Post Christmas Coma....

It's the day after. Christmas was wonderful. The kids were awesome. They were appreciative of everything and their joy and graciousness when opening their gifts made me proud and sad.... I'm not sure how many years of the "magic" we have left.  The house is now a total disaster area, but I am determined to take a day off (as much as I can, I do need to do laundry, change sheets, organize garbage.... oh, who am I kidding... we all know I'm going to take down the tree and clean everything up). In the meantime, I thought I'd post some pictures of the big day (and the 24th for good measure).


Christmas Eve was pretty relaxing. All the presents were wrapped. Most of the food for Christmas Dinner was ready to go and we spent the day doing some last minute baking and preparation for Christmas. I decided to try making a sweet bread for Breakfast. I haven't made bread in many years, but for some reason... the mood was upon me so I did.... I think I over-kneeded it a bit... it was denser than I was expecting, but it did taste great. Chey was hilarious. She started saying that she was tired and needed to go to bed at around 8am... and continued every half hour or so throughout the day. When the time came for our traditional Christmas Movie, she had a mini-tantrum because "I don't want to stay up late to watch a movie! I want to go to BED!"

Chey helping kneed bread (I made a Finnish sweet bread for breakfast... it was good!)	Decorating cookies for Santa
Spreading the Reindeer Food	The tree after Santa came!

And finally Christmas morning arrived.... and as usual, I was up the earliest and had to wait patently for everyone else..... I noticed Eli's light was on, so I called him upstairs and told him to go wake up his sister (what? a Mom can't wake up her kids for Christmas morning??). Once everyone was up and the adults had coffee in hand.... .. the grand reveal began.... 

Chey's first peek at the tree... I LOVE this pic!	Kisses for her shark.....
The Retro Game he asked Santa for.... I think he likes it!	Eli's Replica Ocarina from The Legend of Zelda
There was a lot of hugging going on.....	Chey and I received matching charms for our bracelets... She picked mine and Santa brought hers...
Necklace from my Sister...	Cute Feather Hair Barrettes from Aunty Tonya (She's wearing the earrings today, Aunty!)
Chey's presents to us...  made at school
The Bread.... mmmmmmmm

It FLIES!!! FINALLY! We had some troubles getting "Shark" in the air... Fortunately Dale found some helium in the garage. We had to over inflate the thing to practically bursting... perhaps Santa left it out there for us when he realized that he'd been duped and brought us a knock-off instead of the real "Air Swimmer Shark"????  Chey loves it, regardless.. She wanted to sleep with it last night, but I thought it was better where it was..... 

We went skating in the afternoon and had our friends over for Christmas Dinner (They've come for dinner every year since we moved here, excluding the year we went to the island and last year when they lived in Egypt). It was the perfect cap off to the perfect day.

And finally, here is the Christmas Knitting I did this year. I didn't think there was very much, but seems like I did more than I thought.... this doesn't include the stuff I knit for the house either..... 

Shawl for Cary	Mittens for my hairdresser	New Silly Frilly for Chey
Shrug for Chey	Socks for Eli	Slippers for NanaB

Merry Christmas Everyone and Happy New Year!

In the home stretch

It's just over a week until Christmas and I thought I'd share my progress. I must say, I'm looking good. Shopping is done (just waiting for one last thing to arrive in the mail... I hope it shows!), presents are wrapped and the house is fully decorated (except for the lego house that Eli needs to finish.... we started a new tradition this year of collecting Christmas Lego for our Decorating). I thought I'd share a bit of what's been going on.

I decided it would be fun to make snowflakes and hang them on a garland. We used regular paper and fancy Origami paper with gold flakes and then I attached them to a length of felted i-cord with paper clips.... cute and festive.

Folding the paper	Cutting

We also decorated our tree and I've wrapped our presents and put them under it.

Hugging the partially decorated tree

I love decorating the tree. My ornaments are like bits of a story
that I've collected for the past 18 years

I am not normally that domestic. I said that and then re-read it...... and had to laugh. I am a SAHM (stay at home Mom) who knits and spins and has a blog that is almost entirely about my domestication..... In all sense of reality, how much more domestic could I be??? Perhaps I should say instead, that I am not known for my cooking and/or baking. I rarely bake, as a matter of fact, and almost never make more than a token batch of sugar cookies or some other cookie at Christmas time. Which is why today is a total anomaly in my house. I baked.... and baked.... and baked. A double batch of Hazelnut Biscotti (Biscotti must be retro now, right??) and a double batch of GingerSnaps. I've also made some easy fudge and for the first time in my life.... I made Nanaimo Bars... from scratch. We'll see how they turn out.  I used the recipe off the City of Nanaimo Website so I'm hoping for good things.

Today's accomplishments	Bags of Cookies ready to give to friends

I have still been knitting...... a bit. I started a new sweater two weeks ago and have only managed to knit about 6 inches of ONE arm.

