Saturday, December 26, 2009

Christmas!












Getting Ready for Christmas

Here are the boys hanging out together while we are getting ready for Christmas.


The corner of our living room.
We went to the seminary for the Christmas party and to meet Santa. Of course, Islwyn was really excited about meeting Santa the whole day, and then when Santa came he wouldn't go up and meet him! So Amund went.
Islwyn sat with Minka and Grandpa instead of going to see Santa.
Some pictures of the boys hanging out in commons at the seminary before the Christmas party during gemutelikeit. The seminary was designed by Eero Saarinen and I wanted to take some photos of the boys with the architecture and design of the commons showcased. Here is another link. Note the diamond shaped windows and bricks and the pitched wood ceiling. He also designed the arch in St. Louis and many other fairly famous buildings. The campus design won the top award of college buildings in the US of that year (annual design award program of Progressive Architecture). Islwyn is standing by the fireplace.


Sadly much of the original furniture that was designed for the campus has been thrown out and some of the original design features of the campus have been altered considerably.

Sunday, December 6, 2009

We Love Our Tree

Some pictures of the boys by the Christmas tree.





Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Christmas Crafts etc.

Islwyn actually napped yesterday and so Amund and I did a photo shoot. Amund is pulling himself up and standing and crawling. Such a big boy.

Clapping boy in action.


Pulling himself up on the step.

Islwyn and I amde popcorn garland. I remember doing this when I was a little kid and my brother poured his glass of water into the bowl of popcorn. I was so angry!! Ruined my garland. :)



One of my Christmas projects. I have been working on this for about 2 months. It is double knitted. So I knitted the sweater twice and then had to sew it together. So it is twice as much work but super cute!!! And super warm. And I love the donkey ears. Can't wait to give it to him for Christmas.

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Decorating the Tree and Some New Jammies

So we got our Christmas tree all put up. It fits perfectly into our living room. It is the opposite of our tree from last year. Last year our tree was super tall and fat, but it did not have very many branches or needles. Our tree this year is really full of needles. But it made me miss Maine and our friends there--it was so fun getting our tree from Phinneas' forest last year (miss you guys!!!) We got the lights on last night and Islwyn put the candy canes on.



Here is Amund posing in front of the tree. The big boy is now eating some big boy food and crawling all over the place. He can also go from laying down to sitting up all by himself.
Ok, so I was at the Clothing Co-op the other day and found this HUGE red and white striped maternity t-shirt. Now seriously, there are two good reasons for me to take it and cut it up. One is that NO pregnant woman should wear red and white horizontal stripes. So I am doing pregnant women a favor here by taking it away and cutting it into jammies for the boys. Anyway, since we are super poor these days, and in the interest of trying to recycle things, I have been trying to be really creative about using old clothes, sheets, whatever I can find to make new things. Especially cute jammies for the boys. I mean, they don't need new jammies. But I really wanted them to have matching "candy cane" jammies this Christmas. So I was pretty excited about this giant maternity shirt. And the fact that it was double knit made it even easier to work with. So anyway, I altered the top part of the shirt and the sleeves (they were short sleeves for an adult but about the right length for long sleeves for Amund) to make it into the top part of the Jammies. Then I cut the leg fabric out of the bottom of the shirt. Doing it this way made it so that I didn't have to finish or hem any of the edges because I used the existing ones. Anyway, then I sewed the front of the shirt to the pants and put fold over elastic across the back of the shirt and the back of the pants. In this way it is all one jammie, with a big hole in the bottom area for a butt flap! That is also how he gets it on, by going in through the hole in the back. Then if I need to change his diaper I can just pop his legs and bottom out of the pants, but the top part will stay on. Not sure if this makes sense, but it worked. I totally made the pattern up as I went and am actually happy with it. It took me about 45 minutes from start to finish to make these jammies for Amund and the matching pants for Islwyn.
Sort of a picture of the back...you can't really see the hole.
The front looks like it is a shirt and a pair of pants, but the front is all one piece.
Islwyn got on his candy cane pants and they posed for some pictures by the tree.



Thanksgiving and Christmas Tree

We went to the Christmas Tree farm the day after Thanksgiving. While it has been super warm here lately. Of course the day we are going to be out picking a tree it is freezing. Thankfully I had Amund all bundled up and had my Guatemalan wrap to carry him in that kept him warm. Here he is all wrapped up.

Islwyn after we picked out our tree. He was standing by the side of the barn.


Mom and dad found the perfect Christmas tree--it was the first one they looked at. So it took them about 3 minutes to get their tree. And then Jonathan and I picked one really quickly too. It helped that we had a super tight budget so could only afford like 3 of the trees on the lot. But we ended up with a Scotch pine that is really pretty and smells REALLY good! Here are dad and Jonathan with our trees.
Mom and dad picking out their tree.
Aunt Becky and "the cousins," along with Islwyn, went around the Christmas tree farm on the little "train." It was actually a tractor.
We had everyone at our place for Thanksgiving. Amund was up late with Grandpa while we played Trivial Pursuit. Boys again girls and the girls won, even though we were vastly outnumbered-- 9 to 4.
Our new Trivial Pursuit board. We were so excited to find an almost brand new original Trivial Pursuit at the Clothing Co-op.
The boys showing off their crowns.


Boys working on decorating their crowns the day before Thanksgiving.