During Christmas...

Christmas turned out to be really nice, despite all of the fans and dehumidifiers going non-stop.

Nohl was ready for Santa and his teacher even gave him reindeer food to put on the front step. He wrote Santa a nice note to let him know in case the reindeer missed it.

And THIS is what Santa brought for the thoughtful six year old. Nohl has already told me he wants to take guitar lessons, so we got him signed up to start next week. Can't wait to see how he likes it.

Before Christmas...

I was feeling kind of Bah Humbug this year about Christmas, so no cards went out, decorations were minimal, and gifts didnt' get wrapped until Christmas Eve. This is the other reason gifts got wrapped at the last minute.

I picked up Mom from the airport on Monday, and came home to a waterfall coming from our kitchen ceiling. Our ice maker tubing (that ran through the attic) froze and burst. I had to call the neighbor to come shut off my water (thanks John) because I couldn't believe that itty bitty pipe coming into the house could possibly be our main water. Kirk arrived shortly after and we got to work cleaning up the mess.

After Kirk spent 4 hours in the attic cleaning up the wet insulation and water (he's amazing) we called the insurance company the next day. They sent out the restoration company with these fans and gigantic de-humidifiers. The water made its way into the basement walls and part of the floor, but after a few days, everything dried out nicely.

This hole in the ceiling (that we stuffed with insulation to keep the cold out) happened when Kirk was in the attic. The drywall was so saturated that he accidently knocked a piece out trying to clean up.

The restoration company also had to come test the drywall for asbestos and just our luck, they found some in the sample from the kitchen.

We had a guy come last night to give us an estimate on the asbestos clean up, and he feels we need to replace THE WHOLE kitchen ceiling. Some of the drywall is still wet, which surprised us. That means that our kitchen will be out of commission for a day or two.

SO NOW..............we wait. Wait for the estimate to come back for asbestos removal. Wait for the insurance company to approve the estimate. Wait for the work to be done. Can you tell I'm tired of waiting???

While all of the excitement was going on with the fans and drying out process, we were busy working on last minute Christmas gifts for our nieces and nephew.
I needed to get these camera straps finished up. They turned out really nice and the girls LOVED them.
Kirk was busy finishing up these cross stitch designs for the kids, which I then sewed to some felt and made into ornaments. They loved these too, but weren't quite sure what to think of Uncle Kirk doing cross stitch. I think it's great.

Look what I got!!!

Do you remember the Candy Corn Contest? Amandajean from Crazy Mom Quilts had a really fun contest on flickr around Halloween time. My pincushion was one of the winners! Well, I received my prizes yesterday and they are SO CUTE!!!

This apron that Lera made is awesome with all its ric rackery on the pocket.

I'm so glad Amandajean sent one of her fabric baskets. It was a project I had thought of making for some xmas gifts, and now that I've seen one in person, TOTALLY making some up. The coasters are fun little pieces of candy corn too!

Thank you Amandajean and Lera!!

And thank you candy corn.