I sat there in the quiet of his room with his downy soft head tucked in the crook of my arm listening to the sounds around me. I could hear my daughter’s mumbled reading through the vent. Mr. T and our oldest stifled laughter in our room as they told weird boy jokes to each other. I listened to him breathe and watched as his eyelids fluttered closed and then open to make sure I was still there and then slowly closed again. I had so much to do tonight. My list was so long but I needed those precious few minutes in the dark with my little guy. Once he fell asleep, I tucked him into his little toddler bed and left the room, breathing more slowly, feeling peaceful again.

Now I am cuddled up with my sewing machine. That is where you can find me over the next two weeks.