Smithville News, Just as Riveting Now as it Was 114 Years Ago

 

I went WAAAAY down a rabbit trail last week.

I'm pretty sure this thing I have where I get obsessed with a hobby or a research interest is a positive coping technique for undiagnosed anxiety and/or a negative coping technique for undiagnosed ADD, but regardless, there I was last week, stressed out and anxious, overstimulated and overwhelmed, with the sudden desire to research the history of my property. 

I know the old general store on my land is at least 83 years old, as I have a photo that's dated 1939, showing the general store in business, the owners' bedroom visible through an open door behind the wood-burning stove. It's labeled with the names of the owners, and their surname matches that of the family we bought the house from, so the property was in their family from at least then until they sold it to us.

I'm curious, though, about how old that general store actually is, and how old our house is, and when our land was first cleared for farming, and if it was recorded anywhere who, specifically, the land was originally stolen from, and why it wasn't turned into a quarry like the land just a mile north or the land just a mile east or the land just a few miles south. 

So at some point during a really rough week last week, I was sitting in front of my computer trying to get some work done, and that curiosity all of a sudden became a burning desire. I Googled, and found this website about how to research your historic home, then bypassed all their other useful advice to zone straight in on the "look through historic newspapers" bit. 

So I Googled THAT, and found a run of a very tiny, VERY local newspaper that ran from 1908 to 1914 and served a very small radius of population in this exact area. 

Like, a VERY small radius. We're talking *maybe* five miles in any direction. Little areas that are now just a couple of minutes away by car are referred to in this newspaper as being entirely different towns, and the actual city that I live just south of is referred to as a place you take the train to, and if you want to send your kids to high school they have to board there and only come back on the weekends to visit the "home folks."

It's a miracle that a small newspaper like this even survived to be scanned and preserved, because it's always the unimportant-seeming ephemera like this that's lost. Nobody thinks to preserve it, it's great for starting a fire, it's printed on cheap paper that deteriorates quickly, etc., and most of the time, you'll never know it even existed.

But somebody saved many of these papers--not even close to a complete run, alas, but many of them--and they're scanned into my state's digital archives for me to look at...

...and grow completely obsessed with.

I have never in my life read such a gossipy rag! From what I can tell, the editor just let anyone submit whatever they wanted as news, so along with the occasional murder or theft or buggy accident, every week you get a full accounting of who visited whom and who threw a party and who went shopping in the city and how everyone's crops are doing. And if you thought that today's digital social media inspires FOMO, how would you feel if an acquaintance's recent party was in the newspaper, with a full account of every single person who attended, the entire menu, and who was asked to sing and did so reluctantly and charmed everyone with their beautiful singing voice and organ playing?

And then the next week, you got it all again!

People even subtweeted at each other, right in the pages of the newspaper!

So I started reading this newspaper, and felt like I had fallen into a period novel. Every week all the people were up to something new, and there was gossip and scandal and elopements and fights. And, like, if you lived here in 1908, no part of you was safe. Can you imagine if you went to a party, and at the party you were literally voted "Ugliest Boy?" And then it was IN THE NEWSPAPER that you went to a party and were the ugliest boy there?!?

I horrified Syd by showing her the article at the end of the school year (which was April 16, I'm assuming because after that date everyone needed to go plant corn), which gave the full name of all the eighth-grade graduates of the local schools, as well as EVERY SINGLE KID'S GPA. Including the kid who only earned a 76, poor thing!

Everyone more or less had to get used to me saying, "So, you want to hear the news of 1908?", and then telling them about some local scandal or crime. There were, for instance, a lot of elopements:

There was another one where a 38-year-old guy ran off with a 16-year-old girl. They hired a buggy and fled from the city down to the little town five or so miles south of me, where they'd hoped to catch the train down to Louisville, Kentucky. But the girl's dad had wired every train station around and then gotten on his own horse, and he actually managed to catch them at the Harrodsburg depot. But when the couple saw him, they ran off into the woods and didn't come back out again until the next day. The dad then dragged his daughter back home with him, but she told the reporter that she'd run away again as soon as she could.

