My Christmas Carol

My ghosts of Christmas past, present and future have been flitting about in the background all month long. I think often back to my Christmas post of how sad I was to decorate my home all by my lonesome and how different my world has become in a short two years. I remember how happy I was decorating Christmas 2011...I couldn't let go of how exciting it was to trim a tree with two wee babies growing inside me. My Christmas dreams of a happy family celebrating a jam-packed season were finally unfolding. I dithered this year about decorating. I knew I wanted to and I also knew that two extremely curious and somewhat mischievous twins would have their hands all over everything. I finally settled on all the decor displayed all month long with the exception of a Christmas tree. I'm not going entirely Grinch here, as tonight we'll put up what Bryan has dubbed our first Charlie Brown Christmas tree. I knew deep down inside that the exuberant Laith and Vivienne would be too much for my sanity and keeping two sets of hands off a tree was something I was not going to put ourselves through. Why spend most of the month of Christmas upset about ornaments on a tree? I also had the stroke of brilliance to set up our tiny tree in our guest room. Currently this room is used for all sorts of crafts and I've set up the baby gate to keep the twins out and me in. Our set up works decent enough, as no one has yet figured out how to climb over the gate into my hidey hole. I figured the tree could reside behind the gate for all to see and clamor at yet keep the ornaments where my OCD brain needs them...on the tree.

Ghost of Christmas past has also come to visit while present shopping. The excitement that has been generated in our hearts is more than I could've wished for. I know Laith and Vivienne may not entirely understand present opening, or the enormous amount of time & energy put into a particular gift, or the reason of this holiday season. Yet we've been given the wonderful opportunity to lay the foundations for many happy Christmases to come.

Ghost of Christmas present taps my shoulder often. When making Christmas treats, Laith rushed his truck over, climbed atop to the highest part of that truck and set to work helping me. At least he thought tipping the can of evaporated milk over was helping....twice. He also grabbed at chocolate covered spoons, empty boxes of Nilla wafers and sampled a few treats before deciding his help was no longer necessary. He then went to work driving his trucks on the kitchen floor. Meanwhile, Vivienne kept up a running jibber-jabber, walking circles around our entry and through the kitchen, giving me the most darling smiles a mommy could hope for. I've planned to deliver our home-made goodies to our neighbors tomorrow night. I've got grand dreams of two little helpers, decked out in their winter hats knitted by Ginger Nannie, holding a parent's hand each and knocking on neighbors' doors. Thankfully we deliver to just a handful of neighbors that all live within a four house block, so my idea may just work.

Ghost of Christmas present also smiles when I sing carols with the twins. Vivienne's ever watchful eyes sparkle with happiness, as I can see she is stowing the words and tunes in her head. She still dances like crazy but she has now added singing to her repertoire. I love listening to her sing along to Outdoors by Jason Mraz on Sesame Street. There's a part where Elmo sings really high and Vivienne matches his octave. We've watched Elf several times this season and the original cartoon Grinch. I wonder what will be their favorites later in life. I caught the end of Bundle of Joy and smiled at memories of watching this movie at Grandma & Grandpa Garrett's house. Will the twins love the old flicks like we did as kids? I have a hunch they will...mostly because it will be force fed while they're too young to realize it's not 'cool'.

Ghost of Christmas future may be a little foggy, yet I know he's been here too. There have been several traditions we'd like to do yet know the twins are a little too young still, like eating at a fancy restaurant to watch the Christmas boats float by or catching the steam locomotive for a short ride into Portland. Their current time span of interest is far too short. However in just another short year (or maybe two) we'll be able to do any Christmas tradition we set our minds to. I've loved where the Ghosts of Christmas have taken me this year and thank my lucky stars every evening for having been blessed with the sweetest two souls ever.

Thankfulness

Vivienne Lost Herself to Dance

Vivienne started dancing the moment she could stand. It's funny to catch her doing it but it's hard to get on video. She already has a favorite song and LOVES to watch the music video. Coincidentally the song by Daft Punk is titled  Lose Yourself to Dance. Here is Vivenne and a little bit of Laith having fun dancing.

I Finally Did it!

It took almost 4 years to do so, but I finally posted the baby blankets I have made on Etsy!  I've made these types of blankets for years, all along hoping & wishing that one day I'd get to make some for myself.  I've gifted these blankets to families and friends and love seeing them years later.  I always snatch the blanket up and take a look at my binding, as I continually doubt my sewing skills. Thankfully, each of my carefully plotted stitches have held up to the many washings that baby blankets tend to get. I breathe a sigh of relief and tell myself to allow that feather to my cap...maybe one day. If you know anyone who is looking for a good quality baby blanket, send them over to my shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/CrimsonConfection.

