Ice Luminaries in action

This is one of the first luminaries I froze, but then I spaced out and set it on the front porch, which is south facing, so it had sun shining on it for several hours. It did this interesting craze as it melted, even though the air temperature stayed below freezing all day.

 

I made several more after that and they were pretty decent since the temperature had stayed around zero to ten degrees for almost a week. I thought I was on a roll for having a bunch for Christmas Eve and night. No such luck. The temperature warmed up to the mid-thirties for the several days and I pretty much lost all of the ones I had made already.

 

I persisted as the temperature went back down in time and made some more. I was able to still have some out and ready to go before dark on Christmas day.

 

So by dark when we were having dinner with our friend it was all shiny!

 

Winter Wonderland Coffee Swap Package

I received my WWCS package from Ingrid on Christmas Eve. I sent her an email right away to thank her, but want to give her a public thanks for such a wonderful package.
Sorry about the flash on the yummy Caribou Coffee Chocolate Mocha bars. There is also some tasty Kona Coffee plus playing cards from Alaska where she lives. Those are a good addition because we play Liverpool Rummy when we have enough people and it takes two to three decks for a game.
This is what was inside the wrapping paper. More coffee, a mug, and two skeins of very exotic yarn. I love the Zoo Yarn and am going to have to come up with something special to make with it. I even get to know the names of the animals it came from! The card with Linus on it is pretty awesome too. I get to hear Linus reading the passage from Luke's gospel from A Charlie Brown Christmas when the card is opened. I love this card, along with everything else! Thank you so much Ingrid!

Snow and Water Cat

Because I have had a couple of family members ask for more pictures of Oribel in general and in particular in the snow, this is a bunch of pictures of said cute subject matter. (I did kind of start this blog to share pictures with the far away family folks after all. Not their fault it has fallen more into the realm of random knitting stuff and swaps. Poor people.)

She really seems to love going out in the snow to play.

 

I am really beginning to think that her fascination with running water could be a problem.

Traditions

I thought I would just take a bit to share two of my favorite family Christmas traditions. The first one is about presents and when they get opened. Neither Hubband or I grew up in families that opened presents on Christmas Eve so we didn't really need to do any figuring out of when to open said gifts. However, there was an established "putting the baby to bed" routine before the first one was even a year old. The standard stuff of pajamas, last drink, mouth cleaning, and a bedtime story/book reading. Yes, I have had people ask me how old my kids were when I started reading out loud to them. The first one, about three or four days. The second, well before she was born she had an older sibling reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears to "the baby in your tummy" complete with showing my tummy the pictures every day.
Anyway, back to traditions. There are a lot of really cool children's books about Christmas out there and though libraries are some of my family's best friends, I do believe in buying books. Especially cool children's picture books. Thus a new tradition began in our family. Every year we get a new Christmas book, the kids get to open it on Christmas Eve, and it is their bedtime story for the night. The Christmas "bed-time" story still gets read to them by their dad. Why him? Well, that is part of the tradition. If he's going to have to finish reading it when I get all choked up while reading it, he might as well start it.

Our other major Christmas tradition is to sing Happy Birthday to Jesus and have birthday cake for breakfast. That tradition has been in our family at least since my mom was little girl, but maybe since my grandmother was a child. I know Mr. A and his brother were singing Happy Birthday this morning too, and I would guess my cousin and his kids were as well.
Happy first day of Christmas!

Finial SP 11 package

Today I got my finial Secret Pall 11 package. Once again my pal has sent me some wonderful gifts as well as finding out who she is! Cordelia sent me more beautiful yarn, a Nancy Bush sock book, stitch markers, and a handmade hot mitt. There is also some "made in Texas" salsa, chocolate, and a photo frame ornament. Some of the stuff is a bit crowded in this picture and hard to see, but I promise, it is all nice stuff!
Here is a better picture of the book, Knitting Vintage Socks and the lace-weight wool and stitch markers. I am looking forward to reading all about how Nancy Bush dissected old patterns and reconstructed them for today's yarns. Well, and finding sock patterns that I want to knit from it. The Salsa is already being enjoyed by all of us, since both girls are home from college as of last night!
So a big public "Thank You" to Cordelia, such a wonderful upstream partner!

She loves it!

DTY really loves her scarf (she keeps telling me so with a cute grin!).




She seems to really like Oribel too.

Why does she keep giving the fish a coaster?

Maybe Oribel thinks it is a rug and it will really tie the room fishbowl together.

A hat for Miss E

It is too small for "The Head" (which really is adult sized).



It is a bit too big for the baby doll (which is a really bit smaller than a real baby).


But I am thinking it will fit my friend Ms. P's new granddaughter Miss E just fine.

 

Hat particulars: Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitting Workshop Heart Hat. Hat knit double stranded on US #8 circular and US #7 double points for single stranded I-Cord and bind off. Knit in Blush and Light Sage Green Lion Brand Microspun. This is the second time I have made this hat and it won't be the last! It is a great pattern and knits up really fast.

I know it is cold outside, but this is ridiculous!

We have had turkeys wandering about in our yard for, well, several years, but here is what they looked like this past September gathered around eating.
Drinking out of the bird bath. (I am sure we will have pictures next spring of more baby turkeys. Just can't find any pictures from this past spring when they were cute little fluff balls.)

 

Here they are, wandering about in the snowy yard.
Yep, they are pretty much here year round.

 

This is a slightly more recent view from Hubband's "office" window. They definitely seem to be moving in closer.
DTY says we wouldn't have this problem if we hadn't moved the bird feeder up here. She may have a valid point.

 

However, if they start knocking to come in out of the cold, I might actually let the dogs out! (Yeah, I am seriously thinking about turning the bird bath into a turkey feeder, out in the yard, for the winter!)
(Oh, BTW- Bloggger fixed their problem and we are back to the proper way of "click on the picture to see it bigger.")

Ice update

Today I was able to find the link that I wanted to give you yesterday for the ice luminaries. Go here for some decent images of how you would make your own (even if you don't use their mold).