For Auld Lang Syne

It's been awhile.  I know, I know.  Holidays tend to be a bit busy at my house.  So this should be a good and looooong post here on this chilly and overcast New Year's Eve...

Our Christmas decor is a good place to start.  I don't have the most gorgeous or fantastic decorations but I think I successfully filled our apartment homey, holiday spirit

.

Our tree fit perfectly next to the fish tank.

The patio door lights and garlands...

All lit up!

The fish tank got some garlands and lights too.

And the doorway to the dining room as well.

Our stockings hung on the wall by the tree.

I got all of this up on Sunday the 1st when Sky was at her dad's.  A couple days later we decorated the tree together:

Mommy's little helper!

Our pretty tree

We decided this year that instead of getting presents for every single person in our ever growing family that the seven adults (sans my parents) would draw names for presents.  Once for the seven adults and once for the seven children (though we drew names before Jax was even born).  I ended up drawing Matt and Ella.  I made Matt a knight hat much like this one:

I didn't feel right not giving anything at all to everybody else, so I came up with a plan.  I made some coconut and chocolate candies for my parents (and some for me too, cuz apparently we're the only ones who like coconut).  I made simple jars of oreo peanut butter, one for each family.  And then I made some cinnamon and peppermint gummy candies for each of the kids (except Jax cuz he's too little).

My gummies in their crystallization period.

The recipes I used for my delicious gifts were:
Quick and Easy Coconut Candies
Oreo Peanut Butter
Sparkly Gummy Candies
All were found on pinterest.

I decided last year when I found a little gingerbread girl photo ornament on clearance at JoAnns after Christmas that I had to start a tradition of having a special gingerbread girl ornament for Skylar every Christmas.  Early in the season this year I searched all through the decor section at Michaels and other places I shopped through trying to find a cute ginger girl for my cute ginger girl.  Well, since nothing I found could compare to something I could make and because, as usual, money is tight, I decided to make this year's ornament from scratch.  I've seen little salt dough imprints of the kid's hand or foot as the basis for other things so I thought Sky's chubby lil hand would be the perfect shape for the dress of a gingerbread girl.  This will be the only year that we can do this type of ornament since it did get quite large (8" tall).  I used the old tried and true recipe for salt dough, imprinted her hand, then freehand cut out the girl's shape.  After baking it, I painted her with several coats of craft paint.  I used ribbon and fabric paint to embellish and voila:

Skylar's gingerbread girl ornament, Christmas 2013

 

 

Well, it's taken me a good chunk of the day (off and on, of course) to get all this up here so before we rush off to our New Year's Eve celebrations I wanted to share a couple of my Christmas faves:

Our tree on Christmas morning

Z tells Sky how it is.

Sky and Sammie making pretty pictures for great grandma and grandpa

 

 

Grandma and Grandpa's tree almost got lost in all the presents!

Later, I'll post some pics of Skylar interacting with her favorite new gifts.  Also, she got an Advent calendar from my mom before December started and I have a plethora of pictures of her enjoying it that I want to make into a sweet "Story" on photobucket.  For now we're going to head out for some fun!  Happy Holidays and a very Happy New Year everybody!!!

Jungle Babies Nursery Mural

I don't think I ever got around to posting pictures of the Jungle nursery mural I did for Ella's room.  I'm still working on Z's frog mural and I've got an aquarium themed mural for Jon and Marcy's little one.  The album that is this slide show has all the progress shots in backwards order.  One of these days I'll get the originals back on my computer and upload individual final shots to post.  For now:

Zidane the Bear

This is the bear hat I made for Zidane.  I decided to go a little over-the-top with his hat like I did with Ella's, just by adding the nose panel under the button nose and the special knot stitch on top of the button eyes.

Also, today is my mom and dad's 29th wedding anniversary...next year at this time they'll be in Tahiti celebrating their 30th.

Ella Monster

This is the hat I made for Ella.  It's a monster like the 5 other monsters before it, but this monster is much, much more than the others.  It's got stuffed spikes, scales and a pretty bow, making her both badass and beautiful at the same time.

