In which the first seasonal episode (surely the last!) of egregious overspending at the craft store leads to a swell morning with grandchildren.
Retro buttons, dressmaker pins with pearly heads, styrofoam cones. Five grandchildren, ranging from age 2 to 6. That's right, sharp objects and small children. Four children and two adults made button trees, which are, I think we can all agree, damned cute and very merry.
Cloves, oranges, a nail for pre-poking the holes for the cloves, tea light candles. That's right, another craft including poking. The kids mainly vetoed this, the pomander craft. They wanted to move on to the cookies. And really, who can blame them.
Sugar cookies (Dr. Write's recipe, thank you very much as it worked beautifully and tasted great), icing in three colors (white, red, green), and about a dozen different kinds of sprinkles. Can you really have too many sprinkles? I don't think so. Each kid decorated about six sugar cookie trees, with optional icing-sprinkles-icing-more sprinkles layering. Also, intermittent cookie eating.
Lunch: paninis or peanut butter and honey or peanut butter and jam, or all three. Carrots, chips, grapes, oranges. Root beer. This was a big hit.
2. I really should be grading.
In which I yet again procrastinate moving from pre-grading (organizing scores, seeing what I have and what I don't, and yet again sending the "did you forget . . .?" e-mails which I swear swear swear to myself I'm going to stop doing) to the grading, and buy a Christmas tree.
It is beautiful, I only had to discard two strands of lights after having first tested them to see if they worked, and they worked, and then I put them on the tree and they didn't work. But that only made me a little sweaty. And now it is gorgeous. My grading will occur in a much more festive atmosphere. And it will be finished by Friday. Oh yes! It will be finished by Friday.
See for yourself:
TAGS: crafty, overspendy, festive, O tannenbaum, pre-grading
That is one giant butterball of a tree. I love it.
ReplyDeleteYou must be getting so excited, grading nearly finished, missionary nearly home!
Lovely, lovely lights. And delightsome vista of the Land of Grandchildren - which makes me think that not too soon, but someday there might be future blisses that will be worth the missing of my grown children that's coming these next years . . .
ReplyDeleteI want my christmas tree! but i haven't been able to convince myself to break away from grading that long (my pre-grading, sadly, has involved more grading). But last night I did start the festivities with some baking/ candy making: linzers, chocolate sables, peppermint sticks.
ReplyDeleteThose are some cute kids/trees/cookies. I want one of those tree/button things. I have begun my grading, hoping I would be done tonight. Sadly, probably not. But tomorrow. Tomorrow!!
ReplyDeleteAnd then I can start shopping.
Yes, I'm a loser.
Holy huge tree, batman! Love it!
ReplyDeleteYou are one crafty gramma. Lovely tree, as always. And the pomanders smell good even way over here.
ReplyDeleteWell done!
These kids will never forget your day. I still remember the one and only time my mom and her friends baked cookies with their children. Had a real assembly line going and IT WAS SO GREAT.
ReplyDeleteI want a button tree, thank you very much.