Happy Saint Nicholas Day

It was still dark and I'm pretty sure I was in a deep sleep when the first footsteps came padding into my bedroom this morning to alert me that Saint Nicholas had come in the night and had filled their shoes with goodies. I think after that I may have even been covered in a few wet kisses and squeals of delight before I tried to sneak in a few more minutes of sleep instead of getting out of bed *grin*. That didn't last long as more footsteps followed and there was a special treat from mama to be prepared as well :)

Saint Nicholas had been most generous and had stuffed their shoes to the brim with oranges and nuts, a couple of golden coins, a chocolate St. Nick figure...

and a little brown paper package for each of them.

As the aroma of cinnamon and fresh bread filled the air we sat at the dining room table with hot cocoa to unwrap the little packages :) Last year the children received christmas themed books but this year I found some lovely classics for the older children....

and a copy of a Magic School Bus book for M. He was thrilled to have a copy that he could call his very own :)

After that things got mighty quiet as book pages were turned and mouths were filled with warm bites of the marzipan, almond and cinnamon kringel that I had made for the occasion :)

The children must have all been very good this year because there was no visit from the Krampus thank goodness and Opa had a good time retelling tales of when he was a child in Austria and Sankt Nikolaus would visit his house.

We had made some special cookies using our favorite speculaas recipe and shaped them as Saint Nicholas but unfortunately my red gel icing didn't make them red but instead a deep shade of pink :( Oh well they still tasted delicious...

And were cute packed inside our little tins that were going to be dropped off as secret gifts to unsuspecting friends and family. You should hear the children giggle as they try to sneak up quietly to a house to ring the doorbell and then run away as fast as the can *grin*. I don't think they got caught once this year :)

 Do you celebrate St. Nicholas? I would love if you would leave a comment or a link to your blog letting me know what your family did today :)

Hugs,

Rosina

Getting Ready for Saint Nicholas

There was much anticipation as the children pulled out their wooden shoes for the arrival of Saint Nicholas tonight and filled them with carrots and hay for his horse :)

We have spent the last couple of days reading some of our favorite books like the Legend of Saint Nicholas and The Baker's Dozen and of course we had to pull out our Veggie Tale movie of Saint Nicholas as well. It just wouldn't be complete without the veggies *grin*.

I've been sneakily collecting a few special books for their gifts in the morning and this year to make their gifts special I made these little wreaths with holly leaves. I just cut out a cardboard wreath shape and then used my hot glue gun to glue them all around the cardboard circle. Really easy and I think I'm going to make a bunch more for the rest of my christmas gifts :)

 I just love how they turned out and now I'm off to fill their shoes with nuts and other goodies before they wake up because I know they will be up before the first light of morning. There will be no sleeping late for mama tomorrow :)

Hugs,

Rosina

Happy 6th Birthday Monkey

Today was Monkey's 6th birthday. My baby is growing up so quickly. First he lost his very first tooth a few weeks ago and now he's six! I just wish I could keep him small forever *grin*.

We woke up early to head into the city to visit with good friends of ours and then we treated the birthday boy and the whole crew to an afternoon of ice skating and hot chocolate. So much fun :)

I cheated and picked up a special birthday cake with Wall-E and Eva on it because he had been checking out the birthday cake book at the supermarket every time we went and had his little heart set on having a Wall-E cake. I just knew I wouldn't be able to find the little characters for the top so I ordered it secretly on Friday and when I pulled it out of the box tonight he was so excited.

But that wasn't the biggest highlight of his party! The boys are absolutely crazy about everything Star Wars and I can't tell you how many times they've watched the old VHS movies that I found for them at the second hand store. So when he opened up his gift from his dad and I his little eyes nearly popped out of his head to find a light saber just like Yoda's and it lights up and makes the real sounds to boot. No more wrapping paper tube light sabers for him. LOL.

I caught it all on video so that when Hubby comes home he can watch it and feel like he was able to be there for his special night to :) Plus it's going to be hilarious to show him when he's older :)

Hugs,
Rosina

Happy St. Nicholas Day

Oh the joy that filled our house this morning as sleepy children raced to the front door to see what Saint Nicholas had left in their shoes!

Waiting for each of them was a little burlap sack and a brown paper bundle tied with string.