They'd also put it into the paper whenever someone left their spouse, including this chance encounter of a spouse who probably thought he'd gotten clean away:

Also in the newspaper was plenty of good advice, stuff like gentleman shouldn't spit on the sidewalks, and ladies should try to dress up a little more and iron their ribbons when going to town, and how to talk on the telephone:

But there were also plenty of actual crimes. Syd and I reckon that there was a serial killer running around 1908-1909 Smithville. Over about 18 months, I saw THREE reports of men found lying on the train tracks, decapitated. One guy wasn't immediately identified, so they took him to the mortuary and invited the public to come look at him to see if anyone could identify him. He was eventually identified as a guy from Alabama, and although he was found on the train tracks, the coroner said that it looked like someone had tried to decapitate him with a pocketknife, but stopped at his spine and left him on the tracks for the train wheels to finish the job. The murder was blamed on "Italians," and left at that.

Two more times, then, in 18 months, there was a report of somebody found decapitated on the train tracks, but each of those times, the report said that they'd probably been walking home at night intoxicated. One guy, it said, looked like he had lain down to go to sleep on the train tracks, which... okay? And the other guy, it said, looked like he'd fallen and hit his head on the tracks. 

You know what I think, though? I think that a serial killer was murdering people and then leaving them on the train tracks to get decapitated by the train. Because how likely is it that THREE people would just happen to land on the train tracks just exactly the right way to get decapitated in this one small area in 18 months?

And then there was the time that people went to the Christian church one morning and found a dead dog on the pulpit, its head on the Bible and a handwritten note next to it that read, "I'm trying to get to dog heaven." A couple of weeks later, the paper said that a guy had accused his son of putting the dead dog in church and his son had shot at him and then ran away.

And THEN there was the time that they were having an ice cream social at the Mt. Ebal Church and some young men rolled up in their buggy. One of them, the Sipes boy (the newspaper then paused for a long reminiscence about the time that the Sipes boy's mother had died in the middle of winter and his father had piggybacked the boy to a neighboring farm in a snowstorm and gotten frostbite on his feet), took out a revolver and started shooting at the sky. This scared the horses, so one guy told the Sipes boy to put his revolver back in his pocket, and the Sipes boy shot him three times point blank.

The newspaper ran regular reports on the guy's eventual full recovery, and the Sipes boy's continued stay in the county jail. 

Okay, and THEN there is the whole saga of the Angora cat. There was an article in the paper about how Harold Allen lost his Angora cat, and was offering the unheard-of sum of $25 as a reward for her recovery. I don't even know how someone would even have gotten an Angora cat into the backwoods of Indiana back then, but I guess the train did run everywhere. So we don't hear anything else for a few months, and then one day there's an article in the newspaper about how Dillon Deckard caught a long-haired white cat the other day, and he thought about skinning it but decided instead that he was going to keep it.

I was all, "HEY! That's Harold Allen's cat!!!!" But, you know, I'm the only one over here binging two years of Smithville News in a weekend. For everyone else, several months have passed. Mary Travers turned down her teaching post so she wouldn't leave her father without a housekeeper. Charlie Delgar grew a pumpkinvine up his apple tree and now it's dangling giant pumpkins down like apples. Judah Harden had to shoot his dog after it savaged the postman. Bloomington took down the hitch rack outside the courthouse and all the farmers are big mad about it and say they'll just mail order from Indianapolis if Bloomington doesn't give them anywhere to tie up their horses. So maybe Harold's cat is just old news, and Dillon Deckard can keep her.

But don't worry--people did remember Harold's cat.

This was basically all I talked about all weekend, so much so that Syd and I now talk about them as if they're real--and on Tiktok:

"She's a 10, but she earned the lowest grade in her class."

"She's a 6."

"He's a 9, but he found Harold's Angora cat and he's keeping it."

"He's a 2."

"She's a 4, but she turned down a teaching job so she could stay home and 'be the housekeeper' for her father."

"I think she's still a 4?"

"He's a 10, but he put a dead dog in the church and then shot at his father."

"He's a -1."

But in all of Smithville, for all of the two years' worth of weekly gossip news that I read, this news was what made me feel the most feels:

To be honest, I was pretty offended on Grandma Woodward's account. Like, the nerve of calling some old woman pathetic when all she's doing is minding her own business sitting on her porch?

A few months later, though, the newspaper reported that she'd died, and then it called her a "good woman who was always doing good deeds for others." Awww! And then the NEXT week's newspaper had about twenty different notices of all the people who'd traveled to her funeral at Mt. Ebal church, including one guy who'd closed down his entire school for the day so he could attend. 

It was Grandma Woodward, then, who inspired me to my next great idea and the next step in my great obsession.

