Christmas Eve

Well the day is finally arriving. I haven't been in the sewing room much except to whip up a baby shower gift for a co-worker. The blanket gave me a little bit of a headache until I finally decided to baste then sew it.

I pulled out 2 of my never fail bibs from Amy Karol's amazing book Bend The Rules Sewing and a cloth play cube, I put a little bell inside that makes a sweet little tinkle when you shake it. She was really thrilled with the gifts so it was all worth it.

I didn't go through with my plans to make Ayla a doll for this Christmas. The time just seems to be running away with me expecially since my mom is here now. She arrived on Monday and we've been out and about and have very little plans for sitting still. Actually on Sunday night I came down with the stomach flu that's been going around and was basically out of commission for that whole night and Monday. Unfortunately Ayla caught the tail end of it as well on our way back from picking up my mom. So we've had a rough couple of days. Thankfully, we're all out of the woods and are heading into a healthier Christmas.

I'll try to take some more pics of the festivities and post as soon as I can. But as you can currently see I've been way behind on my regular posting. Actually I forsee this changing in the new year as my friend and I are planning on doing a little quilt along. So that should be lots of fun!

Holiday cheer

For the last couple of days I've been avoiding the blog because I just didn't know how to 'come back' so to speak. But I figure 'to heck with it!' I'll just pop in to say hello, Hello!, and get the ball rolling on all this holiday goodness. Turns out that my mom is coming up for Christmas so it won't just be Alex, Ayla and I enjoying the good cheer. I'm pretty happy about this as we'll also be visiting family I didn't know I had in Calgary. There will be lots of running around trying to get her to all the important places before she leaves (ie. Banff, West Ed Mall and the many vegan eats in and around Calgary and Edmonton). Should be fun!

So this holiday season I've been thinking about my whole handmade pledge and I've got to say, I don't really have any handmade trinkets up my sleeve! I'll be making a doll for Ayla as I found a really cute pattern online (I should actually be doing this now that I have a spare moment) but that's about it! I can't think of anything handmade that I can make for Alex that he actually really needs or would want. Truthfully. Same goes for my mom. I don't want to make something just to make it and say it's handmade. I want it to actually have a useful function. I'm not very fond of clutter and I know how it is to receive a handmade gift that just winds up being clutter, unfortunately. Mind you that's probably better than a typically 'commercial' gift winding up being clutter. Last year was really fun because I had so many people to make gifts for and I knew they would be well recieved. Alex is not very big on handmade. We'll see, we'll see.

I did cave and buy a toy piano for Ayla. And not just any toy piano because you know we don't do plastic over here so it had to be of wooden construction. I got her a Schoenhut, the My First Piano II in red from Country Moose Kids (super fast and free! shipping to US and Canada). I ordered it last Monday and it arrived today!

It's heavenly beautiful but it's all wrapped up in plastic so I didn't take a picture of it. I don't want to undo it until Christmas when I give it to her. I'm so excited it comes with a little music book and even has two Christmas carols thrown in. I also got her some Melissa and Doug wooden puzzles and I bought a toy radio flyer wagon on Ebay before she was born, I'll assemble that as well. New ideas keep popping up for her everyday so we'll see what else is thrown in by the time the big day arrives.

I don't know if I've mentioned it before buy Christmas is my favorite holiday! I just love the holiday cheer that's pretty infectuous all around. And I also love the bah humbugs out there too because for some reason it fully completes the magic of Christmas and the holiday season. And speaking of 'bah humbug'! This isn't Ayla's official Santa picture but I sure hope it turns out better when the time comes! (And Santa could have looked a bit more jolly himself! Humph!)