There was a special Christmas book enclosed for each of them and all sorts of nuts and oranges to eat along with a delicious chocolate St. Nicholas for later :)

We made Nicholas shaped cookies using this speculaas recipe which is so yummy with its ground almonds in the dough and lots of spice and the children had fun decorating him with raisins, chocolate chips and sunflower seeds :)

One of the things that we really wanted to do was pack a little tin full and surprise someone with it in secret but since our closest neighbor is my mother we thought it would be fun to see if we could get away with dropping it off at her door and not getting caught!

So with the cookie tin in hand all three of the children raced up to her house as fast as they could and then snuck as quietly as they could to the door, banged on it hard and then ran for their lives LOL.

A few minutes later the phone rang of course asking if it had been us and we denied it *grin*. She had no idea where they had come from so it was a very successful ding dong ditch LOL.

Did you celebrate Saint Nicholas' Day? I would love to pop over and see what you did to make it special :)

Hugs,
Rosina

St. Nicholas Eve & The Krampus

Today we spent some time drawing in our lesson books little pictures of Saint Nicholas as we wait for his arrival tonight :)

Every year on December 5th Saint Nicholas returns to earth on his white horse and visits the homes of children leaving them gifts in their shoes that have been set out by the door.

When I was a little girl my father would tell us tales of St. Nicholas from when he was a little boy in Austria and of how St. Nicholas would visit their house in the evening and occasionally with him came the Krampus. A devil like beast with chains that would chase them around if they were found to have been bad until they promised that they would behave better from then on. Of course the chase was frightening but if they promised to be good they were rewarded with treats from St. Nicholas :)

Now the Krampus never visited us thank goodness but that definitely puts a new spin on the old 'you better watch out, you better be good' saying for old Santa Claus. If I knew the scary man with the chains was coming I would have been on my best behavior a lot more *grin*.

So with their shoes out, filled with carrots for for St. Nicholas' horse and a little note, the children all went to bed dreaming of what surprise they will find in the morning :)

Hugs,
Rosina

Happy 12th Birthday

Today we celebrated my oldest son's 12th birthday.

Where have all the years gone?! I can't believe my baby is twelve :) Actually his birthday is officially tomorrow at 10:50 pm but his friend could only come over today for a little party so we whooped it up this afternoon and tomorrow we'll have a nice quiet family dinner with my parents.

Remember those gloves I was knitting? I got them finished! I stayed up till 2 am last night knitting like a mad woman to finish off the last 4 fingers and I'm so glad I did.



They fit him perfectly and I'm so happy I could make them for him since they were a special birthday request :)

He's also crazy about the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books so when I happened to see this great t-shirt at the bookstore I just had to get it for him. It is so neat! He gets to draw in with a special fabric marker any funny joke or picture that he wants to complete the thought bubble *grin*.

His friends gave him this neat drawing book...

and inside was one of those little wooden models that you can pose any way you want to help him learn to draw bodies. He's crazy about drawing and painting so I'd say he got everything he could have wanted for his birthday. Lucky boy!

Now I'm going to rest :) The last couple of days have been exhausting and the super late night last night has left me in need of some extra sleep.... I must be getting old! LOL. I've already prepared some of the food for tomorrow's dinner to cut down on the workload and I think if I'm lucky I'll have some free time tomorrow to catch up on some mama projects :)

Enjoy your weekend!

Hugs,
Rosina

Handmade Holidays

We had a wonderful Christmas together with family but I gotta say I'm sort of glad all of the pre-christmas mayhem is over! *grin*. I really planned to be ahead of the game when it came to all of my gift making and baking but somewhere along the way my schedule fell totally apart but now I can just sit back, relax and enjoy watching the children play with their new gifts :)

I had promised you more photos of the fairy house my son was making for his sister and here they are. I am SO proud of all the hard work he put into making it special for her. He keeps teasing me that it was really my project but I was just the creative director and he really did all the figuring :)

He rigged up the elevator so that when you crank the little handle on the outside of the house, the dowling on the ceiling spins and the ribbon winds up on the wooden thread spool lifting the elevator up through the hole in the floor and then there is a ladder that takes you up into the attic space :) LOVE it.

