Thursday, December 29, 2011

Christmas


So Christmas has come and gone. Now school is right around the corner... I feel as though the holidays happened so fast this year, and I wonder if this is how the holidays usually feel to the average adult. Quick and not particularly festive. Not to say that we didn't enjoy Christmas - it was lovely to visit with everyone and chill. :)

There was a lot of knitting, cookie baking/eating, cooking, watching TV, and playing with the kids (which mostly consisted of reading to Henry while Micah and Lucy try to sit on our laps too, watching Lucy and Micah steal things from each other and then tell on themselves, and letting Micah sit on our heads - no joke).



I did a lot of sewing this year. While no projects as large as last year's quilt, I made four silk capes for the kids (plus one to keep here), three ornaments (one seen above and below, as well as the rosette ball a few images down), two aprons for the kids and I helped Mom with Micah and Lucy's traditional stockings. We always want to sew during the holidays, so it was especially nice to finally just do it!





The cookies above are the traditional chocolate pepper cookies our family always makes for Christmas. My mom's Italian family started the tradition and we just love them.




The nice thing about a large family is that, even though we're by no means rolling in the dough, when we all put our gifts under the same tree, we end up with quite a hoard.






Griffin had my name this year, and he got me an adorable Tardis USB hub! When you plug in a cord, it whirrs and the light on the top imitates the real Tardis (yes, the real Tardis). Speaking of which - have you seen the Christmas special yet? Go find it, pronto! It's adorable. The very end is just precious. :) 

And speaking of Christmas specials, the Downton Abbey special was amazing. If you haven't seen Downton Abbey, it's instant on Netflix and it's a lovely watch. If you do watch Downton Abbey, you'll be very, very happy with the Christmas special! It continues the story! I'll stop gushing about it now.






Quinn, wearing his new shirt, tie and vest, with Griffin's tie clip and four the seven or eight iPhones that were floating about the house over Christmas. (Mine's the yellow one!)



See! Look at them all! It's ridiculous.

Anyway, thanks everyone for a very lovely Christmas! I love that we are still near enough to be together as often as we are... We'll just have to Skype with Griffin next Christmas, because he'll probably be in Japan. That's what normal families do, anyway. ;) 

Next up is Griffin's photo shoot. We went shopping the day after Christmas and Griffin hit the jackpot at J.Crew. So, naturally, pictures had to be taken...

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Thanksgiving


This is very late, but I thought I should put together my Thanksgiving photos! Better late than never. I'm afraid I don't have a photo of every family member that was there. I'm not big on taking photos for the sake of taking photos, so I've just put together my favorites. :)



Look at that cute pink cheek. :)










The photo above is of Griffin sharpening his knife. He was also drinking wine. Logan poured one too many tiny cups of wine, so we gave it to Griffin. I thought it was a comical shot.



Griffin's bloody delicious baguettes above, and an awesome apple pie below!












Sara's chocolate mousse/pudding pie! So good. Paula Deen recipe.

Thanksgiving was lovely. I hope that we have many more like it. 


a warm, foggy day


These photos are from November 21st. Quinn and I walked up and down part of our road, enjoying the oddly warm but foggy day. 


We brought along some Trader Joe's peanut butter cups for company. :)


















I notice that a lot of bloggers I follow seem to find and take photos of cats while on their walks. We find horses. And the occasional cow. Oh, and if we walk two roads down, we find herds of buffalo, donkeys, and ostriches. It's quite a zoo out here!

Friday, December 9, 2011

the detail



Today we went for a walk and I started taking photos of the woodpile with my phone. Since my phone camera is more macro-friendly than my 50mm, the shots of some of the wood detail are pretty cool... All the photos here were taken with my iPhone 4s. :)