Matt's Best Friends

This is a companion painting to the one of baby Ella, also 8"x10" acrylic.  It is of Matt and Jessica's dogs Blue (left) and PeeWee.  They loved this one as well.

Baby Ella Painting

This is an 8"x10" acrylic painting I finished about a week ago, framed and gave to Jessica and Matt for Christmas.  I knew the picture was a personal favorite of both of them and they loved the painting.

Continuing Christmas

I was so exhausted last night I didn't really go into much detail about anything but the new baby bump.  Since Z is pretty content playing with his new toys, I will do so now.

So we celebrated our immediate family Christmas this year for the first time ever somewhere else than Mom and Dad's house.  We spent it at Jon and Marcy's new home which is larger and better accommodates my ever-growing family.  I arrived after work, just in time for dinner.  We had our recent yet continuing tradition of a breakfast themed meal.  There was a large ham, a sausage and bacon egg bake, cheesy hash browns and caramel monkey bread.  I was a little bummed that Jessica didn't make her savory monkey bread, but I'm going to get the recipe from her and make it sometime this week for Matt and Angela and myself.  There was an assortment of juices and milk to accompany the meal.  Chloe was being a little goofball all through dinner, little cutie.
Afterward we all went downstairs to open presents.  Overall, I think everybody did pretty well.  It was very chaotic having 9 adults, a little kid and 2 babies yelling and unwrapping and carrying on.  From what I saw, I know that Jon and Aaron each got a fire-pit.  Terri and Aaron got a blu-ray player.  Each of the couples got a few coupley gifts from Mom and Dad.  All the ladies got cool glass brick Christmas light things...Terri's and Marcy's were filled with seashells as well as lights, and Jess's and mine had bows to make them look like a wrapped gift.  Marcy got a big shoe rack (to keep her organized, hah...the girl's more organized than an organizing specialist).  Little Chloe and babies Ella and Zidane got a lot of new books from my folks.   Matt got some funny t-shirts.  Chloe got tons of princess paraphernalia.  Mom and Dad got a George Foreman grill.  That's about the extent of what I saw in the madness.
I personally received 15 neckties from Terri and Aaron for my tie rug.  From Jon and Marcy I got a bottle of my favorite perfume (Fantasy, which I've been out of for months!).  From Jessica and Matt I got a variety of flavored coffees, including Southern Comfort and Jack Daniels.  I got a string of lights that have cool paper lantern covers on each of them; I think Terri and Jess picked them out.  I got 3 t-shirt dresses and a sweet new tank top.  I got the laser level I wanted from dad and a 1/2 hour massage certificate from my mom.  Most of the stuff I got obviously doesn't amount to monetarily what the others received but my mom and dad told me that my main gift is new tires for my car.  YAY!!!  I'm totally stoked that I'm getting new tires...it's one less expense to worry about and I'll be able to relax a little bit when I'm driving in the snow.  Right now, it's always a white-knuckled chore worrying about sliding off the road.
After presents and whatnot pretty much everyone decided to head home...I ended up going to Matt and Angela's to exchange gifts with them.  They gave me a eucalyptus mint candle, a really neat handbag made from recycled plastic, some body cream that smells amazing and a little wooden mind puzzle.  Altogether, I had a pretty awesome Christmas and New Year's is just around the corner.

Merry Christmas to you...

I did it.  I finished all of my Christmas gifts in time for tomorrow's gathering.  And the new art pieces and yarnworks are superb.  Pictures to come...

Hippos and Finger cuts.

I sold this hippo today...or rather, my mom sold it for me as she brought my baby hats to school this week to see if there was interest amongst her coworkers.

 Score!  Another one of my personal favs sold.

On a not so awesome note, I sliced my left index finger open on a giant piece of glass today...curse that stupid jersey sew!  The cut's right on the pad so typing takes longer.  It's actually kinda nasty...I need to better equip my at-home first-aid kit for cuts of this nature.  I need some rubbing alcohol, neosporin and more bandaids.  I have work in the morning so I can doctor it there.

