Week #10: Leading up to Christmas

CHRISTMAS, STERLING STYLE

On Friday night, after Cora had gone to bed, Sterling and I were talking about Christmas traditions, and before I knew it, we were cutting out snowflakes—making the biggest mess like we were 10 years old.  My snowflakes turned out looking like they did when I was 10 years old.  Sterling’s, however, did not. 

We had this great idea to make snowflakes inspired by famous pieces of art.  (Nerdy?  Maybe…) 

Sterling's snowflake based on William Morris' work (below)

William Morris painting

Here's just another snowflake Sterling made.

I'm obviously not quite as skilled in the smowflake-making area, but her is my Matisse-inspired snowflake.
I threw my other one away :)

Henri Matisse cut-outs

A few weeks ago, I posted a photo of the Christmas tree Sterling made out of newspaper.  Yesterday he came home from work and started making garlands and decorations from our paper recycling pile.  Housekeeping must think we are absolutely nuts. 

OH, MISCHEIVIOUS LITTLE ELF

We are also doing the Elf on the Shelf thing for Christmas.  One day, I came home from the gym to this:

Our little elf, having tea with Cora's stuffed animals

CORA

Cora has a tooth!  It has just started to break through her gums.  Front, bottom left.  She hasn’t seemed to be too bothered by it yet, but we do have some Orajel on hand in case she decides to be bothered at 2 am for any reason. 

Her eczema was gone last week, but it broke out again.  It’s not nearly as severe as it was a few weeks ago, but it’s there.  My mom sent some salve called “Mom’s Stuff” that she got at the Beehive Bazaar that’s made all locally and naturally.  Hopefully, that will help!

BOWLING, AUSTRALIAN STYLE

I was finally able to meet Sterling’s co-workers at their Christmas Party thing when we all went out to Cambodian food.  After lunch, they introduced us to lawn bowling.  From what I can gather, it has the same associations that American bowling has.  Sterling’s co-worker just kept saying how quintessentially rural Australian it was.  It was kind of like a ELK’s Lodge or Lion’s Club:  Dingy old building with a bar in the corner, lots of old people sitting around playing Cribbage, tacky Christmas decorations, stale air, and the like.  It was quite the experience.  (His co-workers were all going there to be ironic, I’m pretty sure!)

Sterling's co-workers

Sterling and Cora getting ready for some lawn-bowling!

Sterling lawn bowling

Me trying to lawn bowl.  It didn't work so well...

Needless to say, I don’t think we’ll be making lawn bowling a new hobby any time soon, but it sure was fun!

NEW SHOW

Last week Sterling was sick for a day with a cold, and now I’m sick with mastitis.  Now, honestly speaking, we are not huge TV people, but Sterling found a DVD at the library of some episodes of Samantha Who? and it has kept us entertained as we lay in bed not wanting to do anything else but rest.  Has any one out there heard of this show?  I hadn’t, but we are totally enjoying it.  This girl got hit by a car and now has amnesia.  She essentially has to re-learn about her life.  Kind of funny. 

It’s almost Christmas.  Yay!  Until next time…  We love you.