Oktoberfest

I started the month on a craft kick. I decided every craft I had currently going had to be finished and along the way I created myself a few new ones.  I made a new Halloween wreath, using a feather boa and it turned out really fun.  I may just make a Valentine wreath with a pink feather boa. I hacked down my garden, somehow avoided the monstrous spider of 2013, and put up my own homegrown cornstalks on my front porch. We visited the pumpkin patch at Lowe's and found ourselves 3 good lookers that unfortunately rotted long before the eventful carving day. Note to self: get fake pumpkins for the porch during the month and buy the real thing just before carving. I modge podged letter initials for Laith & Vivienne and put together a 'toddler' mobile using vibrant colorful dragonflies and elephants that my boss gifted to the twins from his latest globetrotting trip. Just need to put some hanging ribbons on the mobile and get Bryan to anchor a hook in the ceiling. I also pieced together a new crib-size blanket for Vivienne and gathered fabric to start one for Laith. I loved my adventure into Quilt-land so much, I also found myself piecing together a Christmas table runner, which just needs to be basted together for my first attempt at machine quilting.

Vivienne developed quite the wild personality this past month. After being harassed in some fashion or another by her brother and bursting into incurable tears, I plopped her on the couch and gathered her dollies all around her.  She wrapped her arms around them and gifted me with a beautiful grin. I also braved my first attempt at doing her hair. I pinned her down, made two quick pigtails and put in hair clips. She screamed and hollered like a stuck pig, yet in the end, she preened about the living room brushing her pretty new hairdo. Her most recent trick is "Cheese". No one taught her this, nor did we really say the words when we took pictures. She just up and decided that giving the silliest grin possible was a good cheese for any camera. Now when we whip a camera out, she puts on this fake cheese much to our delight.

Obviously from our last posting, we bought a shiny new car. This shiny new car was cheaper than our first-two-borns. We spent the entire afternoon at the dealership, much to the twins dismay. Luckily this dealer had a kid-friendly room, which truly was kid-friendly. There were toys, books, a TV with kid programming, mini chairs and tables, and secluded in its own space which allowed for our noisy bunch to not really bug anyone...at least the only ones we bothered were the couple who free-loaded the dealer's TV to watch a football game. Once the papers were finally signed and Bryan was able to step into his brand new baby, I got out my cell phone and took pics. I know they're not the best quality, but I also know that Bryan would've always wished he'd thought to do so. You'd think he'd be a little happier in these pics considering we finally got his long awaited for dream...but anyone who really knows our family, knows that Sadler men just can't smile in photos.  Or if they do, it means their eyes will be closed. So these ones will do.

 

 

 

Finally, we finished off Oktoberfest with Bryan's most favorite holiday. He keeps hoping that at least one of these two will love scary movies as much as him, and they can spend the evening scaring the begeebies out of each other, while I (and whoever else can't stand it) spend the evening watching classics like "Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin", "Goonies", "Hocus Pocus" and Disney's cartoon version of Ichabod Crane. You'd think with my jump start to October being crafting I would've made some outlandish outfits. Nope. I took the cheaters way out and visited Party City and picked up a couple of cheap costumes. Surprisingly (or maybe just to me) the girl costumes were much more expensive than the boy costumes. I found the cheapest girlie was a ladybug at $15 smackeroos. I started glancing at the boy costumes for a similar price and found none to my liking. The boy costumes were all cheesy-pie. I couldn't let my manly boy be disgraced and so I opted for the pirate. And he wore it in style. In the beginning he loved wearing his hat and carrying his sword but by evening's end he was happy to just roam without his accessories. Vivienne absolutely loved being a ladybug. When I first donned her costume she kind of gave me this Really Mom? look, then I pulled out the wings and her eyes sparkled. She once again preened about the living room showing off her lovely wings. We visited the neighbors and got loaded with plenty of candy for a year and then visited Lowe's to pass out trick-or-treat candy. We also trick-or-treated both grandparents over skype. I think next year, we'll finally have a couple of kiddos who will last an evening of true trick-or-treating.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I found myself driving by car dealers that weren't on the way home