On another better note, I finished Angela's marvelous soft plum hat and scarf with tassels set this evening.  I also worked for awhile on Ella's monster...though it's coming along nicely now, I'm gilding the lilies so to speak when it comes to the decorative elements so it's taking longer than expected.  It will be so wonderfully awesome when it's finished.  Everyone will want one.

That's all for now.

More Gifting...

So I'm starting to notice a trend here...I go through phases of blogging between projects with deadlines.   When I have something that needs to be done by a certain time, I devote as much of my spare time to it as possible.  And while I could have easily posted a quickie before bed (heh), I've been watching a lot of Christmasy things these last few days.
I LOVE Christmas movies and tv shows.  Actually, just a minute ago I was looking for something to watch and a movie called Nothing Like the Holidays is on one of the Encore channels...It seems way more inviting than the show I'm watching on NatGeo, Seconds from Disaster, though it's good as well.  The movie doesn't start for a few minutes still.
Strange thing is that Z is still sleeping.  I thought for sure he'd be up by now, but I don't mind.  I guess he didn't sleep well last night...I personally think that Aaron and Terri should start letting him put himself back to sleep.  He's over 8 months old now; gotta break bad habits like that or he'll forever think it's ok to wake up frequently at night.

So anyways, the projects I've been working on are obviously my Christmas gifts.  I finished the painting of Baby Ella and have moved on to the painting of Blue and Peewee.  I've also made the hats for Z and Ella and plan on today finishing up the appendages and choosing eyes for them.  Saturday night I worked at Empty Bowls at the Wash Pav.  I ended up paying the 10 bucks to take a bowl made by the Action Arts kids.  I decided I wanted to give the bowl to Matt (as in my friend, not my brother-in-law).  So the next day when I was working at Michaels, I got a couple of super soft dark purple skeins of yarn (Loops and Threads, Charisma for like $1.50 each!!!) to make Angela a nice hat and scarf set.  I think I'll be able to get everything finished in time for when we actually celebrate Christmas, which this year is going to be the 26th.  Sunday night we'll have our big breakfast dinner and exchange gifts at Jon and Marcy's house.  So I have until then.  If I can, I also want to knit my dad a hat but that's less likely to be finished on time because knitting takes so much longer than crocheting.  I figure since he just reminded me of it the other day that it'll be alright if I work on it while I'm there.  It'll be strange to have Christmas somewhere other than Mom and Dad's.  Strange but good since Jon and Marcy's place is huge.

That reminds me that last night before I fell asleep I was thinking about my family in linear terms.  I had this idea last Christmastime for a kid's storybook about my family, sort of a Seaman Saga.  Starting with my dad, each page would be about one person.  I still don't know how exactly I want to make the book.  I had thought of canvas pages with fiber use and painting but that's just a start.  I did decide the order in which I'd like to put the pages though.  In numerical and chronological order, my family line is as follows:
1 Ron Seaman
2 Nancy Wingert Seaman
3 Aaron Seaman
4 Jessica Seaman Christiansen
5 Ashley Seaman
6 Jonathan Seaman
7 Terri Kessler Seaman
8 Chloe Seaman
9 Matt Christiansen
10 Ella Christiansen
11 Zidane Seaman
12 Marcy Wagner Seaman
The book will probably have birth dates and places for everyone, anniversaries for the married, and some sort of differentiation between generations.  I like this order because then I can continue adding to the book as the family grows.  I guess what made me even remember this scrap of an idea was that when I was over at Mom and Dad's on Saturday morning for coffee I read dad's latest Christmas newsletter the "Seaman Saga 2010".  In it he talked about how the family has grown for 9 members to 12 all in the last year.  It's pretty crazy since our additions have been infrequent in the past...like Terri June 2004, Chloe February 2007, and Matt October 2008.  So this book is going to be a sometime-down-the-line project that I'm going to just stew on for awhile.  In the meantime, I'm going to get back to working on my gifts.  Z will probably wake up soon anyways and I've been blogging for a long time since I keep getting distracted by this movie...it's really good and it's set in the only other place besides home that's close to my heart...Chicago.

