nursebabs’ Neighborhood

I finished it just in time!  This is my first quilt, done without a pattern.  I'm very pleased with the results!!  I hope everyone is having a good holiday! 

much love,
Amy

Originally published at Creative Thoughts. You can comment here or there.

Sorry I haven't updated in a millennia, i've been working on this quilt for my parents, non-stop for a week.  and when I wasn't quilting I was preparing for an INTERVIEW!  That's right people, I actually got an Interview, and it went really well!  The job is with the school district and I'd be helping mostly at-risk high school kids stay on, or get on track to graduate, and get kids who dropped out back in school.  right up my alley right?  Last I heard they were checking my references so it sounds good!  All I want for Christmas is a job with benefits.

here is the quilt in progress.

80"x80" denim

Originally published at Creative Thoughts. You can comment here or there.

Today was one of those magical days, filled with snowmen (even a snowcat), baked cookies, hot chocolate and time well spent together.

We had a snow storm last night that left us with just enough snow, of the sticky sort to roll some snowmen! Our neighbor had started before we headed out this morning and the kids had a blast playing with her. She has to be the coolest 12 year old ever! She always plays and entertains the kids with her amazing ideas.

Cordelia even came out, riding on my back. Hurray for babywearing! She was all comfy and cozy, giggling like crazy at the kids and the neighbor's dog that came out to play. It was fun to be able to include her.

This afternoon, as I stitched like mad to finish up some Christmas presents we are delivering tomorrow to friends, J & Becca baked up some cookies for us to share. Ethan and Cordelia kept me company and I finally completed the handmade gifts. I hope the kids like them. I get so nervous! Hopefully before we head out tomorrow I can take some pictures ('cause you know I still have to wrap them!)

It was truly a great day.

Tomorrow we head to friends and J escapes to work for a few hours. I am so excited for Christmas this year. We have our three amazing children, each other, a great house and so so much love.

Are you ready for the holidays? Enjoying the time so far?

Originally published at Creative Thoughts. You can comment here or there.

Becca's teeth are still hanging  in there. I am so surprised I thought for sure by now we would have had a visit form the Tooth Fairy. Instead today we welcomed Cordelia's first tooth!

Can you believe it? Already! The girl is growing up way too fast for my liking. Thankfully she takes after her big sister and the tooth appeared without pain and suffering (unlike her older brother, he was tortured by teething!) It is the right tooth on the bottom that has broken threw but not up yet.

It is cold here. -20 C with the wind chill (and that so totally counts when walking to school!) I am so excited that today was the last day of school! YAY Christmas holidays.

I knit a pair of Bella Mittens for Ms B, Becca's teacher. I hope the mittens will keep her hands toasty! I am still in the process of knitting, sewing and the like for Christmas. I am so not leaving it this late next year.

Ethan has not been feeling well as of late. He is very clingy, sensitive and teeters on the edge of crying a lot. It is so not like him. I am hoping it will pass soon.

The kids are beyond excited for Christmas. I can hardly wait to have everyone home, celebrating the season together. Times seems so precious.

Originally published at Creative Thoughts. You can comment here or there.

Have fun with more Wordless Wednesday.

Originally published at Creative Thoughts. You can comment here or there.

Been busy celebrating and preparing for Christmas. We are so used to our quiet low key lifestyle, that concerts, parties, shopping and all that jazz really seems to consume so much of us.

It however, all quickly approaching the big DAY! I am sadly disorganized. I am knitting, sewing wrapping, humming, cleaning, cooking, baking (hopefully soon) all in a frenzy. I call it Christmas High. It is fun and stressful.

I vow not to leave so much to the month of December.

I want to be able to sit back and enjoy the season with the kids rather than feeling frenzied.

This is Becca's last week till her Christmas vacation starts. I can hardly wait to have her home! Two weeks of all of us being together, going for walks, reading, playing and enjoying each other. J will be able to take some time off too so it is an extra bonus.

Are you still creating presents for Christmas? Still shopping?

Originally published at Creative Thoughts. You can comment here or there.

We had a whirl wind of a weekend. Cordelia and I were sick but slowly recovered.

Nothing serious just a cold.

We have started celebrating Advent with little activities each day, quietly anticipating Christmas. We set up our little tree that looks more and more pathetic each year. This little tree has come along for the ride with our family for 10 years! Someday we will upgrade to a bigger, fuller tree.

We are totally excited to attend our first school concert this week. Becca has been practicing daily, bringing out her guitar and belting out the songs they learned for the concert. It is so cute! She sings "Oh Canada" a lot too ... with vigor and pride that cannot be surpassed!

