christmas time

how about a continuing christmas tradition for a much-neglected blog?

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

merry christmas to all!

4

2008, brand new

2009: 1 year

2010: 2 years 

2011: 3 years

2012: 4 years

somebody's getting too big for his britches.

glimpses of 2011

january

 (inside the hagia sophia in istanbul)

 (enjoying the amazing view from our room)

february

 (taking a ferry ride across the bay)

 (someone turned 3)

march

 (participating in a local art class)

 (sightseeing trip with dear friends)

april

 ('for rent' sign hanging outside our fabulous city apartment)

 (all packed up and ready to move again)

may

 (adjusting to life outside a big city)

 (spending time at the lake!)

june

 (potty-trained boys get big-boy bikes)

(new friends and experiences)

july

 (starting kindergarten and breaking bones... not at the same time)

 (getting big girl haircuts!)

august

 (road trips with precious sisters)

(a new school for him and a new job for me!)

september

 (a couple weekend getaways)

 october

 (state fair time... a.k.a. funnel cake time)

 (one of these monkeys turned 6)

 (first family pumpkin carving)

november

(kindergarten pilgrims)

 (rolling around in as many piles of leaves as possible)

december

 (getting a real tree!)

(dancing with her dance studio in a christmas parade!)

bring it, 2012.

you can also take a glimpse at our 2010, 2009, and 2008.

a fun new tradition for us!

so at this point, you probably have your christmas decorating well out of the way, but i thought i'd still take time to share a fun family activity/tradition that we started this year.

stringing popcorn!

i had actually never done this before in my life, but since i'm finding myself in an extra crafty mood this christmas (since many of our decorations are in another country and we don't have room to pack any new ones for the future, except, of course, for our stockings), i thought it would be a fun experience and add a neat touch to our tree. (we popped in 'a christmas carol' to watch as we ventured out on this new family tradition.)

i found a random spool of kite string in a random drawer and thought it would be just the thing. turned out it was! i also had to search through my needles for longer, sturdier ones (we definitely broke a couple smaller needles in half before we figured that out). yarn needles might work really well, too, but i didn't try it out.

then, just get to stringing'! with having younger kids, a lot of the stringing was left to the hubby and myself, but the kids did help out in the beginning, and they were pretty excited about the finished product on the tree. (turns out i was right, it added a great touch and we got a lot of comments about our homemade popcorn string at our christmas party!) 

one day, our kids will be big enough to do this all by themselves! (if they want to, of course.)

if you have any christmas eve downtime tomorrow, it might be worth a try! happy stringing!

stockings!

finally, after 8 christmases as a family, we have real special-to-our-family stockings!

(remember my wreath? it finally has company!)

i had these babies in mind after last christmas, and have been working on them on and off since this past summer. if you're a knitter, you can find the pattern i based them on here. i changed the pattern around for the top (white) part of the stockings because instead of them looking different at the top, i wanted the whole stocking to look like the same continuous pattern. 

merry christmas!