Christmas knitting is done (I barely did any this year which was very nice) except for a last minute shrug for Chey. I've also managed to knit Eli a new pair of socks when we discovered the socks I knit him two or three years ago are too small (what?! Kids grow??? Even Eli grows eventually it seems).

Basic sock knit in Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted (colour Ravenswood)

Eli had his grade 5 band recital last night... It was adorable and not even torturous (the grade 5s have only been in band for 2 months, my expectations were not high). I wanted to have a short video clip for you, but I haven't had time to edit the super long video we took of the concert.... maybe next week??

And finally, a gratuitous skating shot taken last weekend as the sun set over our little leisure rink at the lake..... I'm not sure if I'll be posting again before Christmas, and if I don't... Have a Very Merry Christmas and I'll see you in the New Year!

Win some and Lose some....

I had an idea.... I thought it was a great idea even though various gauge swatches told me it wouldn't work....  I ignored my intuition and the, rather, solid evidence of my swatches and cast on, deciding that "you never know" ..... The idea was to have some ruched panels around the bottom of a tee and then have wide open short sleeves (sort of a cross between a Dolman sleeve and a Batwing) and an open neckline. Well, I finished it last night and tried it on... It was ugly.... I decided to wash/block it to see how it turned out..... The top is close to what I had envisioned, but the bottom is still ugly.... Now, what to do.... do I rip it out and try again, hopefully with a pattern at the end?? or do I cut off the ruching and fix it so that I can wear it... and call it a day??? I'm going to sit on it and decide later... I'm leaning towards a total re-boot.... there is a great top in there, I can tell...

and yes, I know... it looks pretty good laying flat on the ground... it loses it's appeal when worn, however..... looks a bit like a mushroom, masquerading as a shirt.....


On a more successful note... I thought I'd share my recipe for phyllo wrapped salmon.... I'm not a fabulous cook, but I get the job done.... this recipe is pretty darn awesome though...... If you've never used phyllo before it's not difficult. Just make sure it's thawed (you buy it in the freezer section of the grocery store... near the other types of pastry).

You need:

a couple of filets of salmon with the skin removed (not huge thick chunks..... )
about 3 sheets of phyllo pastry per filet
some melted margarine or butter... I used about a tablespoon per fillet
Last night I added some fresh dill and a splash of lemon  to the margerine, but usually I add a clove of mashed garlic... I left it out because of the garlic on top of the salmon.
Boursin cheese to taste. (I use garlic and herbs and tried the "Cuisine" version last night... it was great because it's spreadable).

Preheat the oven to 350F

On a cookie sheet (you can do this on a counter and move the finished package to the sheet, but I don't like having to clean up the counter afterwards so I do it on the cookie sheet) spread a single layer of phyllo dough  and using a pastry brush, wipe a layer of the melted butter combo all over the phyllo. Add a second and third layer and repeat. Place a fillet of salmon on the phyllo and spread about a tablespoon or two of the Boursin cheese on the top of the salmon. Wrap the salmon in the phyllo adding the margarine to any of the phyllo that does not already have some.

Repeat for as many fillets as you choose....  bake for about 20-30 minutes or until the phyllo is golden brown.... They are a bit of a PITA, but I think they're worth it... YUM!












Finally, here are a couple of pictures of Chey playing with her new umbrella in the rain.....

Egyptian Preview....

This is what I plan to wear in Egypt. I finished it today and love it! I've knit the pattern once before, but didn't measure properly and it ended up too short, so I frogged it and returned the yarn to my stash. I decided to knit it out of silk this time. I thought the stretch of silk (yarn is Alchemy Silk Purse) would be perfect for this top and I was right.

Pattern is the Krista Tee from a book called Knitting Lingerie Style (you can also buy a kit or just the pattern from the website). I made several minor modifications. I converted it to a seamless top, but had to figure out the lace so that it would work. I ended up casting on 72 stitches (I knit the smallest size) and then placed the lace so that it blended into the rest of the top properly. I compensated for the additional stitches during armhole shaping by reducing a stitch on each row, rather than every RS row until I had the correct number of stitches. I also chose to do my waist shaping by reducing/increasing stitches rather than changing needle sizes AND I did my sleeves as short rows, attached right to the garment. I had no seaming at all... just a few ends to weave in. Oh, and I added 2 inches to the body, shortened the armholes by one inch (to compensate for the stretch of silk, overall gain was one inch) and probably gained another 1-2 inches of length when the silk was washed.

I'm sure there will be better pictures to come, but you'll have to look for them in the pictures I post from Egypt... Only 5 more days...

Here are a few pictures of Eli helping me make an Apple Crisp this week.... My cousin gave me two big boxes of apples from her orchard and we've been trying to use them up.