This isn’t a very Christmasy post, but I HAVE to make it.

The kids have been really into Owl City lately. Look what we found when we downloaded the pictures off of Barry’s camera:

I love that kid. I think this is from the day he told me over and over that he is going to be a rock star.

We’ve had our annual Messiah sing along Christmas party– to continue the Christmas music theme here.  There were about 40 people crammed into our house, over half of which were banished to the  basement to watch Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus is Coming to Town because they were too young to read or be interested in trying to sing along with us.  We blasted some MoTab and tried to sing our parts while following along in the score.  There was lots of food too.  A fun time was had by all, but there are no pictures to prove it.  I was too busy hallelujahing to even think about getting out the camera.  Hence the retrieval of Sybil the Christmas Elephant from the archives.  I think she’s a fun, festive little gal.

Here’s hoping you have a wonderful holiday.  Being a mother continually makes Christmas more meaningful for me, not just because the magic of watching my kids surprise and glee with all the gifts on Christmas morning, but because the Creator of worlds without number saw fit to come to earth just like we do– as a tiny helpless little baby– because he loves us.  Because he loves me.

Merry Christmas!

For those of you waiting for the SweetPod pattern, the PDF is listed in my shop!

My 7 year old likes to rank things.  He likes to know what’s best, what’s worst, who’s best, who’s worst.  He constantly asking about our favorites.  So, when he asked what my favorite things are about Christmas I immediately turned the question back on him.  I thought, without a doubt, in that split second that I was waiting for his answer, it would be presents.  He surprised me, though.His favorite thing about Christmastime is the music.That made my heart smile.Every morning, after breakfast is eaten and cleaned up, after everyone (or at least the majority of us) is clothed, we gather around the piano and sing.  I love to sing.  My kids love to sing.  It brings a happy tone to each day– which is especially needed after a morning of nagging to get the dishwasher unloaded.  Usually we pick a song from the Primary Children’s Songbook (if you click through to the song book you can click on songs to hear them).  Now that it’s Christmas we get to branch out a bit.  This is our favorite:

Tomie dePaola’s Book of Chrsitmas Carols.   We found it at a library sale when we lived in Ohio and it has become a much loved favorite.  It has all the standards, Angels we have Heard on High, Away in a Manger, Joy to the World, Silent Night, but it also has some that are less familiar like Oh, How a Rose ‘Ere Blooming, and The Friendly Beasts.  It’s all these song coupled with the illustrations that make it so special.

We can never sing just one song.  I think the shortest morning singing session we’ve had this month has been 20 minutes.  Everyone has to pick a song, then remembers that they really wanted to sing another.  We Three Kings is on regular rotation.

This morning I decided to it was time to make our morning music time a bit more interactive.  I broke out the pipe chimes

and the bells.

There was much dinging and donging.  We did get through several songs without too much silliness.  Ian was actually really good at watching for me to point to his color usually dinged right in time.  It’s alway fun and festive to have the bells out.  Well, it’s fun as long as I pretend no one is fighting over who gets the light blue bell and I keep the yelling of  ”Do not bang your bells together!” to a minimum.  It seems that the best and most worthwhile things take the most effort.  It certainly would have been easier to just leave the bells on the shelf in the basement.

But, it’s their favorite part of Christmas!

There will be much more dinging and donging over here during the next few weeks.

To top off this musical day, Brenna had her Christmas piano recital and did a fabulous job.  She has become quite the performer– singing solos in church, singing with the Colorado Mormon Chorale’s children’s choir, and tonight playing Greensleeves beautifully from memory.

I think the music is my favorite thing about Christmas too.

Okay, the SweetPod pattern isn’t quite ready.  I guess since I had set the goal of having it ready to sell by the end of this week the universe aligned against me.  We had a wonderful trip to Idaho for Thanksgiving full of food and fun and aunts and uncles and cousins, but we came home with 2 sick babies.  Sick croupy babies= not much sleep or time during the day when I’m not holding someone.

But I will steer you to Raelyn’s blog where she shows off her SweetPod.  It looks perfect!!  Woohoo!

I’m hoping to have it finished soon so I can wrap my brain around things like Christmas.

That said– can I show you what I accomplished while sitting in the car for about 28 hours last week?

My very first big person sized sweater!   I saw Amanda’s sweater a few weeks ago and instantly thought, “That is the sweater I would knit for myself– if I could somehow find the time.”  It’s the Shalom Cardigan by Meghan at Involving the Senses.

When the reality of the length of our Thanksgiving road trip sank in I sneaked in a trip to the yarn store.  I bought some Cascade Ecological wool, which was pretty and super inexpensive.  I tried to find something with a lower itch factor for the same price, but to no avail.  Now I’m kinda wishing I had splurged for some Spud and Chloe outer, which I think my extremely wool sensitive self could handle.  Even with a turlte neck on I’m pretty itchy.

It went really quickly.  We drove from Denver to Boise in one day.  I cast on as soon as the sun came up and by the time we were there I was done with the yoke and a few rows of the body.  I knit a row here and there while we were there and then finished the rest on the drive home.  I love that it is all one piece– no seaming required.

Maybe next time we make that drive I’ll make myself a non-itchy one with sleeves.  And one more button.

Still, I totally love it.