Homestead Acres » christmas

Dusting Off The Needles FO: Balaclava

Kim — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:46:31 +0000

Well it’s been a little while since I’ve had time to knit. Oh was I ever missing it! Knitting is really a good therapy, a quiet time to sit and relax.

I finished another balaclava, this one is for my uncle. It’s an umm quite late Christmas present. LOL! I have two more to make now. I’m going to cast on 1 today. But knitting with all this black is driving me nuts. It’s plain and boring and hard to see to! So I’m going to start another project as well. Maybe I’ll start on the fingerless gloves for next Christmas…Or maybe I’ll start on some longies, although I have some nice blue yarn calling me to make a shawl to…Oh the choices….

Happy holidays and let us remember those who are less fortunate

Kim — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 03:22:20 +0000

I would like to say thank you for all the nice letters and wish all a good and safe holiday season. Let us remember those who are less off than we are weather they are close or distant we are all in this together.

Busy Weekend

Kim — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 17:35:10 +0000

Ahh I’ve been so busy, just haven’t had enough time to sit down and visit. What I’ve been up to….

Last Friday we took out traditional light drive. Each year around Christmas time we bundle up and head to town. We take a slow drive around letting the little ones see all the lights. It’s a wonderful sound to hear their excitement. Two year olds are especially bursting with excitement. It’s the first time they can really see and enjoy the lights.

Normally we get hot chocolate for our trip, but we were running quite late. So dh treated us to a pizza supper out.

Saturday some dear friends called to see if they could drop by. We were all so glad, it’s been far to long since we’d been able to visit!

Latter in the day dh went out to do his Christmas shopping and pick up my birthday cake.

Sunday, yup you guessed it, my birthday. I had a very nice day. Hubby got up early with the little ones so I could sleep in. He made a wonderful breakfast for us. Then I spend the afternoon making fleece blankets. Latter on he made my favorite supper. Tomato pasta, garlic bread and caesar salad.

CBC was running many Christmas movies that night, so we all curled up in the living room to eat and watch. They were playing I’ll be home for Christmas, Pooh Bears Christmas, The Grinch Cartoon, and Christmas Vacation.

How To Make A No Sew Fleece Blanket

Kim — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 22:17:15 +0000

I love making no sew fleece blankets for gifts. They are so quick and easy to make, yet beautiful and useful as well. This year I’m making smaller lap blanket size ones, 1 meter long. Hope you enjoy the video. To read step by step instructions see here.

FO Knit Balaclava

Kim — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 18:22:24 +0000

I finished another knitting project and it’s a hit! This is for my BIL for Christmas, but dh was kind to model it for photos. He loves it and wants one as well. I’m hoping to start on that today.

The pattern is Easy Balaclava and you can find it here on Ravelry or on Knitting in Color’s blog.

The only change I made to the pattern was to use a bulky weight yarn. This gave me a men’s large size and it fits great. Yarn used Cascades Eco +.

Winter is here! Photos

Kim — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 18:15:30 +0000

Its been snowing all night and still coming down hard. For the 3rd day in a row, schools were closed and most of the roads in our area as well.
Its a good day to sit and knit!

Gifts From The Heart #3: Family Traditions

Kim — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 01:41:39 +0000

Family traditions are a special way to build closeness. We all have meaningful times we look forward to each year. As Christmas gets closer our family looks forward to our yearly light drive. We pick a evening when the weather is nice, make lots of hot chocolate and pile into the van. Off we go to town to slowly drive around and look at the beautiful light displays. The children especially look forward to this every year.

What are your favorite Christmas traditions? Please share about them on your blog and include a link below. Do you have more handcrafted gifts, please share links for thoughts as well!

Busy Weekend

Kim — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 18:26:39 +0000

Its been a busy weekend around here. Sat. dh took a load of rabbits to market. We’ve kept a few but cleared out the barn until spring. We want to do some big renovations that will be easer with the barn empty. Also just don’t want to heat the barn right now. That cost us a lot last year…

When he got back we all headed out to the town we do our bulk shopping in. 3 of the little one were sound asleep and another had a sore tummy. So I staid out with them and kitted while dh did the shopping.

After that I stopped at Riverside Yarns. I needed some needles and found some nice greenish/blue wool on clearance. I love the color and will turn it into something for myself. What I’m not sure yet…ideas?

I also picked up a bulk skein of cascade eco+. It’s a nice bulky wool that I wanted to use for balaclavas.

After that I stopped at Walmart. I needed to get snow pants for dd7. I was surprised they had almost NONE left! All the winter jackets that were left were on clearance. I couldn’t find any snow pants, but did find ONE jacket/pants set that I thought would fit her. Then I found ONE snow pants in the boys section. It was on clearance as well so I picked that up just incase the other didn’t fit. But I’m glad to say the jacket/pants set fits great and she loves it!

I picked up the last Christmas gift for dh. I thought I was done shopping but he hinted about something. lol

I wanted to pick up the black fleece for my blankets there. They have always had a good selection and a much cheaper price then the closer walmart. But they had NONE! Much of there fabric area had been cleaned out and the displays gone….So I’ll have to try the closer one and hope they have it, even if it’s a little more money.

When we were on the way home we stopped in the town we normally shop in. They were having their Christmas parade! Dh bought us some pizza and found a place to park so we could see some of it. Kids loved that!

Today I spent the morning cleaning. Then this afternoon decided to wind the skein of wool into a ball and start my next project. Only problem was I didn’t have anything the right size to hold the skein…that’s on the to do list. I turned around and dh was standing by the wood stove. heehee “Oh honey can you hold this for a minute?” He was supper sweet and held the yarn while I wound it all up. It takes a while to do 8 oz of bulky wool. lol I got a little over half way done and discovered a mess. Much of the yarn inside was matted and tangled together. Some of it had un spun sections sticking multiple strings together. ACK!! That ended up taking me hours to untangle. (sigh) So no knitting tonight my arms are to sore from untangling that. But it’s ready to go tomorrow.

I am almost done the doll as well. Just an arm and a half left to go!

Kids did have fun playing in the snow this afternoon though. We’re up to about 4 inches now. Just waiting for a big snow storm to come along and dump a foot or two. LOL

Some of our Advent favorites

Kim — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 18:35:06 +0000

Our family has really been enjoying celebrating Advent this year. In addition to the free Advent devotions and Jesse tree ornaments I posted already, we’ve been using the Advent calendar on DVD 2.

I have to say we’ve been really enjoying this video! This edition focuses on Christmas carols and the history behind them. Each day there is a mini documentary about 5 minutes in length. They cover all the interesting points well and are still short enough to keep a young child’s attention.

In addition they also have a advent coloring book, half an hour of instrumental Christmas music, daily Bible readings in 4 versions and a printable song book.

I’m hoping to get a copy of the original version as well. It covers the history of Christmas symbols.

We have also been reading Jotham’s Journey. I thought at first the chapters might be a little long for our 3 year old, but no even she loves the story. They can’t wait each day to find out what happens to Jotham next. I also like how Bible history and scriptures are woven into the story. Has anyone read the other two books in the series? Are they as good?

Decorating The Christmas Tree

Kim — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 03:49:49 +0000

A few photos from our decorating the tree tonight.

One of my favorite ornaments

This is an ornament I bought for dh our first Christmas together.