Today's Project ~ The "Craft Project" Shelf

I seem to be of the impression that all the problems in our life (or at least in our house) can be solved by adding another shelf..  Don't believe me, check out this post, or maybe this one, which included two shelves,  or this one that's not technically a shelf, but it serves a similar purpose.

...anyway.  We've been using the window ledge over the tiny table as our "drying area" for Parker's craft projects.  The only problem is that it's not super big, not entirely out of Cecily's reach, and my windowsill is now covered in glitter.  So, I came up with the idea for this one:

One could ask why we need such a large area for drying craft projects.  Mostly, it has to do with Parker's glitter-glue application process.  Which essentially involves squeezing the entire tube of glitter glue into a gigantic blob.  (Thank goodness for the $1-store, they sell 8 tubes for a dollar.)

That much glitter glue takes several days to dry, hence the need for a drying shelf.

I love it, so far it's working out great!

2013 Christmas Card

Finally got the last two Christmas Cards in the mail today.  Better late than never, right?  For anyone we missed, our annual Christmas Letter:

Merry Christmas from the Kruger family!

So, I believe that the traditional method of writing a Christmas letter is to first review last year’s letter to see how much has changed over the year.  I haven’t bothered to look up last year’s letter, but I can tell you that 2012 could have been summed up as “We had a baby, she cries a lot, I think she hates us.”  Fortunately, sometime in mid-December of last year we discovered the miracle that is baby-Zantac and over night Cecily changed from a super-cranky baby who cries all the time to a fairly-cranky baby who cries 80% of the time.  When I write it out like this, it doesn't sound too impressive, but it was a major break-through in this house.  Since then, Cecily has slowly, but steadily, evolved into a happy little girl.  She continues to be the polar opposite of her big brother; in all the ways that Parker is cuddly and easy-going, Cecily is feisty & independent.  When she is happy, her face nearly breaks in two with her smile; when she is not happy, you can hear her screaming across town, and she’s been known to switch between the two with lightening speed.  Cecily started walking in October and she has not looked back; once she figured out the basic mechanics of it, she was determined to walk, no manner how many face-plants that required.  This girl is a teeny-tiny firecracker and I am equal parts excited and terrified to see how she turns out as a bigger kid.

Parker turned three this August, he continues to be a fairly easy-going little guy, although he seems to have embraced the “tantruming-threes” with both arms.  We had a rough month or two this summer where Parker gave up binky and taking naps in the same day, replacing both with screaming & tears. But he seems to have calmed down a little now and most of the time he’s pretty happy (as long as you’re okay with him wearing his jammies 24/7, which it turns out, I am).  Parker loves being a big brother, he loves helping take care of Cecily and kissing her boo-boos when she falls down (often because he pushed her, but she knocks herself over frequently enough as well).  His most frustrating moments are when little-miss-independent refuses to play with him, so I’m working on teaching him the fine art of playing hard-to-get.  Because of our schedule this year, we haven’t signed Parker up for PreSchool this year, but he is extremely eager for school, so we might start him up in January…if his Mama ever gets around to looking into it.  For now, he loves playing with his friends at MOPS and church several days a week. He has turned into a little chatter-box, it can take him a few minutes to warm up to a new situation, but after that he is non-stop jabber-jabber.

Keith continues to work at the same engineering firm downtown.  His job has been evolving away from actual engineering to more management, and he’s learning to appreciate the change. Keith’s company has weathered the rough economy over the past few years well and they continue to be busy with more work on the horizon.  Fortunately, Keith has found a pretty good balance of working the long hours while still being home for dinner and playtime with the kids most nights, for which I am extremely thankful. Parker has become obsessed with all things construction, so Keith has taken him to a few of his construction sites, which is pretty fun for both of them.  Keith continues to ride his bike, but in the few years we’ve been living in Shoreline, he’s become more of a fair-weather rider; once you stop riding in the rain, it’s pretty hard to go back, and I’m okay with that. Parker & Keith love their Saturday afternoon bike rides together, and now Cecily is starting to get in on it as well.

I continue to stay home with the kiddos.  Some days I love it, some days I question my sanity, and most days are some combination of the two.  The past two years have been rough with a sick pregnancy and then a very colicky baby, but Cecily has settled into a more manageable temper and I really enjoy being home with my two little ones.  This September, I took over the Coordinator role for our MOPS group at church.  I’ve enjoyed working with my team and it’s a nice outlet for my control-freak nature, since the kids allow very little of this at home. I haven’t had much time for crafting this year, it seems like one or the other child is demanding my attention at all times.  But, I got a serger for Christmas last year, and 6 months later, I finally figured out how to make the blasted thing work, so I have great hopes for more sewing projects…eventually (like after they go off to college, maybe).  Although, at the moment I’d be happy for four straight hours of sleep. I do enjoy taking way too many photos of our kids, and if by some miracle, you’re not already bored of hearing our family updates this far in the letter, there’s always more on our blog: www.MeanderingJulie.blogspot.com.

