I’m finally done with Christmas. I tied the last knot on Kat’s xmas present over the weekend and boy did it feel good! I used the end of my charm pack to make her pillow. (She has a polar bear fetish which I try to support whenever possible.)

Once it was done, I took a break to organize my little corner of the room. I love to organize. There is something zen-like about filling every nook and cranny and putting stuff back just so. We have one large bonus room that serves several functions. One corner is Kevin’s computer desk, one corner is my craft area, the kids have a large chunk for their toys and tucked into the last corner is our guest bed. I try to make the most of my little space and love wedging myself into my desk. Oddly enough. the layout of all my craft spaces end up looking the same. I’m a big fan of a U shaped desk. I like having my goodies all around me and only an arm reach away. Since it’s pretty clean right now, I snapped a few pictures.

As you can see, I’m pretty packed in. I had Kevin cut me a couple of long planks of wood that I lay on top of some boxes/drawers for shelves. The beauty of that is I can keep going up and up and up as I amass more goodies. I’m very lucky because this room has a walk in closet that I have claimed for my own so all the crafting stuff that isn’t often used can be tossed in here and left in shambles. Don’t believe me? Take a look.

Yeah, and this is after I straightened it up! You know that running joke where someone opens a closet and a ton of stuff falls on them? Yup. We have that closet. Don’t worry, I have a kid lock on it ’cause the contents would probably smoosh Kulia flat as a pancake if she ever managed to open it on her own. It seems everytime I weed through it, I’m able to fill it right back up again. Sigh. Ah well, there are worse things in life than having too many art supplies, right?

So, the doctor looked and looked and looked. Kulia is perfectly healthy. There is nothing wrong with her except the fact that she hasn’t taken a nap for the last 5 days and has developed the ability to scale out of her crib. It’s over. Over I tell you.

Thankfully, I managed to crack Leina who spilled it all and I now know how Kulia is escaping. So I’m devising a way to thwart her Houdini-like skills. Wish me luck.

I go the sweetest email thank-you from our friends, the Stromfelds. I made a little name banner for the new member of their brood and, of course, forgot to take a picture. Thankfully, they sent me this photo which shows not only the banner but also the little bundle of adorable, lovable, sweetness it was made for. Must find a way to get to San Jose before all that sweet baby chubba is gone!

It’s over.

So, very very over.

Pack my bags and send me a one-way ticket to anywhere ’cause I’m done people.

On Saturday, Kulia figured out how to climb out of her crib. Lord help me. She’s free.

We had no warning people. No false tries, no cryptic reference to flying to coop. Nothing.

Ready for the back-story? Kulia has been fighting her naps. I guess she feels that as a fully grown 2 yr old, she no longer needs these pesky rest periods. HA! She has also been crabby, testy, and complaining her ears hurt. So I guess there’s a possibility she has a raging ear infection and every time she lies down it hurts so she start crying in pain. Whatever. Back to me.

The last few days is seems whenever I put her down for her nap and she immediately popped up and started crying. Normally, she rolls over and goes to sleep. But suddenly, all this crying. So I give her an extra song, some pats, tell her to go to sleep, and close the door. Saturday was no different. Crying, fussing, ear tugging – my good little napper had mysteriously disappeared. After wrangling Leina into her bed, (she too believes that as a full grown 4 yr old, nap times are for babies which she clearly is not), I headed downstairs with Kevin for some much needed time off.

Before too long, we heard thumps and bumps coming from Leina’s room. This is nothing new. Leina and I have established a detente. As long as she stays in her room and is quiet, I turn a blind eye to the fact that she is not actually “sleeping”. As long as I get my down time, I’m happy people. So the bumps and thumps I try to ignore. However, as they got louder and louder I knew we’d have to step in. Leina awake is bearable. Kulia awake because her sister is making too much noise is not. So I sent Kevin upstairs to threaten Leina with whatever he could think of to get her to keep quiet. Selling to gypsies, tying her to the bed, burning her blanket, whatever. I need my down time, ok? Stop looking at me like that.

Kevin went up and not 2 seconds he called down to me, “Um, Chrissie, we have a problem.” With vision of crayons on the wall, a bed frame broken from excessive jumping, a fish out of water, I rushed upstairs. What I saw was even worse. There was Leina, as expected, awake in her room. No crayons, no broken metal, no flopping fish. Instead, Kevin stood there with Kulia in his arms. My first thought was, “how did Leina get Kulia out of her crib?” The thought of Kulia scaling her wooden bars never even crossed my mind.

Kevin says when he headed up the stairs, he heard the sound of little feet running. Upon reaching the landing, he caught Leina going back into her room. He was ready to unleash the threat of gypsies and Leina must have seen the stern look in his eyes because she immediately threw her sister to the wolves.

