It has been unusually quiet here at the crayon blog but it has been the totally opposite in my real life. Absolutely I.N.S.A.N.E. is the only way to describe what it has been like for the past 3 weeks.
We started with Sunshine's 5th birthday just over 2 weeks ago. She chose a bowling party this year and the kiddos had a blast.
Here she is with her BFF in the arcade. These 2 are inseparable at school. This picture also shows just how petite she is...her BFF is a little tall but when I also looked both of my kidlets' growth charts, she is a whole 5 inches shorter than Jammer was at the same age. She sure isn't petite in her personality though.
Of course, the regular birthday party had to accompany the birthday party in class. During that same week not only did I have a whole company meeting on Friday and Saturday (and the massive amount of prep to do that went along with that) but hubs office also moved across town those same days.
Christmas preparations were also in full swing. I had my list and I checked it once, I checked it twice, I checked it a million times. Being a serious list keeper does become a big deal this time of year.
Right before school let out last week both kidlets had their class holiday parties as usual (I'm a class mom so I had to be there to help) plus Jammer's birthday is during the school break so we also had to celebrate that in class that week too. Talk about sugar overload for those kiddos!
Then this past Saturday, the neighborhood had a special visitor courtesy of our fire department (hubs was driving the truck).
Sunshine was speechless but she was willing to shake the big guy's hand. Jammer not so much. He was a bit overwhelmed.
They were pretty stoked that Santa brought each of them an early gift (although it doesn't look that way on Jammer's face).
Once the excitement was over, Sunshine went straight to work putting together her new puzzles. These were pretty easy for her but they are of a favorite character so she loves them.
Jammer got his very first model kit and he had a blast putting it together, with a little help from Daddy.
Knowing how ridiculous my life was going to be this month, I only planned to make one gift for Christmas, my Mom's quilt. This is the state it is in as of this morning. With everything going on, it was just impossible to get into my studio more to work on it. But no fear...my family's Christmas get together isn't until Saturday so I have all day today and all day tomorrow to sew and sew and sew some more. I just need to sew the blocks into rows, the rows together and then add the borders. Easy peasy...as long as I have the T.I.M.E.
Of course I would have liked to have it 100% completed by now but about 10 days ago I had to accept the fact that it just wasn't going to happen. Thankfully Mom knows what my Decembers are like and really won't be upset. I'm going to finish the top, wrap that and gift it to her. Then I'm going to be an Indian Giver and take it back so that I can quilt and bind it. It will be the first real quilt that I will quilt myself on my longarm machine.
I hope that your month hasn't been quite as insane as mine has been and that you've been able to enjoy some more sewing time. I for one have thought a great deal about how I can do things differently next year and I have made some plans in that regard, one being that any Christmas gifts that I want to make will be done before October 1st. I can't change when my kids were born and my Decembers will always be filled with holiday and birthday events so I have to make a conscious and determined decision to get as much shopping and gift making done in advance so that I can enjoy some of the magic that happens during the season.
A few end of the year posts are in draft mode and the kidlets and I will be making their Primary Bee blocks next week while they are off of school. I'm so looking forward to a much quieter January and lots of time in my studio. Whatever your plans are for these final days of 2013, I hope they are merry and bright.
Posts
