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We usually stay home for New Years Eve and sit around working a puzzle or playing cards trying to stay awake until midnight. Not very exciting. This year we are doing something different. We are traveling to Cadillac, MI for the First Night festivities there. We will hear both boys play with the Chelsea House Orchestra. D will play violin and M will play djembe. P will dance in the audience. 
Have a great New Year's celebration!
(cookie boy ornament made by my sister M)
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This week I am the featured artist at The Art Of Craft. You can go read the interview and find out more about me. Check out some of the other artists featured at the site while you are there.
(Santa origami by my son M.)
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The boys have been working in their "lab."
They have been taking apart old, broken electronic equipment.
I am not sure what they plan on making. M has grand ideas. There are lots of great parts here! 
Also, they have done some fixing. We watched "Toy Story" with P last week. That was a favorite for M when he was little. He WAS Buzz Light Year for more than a year. He would wear Buzz pajamas and cardboard wings everywhere he went. After we watched the movie, he gave P his Toy Story toys. Both Buzz and Woody had to have their voice boxes fixed. P's favorite character in the movie, however, was Hannah's doll Janie. M, of course, didn't have one of those. I did notice that Janie looks a lot like the doll on the Island of Misfit Toys in Rudolf. I wonder about that...
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While we were visiting family for Thanksgiving, my aunt H. asked if I would finish a quilt that my grandmother started years ago. 
H. had given my grandmother the fabric and some transfers to embroider. She thought this might make a good winter project.
My grandmother had all twenty four blocks done in a week!
H. gave me some fabrics to go with the embroidered blocks. I substituted a brighter yellow and put the blocks together yesterday.
It is a twin size quilt. Now I need to get some batting and decide how to quilt it.
I know my cousin will enjoy having this quilt for her boys.
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We have been doing a lot of baking in the last week. It is getting to be ridiculous. Yesterday we made gingerbread cookies. P loves the cookie boy story and recites the cookie boy's lines "Run, run, as fast as you can. You can't catch me; I'm the gingerbread man."
Even the boys joined in to decorate.
I love the different styles of decorating.
We also made chocolate chip cookies because, well, we always have to have some of those.
We still have some holiday cookies that we have not made! There are those raisin filled cookies that B makes every year. After two weeks of baking and eating, I think we will all be waddling back to our routines in the new year!
If only we had some snow, we could more easily burn off some of these cookies.
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I finished M's hat in time for Christmas.
The tassel cords are knit I-cord with mathematically based stripe patterns. The one on the left is knit so that the rounds in each color stripes are the prime numbers in order. The one in the middle is based on the Fibonacci sequence. The one on the right is "random." D pointed out that it is not truly random as I changed colors when I wanted to. Next time I'll have him use his random number generator on his calculator.
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I went out early this morning to attempt to get photos of the sun on the frost.
I discovered that it is not easy to get that "sparkle" in a photo.
We have an unusually clear blue sky for Michigan winter!
Thank goodness for digital cameras! Lots of photos for a few that are worth keeping. I am glad I didn't have to wait for developing, and pay for all those pictures that weren't any good!
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Merry Christmas!
Paper cutting by Thomas L Clark, M.D.
"A Twinkling on the Roof a Visit from Saint Nicholas in Snowflakes"
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The carrot cake turned out so tasty I thought I would share the recipe.
Carrot Cake
2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
2 cups finely grated peeled carrot
8 oz can crushed pineapple, drained
3 1/2 oz can (1 cup) sweetened flaked coconut
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
frosting
12 oz cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups powdered sugar
Into a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Stir in the granulated sugar, oil, eggs, carrots, pineapple, coconut, and the walnuts. Divide the batter between two buttered and floured round 9" cake pans (or one 9" by 13" pan) and bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pan on a rack for five minutes, then run an thin knife around the edge of each pan and invert the layers onto a rack to cool completely.
In a bowl with an electric mixer, beat together the cream cheese, butter, and the vanilla until the mixture is fluffy, then add the powdered sugar gradually, beating until the frosting is smooth. Frost cake as desired.
P. helped bake and frost the cake. Just as we finished the frosting, I had to leave the room for one minute to help someone else. As I left, I said, "don't touch the cake. If there are fingerprints in the frosting I'll know they are yours."
She just couldn't help herself. This is what I found when I returned.
Here's wishing you that "dig right in" excitement.
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One of P's "knitting aunties" gave her this book when she was born, "Shall I Knit You a Hat? a Christmas Yarn" by Kate Klise, illustrated by M. Sarah Klise.
This year it is a favorite. P requests it every day. It is a sweet story about a rabbit and his mother who design and make hats to give their animal friends for Christmas. The little rabbit thinks about each friend and they make a hat that is just right. I enjoy reading the story because it is about thinking of others, giving, knitting, handmade.... all of the things I like wrapped up into one story. I wondered what P liked about it. Last night I asked her what her favorite part of the story was.
" Carrot Cake!"
The rabbit and mother eat carrot cake while they design the hats. And, at the end of the story after they have delivered the hats they stay up late on Christmas Eve and have three pieces each!
Today we shall make carrot cake.
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