Portabellopixie

Before We Move on Too Far..

I'd like to share our Halloweeny-ness. 

As for the Moving On bit of the title, am I the only one that ran out Monday morning and started Christmas shopping? I don't skip Thanksgiving, but am of the opinion that some Christmas festivities only enhance Thanksgiving. We put up our tree that weekend, and I listen to Christmas tunes while I cook. This year especially I am so ready for it! 

 I'm working on the free ornament pattern for this year too, this ones going to be really fun. Here is last year's to refresh your memory.. 

 OK - my sassy orange shoes are a little witchy too.

 

We had a master Jedi this year - I am especially proud of this cape if I do say so myself.  I used some new-to-me sewing techniques that turned out really well.  The cloak had that swoosh factor that is just so necessary if you are going to claim being a mysterious galactical enforcer.

If anyone is interested in having a Jedi next year, I can put together a tutorial for it this summer.  Just let me know.

  

 
 
 And a mini-witch.  I actually stayed up all night after coming home from the hospital.  If you follow my twitter, you would have seen that we had a bit of a scare this last week.  I have a brother who has cerebral palsy and ever 5 or so years, he has a grand mal seizure.  It's a big thing, as he doesn't come out of them on his own.  Seizures are dangerous because if they aren't stopped soon enough, the person will stop breathing.  It's much more complex, but that the basic issue.  He had one last week and I spent the night with my mom in the E.R.  Please be grateful if your child is blessed with good health.  A parent just should not have to go through that.  He's doing much better now, home from the hospital and back to his 17 year old, teenage boy antics.  Thank you for your emails and prayers.

Anyway, my point is - I had planned on making Eliza's costume that night.  When I got home, I stayed up and pulled off a pretty good start to a Genevieve.  Good enough for her to wear to the parade at school, but certainly not warm enough to wear trick or treating, so we pulled out the witch costume from a few years ago.  

  

All in all, I'd say it was a successful year of trick or treating.  Our block was completely buzzing.  You know the scenes in the movies of hundreds of kids wandering the street?  I thought it was Hollywood, but that's what it looked like!  We went through TEN bags of candy in a hour and a half.  One of our neighbors had a bonfire and a full blown party going on in the driveway.  It was very fun.

And to make things even better, there wasn't a single bear out that night.  :)  I think they are off in la-la land now, catching up on their winter zzz's.

 
 

By the way, did you noticed we've upgraded the candy carriers from last year?

 
 

I hope you had a safe and happy time, and bring on the turkey and candy canes!!

xo

Sandi 

The Pixie and the Shark

Another year, two new Halloween costumes! I'm quite please with the results, seeing how I started them at 9:30 PM the night before Halloween. "Wing It" doesn't usually work for me, but happily, the "Wing It" heavens were smiling on me and Tinker Bell and the shark came to being just in time for the festivities. I even managed the bean bags and bean bag board I was in charge of for the school carnival. (Have I ever mentioned I joined the PTA? I am co-vice president. The other one is a dad and he blows me out of the water in terms of attentive vice president-ness.) Anyhow-I hope you all had a happy and safe Halloween! My kids have talked about thier costumes for approximately 2.5 months give or take a few days and when they finally had them in hand-Eliza flipped with joy and Ethan hands down refused to even touch his. Screamed bloody murder at the school carnival anytime I brought it near him. Happily, around 8:00 he decided (all of a sudden-is my kid the only one to do this?) that he was excited about the costume and put it on. We hurtled down the street for some rapid trick-or-treating!! Please don't feel sorry for the poor pixie with cold arms-it was SO warm this year!

By the way-for future pixie costumes, the top I did is from the Claire pattern.  I just added a little elastic casing to the bottom hem instead of the ruffle!

A Quick Jolt of Sugar

We're on our way out of town for the night (with the kiddos-romance saved for later) and I had to pop in really quick and post pictures of the Valentines Eliza and I created yesterday.  If there is ever a time for lacy and pink, it's Valentines Day!  All the others are the ones she recieved from her class party in pre-school.  It was super fun and easy.  We just used spray adhesive to attatch two cirles of fabric together.  Cut them in half down the center and glue them back together after mis-matching the fabrics.  Pop on a doily, some ribbon and a few candies and you're good to go!  Happy Valentines friends!

 

Post Christmas Post

Merry after Christmas everyone!  I've tried to get this post done, but was having too much fun playing with the pictures!  When we arrived at my dad's & Tammy's on Christmas Eve, they were getting plowed with snow.  A winter wonderland.  By the time Santa was ready to make his trip, there were roughly 4 feet of snow, so lots of options for fun photography.  Look at those icicles gracing the deck!  Here's a few shots of their home, tucked away in the Grand Tetons.

The one of Ethan is during the trimming of the very non-traditional Aspen Christmas tree.  A big 20-ft monster that was tipped on it's side while Dustin and my Dad attatched glass balls and surgical strobe lights.  (My dad is an orthopedic surgeon, you do the math.)