I have an obsession with the Camaro...My grandfather purchased a 350/350 2bbl Daytona Yellow Camaro in 1970. Grandma lost a bet that she could stay on her diet, she took one lick of a lolly pop while at Lagoon with the family and bam, grandpa came home in a yellow rocket. When I was very young I went in grandpa's garage and saw it there. It was tired, it had been wrecked and fixed multiple times, panels were rusting, someone had tried their hand at fiberglass rust repair. Every time we went to grandpa's house from then on out I would sneak out and look at the car. Someone had taken the air cleaner off and parts lay about under the hood. Sometime in my teens I found the manual in the garage and began placing a couple parts on here and there. small insignificant parts like hooking back up the vacuum hoses, putting the distributor cap back on etc. Mostly just dreaming. I was in high school and I took an advanced automotive class that required rebuilding an engine. It was really nostalgic as my father had taken a night class years before and rebuilt his Mustang 289 in the same shop. My dad did some networking. At that time grandpa's Camaro had been traded to Ross for some work he had done on grandpa's other car. The car was still in the garage and my father bartered and traded some toolboxes from his S-10 truck and acquired the car. My friend Danny helped me tow the car from grandpas house to the school. We fired it up just to see if it would, it fired up and smelled like varnish but it was alive! It spent the next 6 months in the shop as we rebuilt the engine and worked on massaging it back to life. I drove the car for about a year and enjoyed every minute! But the reality was the car had spent too many years rotting. I hadn't had the money to do a full restoration but I began anyway. We tore it all the way down. It is still torn down but the front suspension was all rebuilt, we rebuild the engine and transmission the correct way and it was time for replacing the quarter panels. I purchased a '71 for parts but then got greedy and was going to build both. <> I was working two jobs, going to school, having fun, etc. No money for the car and not much time either. One of the conditions when we got married and we sorted out our debts and assets was the '71 had to go. The guy that got it got a steel! Jen and I married and a couple months later I bought a car without "permission". It was the first real big blow up of our marriage. I came across a rare gem of a 1984 Camaro with CrossFire injection. The engine had been swapped out for a 350 and the car was wicked fast. It was only $100!!! How could I not buy it for that cheap? It was Blue with T-Tops. It needed a lot of work but I drove it for a while and then sold it to my very good friend Jeff who still has it today. I didn't want to let it go but it had to or I was going to have to sleep in it ;)  About six months later I came across a '70 that was in good enough condition it could be a daily driver with a quick engine and trans rebuild. Jen agreed if I sold my truck we could get it. So I sold my favorite truck of all time to satisfy my obsession. I was on a real tight budget but managed to rebuild it for very little investment and had a daily driver. It wasn't perfect but I was driving it. Over the next number of years it got tired and I made small attempts to keep it going but it was in desperate need of a full overhaul. It got parked and when we moved to Washington I made a commitment to make real progress on it. To date it has a new Heidts front suspension and subframe, I have reworked the firewall and am fabricating a lot of parts. I just received the rear suspension and I am making good progress. A couple more years and this will be an amazing machine.

