Mele Kalikimaka

...is Hawaii's way to say Merry Christmas to you!

Hope you have a great Christmas and a fulfilling, joyous New Year. See you next year!

Peace and Love,
MamaBee

Handmade holiday overload!

The crafting is (again? still? always?) going full-tilt 'round these parts. Yummy sugary things have been made...

...many child paintings have been completed (and then repurposed)...

...and the pile of sewing is slowly getting smaller.

After the traveling and the celebrating (and after these things are no longer surprises) I promise I'll show off some of the things I've been making. In the mean time, I'm off to crank up some festive music and sew and glue and bedazzle and package away!

First

Our first dusting of snow in State College. The holly looks so festive, so perfect for the season. (Note the oaks, still with a bunch of lower leaves, in the background. I wonder when they'll finally drop.)

Today we made a paper chain to countdown the days until Doodle's birthday and Christmas. This year she has declared that we should start decorating for Christmas before her bday, so we're putting wires on our stuffed birds (to perch them in our tree, once we have it) and glitter-gluing our assortment of collected cones (also for the tree). I'm enjoying the holiday crafting with Doodle, plus sneakily sewing some surprises for her after she goes to bed.

Here's to embracing the magic and the fun of December!

N.C. bound

Tomorrow we hit the road to North Carolina, where we will be spending Thanksgiving with J's uncle and his family. I've met this uncle once, and not yet met his wife or kids (college-age). I'm both excited and a tiny bit nervous, but I think it'll be really good.

Happy early Thanksgiving everyone!

Easter bunnies

My little Easter bunnies wish everyone a happy easter and a fun-filled spring.

Magic

I lay here on the couch
baby sound asleep on my chest
Christmas jazz on the radio.

My lover out shopping,
braving the stores for us, his family,
despite his intense dislike of consumerism.
We need rice.
He goes for us.

Doodle asleep in bed
after a long
boring
cooped-up sort of day
being sick, and tired,
and sick-and-tired
of us,
of waiting,
of this whole big sister thing.

I need to be more patient.
To embrace the fun
and the play of these holidays
without getting bogged down
in grown-up blah.
Sure, there's still a pajama shirt to sew
(in purple, her current favorite color)
and gift bags to make
and food to cook
and a house to keep

but they're only this age once.

I remember the magic
and excitement of this season
from my childhood.

I want that for them.

So there's gingerbread dough in the fridge,
with plans for super-special cookie making
and much more listening to favorite Christmas music
(though on cd or streamed from the computer,
rather than the vinyl of my youth.
I'll still sing with the Muppets
and hope that one day Doodle will sing along with me).

Back to playing,
back to focusing on the little things that can turn a day magical.
We need more of that.
More magic.
For us all.

Mother's Day

Happy belated Mother's Day to all you Moms!

My Mother's Day was wonderful. J and Doodle presented me with a selection of photos that J had printed out of Doodle and I, hanging out and having fun. It was nice to see photos of me being a mom, and remember all the fun stuff that we've done the past couple of years. Then J made me a delicious, fatty breakfast of eggs with mushrooms and onions, toast, bacon AND sausages. Mmm, fatty. Exactly what I wanted. After breakfast we gathered up our gear and headed up to Maple Grove Hot Springs for a few hours in the sun and warm water, soaking and relaxing. I love it up there. It's just far enough away that it feels like a getaway without it being a big deal to just go up for the afternoon. Plus it's beautiful and Doodle loves all the swimming and splashing.

(If you haven't been up to Maple Grove, you should totally go. Heck, tell me you want to go up there and I'll take you!)

We hung out for a few hours at Maple Grove in the warm spring/summer air, enjoying the pools and the wildlife (mostly bees, aquatic insects and territorial hummingbirds). We came home tired, hungry and sunburned, but loved it.

Thanks J and Doodle for a wonderful Mother's Day. I love you!

Easter-y fun

Here are some photos of our Easter. I didn't get any good ones of our busy, busy Saturday, but took a bunch on our much more mellow Sunday at home.