This summer, we convinced our families to all head down to Sunriver, Oregon for a week of vacation.  We had Keith’s entire family plus my parents & Jared; all told we had 11 adults & 5 kids.  We had a great time swimming, riding our bikes, and going out for ice cream.  In the week we were there, Parker went from terrified of the water to splashing around all by himself, with just the life jacket holding him.  We had great meals, fun times with the family, and little-to-no sleep…the sign of a proper family vacation, right?

In family news, both sets of Grandparents have sold their respective houses this year and moved to within miles of each other in Mill Creek.  It has been SO great to have Keith’s folks closer by to help watch the kids (they both love to visit Grandma). I expected to be more emotional about my parents moving out of my childhood home, but it turns out that the hassle of moving is enough to kill any sentimentality I might have had for the house (and I only helped a few days, I’m pretty sure my Dad will be happy to never see the place again!).

We hope that this letter finds you well with prayers for a Merry Christmas and a Peaceful New Year!

With love from the Krugers:

Keith, Julie, Parker, & Cecily

Santa Photos

The best we've gotten in the past three years:

 

 

Check out the look she's giving Santa:

 

This is the closest Parker has ever gotten to Santa since he was a baby.

Christmas Morning

All December, Parker has been asking for "a teddy bear like Cecily's".  I tried to convince him he wanted one similar to Cecily's, but no, he insisted on a teddy bear "zactly like Cecily's".  So, we now have two identical brown teddy bears.  I added a tie to Parker's so we can tell the difference.

Christmas Eve Dinner

For Christmas Eve evening, we had Keith's family plus my parents & Jared over for dinner.  We all met at the Christmas Eve service then everyone headed over to our place for the Hamilton tradition of pizza & ice cream.

We had a great time; there was a lot of pizza eating, wine drinking, and cup cake consuming.  By the end of the evening we were stuffed, Parker & Wesley had ransacked the basement, and I'd taken about three photos.  We were having way too much fun to bother with the camera.

Christmas Gifts

So after making Christmas gifts for all the cousins over the past few years, this year I resolved to not make any hand-made gifts this year.  No 3-to-5 year old really wants a hand-painted anything, they want toys that come in shiny boxes from Target.  So, this year, I resolved to just go for toys in shiny boxes from Target (or Top Ten Toys and Amazon, to be accurate).  But somehow, I still ended up making a bunch of hand-made gifts anyway.  I appear to be some sort of glutton.

Keith's Mom asked for a knitting bag with feet.  I don't knit, I've never knit, and I haven't the slightest idea what a knitting bag is, but for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to make this for her.

Keith made the frame and I designed & made the bag.  It turned out surprisingly cute, there are even pockets for her needles & scissors.  But...  You can't tell this from the photos, but the whole thing is, what the word?  ENORMOUS!  I'm not sure she wanted a knitting suitcase with feet, but that's what she's getting.

Cecily needs a piggy bank.  This is one of those projects that started out so innocently, I looked for one at a craft fair, but I couldn't find a cute one.  So then, I decided to buy a blank one & paint it myself, but then I thought that might turn out to require buying a ton of supplies, so I thought I'd just go to one of those pottery painting places & do it there.  Then, I saw this guy at the $-store (only in pink).

This may turn out to be the most annoying $1 ever spent, it took about 10 coats of purple paint to get the guy covered, and you have to jam the stopper out with a skewer through the coin slot.  We'll see how long it lasts.  But it should up the glitter-factor in Cecily's room by about 1000%.

These signs were an idea that Keith actually came up with last year (our friends have something similar), but we didn't have time to execute them last year.

I actually started this project in early-October, but just put the finishing touches on a few days ago.  We went through several different ideas for how to do it.  The final product isn't exactly what I'd hoped for, but I seem to be the only person who doesn't think they're perfect.

So, I did break the "shiny-boxes-from-Target" rule for a few kid gifts:

Fiona was a yellow dinosaur for Halloween, so I figured she'd enjoy being one the rest of time too.

I was planning to make a dinosaur sweatshirt for Cecily also, but ended up with something more like a purple lion:

I made capes for most of the cousins several years ago.  I think I even cut one out for Parker, but then I got pregnant and everything went out the window.  So, this year I finally made one for Parker: 

But for the best part, check out the fabric:

What's not to love about construction dinosaurs?

Christmas Eve with the Hamiltons

We went to Auntie Rosemary's condo again for Christmas Eve brunch this year.

There are now 7 total Hamilton cousins and five are under four.  It's a pretty fun morning.

Sometimes I still think it's crazy my brother Doug has a kid, but he sure loves being a Dad.

Adam is the newest member of the family, born in February:

Merry Christmas - Part I

Brian & Sandi were up for pre-Christmas, so we celebrated the Kruger-Christmas (Part 1) on Saturday.

I'm not sure what Piper was asking for, but who can say "no" to that face?

One good picture of Sandi:

One good picture of Cecily:

If I had better PhotoShop skills, maybe I could have combined the two.

Parker & Wesley ended up in matching jammies, those two are a force to be reckoned with when they are together!

The Needs gave Parker a new backpack; Cecily spent the rest of the night screaming, pointing at Parker and then pointing to her back.  I sure hope Santa gets her a back pack!