 Over the same years I had another obsession. I wanted to purchase a brand new Camaro like grandpa had done. In 1998 I went to the dealer and we filled out all the paperwork for a silver cloud Z28 with deletes on all the power windows, leather, etc. It would be the closest to a COPO Camaro as you could get. It would be a very rare car(had it actually been purchased) I worked out the payments and the finance guy at the dealer was nice enough to have me call the insurance company first and find out what it would cost to insure a 17yr old with a new z28. I was devastated....It was going to cost $550/month to insure. I couldn't afford anything like that, what a contrast from my $67 for the '79 Olds. That was the last year you could delete options like that. When we got married the dealer I worked for had a black Z28 on the lot. As an employee they were willing to give me an incredible deal. I took Jen for a ride, we had only been married for four days. We loved the car, Jen was concerned that it wasn't a practical car for starting a family....A couple months later her Honda was blowing up, the trans was ready to drop out of it. We needed to trade it in now or we were going to be stuck. We figured if we took it to one of those big tent sales they might not look as hard at the car and we'd get more for trade in. We were right. We looked at a bunch of cars that day. One was a Z28, I called the insurance and it would be 280 a month to insure. Jen said nope! We kept looking and ended up with a car that I actually liked, not loved...a 2000 Pontiac Grand Am. We didn't even call on the insurance because of course it would be cheaper to insure a four door family car right? We got home and found out it was $330/month!!!! In 2001 there were rumors the Camaro was going away, I wrote General Motors and got a reply to my surprise, they said the Camaro wasn't going away and I was glad. I planned on buying it in a couple years when we got things in order. In 2002 their lie became clear, no more Camaro. We looked at a couple left at the dealer but we flat out couldn't afford it at that moment. My dream was gone...Then in 2006 a concept car put the dead muscle car market on notice. The Camaro was a hit, so much so GM scrambled the boys down under and used the Zeta platform to build it. 2010 came around, I went to the dealer and asked to drive one. They basically said piss off...Not a chance...Nope...Buy it first, then drive it??????!!! It didn't matter what dealer I went to. They wouldn't even talk to you until you forked over the cash. To top it off they were adding 10k to the sticker price and people were paying it!! I was too focused on my career and being ready to move at a moments notice so I decided to wait until we moved. When we moved to Washington the Honda Civic we were driving was tired and needed to be replaced. I wanted a Camaro but their was talk of the Z28 coming and I didn't want to buy anything else. We needed a car that was big enough to cart family around when they visited. Unknown to us we were going to need a car big enough for the TWINS!!! We bought a Pontiac G8, they were cheap after the collapse of Pontiac because people were worried there wouldn't be parts or warranty. GM still honored the warranty and Holden still made parts. So we got a steal! The G8 is a zeta platform Holden Commodore VE made in Australia. When Pontiac was drowning they made a last ditch effort to survive by importing the Holdens and slapping a different bumper on them. It is essentially a four door Camaro when you look at the engine and chassis, at least that's how I justified it in my mind. Then the ZL1 came out. It was going to be the Z28 but they changed their mind last minute and kept the name for a future release. I loved the ZL1 but couldn't afford it, especially with the twins being born the year it came out. I found myself driving by chevy dealers that weren't on the way home. I know everything there is to know about the car, option codes, gear ratios, performance specs etc. I would talk to salesman and they would try and blow smoke and I would correct them. I would explain which parts I wanted and they would tell me they didn't have that. I left a lot of dealers annoyed. About a month ago I took Jen and we went to the dealer. We drove two cars a 1LE and a ZL1. The ZL1 is a sick car, as I pushed the go pedal down getting on the freeway I thought this isn't that fast. Then I looked down and saw I was going 120mph!!! The car was incredible, suede leather on everything, Magnetorheological struts, supercharged 580 hp!! I was in love. There was a Blue Ray Metallic ZL1 at another dealer that I wanted. Production with that color was only 176. It would be a collector car in 20 yrs. The reality hit when we worked out the payments. I just couldn't afford a $63k car...I was heartbroken. While I had done better for myself in earning, the world had gotten more expensive around me and I flat out couldn't afford it. The new model 2014 had changes that made the car look terrible, I hate it. The 2013 Camaros were selling fast, the Blue Ray 2SS 1LE that was second on my list sold a couple weeks later. Then I stumbled on a car at a dealer that stood out. The price was better than any I had seen. It was a stripped down race car, as close to the COPO cars of 69. As a 1SS it had no leather, no heads up display, no CD player etc. The only Options it had was the RS and 1LE making it more affordable and the 1LE made it something I would like. The 1LE option got all the goodies from the ZL1 except the magnetic ride and the supercharger. It has lower gears, heavy duty close ration trans, electric power steering, big brakes, big wheels and tires, I mean BIG.  White was the second lowest on my list but when we drove by and I saw it in person it grabbed me. I got out and looked at it and I knew. I got back in the car with Jen and told her to go look. She normally would have said no but she went and checked it out. I asked her what she thought. She said "I'm not saying no" I asked if that was a yes, she said no, she just wasn't saying no...Done, I went in and bought it. The salespeople were nice but didn't have a clue about this car.

 Click on this link to read about the car
http://www.chevroletperformance.com/vehicles/2013-camaro-1le/

Needless to say my dream has come true, I pinch myself everyday. I love this car and someday a grandchild of mine will take the keys and continue the dream.

Thank you Jen, I love you

Thank you Grandpa for the dream

I Preminisced No Return of the Salad Days

Our summer was filled with picnics, playing at the park, visiting family in Utah, enjoying a loud July fourth, surviving mommy's gall bladder surgery, sweeping the porch, screaming every time our parents went outside without us, getting to have Grammie live with us for a whole month, reading books, pulling off couch cushions, climbing endless furniture, drawing with crayons, and visiting Daddy for lunch. Summer days are just about gone. It's officially fall and with that comes the rain and cloud cover. We really don't understand the weather change and we'll have several meltdowns once we realize rainy days means outside will be severely limited. Until then, each time it's sunny, Mommy will get the hare-brained idea to go on a picnic and we don't mind that one bit.

 

 
*mommy's note: Yes, I finally finished Winter angel! I took pictures of my summer two years ago (before babies were on the scene; even remotely thought of as possible in our family) and she was only about halfway done. Next angel up is Autumn angel and what a wonderful time of year to get started on her!