Christmas Eve at my dad's house always includes a play that is acted out by the kids.  This year it was directed by my sister and was entitled "Christmas in the Caribbean."

(Wouldn't it be nice to spend
Just one Christmas away?
In a place where your
Tongue doesn't freeze everyday?)

So on to the only part you all may be interested, the gifts I made.  ;)  (Thanks for bearing the family vacation pics.)  I made my pre-teen sisters aprons, as they are very in to cooking apparently.  My sister Shelbi (on the right) liked the apron, but I think maybe liked the wrapping better?

This is my dad and step-mom, Tammy.  You've heard them chatted up before, now you can have a visual!  They are the type that are down near impossible to shop for, and I always end up making something instead, which they like better anyhow!  This year it was a quilt, not my fabrics-I didn't have them yet.  Lot's of my favorites though.

The one thing that Eliza asked for was a Barbie-pink.  Not a pink Barbie, but a Barbie pink.  She got that, and a car to boot from Grandparents.  Lucky girl..Ethan's Santa request was a shark, which was fulfilled but somehow not pictured.  ??  A cool chomping shark that has been found snacking on Barbie-pink's and Barbie -green's heads.

For my sister that is headed off to college in a few days (you know, the one that's still alive) a fun scarf.  She has a thing for elephants and scarves, so this fit the bill.  It really was much cooler than this, lots more details, but I didn't get them in the shot!  Bummer.

Eliza got a happy box full of Ballet clothes which she promptly squeeled over and had to put on and dance for everyone there.  Ethan somehow ingested about 2 pounds of chocolate on Christmas day, I don't know where it came from but everytime I saw him he had a new piece!  See the ring around the mouth?

I hope your Holidays were just as joyful and happy.  Next post will bring a blog makeover, new music and a fun tutorial!  See you in the new year!

Sandi

The Christmas Dress

As promised, here is Eliza's dress.  As you can see, we went pink this year!  And I think it is entirely proper and festive.  She certainly prances around in it like it's Christmas!  This is going to be a short one since my family is also prancing around me to get going with the games and festivities.  We had the obligatory viewing of "It's A Wonderful Life" last night, church this morning and this afternoon will be a flurry of game playing and a big pot of spaghetti.  Not very festive, but it has somehow become a bit of a tradition whenever we all gather.  We're off tomorrow to my dad's shack in the middle of the woods where I hear they have about 4 feet of snow.  Fun, fun, fun!!!  I wish you all the best of happiness this Christmas and holiday season. 

I'll be back soon, hopefully with some great snow covered pictures to share!  Toasty noses, cocoa, the whole nine yards.  And then, you'll finally be able to see pictures of the presents I've been working on but haven't been able to share since my whole family reads the blog!

Plans go Awry

So on the day of my last post, my sister was on her way to visit with us for a while before we all headed to my dad's for Christmas.  That night we received a call from her saying she lost control of her car, sending it spinning out of control along the icy freeway.  She crashed and walked away with no injuries.  That night was a flurry of phone calls between my mom, my dad and me, trying to figure out exactly where she was, how to get her out of the freezing cold and what to do with her car.  All is well and she is nestled safely at Dad's, a little earlier than expected but safe all the same.

So the next day (yesterday) was a bit of a flurry, finishing up projects, making sure Jenni really was OK etc. etc.  We didn't make it out for our anniversary and didn't get our book.  That's OK again-it's still our tradition and we have a date scheduled tomorrow to make up for it.  Works out even better because National Treasure 2 comes out!  So we'll go get dinner, pick up our book, get some new clothes for Dustin's fancy promotion he got at work (!!), and go catch the movie.  Everyones still alive, traditions can be moved to other days.  :)

(Isn't my little marshmallow man the cutest??!)

I have been a little stressed out however so I went to get some comfort food for lunch.  While comfort food for some may be comprised of mashed potatoes and mac 'n cheese, I'm a little snoodier when it comes to food.  Sushi, water cracker, lemon peel cheese and fresh mozzarella.  YUM.

I came home to 2 happy deliveries.  One humongous stack of flooring for the living room, Merry Christmas me!  And even more exciting-a humongous stack of fabric from Michael Miller.  Hoooo-ray!  It's getting closer to being in stores, promise!  Give it a little bit longer and you'll be able to get your hands on it!  I'll be sewing up some fun projects that will be on the website in January to peek at.  There is a free quilt pattern that will be up soon.  Lots more things in the works-it will all be revealed in time.  Oh-and if you're thinking "Sandi-didn't you already have fabric?"  No, not really.  These pictures were taken from the final strike offs, pieces generally the size of dinner plates, so this is even the first time I've gotten to play with real fabric yardage.  5 glorious yards of each print-I think I'm in heaven!  Eliza certainly is enjoying herself.

Speaking of fabric and Michael Miller, Kathy just got back from a huge trip to Asia sourcing out new products.  Why I wasn't invited is beyond me, but her pictures are definitely pretty.  ;)  Go see!

I'll be back once more before we head out of town-you have to see Eliza's Christmas dress.  Soon...

