Shae Turns 11 and Other Stuff...

Shae's 11th birthday fell in the middle of a giant blizzard. But despite the storm, all 7 of the friends she invited turned up for a party at our house.
This is the "purse" cake Shae requested, along with some rather droopy divinity for her friend with celiac disease.


I can't believe how grown up she is getting. She's becoming a very mature young girl who is responsible and friendly. She cracks me up with her funny mannerisms and jokes and she's starting to develop strong interests in art and drama. She is busy rehearsing for her school Christmas play in which she has a lead role and that's been a lot of fun for her. She gets to play a Martha Stewart type character, I think it'll be pretty funny.


Shae has also decided she LOVES sock monkeys so for her birthday, I got her a sock monkey kit and I also knit her this hat:


Aside from celebrating Shae's birthday, we've also been busy around here with general Christmas busy-ness.

Here's Shae helping with the gingerbread cookies:


And the kids playing with their Grandpa on one of his work visits (Connor is on there too, behind Hudson!):

Hudson has started walking now and he's getting into all sorts of mischief/learning experiences. He loves to pull out the pot drawer, toss all the pots out onto the floor and then climb in himself. It's even funnier for me because Maira used to do the exact same thing at that age.

I've been busy over the past month or two with all kinds of sewing projects. Here are a few of the things I have made:

A pencil roll - I made one for Maira and one for my niece, Lilia.


I specifically chose the matrushka fabric for the roll because Lilia's dad, my brother, served his mission in Russia.

And this is a quilt kit I put together for my Mom (don't look Mom!) Not that she'll be surprised since she bought the kit a few years ago at the quilt store in Canmore (Sugar Pine Company), but hadn't got around to making it so she asked me if I would make it for her for a Christmas present:

Here's a hat I knit (I love cables!):And here are some pajamas I made for the kids:

This first pair is from a Michael Miller fabric called Bot Camp - it's such fun fabric because it's full of all kind of scenes of robots going camping, I love it.


And here is the first of 4 pairs of jammies I made for the kids to wear on Christmas Eve:
(Of course, the boys will be in blue, not pink!)

And speaking of jammies, Connor has decided lately that he wants to be a train robber when he goes to bed so this is the outfit he has decided he needs to wear to bed each night (the pajama bottoms even have trains on them):


And finally, a typical day with Hudson around:
Sadly, when I first found him here, he was actually inside the cupboard happily dumping cereal all over the place but when I laughed and ran for the camera, he crawled out. He gets into one mess after another - my time is spent leaving him be so I can get things done and then going to see what mischief he's been up to and cleaning up after it. And then repeat the process again. And again....