Christmas Day Recap

So, after our fun trip to Pennsylvania, it was time to get ready for Santa.

The kids got everything ready for his arrival.... Cookies and milk for Santa, Cheerios for the reindeer, carrot for Rudolf, and Charlotte added a bonus candy cane and note for Santa.

I think he must have liked the cookies since he left behind a couch full of presents!

I love how excited Charlotte was to watch Evan open his presents.

Charlotte's favorite gift from Santa was a unicorn Pillow Pet. She knows that infomercial by heart. She told me, "It's machine washable, Mama." I'm not sure she knows what that means but it was darn cute.

She's slept with it every night since.

Evan got lots and lots and lots of trucks, cars, and tractors. There's hardly a non-blurry picture of him from that day because he had lots of driving to do.

Nana and Grandpa came over around 11:00 and there were more presents to open!

After presents it was time for brunch? lunch? Mom brought eggs from their wonderful flock of chickens. Look at this egg! That yolk at the top of the bowl came from an egg so large that we were sure it was going to be a double yolk egg. When I cracked it open, we were surprised to see it only had one yolk... one VERY large yolk! That poor hen!

I made pumpkin cinnamon rolls, baked bacon, and scrambled eggs. Then the day of relaxing and game playing began.

Mia wondered if the train needed to be "dealt with".

Grandpa is so patient about teaching Charlotte the rules of games. He taught her how to play one of the games Santa brought... Guess Who? I love that game. Katie and I played SO many times as kids.

We set up Mall Madness and Jon got to play for the first time. I'm sure he's wondering how he's lived all these years without having played this most awesome game.

Nana helped Charlotte figure out some of the games on the Discovery laptop that Grammy and Grandpa gave her.

Twister.... Wow, Can I just tell you how much harder this game is as a 32 year old then it was as a kid? Jon, Charlotte, and I played a game or two and my leg muscles were burning!

Charlotte wanted to play a solo game. I bet her legs aren't burning.

I wish I had taken a picture of our dinner. I was too excited to eat it to think of getting the camera. I roasted 2 of the chickens that my sister raised for me. I made gravy, mashed potatoes (with Jon's mad mashing skills), corn, and pumpkin dinner rolls. It was delicious and didn't take much effort since I made the rolls the day before.

I have to say that it was, by far, the best Christmas day Jon and I can remember in long time. It was the perfect balance of good food, relaxing, playing games, and visiting. Can we rewind and do it all over again? Is it Christmas again yet??

Mom's Copper Shawl

Let me just say that if I didn't love my mom so much, I would have kept this one for myself. I love this shawl. I knit this shawl for my mom for Christmas. I was given the yarn and my first thought when I looked at the yarn was "this is Mom". I'm not sure what it was... if it was the color or the feel of the yarn, it belonged to my mom the moment I saw it.

I finished this shawl in September. Aren't the trees pretty in their late summer green? It was hard keeping this shawl a secret until Christmas. The yarn is Svale, Dalegarn, in color 2846. It's a great blend of 50% cotton, 40% viscose, 10% silk. It's soft, lightweight, with a great drape to it. I think I used 6 skeins but I didn't keep track.

I loved the pattern. It's the Simple Yarn-Over Shawl . It's a great pattern because it was easy enough for me to knit while watching a movie. I doubled the whole pattern because I wanted a full shawl, not just a shoulder cover. I used size 8 needles.

I used a second yarn on the edges. It has a purple metallic thread with bits of shiny purple, fuzzy orange, and green. I thought it took a pretty shawl and made it really special.

Merry Christmas, Mom!

Our Pennsylvania Christmas Trip

**Again today I have several posts. Keep scrolling down to see more new posts from today**

It seems that our annual trip to Pennsylvania will now always involve a snow storm or at least the threat of a snowstorm. Last year we were stranded for 2 days in a hotel after being snowbound on our way to PA.

Jon left for Chicago December 14th and was due to fly back to Raleigh on Saturday night. We were going to leave for PA first thing in the morning the following day. Saturday morning I awoke to an iffy forecast. They were calling for possible winter weather that night. They weren't sure about the track of the snow and Raleigh was supposed to get more snow then we were. I instantly had flashbacks of last year and had visions of being stuck on the highway. After making several calls back and forth to Jon with forecast updates, we decided the only way to be sure to avoid being stuck in snow was to leave Saturday instead of Sunday. This meant that I had to quickly pack, clean up the house, and drive to PA with the kids on my own. Luckily my mom and Mark had the kids since they had spent the night the night before. I was able to concentrate on getting us ready to go without worrying about the kids.

Jon switched his flight from Raleigh to Pittsburgh. His parents would pick him up from the airport. I left home, picked up the kids and was on the road to PA by noon. I had a mission, drive as fast as was legal and safe and get us to Grammy and Grandpa's as soon as possible. The kids were great and they had 3 new Netflix Christmas movies to help keep them entertained. I was amazed that we only had to stop for potty breaks twice in the 8 hour trip! We made it in record time!

