Christmas 2011

I think it's safe to say that Silas was more excited for this Christmas than every before. He's at that golden age when the sweet anticipation of Santa's arrival is at it's purest.

Silas left out the obligatory plate of cookies, which was soon joined by a steaming cup of coffee (gotta keep Santa awake while he assembles that puppet theater).

Surprisingly, the first thing Silas noticed was not the ginormous quilt-wrapped present behind him, but the shop vac Santa graciously bestowed upon his mom and dad (thanks Santa! You are so practical).

The coveted orange. He asked for one every year.  Not like we don't eat oranges pretty much every day this time of year, but I guess there's just something special about the ones Santa grows up in the North Pole. Santa also fills our stockings with nuts.  He is very traditional in that way :)

Santa also hides things in the tree each year for Silas to find.  How fun is that?

Finding the treasures in his stocking next to the warm glow of the pellet stove.

Hooray for puppets and puppet theaters!

This kid is a performer at heart.  Our goal with this year's gift giving was to acknowledge and nurture this side of him.  We have already seen a number of shows and can't wait for what this creative kid comes up with next.  Thank you to everyone who contributed to Silas' puppet Christmas.  You may just be witnessing the emergence of the next Jim Henson.

We spent both Christmas eve and Christmas afternoon with Patrick.  Patrick and Silas even hung out for a while so that Drew and I could go to a Christmas day Yoga class (thanks Patrick!).

Later that day, at Patrick's, Grandma and Papa got to watch Silas open their gifts.

Happy New Year to all and to all a good 2012!

Xmas card rejects

 Here are a couple of pics that didn't make the holiday card cut, but for various reasons, were funny enough to post.  The top picture is the one we almost chose.

Silas really wanted Olive to be included, but it turns out Olive doesn't care about posing for pictures.  I like this shot of the three of us, if not for the 4-eyed mutant cat.

Mustaches are in vogue.  But the candy cane stache didn't quite work the way he wanted it to.  Guess I wasn't a fan of it either.

We were all pretty sick during this photo shoot, Silas especially. I think we limited the photo shoot to 5 minutes and then went with whatever came out the best. So, this was the Christmas 2011 family photo, such as it is.

Happy Christmas to you all!

Letter to Santa, 2011

This Monday, we mailed off Silas' letter to Santa.  Poulsbo has a special mailbox set up just for letters designated for the North Pole.

"Yep, that's how they get there" he said as he dropped his letter in.  It must have gotten there fast, because we already got Santa's reply in Wednesday's mail.

The letter: Silas insisted on addressing it to both Santa and Mrs. Claus.  "That's how you know you'll get what you want" he told me, "if you let Mrs. Claus know. She'll tell Santa to get on it."

Transcription:

Dear Santa and Mrs. Claus,

Merry Christmas!
I want a puppet theater and some Backyardigans costumes.
I have snowflakes on my windows.  My mommy and me made them.  I have three Santa statues on the piano.

I would like an orange in my stocking.  Penguin, my stuffed animal, wants a Spider-man mask and an orange in his stocking that he can look at and study, because he's never seen and orange before.  That will be his lucky day.

My friend Orangutan wants a guitar that he can share with me.  Also an orange.

Love,

Silas

Deck the halls with balls of jelly!

You gotta love how kids re-write lyrics...

Our cozy home is in fact all decked out for the holidays.  This year's tree:

24 felted trees, three Santas, and one gingerbread house atop the piano:

My 2011 Christmas decoration additions: knitted lights and strategically placed mistletoe:

Another view of the piano. A crochet's knight guards the gingerbread house. Each day in December leading up to Christmas, Silas finds a different handmade puppet (including the knight) under that day's tree. Only three more trees to go!

Community Christmas Performance

 

 Silas got to participate in a small community Christmas performance on the 10th.  .

In the morning, the kids made snowflakes and paper chains to decorate the old school house, which is now the community center.

Rehearsal:

Performance time: Patrick came to watch!

Jingle Bells:


Who's that?


I thought for sure he would think this Santa was totally bogus, but nope.  All he cared about was that Santa had a present with his name on it.  And, it was a Wizard of Oz pop-up book, no less.  How did Santa know that we'd gone to see the Kitsap Children's Musical Theater performance of Wizard of Oz that very afternoon!  Wow!

Dorothy meets Glinda the Good and the Munchkins.  

