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!
Well, the day has finally come and gone. It was long, but we loved it. For the first time ever, we went up to Port Gamble to trick-or-treat. It did not disappoint: Way smaller and low key then the crowds on Bainbridge. Each business offered something different: games, "fishing" for prizes, etc. All in a lovely, scenic town. The top two pictures were taken there. After Port Gamble, we headed for our Midwife's house. Each year she hosts a reunion open to all of the families whose babies she helped birth. We've never gone before, but now think we'd like to make it part of our Halloween routine. It was wonderful to see her and the house that she built, which is only a few miles from the town we live in.
After an all too brief time there, we headed to Bainbridge to drop Drew at the ferry, meet up with Patrick and do some more trick-or-treating. Although I had my camera with me, I stopped taking pictures around this time. I think we were all a little burnt out by this point. We had promised Silas that we'd take him to Bainbridge, so we had to follow through. I think next year we'll skip it. It's become too crowded and hectic. Still enjoyable to see all of the kids dressed up, but not at all fun to push a shy three year old through the masses.
Back at home, Patrick and I took Silas for a brief walk around the neighborhood and then I settled in and passed out a bit of candy to trick-or-treaters. After picking out a few pieces of candy, he set the rest on a table in his bedroom to await the candy fairy, who will take away his candy and leave a present.
The last two shots are from Thursday (costume day at preschool): The shell that Drew made...Nice, huh? Did you have a fun Halloween? I hope so!
Well, I'm not keeping the identity of my son's Halloween persona a secret this year. He quite firmly decided several months ago that he wanted to be a hermit crab. Actually, he started out by saying he wanted to be a ghost hermit crab monster, but I think we talked him down to just plain old hermit crab. Have you ever tried to make a hermit crab outfit before. No? Really? Well, neither have too many other people apparently. I basically went out on my own here, designing first the mitts and then the hat. He likes to pretend to pinch things with his mitts. He will grab on to my hand, and gently press down, and then say "See, I'm a nice crab." We are still searching for the perfect house (i.e. shell) for this Hermit Crab. I'm leaving that mainly up to Drew to take care of. We have some ideas, and some time. Hopefully it will all come together by the end of the month.
As promised in the last post, here are a few more pictures of the Little Rabbit hat, which I made for Silsas just before Thanksgiving. And in other "Knitting for Silas" news, below are a few pictures of the Christmas Forests, which I've been working on for the past several months. Finished in time for December 1st, there is a puzzle piece hidden beneath each numbered tree. At the end of the 24 days, we'll be able to put our puzzle together. This was a lot of fun to make and it will surely be a part of our holiday celebrations for years to come. You can read more about it on my knitting blog HERE, and watch a video of Silas exploring it during my photo shoot HERE. One more thing...A BIG birthday shout out to Papa. Happy Birthday! We love you :)
Here's the big costume reveal. This was a group effort: I knit the sweater, Drew made the bulldozer, Patrick made the "Bugdozer Construction" logo, and Silas supplied a heaping dose of cuteness. "Bugdozer, by the way, is a character from the Richard Scarry books.
I'll be back in a day or two with more pictures and details from our day.
We brought in our live Christmas/Yule tree today, a blue spruce that we'll plant in the yard in the new year. I decorated it with cranberries and popcorn and the hand-felted ornaments that I made last weekend. After Silas went to bed, I placed into the bows of the tree the little wooden animals that his grandma and papa sent. In the morning, he'll be able to hunt for them and discover them, one by one. The little tractor, also a gift from the grandparents, is sitting on some of the squares I've completed for Silas' knitted farmland. I hope to have that project finished by his birthday in March.
We lost our power again today three times! Finger's crossed, we will have an electric-filled Christmas tomorrow.
Here's our little pumpkin sprite! It took over a month to make his costume, but I think it was a success. I was worried at first because he wasn't too fond of wearing the hat. I lined it with flannel and then he agreed to wear it. In fact, he wore it for 4 hours without trying to take it off once!
In addition to the felted pumpkin hat and knit pants, I made a simple crocheted quiver for him to carry a stalk of Chinese lanterns on his back.
Here he is, running to the car so that we can go trick-or-treating downtown. Being only 19 months old, Silas doesn't eat candy and we didn't want the temptation of having too much of it in the house, so while we did collect some, we largely wanted Silas to give something away instead. Seeing as though he was a pumpkin sprite, I got a bunch of tiny pumpkins for him to pass out. Our first stop was Cafe Trios where Silas gave away his first pumpkin of the evening to his favorite barista (apparently, in exchange for her phone, which he really did not want to give back). Then, we hit Winslow Way (our main street), which was closed to traffic for trick-or-treat. We saw lots of great costumes, and as the rain had stopped, there ended up being tons of people. Here's our friend Carmen, with baby Ozma, dressed as a bat. So cute! A good shot detailing the back of his costume: Silas loves this fountain, which is right outside my favorite store, Churchmouse Yarns and Teas. After trick-or-treat, we made one last stop at Shannon and Patrick's house. Silas gave away his last 2 pumpkins and posed for a few more pictures before calling it a night. What a great Halloween! And if the pictures weren't enough, here's a short video too. Remember that if you click on the video and go to Youtube, you can choose to watch it in high quality.
I don't want to totally give Si's Halloween costume away, and I am actually still working on some of the accessories. I thought I'd let you have a sneak-peek, however. So, here's a partial view of the hat... stay tuned for more pictures on Halloween.
Here's our tiny little tree, all decked out for the holidays. It's a living tree and will spend most of the year outside. Then, if we can keep it alive, we'll bring it in once a year for the holidays. Hopefully, it will grow from it's current hight of perhaps 14 inches to a nice big tree. We've decorated it with a string of popcorn and cranberries, and a dried flower for a star. It may be tiny, but it is the perfect tree for us, especially in light of the fact that we won't actually be home for Christmas (6 days till we leave for WI!).
If you guessed Silas would be going as a Turtle for Halloween (as if the blog entry entitled "the ultimate turtle boy" didn't give it away all together), you were right! Mom made his hat and dad painted his "shell" which was made from a bike helmet. Green clothes and socks with turtles on them completed the costume. We headed downtown with our friend Jessica to take in the festivities. Bainbridge Island closes it's downtown to traffic for Trick-or-treat, and all of the businesses pass out candy. It was so much fun to hear little kids cry out "look, it's a turtle!" If you would like to see more pictures of Silas and his first Halloween, please visit mom's Flickr page.