Raising her hands in front of her, she blurted out, “Kulia climbed out of her crib!”

This had the desired effect as Kevin turned his focus from Leina to Kulia’s room. Her door was closed and all was quiet. Opening the door, Kevin found Kulia standing very quietly in her dark, nap inducing room. Standing outside of her crib people. After questioning, the truth came out. Kulia, unable to sleep, decided to climb from her crib, leave her room, and go into Leina’s. Leina was more then happy to find her sister at her door. Instead of raising the alarm that the baby had done a crib-break, Leina invited her in and they started playing. Hence the louder than normal thumps and bumps we heard.

I put Leina back in her room and Kevin went to rock with Kulia.

“Kulia”, he began, “you have to stay in your cribby. No climb out, ok?”

“OK, I no climb out.” Kulia agreed. After a few more rocks, she added under her breath: “Next time, me hide.” Help me people.

So this afternoon I’m taking her to the doctor and praying that she has a horrible ear infection. Maybe two if I’m lucky. Then there is hope that once they clear up, she’ll willingly lie down and take a nap again. Because people, Kulia able to get out of her crib is the end of the world as I know it.

There’s a certain point in the year when it gets very tricky to live in Oregon. Our fall is lovely. Winter is crisp and invigorating. And then, well, the grey moves in and it lingers forever. I fear the grey has officially arrived. The rain is on and off today. Every now and then the sun breaks through for a few glorious moments but for the most part it is….well….gloomy.

To survive, I’ve found you have to alter your mindset. You have to embrace the grey. Sure, sunshine and mild weather would be nice. But there’s something to be said for cups of steaming tea, burrowing down into an old comfy sweater, snuggling with your kids in a warm bed, or stitching quietly to the sound of rain. I have to start preparing myself mentally because this grey, well, it sticks around until June. That’s a lot of tea people.

The good news is that my last Christmas present is almost stitched. Thank goodness! I’ve found myself noticing all the clutter and dust floating around the house and I feel a burst of house cleaning/organization sneaking up on me. I’ve also started eyeing the walls and musing about paint samples. And the yearly urge to bake bread is also niggling at the back of my mind. Nesting, cooking, cleaning. Yup, the grey is definitely here. Bring it on!

I almost hate to add a new post. I love watching that video over and over. It’s almost as good as the real thing. Funny thing about blogging is that once you fall out of the habit, it’s hard to pick it up again. So I guess I’m going to have to get back up on the horse and dust off the keyboard.

Lets see. Believe it or not, I am still finishing up my Christmas presents. Poor old Kat is still waiting for her gift. I am more than ready to pack away all my Christmas fabric and move on to something else. Anything that doesn’t involve red and green! But in retrospect, I really did enjoy making my presents. Mostly because as I made them, I was thinking about the receiver. At the mall, my thoughts tend to run along the line of, “Kat, Kat, have to find something for Kat. What could I get? This? This? That! Ok, next person. Liza, Liza what can I get Liza……” It isn’t a particularly warm/fuzzy thought process. More of a panicked grabby thought process. But this year, I found myself stitching or sewing or cutting away and thinking about my friends and family in a much more stress-free state of mind and is was oh so very nice. Although I meant to take a picture of each creation, I forgot. Sigh. So I don’t have a photo of all the goodies I made. The vast majority were seasonal banners or pillows.

Here’s a picture of the one banner I remembered to snap a photo of before wrapping it up. I got the idea from a similar one in a Pottery Barn catalogue. It was one of those, “that’s so cute – I could totally make that moments”. I like the idea that you can hang it to say Thanks Giving or Giving Thanks. The others I did were in a similar vein for Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and 4th of July. It was kind of cool to channel all those other days in the middle of winter!

The pillows I made were especially fun. I took the idea from a post over at this excellent website and ran with it. I ended up with four very different pillows. This one was for sweet little Amelia, my 18 month old niece. I adore these fabrics and would use them all over my room if Kevin would let me. He has, unfortunately, outlawed pink in our/his bedroom. Sigh. The other three were true Christmas pillow and they came out perfectly. I just wish I had a picture. Ah well!

Once I finish the last lingering gift, I have a new pattern for myself (!?!!) I’m going to tackle. I have a feeling I should get some good juicy blog posts out of that endeavor. Ha!

Here’s video of Christmas day with the girls in their new superhero costumes.
For the un-initiated Leina is Wonder Woman and Kulia is Robin (Batman’s sidekick) aka “Baby Robin”

Aren’t they cute?

Here’s the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EjxBCI2lbU