Play Silks

I've always loved Waldorf style toys for my kids. They can be pretty expensive though. Since I'm a crafty type of person and the Waldorf philosophy is very much in favor of do-it-yourself, I make most of my own. Except for the wooden stuff because I have to draw the line somewhere and wood crafting is a lot harder to do with little kids around than knitting, sewing, and felting.

 One of the things I've always wanted for the kids is a set of playsilks. This Christmas, I finally broke down and made some. I actually bought the scarves already hemmed because the price wasn't much different than hemming them myself. Then I invested in a set of acid dyes and dyed them myself. We've done a lot of dying before, but I hadn't used acid dyes before. Admittedly, I spent almost as much money on the dyes and scarf blanks as I would have spent on pre-dyed scarves, but I like my home dyed ones better and I still have plenty of dyes left over for other projects, like yarn.

The kids love playing with these. They use them for everything from capes, to blankets, to playscapes, and more. The silk has such an amazing texture that the kids just love to touch it. Devon thinks they're pretty enough to just wear as scarves too. 

I kettle dyed these scarves to get the variegated look, but I want to try some more with different dying techniques too.  Wouldn't tye-dyed ones be great?

Christmas 2013!

I took the entire day off of the computer to enjoy my family!

We actually started a little early, opening the gifts from out of town family on Christmas Eve. Thank you Cassi, Tim, Uncle Sonny, and Linda we love everything!

Owen really got into opening packages this year. He takes FOREVER though.

This is what the kids woke up to Christmas morning.

Unfortunately, Duncan also woke up with a really bad sore throat.

Once everything was opened, I started Brunch, while Rod and Connor spent the next few hours putting together Brenna and Morgan's kitchen set.

Santa had a little help from Grandma for this gift!

Then half of us took naps while the other half continued to play. Our goal was to be at Grandma and Grandpa's house at 5:00, but we didn't actually get out of the house until  about 10 til. Getting everyone out the door is always much more complicated with a houseful of new toys to play with.

First on the agenda at Grandma and Grandpa's was Morgan's Birthday since we still hadn't managed to get over there to open her birthday gifts.

Then the package opening free for all began, while I tried to keep everything in some sort of order and Rod tried to snap pictures in between helping with stubborn packaging.

Poor sick Duncan even managed to drag himself off the couch to open packages in the corner where hopefully, he didn't spread any germs to Grandma.

Then we had some dinner and headed home to begin the 3 hour settling-down-from-being-over-excited-and-hopped-up-on-sugar bedtime routine. Yes, it actually took over 3 hours to get everyone to bed.
Today, we spent part of the day finding homes for all the new stuff and part of the day just playing. That will be our routine until New year's when we will start up our "normal" schedule again.
I want to thank all of our friends and family for such a wonderful holiday! Except for my sister who probably got Duncan sick (just kidding)!