Merry Christmas Everybody!!

It'll be a short post this morning, I promise. Kids need help assembling all their toys, I need to take a nap already and it's not even 9:00 a.m. (Let's just say that the kids didn't sleep all night long - (Way too excited about Santa coming) Which btw, made it extremely difficult for Santa to deliver his gifts and stuff the stockings.


The picture above is of a snowman s'more that the kids in Ian's class party made this year. I wanted something fun but easy for the kids to assemble.....and I think I accomplished just that. And 100% edible too!

And..........Here are some pictures of the bears that I knit for my little ones this year. They opened them last night along with their christmas p.j.'s and absolutely loved them.

This is Eric's bear.......His name is Sleepy

















Here is Ians Bear - who has yet to be named






















And this is Olivia's bear. She named him Molasses.






















And here are all three bears together...

















Oh and no.....I didn't forget about Your gift.

Press on this link for your christmas gift from me to you! Enjoy.... and Merry Christmas.

Cool Yule

My mom and my sister Andrea both pulled through for me and sent me lots of
wonderful yummy christmas cookies. You can't even imagine my happiness over this. It certainly is going to be a very fattening christmas this year....but you won't hear me complaining.
(Not until January at least.)

Today I spent the day wrapping gifts from "Santa". It was fun to wrap, while listening to my two newest favorite christmas c.d's. Barry Manilow "A gift of Love" and Bette Midler's "Cool Yule". They are must haves in any Christmas music collection. .....and I find it a tad amusing that they are both Jewish singing Christmas classics.

Anyway, as I was wrapping along cheerfully....something positively magical happened. It started to snow ......and flakes the size of silver dollars were suddenly streaming down from the heavens. It was so beautiful and soft and peaceful....and I had to go outside because I'd never seen snowflakes that large before. Neither had Moose... He loved it too.

Then the second miracle of the day happened.

Byron surprised me by coming home from work three hours early. YIKES! What's up with that? I had his gift unwrapped and laying out all over the island in the kitchen. (No, not ME,people. Get your minds out of the gutter, will ya?)

Luckily, He didn't see his presents. But it certainly was a little shocking as I don't think he has ever come home that early before today. It was fun.

So all of the presents are wrapped. I think we went a little overboard with the kids christmas gifts this year......but then again, I tend to think that every year and Byron always thinks there should be more. OYE!

NO SWEAT

There will be no holiday stress for me this year! No, I absolutely mean it! I am so far ahead of where I usually am this time of year.

Christmas lights put on the house. CHECK
Christmas tree erected and trimmed. CHECK
Hang Christmas Stockings over Fireplace with care. CHECK
100 Christmas cards hand addressed, envelopes licked closed (ick) and sent out. CHECK
On-line gifts ordered, wrapped and shipped out. CHECK
TWO christmas teddy bears knitted and clothed. CHECK

Things left to do

Knit one more teddy bear and its clothes
Knit a man scarf.
Knit a man hat.
Knit one sock. yes, just one.
Buy a $10.00 secret Santa knitting related gift for SnB holiday party.
Buy more stocking stuffers for kids
Buy Teachers gifts.
Buy Bus drivers gift.
Mailman gift? Cash perhaps?
Wrap and try to re-hide all the kids gifts .....after I find where I hid them of course.
Buy lots of batteries

Like I said.... I am way ahead this year. I vow a no-stress holiday.
And just to be sure.....I've booked myself a hot stone therapy massage session over at the Spalon Montage the week before Christmas. Yay! Merry Christmas to ME.

Ya see....I'm serious this year. Abso-tively posi-lutely no holiday stress will be had. I am just going to enjoy the fun of the season with my family and friends. Whatever doesn't get done....will have to go un-done.


I meant what I said
I said what I meant
There will be no stress this Christmas
not one percent.


MERRY CHRISTMOOSE

Unexpectedness

It's late and I really oughtta be in bed right now......but I really feel a need to blog a bit. I will make it short.

Today was Tamale day at Grandma Romero's house. I didn't go because I live here in Minnesota and Grandma lives in California. Every year for as long as I can remember it has been a tradition for all of us Romero girls to get together and spend a day making lots (and I mean LOTS) of tamales to enjoy for the holiday season.

Nancy sent me pictures and made me cry.

I haven't participated in Tamale Day the last five years that I've lived here......and every year on Tamale day....I feel this same way.......completely heartbroken with homesickness.

Did I mention? Nancy sent me pictures and made me cry.

To top it off, sometimes life throws you an unexpected surprise.....and today was no exception.

I checked my e-mails and received a comment on my previous blogposting. It was a comment from an old dear friend of my deceased sister (Julianne) who happened to stumble across my little ol' knitting blog. His name is Dave Wolowic. For all my friends and family in California who read my postings.......his name will ring bells. For the rest of you.....you may know him as big hot shot sound editor on many big (and by big I mean gi-normously big) hollywood major motion pictures. It's not often I get to name drop....so there.

But I digress. Like any time you reconnect with someone from your past that you haven't talked to in years.....it inevitably brings back tons of memories.

So I took the stroll down memory lane today......and although it's been an emotional day, I feel blessed that all my memories of friends and traditions are happy ones.

also, Dave sent me pictures of Julianne that I'd never seen before and therefore made me cry. Like this one from when she was a dancer at Marriott's Great America.



What on earth is this world comin' to........Is it everybody's mission to make me cry?