Grandma Sabrina made these awesome Easter gifts, all knitted! The basket/nest looks very realistic. So cool! Doodle loves them. (Bonus: the hatching chick also fits in some of the larger plastic eggs we have, so Doodle can make it hatch out of lots of things).

See? She loves it!

We started letting Doodle take pictures with the camera. This is J after the 8th photo in a row that Doodle took of him.

J and Doodle dyeing eggs.

The finished product (yes, we only dyed 7). Doodle working on opening a plastic egg found in the yard.

Groundhog Day

Punxsutawney Phil says we're in for six more weeks of winter?!

Damn groundhog.

Epic holiday drive

We're back from our holiday journey to the frozen north. It was fun to see family, but I am so glad to be off the roads.

Day 1 of our adventure: part of I-84 was closed. We decided to backtrack when the FedEx trucks were turning around. Lost a couple hours, but made it around the blocked area. Tried to help a guy get back on the road (too stuck - trooper called a tow truck). At least we got some snow-driving karma points. Drove on nasty, icy crap roads but made it to Boise.

Day 2: driving through Eastern Oregon. Hit a shady slippery patch on a downhill slope and spun/slid off the road. Used those karma points. Some nice guys stopped and helped us dig a path back to the road, one using a cooler lid as a shovel. Made it back on the road, and the rest of the drive to SE WA was relatively uneventful.

Time with my paternal grandparents: they loved seeing Doodle. She played, jumped, danced, and made great-grandma's antique glass reindeer nurse ("have mama milk" she said) on the mama reindeer. So cute.

Drive to my mom's: horrid. We left Xmas Eve, around 8:45pm. Slid off the road once, similar scenario to previous time. Got back on road easily. Now out of karma points. Kept driving in slick conditions. Nearly got runover by a speeding minivan, narrowly missing being rear ended by moving into the left lane. Pulled over at rest stop, chained up. Did you know that you can only go ~25 MPH with chains? And that, in doing so, it takes AN HOUR to go frickin' 25 miles?!?! Egad, that took forever. Rolled into Spo-town very late, where there was lots and lots AND LOTS of snow. Drove slowly through town, made it to mom's house by 3:45 am. Merry Christma...zzzzzz.

Christmas day: my sis flew in, only a few hours delayed. Hung out, played, had fun. Got a kick ass knitted purse from my sissy complete with snazzy quarter buttons. I *heart* it. That and my new tiger box (oh, don't worry...I'll post pics) made for a quirky, eclectic MamaBee Christmas. Doodle loved her photo book, J got his very first climbing nut... it was good. Ate lots of turkey, gravy and rice dressing. Yum.

Day after Xmas: Obligatory visit to maternal Grandma, where she gave Doodle a window-clingy stuffed animal with a tag identifying it's production date as 1990. Do other peoples' grandparents keep stuff like this around for 18 years? Followed this visit with a trip to the climbing gym. Doodle played on crashpads with Uncle T while J belayed my mom and sissy. Fun times had by all... though I do miss being able to climb with everyone. Maybe next year.

Following day: dug out the house. Massive roofalanches (snow falling off steep metal roof in large sheets) resulted in some damage to deck railing. J and my bro T dug out the deck while my mom got the snowplow stuck and unstuck plowing the driveway. Yes, my mom has to plow her driveway. Ugh. The snow was ridiculous. I dug out the mailbox area while Doodle was napping. At least we got to enjoy the hot tub.

The next day we were back on the road, this time via MT and ID. One good mountain pass and one nasty pass, plus a bunch further into Montana. Managed to psych myself out with dark and blowing snow while driving, so we stopped short of Butte for the night. Kept driving the next morning and it was pretty good. A stretch of road to Butte was slick, and just past the MT-ID border it turned to nasty blowing ugly snow. Gross. Made it past that, and the rest of the way home was great. We got home at a reasonable hour. No more snow driving karma points acquired nor required. Now completely sick of winter driving. Is it spring yet?

We were glad to spend time with family, introducing Doodle to my Uncles and hanging out with my loved ones. Hopefully, though, that'll be our last major winter trek driving all the way up north. Next time we have the holidays up there, we're flying.

Happy New Year, everyone!