Knitted finger puppets

Our family tradition is to make homemade gifts for Yule, which is Dec 21st. It usually ends up being me on my own creating gifts for everyone but Tim is starting to get into it and the kids are a bit too now.

Last year I asked my son, aged 7 1/2 yrs at the time, what he would like me to make. Since the last thing I wanted to do was go through all this time and work to have it be completely unappreciated. He asked for finger puppets and being the knit lover that I am I scoured the internet in search of patterns. I finally found a spiderman that someone had created and that was the jumping off point for all the superheros and supervillans that Quinn loves to play with.

Batman was the most complicated since I made a cape that I attached on afterwards. These little guys were surprisingly quick to create and alot of fun to design.
They aren't technically finger puppets since they fit 2 of my fingers about 3 of Quinn's but he seriously loves them. This really surprised me but I guess he thinks they are really cools because they are superheros, Actually now that I look at these pics again I remember I did Spidey first and he was really tricky because of all the switching of colours to make his suit. Spidey and Venom I embroidered on their spiders and the eyes were embroidered on everyone. Venom has this weird long red tongue so I tooks some red yarn and looped it through his embroidered fangs and braided the yarn so it sticks out, perfectly! So there you have it Spiderman, Batman, Hulk in his purple shorts and Sandman and Venom.

For this year Quinn has requested Iron Man, Ghostrider and of course all the Star Wars characters from the new Clone Wars movie. It's going to be a lot of late night knitting...sigh.

Chilly Night

I am sitting in front of a wonderful smelling fire that is keeping my feet toasty but my bedroom will be of course ice cold. I love the woodstove but wish I had an electric blanket to at least take the frost off the sheets before I climb into bed.

Don't get me wrong I love a cool bedroom to sleep but on the really cold nights I tend to go to bed shivering and wake an hour later shaking with chills, no amount of blankets seem to be enough. I've started the habit of wearing a zipped hoodie over my flannel pjs to and wear the hood up so I keep my head warm.

Maybe I should wear one of my hats to bed!

The weather is throwing some nasty snow and rain at us right now and there is a prediction of no buses tomorrow, the kids, of course, are ecstatically hopeful that this will happen.

My week is going to consist of coming up with creative games and decorations for Leah's 11th birthday party this Saturday. I also need to take a run to Belleville to gather loot for the party goers, grab a couple of xmas gifts that are currently on sale (hopefully there will be some left after the weekend shoppers!) bake a cake, clean, and decorate. I'm a sucker for a theme party and Leah has requested a wizard, witch magical party. So we've decorated our spare room with fabric and black lights for the oracle that is coming to tell the students their future. It's actually Leah's Gramma that is doing the honours and doning a hat, cape and veil to add to the mystery.

I've been drapping blue xmas lights and halloween purple/orange lights all over the rec room to give it a more dramatic look. Next the streamers, and a few balloons. I also need some games that aren't too boring for the discriminating 11 yr olds that are coming and keep them out of trouble. Leah really wants me to create clues or riddles that they'll have to figure out to find different locations to get the next clue that will eventually lead to the "treasure". This is going to take some serious brain power and concentration for me to come up with good riddles. Tim is so much better at this but he is buried in his storyboard work right now so I'm not going to bother him.

Well it's getting late so I should wander off to my chilly bed. I have alot to get done and if the are kids running a mok tomorrow that will definitely complicate things. Eek! Did I mention that it's recycling day tomorrow, so much stuff to bundle and get to the curb, the fun never ends!

Waiting for the Bus

The school bus comes by our house any where from 8:50 to 8:55 to 9:05 am when it's really late. Well on Monday the bus zoomed by without us! Luckily we get a 2nd chance to grab it since it goes way up Morrison Point Road (which is a very long 6 km dead end) to pick up kids so we wait at the corner for it to come back down. We've had occasion to do this, um maybe about 5 times, very handy.

Since it's snowy, or at least it was this morning, my kids are anxious to get outside to play in all that white stuff. Even our dog Belle loves the snow, snowball throwing is her favourite game. She loves eating snow too. When she is outside and you are trying to coax her back into the house she just stares at you while gobbling up mouthfuls of snow pretending she doesn't understand what you want her to do. She also loves rolling in it as in this picture, so she tends to come in soaked, much like the kids. Snow melting everywhere, puddles, dripping mitts and snowpants. I was smart this year and have acquired a total of 5 pairs of snowpants so there should be a dry pair to be found everytime they are needed. Luckily Quinn and Leah are close to the same size so, they both fit into them all. Now I just need to stock up on mittens, and probably a couple more hats. Quinn seems to have lost his black hat with the skull on it that I knit him, hopefully it's just in the lost and found box at school. Funny, why is it a lost & found box? Isn't it just a lost box? I mean if it's found than it won't be in the box right?