hibernation day

Thanks to my Nebraska friend Betty Dasenbrock for this Christmas Quilt! She gave it to me in July and I remember dreaming of the day I would have my baby wiggling around on it during Christmastime. It felt so far off, and yet time flies by and here we are...

The snow is coming down and we are so grateful not to have any place to go…and nothing really to do, either. (Other than perhaps take a stab at the thank you notes that are waiting for me to write...) So given our clean slate of a day, we started the morning off with a photo shoot. And then we moved on to digging through the 12 dozen cookies I came home with yesterday from The Great Lisa Groves Christmas Cookie Swap Spectacular. I will have you know that I am trying to put these cookies in the freezer before this snowed-in mama and daddy eat them all up themselves. Twelve different kinds of cookies, twelve of each kind (oreo truffles might be the favorite). That is a lot of butter and sugar sitting on our countertop right now.

We actually would have needed to dig our car out this morning if we hadn’t played our part as first time parents so well. You see, Ivar was asked to be Baby Jesus in the Shepherd of the Valley Christmas pageant that is to be held today. He would be held by a 5th grader dressed as Mary with her robe cinched with a rope. There are stairs involved and even though the role of Jesus is clearly the role of a lifetime, we had Ivar decline. It just made us too nervous! I told the Christian Education director that she should ask us again on our third or fourth baby. By then we’ll probably drop the baby off at the curb and swing by an hour later to pick it up. (No, not really… But I do imagine we would be more willing.) At any rate, it’s snowing like crazy and I’m so happy we don’t have to hop in the car.

We got our tree last Saturday and last night Rory put the lights on it. Perhaps by next Saturday we will have ornaments on it. Projects like this just take a whole lot longer lately. I was thinking yesterday that the Food Network should have a one-handed cooking show. Similar to Rachel Ray’s 30 minute meals, this show would show you how to prepare family friendly meals while holding a fussing baby. Maybe the baby would begin the show in a swing or a rumble buns, but right at the crucial meal prep moment, the baby would start crying and then the host could show you what in the world you are supposed to do then…with an upset child and eggs and pancakes on the stove.

Thankfully the house did get decorated for Christmas thanks to my mom getting snowed in with us last weekend. (This has been quite the fantastic Minnesota snowy winter so far. And I love it.) Mom and I had attended a funeral together and then for her birthday I took her to a handmade craft fair downtown. By the time we were done at the craft fair, the snow was too heavy for dad to come and pick her up. So she held Ivar all night while I plowed through every Christmas box. I know it was her birthday, but I felt like it was mine. I am certain those boxes would still be sitting in the middle of the living room.

Anyway, I just wanted to drop a few lines here today. We got Ivar a swing this week and if we set it by the tree he is entertained/hypnotized to sleep for good chunks of time. Hence my ability to blog! Hooray! Happy Snow Day, everybody. Hope you can hibernate too.