This, Friends, is Mt. Ebal church, about five miles from my house as the crow flies:

It is now an Airbnb, and was the source of its own run of news in the currently gossipy local newspaper of today. I guess it had been unsold for a VERY long time before the current owners bought it, and people were accustomed to parking in its lot when they visited the cemetery across the street, and also for funerals. But the new owners were not allowing this anymore, and people were so mad that they held a bunch of public meetings to try to get the owners to let them keep parking there. The restaurant a block down the street even said that people were welcome to park in their lot and walk over, but nope, people were all, "I can't walk a block! I can only walk across the street!"

We parked at the back of the cemetery, and walked around looking for Susan Woodward and my other newspaper friends. 

I found lots of familiar names:

It was Syd who found my prize for me:

You'll be pleased to know that not only was Grandma Woodward much beloved in life, but in death she had PRIME placement front and center in the cemetery. Check out how close she is to the church!

I haven't quite worked up the nerve to mention to the rest of the family that I also now very much need to visit the Clear Creek Christian Cemetery, Knights of Pythias Cemetery (which is also in the middle of a field now, sooo...), and several now abandoned limestone quarries...

Nutcracker Masks

 

I have decided that the holiday between Halloween and Christmas is, in our family, The Nutcracker. 

I mean, it's got all the holiday trademarks. It's time-consuming! It's expensive! Out-of-town family comes to visit! There are decorations! Children are delighted! There is MUSIC!!!

Last year, the absence of The Nutcracker put a pall over the entire season for me. This year Nutcracker is back, and I am determined to treasure every second of it.

Syd is reprising her role as a little lad in the party scenes of the ballet, and I wanted something extra festive to send her off to rehearsals in. I found this awesome Nutcracker print at Spoonflower, reworked Syd's favorite mask design to have a single front piece, and fussy cut the Nutcracker Prince battling the Mouse King to fit:

I LOVE it! It's the perfect size for this mask.

These cord locks and nose strips have been working great, although the cord locks definitely have the potential to wander away. The nose strips have a sticky back, which helps them stay in place while I sew them.

I made Syd two identical masks so that she can trade them out when she gets sweaty. The costumers will have custom masks for the children to perform in, and I'm excited to see if they'll be cute, but they're definitely not going to be as cute as this:

The boring black mask is MY Nutcracker mask, because I have to dress like a bandit when I volunteer backstage, and the costumers certainly won't be making ME anything cute!

P.S. I'm working on a Nutcracker Pinboard, because obviously it's not a real holiday if it doesn't have a Pinboard, so hit me up with any ideas you find!

Here's an Easy Way to Make a Hogwarts Robe

This tutorial was originally published on Crafting a Green World back in 2016.

If you want to be a character from Harry Potter, you need a good Hogwarts robe. With some savvy thrifting, you can make a DIY Hogwarts robe in no time. 

If you want to be a character from Harry Potter, you need yourself a good Hogwarts robe. I mean, of course! But how to obtain the perfect robe? 

You could buy a fairly cheap Hogwarts robe in a costume store, but then it would look cheap. You could buy a super-nice, super-expensive one, but then it would be super expensive. There are loads of tutorials for making your own, either from scratch or by altering existing patterns, but if you price out the fabric needed for making a good-looking, reasonably accurate Hogwarts robe yourself, you'll realize that in that case, you might as well just buy one of those expensive ones, after all (and therefore, how on earth are the people making those robes, even the expensive ones, being paid a living wage? Sigh...).

 However, if your goal is an inexpensive, sustainable, good-looking, DIY Hogwarts robe, there is one very simple, very inexpensive, very good-looking solution for you: You need a used graduation gown!

 If you've got a month or more until you need your Hogwarts robe, check around your local thrift stores. We live in a college town that has a surplus store for random used university equipment, and every now and then they sell off a load of old black graduation gowns. Churches sometimes sell their worn-out choir robes. You NEVER know what's going to show up at Goodwill. 

 If you've got a few days until your costume party, I'd suggest checking out ebay. I bought the graduation gowns used for this project there for about 10 bucks a gown, plus a refreshingly uninflated shipping charge. 

 Another option is, of course, your local Craigslist or Freecycle. People keep the most random stuff in their houses, just waiting for the perfect opportunity to offload it. Just last year, my MIL gave me my husband's old high school graduation gown so that I could upcycle it into a dress for my kid, and Reader, he is almost 40 years old!