We had a great visit with Jon's family. Here are quite a few pictures from our trip. The view of the mountain from their front porch.

We can always count on plenty of snow at Grammy and Grandpa's.

Charlotte LOVES the snow and only wants to come in once she's frozen.

Evan flits from one thing to the next for about 20 minutes and then he's ready to come in. This day's snow fun was cut short for Evan after he fell face first on the driveway when he was chasing Jon. Evan had quite a fat lip. I think it's becoming a habit for my kids to fall and hurt their mouths each holiday.

Look at the beautiful snowflakes that fell on my coat! If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you can see the flakes better.

We got to visit with our friends, Nate and Haylee and their cute kiddos. It's great that our kids are so close in age.

We decorated gingerbread men and sugar cookies.

Jon's "The Headache". The gingerbread men were glued together at the head.

Jon loves sledding at night. Crazy idea, if you ask me. Good thing their sledding hill doesn't have trees.

We got to visit with Jon's aunt while we were there. Jon and Charlotte played the piano that was bought for his grandmother in 1910. It needs tuning but it's beautiful.

Aunt Irene and Aunt Betty with the kids.

On our last morning in PA, everyone was there for presents and a Christmas meal.

Uncle Dave crocheted this amazing tea set for Charlotte. I can't imagine how many hours of work went into this. She loves her tea set!

Then it was time to go home.

The next morning, Christmas Eve, we saw our first male Red Bellied Woodpecker on the suet feeder! We have a female that visits too! We sure are loving our bird feeders.

And how do you know that you've been to PA? Your car is more gray then red! After a fun trip through the car wash, it was back to it's regular color. Evan was both terrified and thrilled by the car wash.

We had a great trip and had a great time visiting family and friends!

Suzanne's Hat and Mitten Set

In my gift giving this year, each person has gotten one knitted and one bought gift. My sister-in-law Suzanne's knitted gift was a mitten and hat set. Her favorite color is purple and I found a beautiful purple wool yarn that I paired with a crisp white.

The hat is the Seed Stitch Hat from Lion Brand Yarn. I love seed stitch. I love the nubby texture and the squishy-ness it creates. I knit the hat as written in the pattern. The yarn is Cascade Quatro in color 5015. I love Cascade yarns as a rule and Quatro is becoming a favorite of mine. Each of the four strands are a slightly different color so it gives a really neat effect when you knit with it.

The mitten pattern was the "Easy Mittens" from One Skein Wonders but I added my own cuff. I used size 4 needles to knit a matching seed stitch cuff in Quatro color # 5015. I switched back to size 6 needles to knit the hand in Cascade 220 color 8505. I knit the size adult small mittens.

Suzanne, I hope this set helps to keep you warm this winter.

A Scarf For Uncle Dave

This scarf was a Christmas gift for my brother-in-law Dave. Not to be confused with my other brother-in-law, David or my father-in-law Dave. It's a popular name in our family.

I love this yarn. It's really soft and has interesting bits of color. It's like a cheerful tweed. The yarn is Harlequin, Dale of Norway, color 08. It's 30% wool, 25% microfiber, 20% alpaca, 10% cashmere, 10% viscose. There's a little bit of everything in this yarn. I really enjoyed knitting with it.

I used this New York scarf pattern. I liked the simple rib pattern that gave it a masculine look. I didn't make any changes to the pattern and used 2 1/2 skeins of yarn.

Merry Christmas, Dave!

The First White Christmas in 42 Years!

**I have so many blog posts to catch up on that I'm going to be posting several a day for the next few days so keep scrolling down to see other new posts**

In North Carolina, we got an additional Christmas present yesterday... a white Christmas!! It's the first measurable snowfall we've had on Christmas day since 1969 when this area got an inch of snow. Before that it was in 1947 when this area got almost 3". The snow started around noon on Christmas day and it was still snowing this morning.

Nothing like snow falling while the Christmas tree is still up.

Here's what the backyard looked like this morning. Click to enlarge.

We have between 7-8 inches of snow!

The snow is the most beautiful kind... the kind that sticks to everything.

We have to enjoy it while it lasts. It's supposed to be 60 degrees here on New Year's Day. That's what I love about North Carolina. We get the beauty of winter but a break from it every now and then.

Aunt Edie's Shawl

Jon's Aunt Edie has been having some health challenges lately and I wanted to let her know we cared. It's hard living far away from extended family sometimes. If we lived closer we could bring her meals or help take her garbage can to the curb.

I used Lion Brand Yarn "Hometown USA" yarn in Portland Wine. The yarn is super bulky and knit up quickly on size 15 needles. I used 3 skeins. The pattern is the "One Skein Shawl" pattern but obviously I needed more then one skein due to the fact that the yarn was so thick.

I hope this shawl will let her know we think of her often.