The reason for my severe blog neglect.

I must be crazy.  So, along with having four little kids, teaching 14 piano students (including Natalie and Kelton), and being in Young Women's, I decided I had a little spare time to start making and selling crocheted items.  I started in October, and I will admit, I got a lot more business than I originally thought I would.  November and December were a bit crazy.  I stopped taking orders for Christmas before Thanksgiving even arrived.  Here are my stats for October through December.  I made 75 hats,  7 hooded cowls, 1 cowl, 3 scarves, a pair of mittens, a large stuffed minion, 7 large stuffed giraffes (each one of these takes about as long as making three hats), and a stuffed My Little Pony.  Like I said, crazy. I was crocheting about 30 hours a week for a while.  (A few of those items were for my own kids... but I still had to make them!)  It has slowed down since Christmas, but even then, I have made 3 more stuffed items, 37 hats, 2 pairs of baby shoes, and a mermaid tail blanket/dress up fin.  Orders have now slowed down pretty much to a stop.  And I am grateful.  It's really fun to make this stuff, but I'm ready to be back on top of having a somewhat clean house and not having to crochet in every spare moment.  Here are some screen shots from my phone of some of the things I've made!

I didn't make the minecraft blanket above, but I am working on one just like it.

This one below has some repeats, but the last few lines are new.

I'm sure anyone actually reading my blog already knows this (since it is a private blog), but just in case, my site is www.facebook.com/crochetedbycherie if you ever want to check it out!

Some of my most recent creations

Here are a few things I've made since Christmas.  I've been dying to share them, but haven't wanted to post them to my site until I get all caught up on orders.  Aren't they so cute?

 

My kids were particularly excited for me to finish this one.  I made him for a school fundraiser auction that will go live in just a few weeks. 

When he was finished and I was photographing him, Damon came into the room.  He asked, "Mom, if Olaf all finished?"  I said he was.  Damon's eyes got wide and he asked, "Can I hug him?"  I said sure.  He was so excited.  He gave Olaf a big hug and then looked at me with those big chocolate eyes and said, "That was a warm hug."  He's such a cutie.  I think I will keep him.  :)

Kelton is 7!

Kelton turned seven on January 16th.  He was so excited for his birthday!

Opening presents before getting ready for school.

I forgot to take a picture of all of his presents.  But I think everything is in this picture.  He got a big Lego City set and a small Lego 3 in 1 helicopter, the second half of the Magic Treehouse books set (he got the first half for Christmas), and a Nerf Gun.  He was more than thrilled to get money from both sets of grandparents and has his sights set on buying another lightsaber from Disneyland.

I took packages of little donuts, chocolate frosted and powdered, into Kelton's class for a birthday treat.  He thought that was really fun and enjoyed passing them out to everyone.  When he got home, he excitedly started playing with all of his new birthday toys.  He requested stir fry for dinner--still his favorite dinner.

Kelton doesn't really care for cake.  The problem is, I care quite a lot about cake.  I asked him what other birthday treat he would prefer, and he chose ice cream.  So I bought the requested ice cream, but also had to make some sort of cake.  I introduced my kids to cupcakes in ice cream cones.

He's such a little cutie!  I can't believe he is already seven.  He is such a sweetheart and loves to be loved on.  Happy birthday Kelton!  We love you so much!

Christmas!

There's nothing like the excitement of opening Christmas Eve pajamas!  Even Arie knew something great was about to happen.

It's amazing how much work goes into creating the scene below.  Especially when you get too busy to wrap any of the presents beforehand.  See the clock on the wall?  That is really what time we went to bed.  I didn't take a closer up picture, but Mickey there in the front has an envelope with 5 day Disneyland tickets for us and a Mickey shirt for each child.  The kids were very excited.

Christmas morning!  Waiting at the top of the stairs before getting to come down.

Arie loved her car.  And her giraffe (more on that later).  They rode around together all morning in the car...

And in the wagon.  We could not convince her to put her stuff in the wagon and pull it around.  She was positive that she was supposed to sit in the wagon herself.

Stockings!

Santa also left this for us:

 

 Santa was kind enough to bring some little critters to live with us.  Guinea pigs, to be exact.  They got named Midnight and Snowball.  (The one on the bottom is all white with just a little brown on her head.  The lighting in the picture is bad.)  We actually had them about 2-3 weeks before Christmas, locked in our office.  And we actually kept it a secret.