DIY Hogwarts Robe from an Old Graduation Gown

To make your Hogwarts robe the most accurate, you'll also want an embroidered Hogwarts house patch; I bought patches for three of the four houses at Hot Topic, of all places, although my little Gryffindor is still without her patch. Apparently there are a lot of Gryffindors in our town! I was surprised that I couldn't find any of the patches at my local fabric shop, especially since they carry Avengers iron-on patches, but oh, well. Maybe YOUR local fabric shop has some! 

 Since graduation gowns have generous sizing, so that a wide range will fit, you'll only have to do any hemming if the gown's sleeves cover your hands. Only my ten-year-old's gown required this-- 

 --and even then, I only basted it, because I know that sooner or later I'll be re-hemming it; these kids grow like weeds! 

 Our Hogwarts house patches are iron-ons, but even so, I sewed them on with invisible thread in the spool and black thread in the bobbin: 

 I didn't even bother to research whether or not you could iron a patch onto synthetic fabric without something melting or something else not sticking, as honestly, I think it simply takes less time to just sew a patch on, and I think the end result looks and drapes better, as well.

Accessorizing Your DIY Hogwarts Gown

When you're dressing as a Hogwarts student, there are some extra accessories that you can take or leave. I decided against pointy hats, because they'd never stay on throughout an entire night of trick-or-treating, but wands are a must, even though they're just one more thing to carry. 

We went trick-or-treating on our university's campus last night, and the kids were called upon to perform several spells, particularly the one that my ten-year-old invented, which calls for pointing your wand at someone and yelling "Trick or treat!" It makes candy magically appear! 

 Since every Hogwarts student may bring an owl, cat, rat, or toad, my kids decided that their familiars should be part of their costumes. Each kid picked a stuffed animal (my Slytherin daughter is allowed to bring a snake as her pet since she's a Parselmouth, you know) and I attached it to her shoulder by means of safety pins. She also slicked back her hair, because Slytherin, but the rest of us wore our hair the way that we commonly do. 

 And there you go! Hemming, sewing, and dressing four people in these costumes took less than two hours, and I think they look better than some costumes that I'd spent days agonizing over. The year that one kid wanted to be a "baby deer," for instance? Ugh!

A Quick and Easy Carnival Unit Study

 

Check out the glory that is homemade king cake on this Fat Tuesday that features a full foot of snow on the ground! Earlier today, I was outside attempting to shovel the porch, then the steps from the porch to the driveway, then the godforsakenly long driveway from the garage down to the street. I've been shoveling it practically daily this month, it feels like, when there was, you know, an inch or less of snow on the ground, and it always takes me something like an hour and it sucks.

But whoa. Shoveling a foot of snow is a whole other beast! I was all, "OMG this is hard. This is totally why I've heard that people have heart attacks shoveling snow every winter. OMG AM I HAVING A HEART ATTACK?!?"

Just when I was about to, I don't know... just, like, sit down in the snow and give up, pretty much, a totally random neighbor that I have never seen before in my life literally rolled up my snow-covered driveway in his tractor with an honest-to-god SNOWPLOW attachment on the front and was all, "How about I get your driveway for you?"

Friends, I cannot even tell you how thrilling it was to finish shoveling my porch steps while watching this guy plow my whole driveway for me. Like, right before he showed up it had become clear to me that I was NEVER going to get this driveway shoveled, it just was not in the realm of my possibility, and then BOOM! Half an hour later and I'm tucked back inside the house all warm and comfy and with a skid-free driving surface.

Also, I just need you to know how embarrassing I am. The guy introduced himself, told me who his wife is, and I have just now realized that not only do I not remember his name (I remember his wife's name, though?), but I distinctly remember that I definitely, absolutely did not introduce myself in turn. Just... WTF, ME?!? Peopling with other people is so hard!

ANYWAY, now that I've gotten you to join me in cringing in embarrassment (I'm definitely going to be remembering this in 40 years when I have 2:00 am insomnia...), check out this super fun, super easy, and pretty quick unit study that I pulled together to do with Will yesterday and today. We can pretend like it's part of her AP  Human Geography study, since it's a comparison/contrast of the traditions that surround the same religious holiday around the world, but it's also just really fun, and a chance to admire the spectacle of some beautiful performance art, and an excuse to listen to beautiful music, eat delicious food, and, if you're feeling wild, even dress up a little!

WORLD CARNIVAL BADGE ACTIVITIES

I found this fun Girl Scout badge to award Will after our carnival study. Depending on how strict your local uniform police are, it's appropriate for the front or back of a Girl Scout's uniform (it's going on the front of Will's uniform, because that's how we roll). Or it could just be a cute little patch for a kid's jacket or bookbag!

