What Christmas looked like

Coffee-filter snowflakes

Christmas sugar cookies...

...complete with a arm-mangled Santa and a headless angel (because it's us)
The tree "we" cut "ourselves" (thanks Tobes, for that)

Mince pies - a necessity (because it's us)

A belated Merry Christmas, everyone.

The Aquarium

Here are a few photos of our day at Baltimore Aquarium...
Pretty much the only picture of Ellie, as she was on my back the whole day

Apparently, the aquarium employs elves, in this equal-opportunity world of ours And for your entertainment...



There, wasn't that fun?

I'm an Idiot

What can I say? Trying to redeem the amazon gift card Mum sent for Christmas, I keep putting in the code, and it keeps telling me it's already been redeemed - aka "Someone's stolen our gift!". Get sulky and cross with amazon, emailing to find out how they're going to fix it all, when Toby realizes that the code that I'm using is for the gift card we received last year and has definitely been used (by us). With dunce hat firmly in place, email amazon back to apologize for such folly.
So there we are: a fool, with fun Amazon toys.
For those interested, the aquarium was great, especially when I managed to adjust the rucksack that Eleanor was in so it didn't feel like she weighed 100lbs on my shoulders. Everyone loved the dolphins the best, even though they weren't wooden. I think they would have been a little less dramatic, somehow.
I'll post some photos when I come up for air from my frenzied Christmas-making...

Wooden dolphins?

I was explaining to Abigail this morning that we're due to go to the aquarium this afternoon as a field trip. She was really excited to hear about the dolphin show...
"A dolphin show? I'm so excited, even though the dolphins are only wooden."
"What? The dolphins aren't wooden! They're real dolphins, performing tricks and things."
"You mean the dolphins on the stage aren't wooden? How do they do that?"
Stage? Wooden porpoises? I think she's in for rather a great surprise...

A little excitement

So, I'm having a wonderful morning and afternoon, hanging out with my friend Emily and her son, chatting and such like. The phone has rung a few times this morning, but as I have company, I've been ignoring it. Abigail suddenly comes up the stairs to report that there is a message on the machine from our neighbor saying that Thor (the dog) is wandering around in the front yard! Huh.
Since Emily was happy to babysit while I did a spot of dog-chasing (Praise God and Bless Emily!), I jump in my car, driving around our road and go stomping around in the woods behind the house, looking for this blasted dog. He sees me coming, does a runner, and I manage to corner him on the neighbor's front porch and sweetly persuade him to return home with me. Mind you, this isn't that big a concern for most dog owners (I suppose), but throw in the fact that Thor doesn't like other dogs AT ALL and will happily devour a cat, particularly our neighbor's cat (who is the fattest creature I've ever seen and delights in taunting our canines), and I start wondering just how many cookies I would need to make to apologize for my animal eating someone else's animal.
Who says that housewives have no excitement!?

Getting together

Every year, my siblings all get together at Lisa's house for a little holiday cheer and a lot of food. Here is the evidence...

First up - Baby in a Bucket

Don & Derek, transfixed by the Eagles (for some reason)

Billy and Dave, my brothers - it explains a lot...

Abi, Leah, Anna and Amy, enjoying their ill-gotten candy canes

At least it wasn't only the adults stuffing their faces

Anna with Joy (top) and Mojo (below), the newest members of the Straga family.

That's all I got! I had hoped for more, but some of you (Lisa!) are rather hard to nail down. So don't forget to email me some great photos - they may be immortalized in blogworld!

Feedback time

Okay. So, we've adopted a three-month-on-one-month-off schedule to our homeschool, which means that for the entire month of December, we're free as birds. So, what kind of stuff should we do? We've got plans for the aquarium, can't afford Port Discovery, booked the Baltimore Museum of Art on the calendar. Any other ideas? What about crafts and projects? I'm terribly unmotivated about these sorts of things, so any suggestions would be most appreciated!

Evidences of stir-crazy kicking in

More making

It took too long, but I finally finished the hats I'd been working on. First is Noah's - he needed a hat that wasn't pink! Fortunately, the hat I made for Toby had loads left over, so I did one for the boy. Now the boys are coordinating...

Also made a hat for Eleanor. She's so cute in it, though she likes to eat the ties. The white one will be for her cousin Abbie White - hope her parents aren't looking! All the hats came from Last Minute Knitted Gifts, borrowed from the library so often I'll have to go buy my own soon!

The bread came out nicely yesterday!

Finally, the demolition and reconstruction of my kitchen. The wall has been cut out, cupboards bought, painted and installed. Now we need to get ourselves and a counter and we'll be in business!