It still needs a few details, burners, a faucet and some hooks but the boys don't even notice. When it is complete, we will make a beeswax finish and have the boys polish it up. Mike stayed in the basement for two days straight working. He also helped the boys make gifts for each other. Forrest made blocks from the cherry tree mike and Andy cut down. 
They came out awesome! He even carved the letters of their names into some. Gaynor made a finger hover board for Harland and finger skis for Forrest. You Velcro them to your fingers and do tricks on furniture. Pretty neat! The best part was that they were more excited to give each other the gifts them made than to open their own. That is what it's all about. We changed a few things this year. We asked Santa to bring something small and the more substantial gifts were from Mike and I, with the exception of Gaynor's pocket knife. But Gaynor is hip to the ways of Christmas. 
Mike and I got to bed at our normal Christmas Eve time...1:30 am! We wouldn't want me to consider wrapping anything before then. I watched "A Christmas story" and drank hot cocoa while I wrapped and Mike worked down stairs. It was kind of nice, but I am still recovering. I did have to let some things go, its always a good lesson for me. And, no Christmas cards again. To be honest, I had the picture super early, and the cards are pretty cheap themselves....its the darn stamps! I just can't afford it. It's almost $.50 per card...40 cards equals $20 just can't try to make all the gifts and justify $30 spend on Christmas cards..sorry.
It was a wonderful weekend. Mike, home for 4 full days!! Harland had his sixth birthday.
I made my first birthday crown and it was a huge hit. (yes i realize some one is "digging for treasure" in this photo, but this is my life. I photograph it how it is!) I started a new tradition of laying out the crown and gift (a pot holder loom, he loooovveees it!) at night to be discovered in the morning. Much easier than trying to put them off all day for cake and ice cream at night. We played jenga...the totally awesome edition, a gift made by S&A....so fun! And generally spend the day doing what Harland wanted to do. What else could a kid want? So all in all, the weekend -Good friends and good food and plenty of playing with the kids. But I am somewhat relieved it is mostly over. We have family coming this weekend and then the tree comes down and I get this place back on track. I am looking forward to our normal daily rhythm which has been working wonderfully here. I am also looking forward to some deep cleaning, purging, simplifying and rearranging. I am working on my lists of goals for the new year one of which will be moving...Again! not my dream come true but it has to be done. I seem to have raised gypsy children who are weirdly excited about the idea of moving. More on this topic over the next few months. I will be talking about my plans for a garden during a move and my goals for maintaining some sanity during this move. I will also be posting about our new concept of a daily rhythm and what that means for us as well as how moving towards a Waldorf way of raising my boys has all ready meant great and meaningful changes in our home. I hope you all had an amazing holiday!