• New Orleans, Louisiana, holds the largest Mardi Gras celebrations each year.

• This year, even though the parades are cancelled, New Orleans is still doing a lot of fun activities. Check out their website here:

• https://www.mardigrasneworleans.com/

• Watch videos of parades from prior years:

• https://www.mardigrasneworleans.com/videos

• Definitely look at the Yardi Gras photos!

• https://www.mardigrasneworleans.com/news/parade-of-homes-2021-style

• Here’s a really good article about house floats from NPR:

• https://www.npr.org/2021/02/16/967761058/in-a-year-without-parades-mardi-gras-in-new-orleans-is-all-about-house-floats

• The king cake is a beloved Mardi Gras tradition. Read about it here:

• https://www.mardigrasneworleans.com/history/king-cakes

• Make sure you learn the following information:

• When/where they were invented

• What’s the secret inside them, and what it means

• The traditional colors, and what they represent

• Do an Instagram or Google Image search to find examples of king cakes.

• Make a homemade king cake using one of these authentic recipes:

• https://www.nola.com/entertainment_life/eat-drink/article_075cd21c-55b3-56e5-b62e-c514de40b4f0.html

• If you’ve got Spotify, here’s a playlist of festive New Orleans music:

• https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1Z8rT8bVkHdD78TIs19Mee?si=g6JKTjvmRcGUn9n3SGDrdg

• Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, holds the largest Carnival celebrations each year.

• Read this webpage to explore the various traditions of the Rio Carnival

• https://www.riocarnaval.org/rio-carnival/what-is

• Samba schools are about more than just dancing! Read about them here:

• https://www.riocarnaval.org/rio-samba-school/rio-samba-schools

• Search YouTube for streams of previous years’ parades entering the Sambadrome.

• Read here to see what you should search for, such as the children’s parade and the winners’ parade:

• https://www.riocarnaval.org/samba-parade/samba-parade

• Be aware: topless nudity is very common in the adult parades. 

• YouTube is also a good place to search for a beginner samba lesson. Can you figure out how to do a part of the dance?

• If you’ve got Spotify, here’s playlist of festive Brazilian music:

• https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0Ulu7CI97mVnnvil3yBAhO?si=Lced7e7XT5etxlvcvJmTQQ

• Venice, Italy, holds one of the oldest Carnival celebrations each year.

• Read more about its history here:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival_of_Venice

• Masks are a very important tradition in the Venice Carnival. You can try making your own mask, or just read these tutorials to explore the process:

• Here’s a bauta mask made from cardboard, aluminum foil, and papier mache:

• https://www.instructables.com/Make-a-Bauta-Mask/

• Here’s a plague doctor mask made by sewing, although you could trace the pattern pieces onto cardboard and use tape, hot glue, and paint:

• https://totallythebomb.com/heres-a-free-pattern-to-make-your-own-quilted-plague-doctor-mask

• If you have Spotify, here’s a Putumayo playlist of Italian music:

• https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4sIMtfPQMRtWedyb8F83dt?si=ahRQ_kupSqym1XgboH7W5g

• Check out this website of other Carnival celebrations across the world:

• https://seeker.io/carnival-2021/

Since I really only wanted to do this unit as a fun study on what would otherwise mostly have been a school-free day for Will (mwa-ha-ha!), we didn't put in the time to make either of the Venice-style Carnival masks--although I am reserving the right to make myself that quilted plague doctor mask at a later time! 

Also, that king cake took plenty of time to make! I showed Will how to dye white sugar, but otherwise she baked the whole masterpiece from scratch completely by herself, and it is DELICIOUS.

Although, when I asked her if she'd put a prize inside the cake she said no, because she didn't want anyone to get it and then feel like they had to host a whole party themselves and make another whole king cake, since it's so much work.

Sweet, thoughtful, literal kid!

All The Christmas Crafts

This is a repost of a round-up that I wrote in 2014. I recently decided to make it the home base for all of our Christmas craft tutorials, so I added all the ones that I've written since 2014. Because whether you're big or small, Christmas is a great time to drag out the craft supplies and bond with your family over popsicle sticks and hot glue guns!

One of the reasons why I enjoy blogging is the feeling of re-discovering an old post, especially when it's something that I've otherwise forgotten completely about. That time when Syd painted the wall with peanut butter. The day that Will threw a fit in a modern art museum. A glimpse of her protectiveness toward her sister.

