gswarfield

As I mentioned before, Grant and I went to Houston for Christmas, and on Saturday night we left to go back to Austin. Sunday morning we picked up Matt and Megan from the airport. They decided to visit us for a week, and we were very excited. The first couple of days I had to work, Megan worked on some homework for Med school, and Matt and Grant Played computer games and just hung out. Megan was sweet enough to make dinner a few of the nights while I was at work so I didn’t need to worry about it.

One of the Days, Wednesday I think, Matt and Megan took us out to Outback Steak House here in Austin, and we all had Ribs. I thought they were excellent, and it definitley made for a fun trip trying to find this Outback.

Then after outback steak house, we took them out for Gelato Ice Cream at Mandola’s Italian Market. We had a blast, the guys working there were in such a good mood gave us so much ice cream that we had to take it home and freeze it, and the atmosphere here is just amazing!

This year was my family’s turn to have us over for Christmas, and next year we will brave the Ohio weather and see all of Grant’s family there. My family draws names for gifts, but I wanted to give other people gifts too, but we couldn’t afford huge gifts so I tried to be creative with what I gave. First and foremost, I have to be grateful that I have such an awesome husband who lets me do what I want most of the time. Also, while I was working on the following projects some of my other tasks fell behind like dishes, clothes, and just quality time. I was determined to finish all of my gifts before Christmas.

Here you can see what happens when I get into a “creative” mood. Everything becomes messy and crazy. Most of the time Grant loves it when I want to entertain myself because then he has time to play some computer games, but I became so busy and obsessed with finishing these crafts that he even told me he misses me which was nice and shocking to hear.

So this year it seems to me that EVERYONE is having babies. I know so many different people that are pregnant that I wanted to come up with a nice gifts that were not too expensive, so here is what I came up with.

I bought everyone some form of outfit, made a burp cloth for everyone, and some booties. I found the templates for the booties on this blog.

http://stardustshoes.blogspot.com/2006/10/cloth-shoe-pattern.html

The templates were very easy to use, and after my first prototype, I actually didn’t have very many problems with making them. I made them from flannel with a minky lining and a leather sole. I got a good deal with the leather because I bought a HUGE skirt from the thrift store made of suede which turned out to be the perfect amount.

Most of the gifts above, I could give to the people in person considering I was with most of the people during Christmas, but there were a few that I had to mail, and then people are still having there babies early and everything… They need to be following my schedule ;p

One of my coworkers actually had a baby shower, so I was able to give hers to her in person.

For a Christmas Gift, I made my two nieces a pair of house slippers each out of minky and suede. These were the most difficult things I ever had to make and broke about 4 leather needles along the way. They turned out great, only they ended up not fitting the girls which stunk because I will never make these again. I measured their feet multiple times,but the leather was thicker than I anticipated. I might make them cloth ones some time,but I need my break for a little bit.

Then for the rest of my family that aren’t little kids and cannot fit into the booties above, I decided to try a new recipe. I am a sucker for Truffles, so I looked up a recipe. They actually turned out very tasty and very pretty. It took a long time because I made 100+ truffles, but I would definitely make these again.

Here you can see the finished truffles. I got the recipe online and it worked out great after I tweaked a few of the ingredients.

Then last but not least, I made my mom some homemade cookie dough that I froze. This way she has two pounds of frozen cookie dough where all she has to do it cut them and bake them, and that was definitely easy and fun.

I hope that next year I will have as much success as I did this year, but we will see what everyone is doing then rather than having babies.

So most Saturday mornings, Grant and I get up around the same time, or I wake up before him since I normally wake up earlier because of my work schedule. Well, a few weeks ago before Christmas, I was sleeping in longer than usual, but woke soon noticing that my space heater = Grant wasn’t there anymore. I strain to hear what he is doing and only hear some banging. So, I come down stairs to an annoyed Grant because he was making breakfast for me so that I could have “Breakfast in Bed.” I thought this was awesome, but we decided rather than letting me near all of that food upstairs where it was almost inevitable that I would spill it on everything we compromised for the couch which was just as good!

Here you can see my tea and egg in a basket which he at first made fun of me for, but then decided that was really as good as it looked, and he still spent the time making it like that even though it is more time and effort than is really necessary since I can just as easily eat both of the separately.

Here are Grant’s pigs in a blanket that turned out GREAT. I also had some of those, but mainly my egg and toast. It is funny how little things like that make such a difference just to know someone cares enough to make you breakfast when cereal could have been enough. It was a great treat!