A Visit With The Big Guy

Every year the Manistique Lion's Club has a breakfast with Santa. 

It is really our only opportunity to see the Big Guy because the nearest mall is two hours away and anyway this is always just so much fun.

 Duncan went first.  This is his "I'm feeling shy" look which resembles a sneer unfortunately.  He is a bit shy with people at first.

He got over it though.  He told Santa that he wanted a new pet just for himself.  His pet mouse recently died and he revised his entire list.  He wrote Santa a letter that said (in his spelling):

"From Duncan

Dear Santa, what I relly want for crismas is a new pet like one ginipig, two mice or 1 hamster

ps. you no wy I want a new pet is beacas all of my pets are dieing thats wy I want a new pet".

Santa looked at us rather nervously and asked him if there was anything else he wanted....  He added a DS game onto his list.

Now Sam is ever the optimist and will go up and hug complete strangers if he likes the look of them.  Beards come naturally to his liking of course.

Here he is thinking.....and he blurted out his hearts desire "I want a Bebi (His spelling) Gun"!

Santa replied "You'll shoot your eye out kid!"

Now, this was completely hilarious because we watched "A Christmas Story" the night before.  Duncan's jaw dropped to the ground and he shouted "thats what the Santa said in the movie last night!"  Every adult in the place within hearing distance roared.

I think perhaps Lila's body language says she feels a little awkward.  Our big girl is going to be Eleven very soon...but she still has room for Santa in her heart.

She asked for a VERY specific magazine.  I know that Santa will be very creative.

Yule Tree

Every year, Lila wants a big tree.  Fortunately, we have the ceiling to do it.

So, on to Anderson's tree farm in Newberry to choose the sentinel.  We found out this year that they have a whole section of trees that are over nine feet!  No more combing the entire place for the gigantor tree, now there is a whole field of trees tucked away, off the beaten path for us to choose from.  It made selecting the tree a snap this year.

 Of course that gave us more time for horsing around.  (Why horsing around?  Why not goating around or sheeping around?  But I digress).

Note the serious lack of snow.

Note the serious lack of gloves.  They were left in the car.

Will poised to pull the string and release the pent up tree energy.

Duncan in front of the tree for size comparison, though I can't off hand tell you how tall he is!  I think he is still just about four feet tall.  He is about three feet in front of the tree which ended up being about ten feet tall.  We can go about another two feet till we touch the slope of the ceiling, but because of that beam that runs across the living room it would have to be scooched over to the left which would impede our egress from the kitchen.  It also would be wider at the base and take up a significant amount of living room space as well.

So here she is in all her glory. Do you like my photographic skills?  Warm and fuzzy is what I call this picture.  Oh okay, I'll take another one later....

Waldorf Doll Making Frenzy

One does not ordinarily associate the words "Waldorf" and "Frenzy" together.

.  However, every holiday season I get wrapped up in making many Waldorf dolls in a short period of time. It isn't because I love dolls; in fact I was definitely a stuffed animal person as a child.  When I had children of my own, I decided that those plastic headed dolls were just too gross and bought Lila a waldorf doll.  Then Aunt Mary made her one.  Then I decided I too could do this...and made six dolls; three for our kids and one for each of my brothers daughters.  Then I thought, hey why not try my hand at this "commercially" and my Etsy shop "Wee Faerie Folk" was born. 

 I do really enjoy making these dolls for the children who receive them.  It is a very personal thing because each doll is custom made to their parents specifications.  They choose the skin tone (with 6 shades to choose from), the hair and eye color, hair texture and length, and favorite colors for clothes.  The dolls are stuffed with clean carded wool that I purchase from a family run mill (I used to use ours but there isn't enough from our one white sheep!).  The hair is mohair, and sometimes is handspun by me.  Last year I had a request for pink hair (she turned out very cute!) which I handspun and dyed.  The skin tone fabric is 100% cotton interloc.  Clothes are made from 100% cotton, though it is hard to find trim that is made from natural materials unfortunately.  Sometimes I find lovely old cotton lace at resale shops which I incorporate into the clothing.

These two dolls were custom made for a woman in Ottawa Ontario who wanted the dolls to look more like babies than toddlers.  The only pattern I have for a babydoll is a button jointed doll and I've found them to be much easier to tear apart than the traditionally sewn doll so I don't make them anymore.  So I needed to modify a pattern I usually use for these two.  I made their limbs and trunk chubbier and their heads slightly larger and rounder so they proportionally look more like babies.

These two dolls went to two sister in British Columbia.  It has been a pink dress kind of year!

This is one of my favorite pink fabrics.

The trim on this dress is some lovely old cotton lace that I scored at a thrift store.  I think I had about twenty yards of it to start with and I paid $2.00 for it.  It is priceless and I only have a few yards left.

I typically do about ten dolls each holiday season, which is just about all I can handle and then sometimes more than I can handle!  I've sent out six already, finishing up two right now, and have two more to go which are being hand delivered locally (fortunately).  Needless to say, I haven't been spending much time at the spinning wheel!

Happy Birthday Uncle Dan!

I've always loved this picture.

From left to right:  "Wee" Ian, The Birthday Boy, Dear Husband, and young Dan.

Hope you are doing something fun today dear brother!

Near Miss

A dear fellow fiber enthusiast and bunny lover friend of mine lives in Saulte Ste. Marie, MI. 

  Just before Thanksgiving she sent me these photos from her back yard:

These are the hutches for her English Angoras; all battened down for the winter and cold.

Do you see the black streak on the brown tarp?  That is melted plastic....

...caused by this streaking across it.  She found it not far from the bunny hutch on the ground, and it is approximately six inches long.  Yikes!  Good thing it didn't hit the hutch directly...I suspect not many bunnies are mortally wounded by meteorites but you never know I guess.