This particularly applies to Christmas crafts, since they're often done and displayed within the day, and I don't tend to keep them for the next year (gasp, I know!). So, in honor of Christmas Recipe Day and Christmas Craft Day and Christmas Ornament Day on our Advent calendar, and my deep desire to save some time and avoid reinventing the wheel, here's my definitive round-up of all of my Christmas crafts that I can unearth:

wooden stars

Big stars are tree toppers, and little stars are ornaments!

filled ornament

In my opinion, those clear glass baubles exist solely to be filled with cuteness.

Mason jar lid ring ornaments

There's scope for making any kind of art that you want to illustrate these ornaments.

light bulb Christmas ornament

This one uses a hollowed out light bulb as a base for a regular filled ornament.

paint-filled clear ornaments

This is a fun process-oriented craft... and it's good for using up the last bits of various paint pots!

painted holiday shirt

I was surprised at how much effort Syd put into this project. It turned out stinkin' adorable, too!

puzzle ornament

Do you love a puzzle that has some missing pieces? Turn your favorite perfect sections into ornaments!

cinnamon dough ornaments

This might be my favorite Christmas craft. We make them every year.

papier mache star

This is a super fun, super messy, VERY hands-on craft.

Icelandic laufabraud

The kids made this for their Geography Fair project in May, but it's actually a Christmas recipe!

steampunk snowman

When teenagers choose the Christmas craft...

dipped pinecone ornaments

These are crazy pretty, and they last for freaking ever. I'm partial to the crayon-dipped ones.

popsicle stick ornaments

The more glitter, the better!

waffle cone Christmas trees

These are quicker and easier to make than gingerbread houses.

sticker Christmas cards

These were dead easy for me to organize and for the kids to make, and I think that they turned out really cute.

chalkboard gift wrap

This is especially fun, because you can do it right on brown paper (I do a lot of wrapping in brown paper bags).

upcycled CD wish list ornament

Some parents don't like it when I bring this project to our ornament crafting party, but I think it's cool to remember what the kids wanted most each year.

painted popcorn garland

The look cute even when they're plain, but if you've got some teeny spritz bottles, you can make them really special.

beeswax ornaments

I think that these would look even cuter poured more thinly, so I'm going to have the kids try that this year.

gingerbread houses, steps one and two

I don't go through all this trouble every single year, but when I do, this makes the most EPIC gingerbread houses of all time. I'm going to do it this year.

ornament Advent calendar

Starting with a coloring book of ornaments made this a super-easy toddler/preschooler craft.

overhead projector Christmas tree

It's been a while since we've whipped out the overhead projector--we pretty much only use it now for tracing images that we want to be large--but there was a time that this puppy could save any dreary day for me!

collage window card

This required parental wielding of the x-acto knife when the kids were littler, but their random selection of collage papers, and their distribution, looked quite artistic.

coloring page Christmas ornaments

If you've got a scanner, so that you can shrink down regular coloring pages either before or after the kids have colored them, then you can use pretty much any image here.

painted wooden Christmas ornament

This is another easy one for littles. You start with those wooden die cuts that you can get most places, and they don't even have to be holiday-themed--we've got some pretty sweet dinosaur ornaments on the tree, thanks to this craft!

used sandwich bag ornaments

The first time that we did this, the kids weren't old enough to iron. They like this project even more now that they can!

record album cover ornaments

These are so fun for the kids, now that they have the hand strength to cut through cardboard.

felted sweater stockings

I made these, but the kids definitely have the sewing skills to do this now.

Whew! Honestly, I don't even think that these are the entirety of all the Christmas tutorials that the kids and I have done over the years, but I've got to go take a shower, then put Syd's hair up in her flat performance bun, then get the kids to gather up all the stuff that they'll need for the rest of the day and evening (ballet uniform, quiet  activity, school work, water bottle, and packed dinner for Syd, and aerial silks uniform, fat check for her recital costume, library books to return, water bottle, and packed dinner for Will), then drive them to Girl Scouts Co-op, then come back home and work out real quick, then drive back and pick them up, then drive Syd over to Matt's office and drop her off, then take Will to aerial silks, then take her to the library for LEGO Club, then go home and make and mail an etsy order. 

And oh, hell, I just this second got an email from the ballet department saying that the kid's got to bring foundation to her dress rehearsal tonight. Whatever kind of make-up foundation is, that's what I'm going to be buying instead of working out this afternoon.