He used popsicle sticks to create the little shutters outside the windows...

and here's the little doorway with one of the crocheted rugs I made inside :)

In the dining room we put a small table covered with a little crocheted doily underneath the chandelier :) We just need some chairs now and I'm going to let her help me decorate the windows with little lacey curtains and flower swags. She is so thrilled with it :)

For my mom this year I made her a batch of Canadian Mincemeat using cranberries, maple syrup, port and other goodies and it turned out delicious! I was a little worried that it wouldn't turn out like the one she usually buys since I had never made it before but it was awesome :)

All of the kids got felt bandit masks which hubby is so graciously modeling for you *grin*....

and an assortment of fun mustaches.
This is the crazy wooly one that I made looping thick black wool across the felt making it quite amusing :)

They also got hot lips and full beards to go with their pirate crowns I made them last Christmas :)

Along with all of the homemade gifts we always get them pajamas, socks, one book each and one gift that they really want within reason. So this year my little guy got a lego man flashlight that doesn't require any batteries. You just wind his arm around and around and it charges up the battery inside so he can fall asleep with it at night and we'll never have to replace any batteries! My oldest son got a model airplane to build and my little girl got the fairy house as her big gift because she actually had seen a plastic one that she liked but I thought wood would be so much better *grin*.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas as well and I can't believe that it is only days and we will be ringing in 2011!!

Hugs,
Rosina

Holiday Linky Love

The snow has been falling all day and it has me wanting to sing Christmas carols *grin*. Okay well maybe not quite yet but it does have me thinking about what gifts I want to make and what new holiday decor we can craft for our stash :)

I am loving these adorable miniature gingerbread houses!! I ran across them over at Not Martha and I can't wait to make some with the kids :) They will be perfect to perch on top of our cocoa mugs!

Need a good stash busting project for the holiday season? How about one of these fun fabric flower wreaths! Another perfect project to get the kids involved with as it is just fabric circles layered and tacked to an inexpensive vine wreath :)

These little yarn trees are so stinking cute *grin*. Now that I've started doing more knitting I've got little odds and ends of wool leftover from projects and I'm going to let the kids go crazy winding up these little trees. I think they will be a lovely addition to our nature table :)

And last but not least are these little trinket pouches that will be just perfect for my little guy :) I love the oversized grommets for attaching a carabiner to! I can just see him clipping them to his pant belt loops and filling them with his special treasures or taking them outdoors when we go for nature walks. I wonder how many rocks or pine cones we can fit into one of those little pockets *grin*.

What are you making this holiday season?

Hugs,
Rosina

Operation Christmas Child

Every year the kids and I always want to pack a shoebox full of goodies for the Samaritan's Purse Operation Christmas Child and this year we got two boxes to fill for a little boy and a girl :) When I announced that we were going to do some shopping for our boxes the kids hit the store running *grin*. Each of them had their own shopping basket and got to pick out pencils, erasers, notebooks, markers, crayons, activity pads, face cloths, toothbrushes, soap, and of course a little toy and some candy :)

Tonight we spread out all of our goodies on the kitchen table and sorted through them dividing them up into two piles and tried to squash as much as we could possibly fit into each of the boxes. I sure hope that they don't mind that our boxes are slightly bulging! LOL. Now we just have to find out which church in the city is one of the official drop off spots and we can get them sent on their way :)

Hugs,
Rosina

4 Haiti with Love

I know that you all remember the horrific destruction that left Haiti in shambles after the massive earthquake that hit them on January 12th of this year. Despite the lack of news coverage in the months since the height of the crisis there are still so many people there that are struggling every day.

So when my uncle told me that he was returning to Haiti with the Global Aid Network (GAIN) I knew that it was our chance to do something for the children even if it was something as small as sending little notebooks with stickers and crayons.

So the kids got busy cutting fun papers to make our plain old dollar store notebooks look really pretty, added some cute little stickers...



and I started measuring and sewing lengths of elastic into loops that would securely hold crayons inside them.

I had seen this project done on another blog and it was such a great idea. So I measured out a 6.5 inch piece of elastic for the piece that would wrap right around the notebook and marked 6 lines on it in the center that were spaced 1/2 an inch apart. Then on a smaller 4.5 inch piece of elastic I marked another 6 lines on it that were 3/4 of an inch apart. Placing the shorter piece of elastic on top of the longer piece I just matched up the lines, sewed, and created the little loops. I then attached the two ends of the longer piece together to make the band complete.

With the elastic loops complete we were ready to place one on each of the notebooks...

and start filling them up with crayons. The measurements worked out perfectly and the crayons were nice and snug in each of the loops.

Each of the children wrote special little messages inside of the notebooks and they were ready to get packaged up and shipped.

Luggage space was limited so we made 50 sets of the notebooks which ended up filling one of the giant warehouse sized cereal boxes and boy was it heavy!

We shipped it today and it will be on its way to Haiti with my uncle very soon and into the hands of the children that he and his fellow medics help during their stay. I pray that they will bring many smiles to the faces of the little ones :)

Hugs,
Rosina