Bargaining

A conversation between Silas, Grammy, and me:
Grammy: "Silas, when you're older will you mow my lawn for me?"
Silas:  "Probably no.  Probably yes.  A little of both."
Me: "Silas I bet Grammy will pay you to mow her lawn."
Silas: "How much will you pay me?"
Grammy:  "How about $2?  Would you mow my lawn for $2?"
A Pause
Silas:  "I'll mow it for $10."
Me:  Laughing out loud, "I bet you can get her to go to $20 Silas."
Grammy: "Erika Dee...you're not supposed to say that!  Silas, I was hoping you would do it for free since I'll be old and feeble and you feel bad and love me so much."
Silence
Silence
Silence
Silas: "I'll do it for $10."

Christmas 2012

I have lots of pictures and I'm not going to caption each one.  We opened presents with my sister and her family, along with Dad, Jill and the kids, the Saturday before Christmas.

With all the kids, it was a little wild...but a lot of fun.

I brought him home some coffee from Haiti.

Wyatt found the tractor ornament!

Sadie got a kitty cat!  She's trying to say cheese for me.

Christmas morning, opening stockings on our bed.  This is my favorite part of Christmas, the early morning where we all snuggle together and open a few silly presents.

 

Eli really enjoyed opening his presents this year.

 

Christian opening his stocking!

One of my presents, Christian cleaning up after breakfast.  I made cinnamon roll pancakes.

Mid-morning we headed down to Christian's parents house for our first Christmas together since 2001 and first Christmas together in Arkansas.  Such a blessing!

Christian is REALLY enjoying having his parents around.  He's been without them for 13+ years.

There were so many presents and in true Dennett tradition we took all day opening them.  This was a great one for Silas from Auntie Char and Uncle Lynden.

Flopping around in their lounge.

What I've been looking forward to - Stephen's Christmas dinner.

His gorgeous turkey.

You know it's going to be good when it's wrapped in bacon!

Silas was ready for it.

Table and benches built by Grandpa.

Christmas pudding with brandy sauce.  I didn't get a good picture of it after it was set aflame, but it was a good one.

I made sticky toffee pudding with toffee sauce and homemade custard.  Eli and Silas loved the custard.

Nom-nom.

A very happy Christmas!

Winter Scenes from 2012/2013

Snowy walks with friends.

Throwing rocks on a frozen pond with brothers.

Homemade Presents

For Christmas this year, we decided to try our hand at making some things.  It wasn't really to save money, because after the cost of essential oils and other things I didn't really save much.  But I find it interesting to see what I can make myself.  So this year for Christmas we made several things.  I only have photos of a few of the ones I made.  We made lip balm (tinted and untinted), solid perfume, Vick's shower discs, bath bombs, vanilla extract, tub teas, pocket hand warmers, mint chocolate, and some spice rubs.

Silas helped me make the lip balm and perfume, which were pretty similar.  The lip balm had cocoa butter and coconut oil in it along with what the perfume had - beeswax and either almond oil or vitamin E oil.  To tint the lip balm, I used alkanet root powder.  I also added peppermint oil to the lip balm.  I made three different scents of perfume, all using essential oils:  rosemary and lavender, bergamot and grapefruit, and hyssop and lavender for the men.  I love the smell of hyssop but it needs a bit of a softening from the lavender.  Bergamot is one of the ingredients of earl grey tea, so it's a familiar scent.

Melting the beeswax and vitamin E oil.  Next time I will definitely buy the buttons of beeswax.  Christian had to strong arm it in order to cut some off for me.

After adding the tint to the lip balm.  It looks darker than it is on the lips.

Homemade lip balm!  It's really nice, too and lasts forever. 

This is the perfume, with the beeswax in the background.  The downside of using beeswax is that if the perfume gets cold then it's hard to rub on.  I just set it on the woodstove for a few seconds to help it warm up.

A closeup of the solid perfume.

And some mint chocolate bark.

I don't have pictures of the others, but I will say that I like the tub teas.  It's just a tea bag full of herbs (either lavender, rose, chamomile, and jasmine).  I like to put either the chamomile or the lavender in the bath with the boys, to help relax and calm them before bedtime.  The shower discs and the bath bombs didn't work too well as far as holding together, but I really enjoyed learning about the qualities of eucalyptus, rosemary, and lavender oils when mixed together (hint: they are the very ingredients of Vick's baby chest rub).  I put some into Eli's humidifier when he had a cold and it really helped his cough and stuffy nose.  The bath bombs fizzle a little too quickly but they are still a lot of fun to play with.  And the vanilla extract was so simple it makes me shake my head!  It's such expensive stuff, but actually really easy and pretty inexpensive to make. Prices of beans vary, but I found Bourbon vanilla beans for $1.29 a bean at our local natural foods store.  You just add some plain alcohol such as vodka to a bottle, cut the vanilla bean in half and down the middle, and let the two sit for eight weeks.  So easy I couldn't believe it.

Family

Eli and Wyatt playing at my grandparents' house.  I have so many memories of this screen door from when I was growing.  

Eli with his Pappy.

Silas with his best friend and uncle, Blake.

Wyatt with his great-grandfather.

Grandpa with Silas.  He plays the same games with Silas that he did with me: arm wrestling (pretend) and wanting to count his ribs.

Christmas Tree Hunting

We set out to find a Christmas tree once I got back from Haiti.  We don't usually put our tree up until around the 10th of December for two reasons.  One, it's a live tree and I don't feel like having too much of a fire hazard in our house, and two, Christian and I get tired of Christmas really quick.  

We always get our tree from off the land somewhere. So we set off with the boys to find the perfect tree.  Not too tall, not too short, not too wide, and not too lean.

This one looked good.

Christian chopping it down.

Silas' main priority was finding a path through the blackberry vines.

Eli still gets picked up and doesn't have to worry about 'spikeys'.

Eli watching Daddy intently.  He loves saws and constantly has a plastic knife that he pretends is a chainsaw.  

Fitting it in the house.  

Christian and Eli putting the ornaments up.

Silas decorating the tree.

Christmas tree 2012.