Stockings Hung With Care

Very exciting news...I finished Alexander's baby quilt! Hey, he's only two. The boys are getting a twin bed soon so now they boys need bigger quilts. Hoping we can get the beds here this week. They have been stuck in Utah for a few months.
Confession: This quilt was actually started about 5 years ago. The original intention was for a niece. The pattern wasn't coming together right. It was put on the back burner. A few years later I dabbled with it. Finally got my amazing sister to help me figure out a solution to fix the pattern problems. I was really lacking in motivation to quilt and finish this thing up.

I did a lot of fun hand quilting on this one. Wishing I had used a more noticeable thread color so you could see everything.

There's even a whale in the middle of each star. You can't tell at all, even on the back.

Next news: I decorated for Christmas!
Back at Thanksgiving I had this picture taken. Fuzzy, and I am slouching so bad. I had to come up with another plan to shout our news.

We have a fireplace in this apartment...love it! We're not getting a tree since we always go home for Christmas. I had to decorate the fireplace though. And a fireplace wouldn't be complete without stockings. I pulled out red and green scrap fabric and put something together. I also taught myself to embroider so I could add our names. I like how they turned out. Kaleb was very excited to find his name.

I figured I might as well make 5, we'll need one next year. Baby #3 is supposed to grace us with an appearance around June 5, 2012. It has been fun seeing friends confusion when they walk into our house and stare at our stockings. I can see the calculation circling around in their head...why are their 5 stockings?

We are adding two more feet to our family!

The boys don't understand. I doubt they really will until the baby is here.

Other than that small announcememnt:
We went to a church Christmas party.
I made a ginormous pan of caramel, cream cheese brownies. They turned out so yummy, if I do brag so myself.
Alexander claimed his favorite part:

The best Santa Clause ever made a personal appearance at the party. Kaleb was standing close to the door with his back to it when Santa came in yelling "ho-ho-ho" Kaleb jumped so high and went scrambling. The boys weren't a very big fan of the man in red.

We have just realized how little we talk about Christmas around our house. The boys have no idea who Santa Clause it. Or what Christmas even is. We are going to start talking about it more. They need to understand why this month is so special. Even what Santa Clause represents.

This is Jake's last week this semester. It has been a long 3 months. The boys were done with Preschool last Thursday. I was very sad about that. Preschool was amazing and helped them a lot. I'm looking into a local Head Start preschool for Kaleb. Hope it works out. I would love to have him go one more year before Kindergarten. Wow, that sounds so weird. I can't believe we have kids that old. Kaleb will be a Sunbeam at church next year, crazy! I know he is going to really fight that change. It will be an interesting transition.
Things are pretty quiet around here. We're trying to keep busy without going outside.
The other day I was determined we needed to get out and go for a walk. I bundled the boys up, blankets and all. Put them in the stroller and went for a brisk walk. We hadn't gone far when the boys started wailing. It was full on melt-down. They were cold. They wanted to go home. I was so mad at them. Wimps! It's not cold, I'm sweating. What is your deal? Stop acting like this! These were the thoughts racing through my head as I walked faster to get our errands done. I got them in the house and sat by the fire with them. Then I realize the temperature is only 7 degrees! Oh dear, poor boys. No wonder they were cold.
I think we'll try to avoid going for walks. The cabin fever is hard. There is no indoor places to go around here.
Hope you all enjoy your holidays!