Silas, fresh from the critical acclaim he received as "boy who brings Christmas cards to girl sitting in chair" in the community Christmas performance tells us that he does want to be in a KCMT production once he's old enough.  And when they do Wizard of Oz again, he's going to be the Tin Woodman.  I can see it :)

Santa...or just Some Guy

You may recall from last year's Santa disaster that Silas has been more than a little hesitant to get anywhere near the big guy.

Clearly, as is evidenced by these pictures, he's over it. Not only did he sit on Santa's lap, but he talked his ear off as well.

These pictures were taken at Silas' preschool holiday party last Friday.  The kids were beyond excited to see Santa show up, and I think Silas got caught up enough in the moment that he let go of his fears.  While we were in line, he kept saying things like "Is that a real Santa or just some guy? I think it's just some guy.  If he was Santa, why wouldn't he just send his elves to do this?"  He kept going on about it until I finally said "Oh, just go with it Silas."  On the way home, I asked what his take was on this Santa. Real, or not real. "Not real," he replied.  "I knew because of his hat.  That's not the real Santa's hat."

 By the next morning, however, he was singing a different tune:  "He's one of the real Santa's."  Apparently, and quite logically, Silas has decided there are many.

Looks like he might be a Santa-in-training himself!

PDX

 The weekend after Thanksgiving, we headed to Portland. The main reason for our trip was to check out the art show Drew had a piece in at 23 Sandy Gallery.

 Silas interacted with the art...

 ...and became art.

 A trip to Portland would not be complete without visiting Bob's Red Mill (awesome awesome awesome). We saw Bob himself, sitting outside by this water wheel.

And we ended our trip at Powell's Books. In my family, one does not go to Portland without going to Powell's. It simply isn't done.

Long day, lots of driving, but the kiddo held up well, and I'm glad we went.

Thanksgiving 2011

Some pics from Thanksgiving...We had Thanksgiving brunch with Sarah and friends.

 Plenty of music-making opportunities there...

Back at home, briefly, Silas and I pose in front of his great-grandmother's piano, the newest addition to our household, and one for which we are very thankful (thanks Grandma G, for shipping it all the way out to us!).

Silas made this "control panel" with Sarah and he was most insistent on showing it off:

We then headed over to Seattle for Thanksgiving dinner.  Long day, filled with friends and food. :)

Silas' List of Thankfulness 2011

Here's Silas' list for this year.  Enjoy, and Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I am thankful for:

--How this day was, how good it was

--Seeing Patrick

--Playing with Jack at school

--That I love mom and that mom loves me

--Reading Geronimo Stilton books at bedtime

--Having tea with dad

--Playing transfer center with dad

--Going to school

--Satsuma Mandarins

--Having the very last of the chocolate

--Cuddling with Mom

Auction owls

Well, you can probably tell by the un-carved state of the pumpkins that these pics are a couple of weeks old. Halloween stalled things for a bit, but I still wanted to share a few images from Silas' auction owl photo shoot. I made 3 owl hats like this one for his preschool's silent auction, which was last weekend.

Apparently, the owl likes to listen to some tunes:

Me and my owlet :)

I have promised to crochet Silas his own owl hat, since this one now belongs to the highest bidder...

Halloween 2011!

For those of you who haven't yet seen this picture on FB, here it is again: Silas as a wolf in sheep's clothing.  I think this might be my favorite of his Halloween costumes, to date.  I made the hooded vest and ears from the Bainbridge sheep's wool.  It's knit with spun yarn as well as with un-spun batting.  I also knit the wolf-paw gloves, but credit for the mask goes to Drew who cut all of the pieces, and my friend Barb, who sewed it together for us.  Thanks Barb!

We began our Halloween with a video chat with Grandma and Papa.  That afternoon, I dropped Silas off at school and got to see all of the adorableness that is a preschool costume party.

Comparing outfits:

Circle time, in which each child got to tell everyone about their costume:

He might not be a lion, a tiger, or bear (oh my), but I do think you might want to keep your distance, Dorothy!

After school, we headed to the Island, met up with Drew, saw some friends, and participated in the obligatory trick-or-treat madness.  Then it was back to the house to pass out candy for neighborhood nighttime trick-or-treat.  I took Silas to a few houses of people we know, but really, we were pretty tired by then.  Time for this wolf to start counting sheep :)