I finished up all of my Christmas orders and got busy working on some things for my own kids.  The boys asked for scarves or big stuffed minions.  I just didn't have time to do the minions, so they got scarves.

Here is Arie's giraffe.

I made Natalie a Pinkie Pie My Little Pony.  I was worried about this one, but it turned out great.

Somehow I didn't get any pictures of this... but we got visits from both sets of grandparents after Christmas.  Nate's parents came later on Christmas Day and stayed for a few nights.  Then my parents came and stayed for a few nights.  It was really fun and the kids enjoyed having all of their grandmas and grandpas at their house.

A little bit of December

This is a self portrait by Damon.  Maybe it's just me, but I see a striking resemblance to Mr. Potato Head.

Random note... I have been making all of my family's bread for about the past year and a half.  I've maybe bought two loaves in that time and they were both about a year ago.  Anyway, Arie decided she was hungry and decided to help herself to a brand new loaf!  *Sigh.  It's a good thing she is so cute.

I did some Christmas/grocery shopping while Damon was at preschool.  Can you find the one item that doesn't fit in?  Shortly after getting to the store, she curled right up and went to sleep.  I had to use some pretty awesome grocery stacking skills for the rest of the trip.  This is so atypical.  She never falls asleep anywhere but her bed.  I didn't quite know what to do!

See what I mean about the cuteness?  It saves her from getting into so much trouble.  Like, on an hourly basis.  Don't let that innocent face fool you.  She is very sweet and has a very good temperament for a two year old, but she is one big mischief maker.  And she makes mischief in order to distract your attention so she can move on to bigger and better plans of mischievousness.   And she is fast.  And I promise, I do watch her.  But lets just say, hypothetically, that she was returned to my doorstep by a police officer in December and that I lost her at the mall last Saturday.  Hypothetically...

(Okay, she escaped from the back yard while I was cooking dinner.  The older kids left the gate open.  Someone saw her happily wandering the streets and called the police.  Who then picked her up and started going door to door with her.  Then, the other day, I was doing a return at Children's Place when she slipped out of the store and down and around a corner, about 9 storefronts away, to play on some toys she had seen when we entered the mall.  Yes, I know, Mother of the Year award goes to me.  Did I mention we are going to Disneyland next week?  We may or may not come home with Arie.)

Church is exhausting.

Annual gingerbread house decorating at the library.  I'm so glad they do this.  Decorating gingerbread houses, or graham cracker houses in this case, is fun, but it's even better when all you have to do is show up and everything is there ready for you.

November randomness

If you can't tell, she did her own hair.

 

And if you didn't know, it is virtually impossible to buckle a child in a car seat when they assume this position. 

 Natalie always comes home from school and dumps a huge stack of papers in my lap.  As I was sorting through them, I found this:

I was surprised that she didn't mention anything about it, so I asked, "Natalie, did you see this?"  Her response was, "what??"  So she came over and read it.  I think she was a little bit excited.  She and I went to the school in January and got to paint her tile.  She had me help her paint some of it and thought that was really fun.  The school will fire the ceramic tiles and they will be permanently placed on one of the walls at the school.  Pretty cool.

 

I took a few of the Young Women in my ward on a temple trip.  There was a lady there who was having the kids do some of her family names.  That is always so neat to see and to feel the spirit that is there.

This little girl.  She is the cutest, sweetest little thing, and some days, we just don't know what to do with her.  She decided in November that she just didn't like diapers anymore.  I would come in at night before going to bed and find her like this.  Every night.  I tried all kinds of different pajamas.  I tried duct taping the pajamas.  I tried duct taping the diapers.  That last one bought us about a week before she finally figured out how to get the duct tape off, even when it was wrapped completely around her, with both ends in the back.  What do you do?  I guess you teach them how to use the potty.  I didn't do it until the end of January, but Arie is potty trained!  And she leaves her clothes on at night again.

Places to go, people to see...

This school year, Damon has been in Miss Marcy's preschool.  He goes twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:00-12:00.  He loves it!  This is his Thanksgiving program.

And his Thanksgiving feast!

We spent Thanksgiving in Snowflake with the Webb's.  For the first time in many years, I didn't do any shopping on Black Friday.  (There wasn't anything I wanted!)   It was nice to just stay home and enjoy the holiday.  Here is Arie at Thanksgiving dinner.  She was trying to pretend to be grumpy. 

But it was always quickly followed by this face.