Ethan had his eyes checked today. Becca's strabimus (the reason she wears glasses, her eye turns in) *may* be hereditary so Ethan was screened early. His eyes are perfect and he was such a good boy with the testing and doctor!! He was absolutely unimpressed with getting his eyes dilated. They had given him some Bob the builder stickers and he kept muttering "Can't see Bob! Can't see Bob!"

Cordelia is growing and changing so quickly. She absolutely adores standing in her excersauser watching the kids play. She grabs toys, hair and everything she can grasp. She is constantly amazing me with her smiles, wit and development.

I still have so much to do to prepare for Christmas. Every year I vow to be more organized and every year I am so not. I am going out with a friend to go shopping this week so hopefully I can finish up. We are not even spending that much this year and I am still behind!

How are your Christmas preparations going?

Had to upload it to youtube this time!

 

At least his bedding will be clean soon, even if he isn't....

Reasons I Am Buying Less At Trader Joe's

or

Items Trader Joe's Has (Apparently) Discontinued

in no particular order other than the most heartbreaking is first (also you might notice a theme)

• Mexican Hot Cocoa Cookies--I told the cashier last year that I loved these so much I wanted to marry them.  Then I wrote Trader Joe's and told them that, and they said they were a seasonal item.  And they didn't bring them back this season.  I want to punch them in the face for this alone.
• Pierogies--these had become rather a staple for me over the last year or 2.  I'm not sure if they have been discontinued but I haven't seen any in a few months.
• Hot chocolate mix in the round blue can--okay, they have the sipping chocolate which is good, and this one I can live without but still, just another turn of the thumbscrew.  Saw it 12/10 on the shelf.
• Chocolate yogurt--the kind with the real cocoa in the bottom that you mixed up and it was all delicious and shit, not that Eurotrash crap in the smaller container they try to shove off on you.
• Cookies with Perks--the chocolate chip cookes with espresso chips (or espresso flavored cookies with chocolate chips?).  Haven't seen them since probably last winter or spring.  Bastards.
• Milk chocolate cocoa almonds (are you getting the theme yet?)--now they have the black cocoa almonds, and they are pretty good, though unless you eat them with a spoon or chopsticks it's like you just read 100,000 newspapers (okay, newspapers that taste like chocolate, but still, it's messy!)  Now---90% of the time I prefer dark chocolate, but this is one of the few exceptions (one of the others is the milk chocolate covered McVitie's digestive biscuits which I haven't had in years but I would probably sell a kidney for a packet right about tomorrow).  Would it be SO WRONG to have both?
• I didn't check for it this time because I bought some at the regular supermarket since I couldn't find it at Trader Joe's the last couple times, but if they have discontinued their frozen broccoli florets I'm gonna bust up the joint.
• I don't think they have discontinued them (YET) but their sea salt brownies were really delicious until they lightened up on the sea salt.  Now they are just bland.
• I didn't see the little chocolate mint cookie clusters.  They were so good that I can't even remember what they were. They were in a brown and dark pink round container, like a pint of ice cream, like Thin Mints or something, all crumbled up and covered in chocolate, maybe?
• Also I haven't seen the dark chocolate toffee squares I've become rather addicted to, in a while.  I bought some in September to bring on vacation.  I have one left in front of me.

There are probably other things but it's probably like regular food that doesn't stand out in my mind like chocolate stuff.  I will add things as I recall them.  I know my neighbor was pissed about some croissants they discontinued, maybe almond croissants.

They are discontinuing stuff I like but not replacing them with anything as good or better.  Are my tastes that eclectic?  Do all the rest of the Trader Joe's customers have bland ass taste?

Oh--the first thing I ever had from Trader Joe's, before I lived near one, were these little chocolate animal cracker type cookies (my sister had them at her house when I was babysitting once and I wanted to eat the whole thing).  They weren't chocolate covered or anything, they were like chocolate butter cookies that melted in your mouth.  And they replaced them with something BLAND.

I seriously was planning on buying 10 boxes of those Mexican Hot Cocoa Cookies. And next trip I would have bought 10 more.  I'm completely serious.  I was going to stock up so I could have them at least through the spring.  Or till New Year's.  Or till I OD'ed on them, or at least till I vomited.

Quit breaking my heart, Trader Joe.  You are getting to be evil and sadistic, getting me hooked on this stuff and then yanking them out from under me, without warning, before I can stock up and buy out every store in the area.