Winter Workout

Have you ever felt like your body was screaming "no, no, no" at the same time as sighing "yes, yes, yes"?

Well, that's how I feel today.  We got a nasty snow storm over Friday night and into yesterday morning.  I ended up spending about an hour outside in the whipping wind digging my car out and shoveling the driveway.  I did get stuck getting out onto the main roads on my way to work, and I got stuck pulling into the parking lot when I got there.  But I spent my breaks at work shoveling my car out again in order to have a successful exit and drive home.  I had planned on taking a long route through town via 41st Street to Minnesota Ave.  However, when I was on Louise pulling up into the turn lane I whipped a shitty right in the middle of the road!  I ended up facing the complete opposite direction but was on the right side of the road so I went that way instead and took the interstate (which was clearer than the main roads in town anyways).  I spent another half hour or so today clearing the end of the driveway so I could leave for work again.

And now I ache.  I think they're mostly good aches though...like I'm obviously out of shape and shoveling is a good workout for my lazy ass.  So despite my muscles groaning in protest the rest of me thinks that gradually shoveling the rest of the driveway clear would be a great way to burn some extra calories in the next week or so.

The parts of today not spent shoveling, working or watching Z, I worked on my Christmas presents.  Chloe's painting is finished for the most part, I just need to find a float frame that'll work; I may possibly add another piece to it if I can't find one that will fit nicely.  I also did the base drawing for my painting of Miss Ella.  I plan on starting the one of Pee and Blue tonight while I watch the start of "It's A Wonderful Life".  If I don't finish, I'll be working on it tomorrow during my Z day.

Work work work and sick to boot

I woke up very fluish early this morning, after having gone to bed pretty late...It was a Z day so I was home for the day and then worked again this evening.  I've got lots of hours this week and it's been kinda nutso.  I went to Matt and Angela's house last night for a little art night.  Strange thing is that both Angela and I were sick sick sick this morning.  Actually she was all day.  I stopped feeling nauseous long enough to eat earlier.  But I've been feeling queasy since shortly before I left for my shift.  Despite having had very little but water today, I'm still debating whether to try eating something before bed.  Better not; better safe than sorry.
Anyways, my key projects outside of work now are Christmas presents for my family.
I'm still pondering Mom and Dad, though I'm considering buying a ready-made open back frame for one of my paintings that is hanging in their house.  I'm pretty sure the size is 16" x 20" but I'll prolly sneak over there during the day to measure and to check how wide a frame can fit in the space allowed.
For Aaron and Terri, I'm thinking of basically doing a scaled back version of Ella's nursery mural only frog-themed.  I'd probably be able to use the leftover paint from Ella's if it's still good.
For Jessica and Matt, I want to do 2-8" x 10" paintings; one of little Miss Ella herself and one of Blue and Peewee.
I'm still not sure what to do for Jon and Marcy yet, though another open-back frame for the painting I did for their wedding is a potential idea.
For Chloe, I'm doing a small gouache painting of my goldfish silhouettes forming transparencies by overlapping.  I plan on putting it in a little float frame...I know it's not a super exciting gift for an almost 4-year old but knowing her dad and stepmom, she'll have it forever.
For Ella and Z, I'm making them baby hats...a monster or 2 for Ella, a bear and a basic brown hat for Z.
That about covers everyone.

I totally lost a ton of potential work time today on my gifts because of this nasty bug.  L.A.M.E.
I just didn't feel like painting...you know something's wrong with me if I don't want to paint.  Sheesh.
Well, I don't work till 2 tomorrow so I may indulge on some breakfast in bed (ie my guilty pleasure show on soap net) and paint.  I look forward to real breakfast too...my morning today was just all sorts of outta whack without my coffee.  And with that I bid you adieu...