Books of Love

Tomorrow is our 5 year anniversary.  Wow-has it really been 5 years?  It's almost silly to me to think back 5 years and how much has changed in that time.  I'm happy to report that marrying Dustin was a very wise decision on my part even if maybe not so great on his.  ;)  He puts up with a lot.  I'll spare you the mushy gushy's, but lots of love all around.  One thing I do want to share with you is this special tradition we have for our anniversary.  We buy a Christmas book.

It started the day after we were married.  We were married in Salt Lake City and stayed a few days there before traveling to our family's homes for Christmas.  We went shopping and ended up in a bookstore and saw the pretty stack of Christmas books they had.  We started flipping through them and I found "I Believe in Santa Claus".  What a beautiful book.  It parallels Santa Claus to Christ and reminds us what this fuss is all truly about.  We had to get it.  We decided right then and there that we would make a tradition of it, and would add a new book to our collection each year.

I can't tell you how I've come to love this!  When the Christmas books start hitting the racks, we keep our eyes peeled and start thinking about what book we will add.  The second year it was a lovely copy of The Night Before Christmas.  The year we became parents it was "You are my Miracle."

Perhaps my favorite (OK-tied with "I Believe in Santa Claus") is "A Christmas Dress for Ellen."  I have yet to read this book and not end up in tears.  Which says a lot-I'm not a generally teary person.  Every time I read it I think " I've read it 20 times, surely I won't cry this time."  Nope-every time.  Another truly feel good back to the basics Christmas story.  It's true as well, and actually took place in a town an hour from here.

So tomorrow we will go search out a new book and celebrate the best 5 years of my life.  We don't have a book planned this year as we haven't been out and about that much.  We've done hardly any shopping which I'm not stressed out about at all.  Lot's of homemade happiness on it's way to our loved ones this year.  The result of having all my projects turned in and a month of quiet time.  It's been the most relaxed Christmas I can remember.

I hope you are faring well too, and instead of toasting my creativity today, maybe thank my husband for being the most supportive spouse I've ever encountered.  This all wouldn't be possible if not for him.

Happy

Happy Platter

Happier Platter

Even Happier Boy :)

Recipes:

Peppermint Pinwheels

SOOO worth the effort, I used peppermint extract instead of the creme de mente because I couldn't find it and they are divine.  Make a double batch, they freeze perfectly!

White Chocolate Cherry Shortbread Cookies

I will be making these every year from now on-beyond good!!  And actually really easy for the fancy they look.

The chocolate ones weren't very good, so I'm not linking that recipe.  ;)  The chocolate nugget type things are more peppermint marshmallows dunked in melted Andes mints.  Sooo yummy!

(The individual cookie recipes are snagged from the recipes-sadly they are much better than my late night, end of cookie day baking, no natural light, flash filled pictures.  What can I say?  I knew they wouldn't last until the next day-did you see the hungry boy?)

Enjoy!

All in a Twitter

This is the first year that I think Eliza will remember Christmas.  She is sooo excited and it is adorable!  All she does is prance around the house singing Christmas carols and clutching Barbie in the Nutcracker.  (By the way-if you have a little girl and haven't checked out the Barbie movies, you are missing out!  They are clean, wholesome and very non-bratty.  ;)

So-back to Eliza's twitter-pated happy Christmas joy.  I couldn't be happier-she asks everyone what they want for Christmas and continues and lets them know that we give presents at Christmas to celebrate Jesus' birthday.  Pretty good for a 3 year old, we'll take it.  Can't you just see her joy in the pictures?

Here is her "out and about" Christmas outfit.  I generally make her a fancy dress and a more whimsical one to wear through the month.  The pretty ruffle trim is from Michael Millers new line of trims.  SO much fun to play with!  I have a big stash of it that I got a little early due to my fortunate "in" there, but it should be hitting stores soon!

If you're feeling sorry for Ethan's lack of Christmas attire, don't be.  He's getting his share of hand made Christmas happiness in the form of a tipi which he will flip over.  Talk to you soon!

Sandi

Pretty Progress

Yesterday I tried my hand at homemade marshmallows!  I followed Heather's link to here.  This was the first exploration I've had into candy making and they turned out quite fab if I do say myself.  It's really not that hard of a process actually.  :)  I substituted 1/3 of the sugar with crushed up candy canes, and mixed in some more after they were poured.  After a bath in chocolate, these are my new best friends.  Especially when coupled with a cup 'o cocoa.  Seriously good eats.  Perfect for present wrapping time.

Oh how I love to wrap presents.  Ribbons, bows, paper, tape, some good Christmas music or movie and I am one happy camper.  It's part of that joy centered around Christmas-the excitement of picking out a perfect gift for a loved one, wrapping it up and then keeping it secret for 3 weeks.  Check out this super cool paper I got at Shopko the other day.  I haven't seen paper this fab ever!  Run run run before it's all gone!  They had it in red too.  :)

I hope your preparations are going well and you aren't stressing out!  We'll talk again soon!  Sandi