Marr, over at Smelly Chick, is having a lovely holiday giveaway! Go enter and tell her I sent you!
The next year, I made ds#1 a Gingerbread-boy costume, and we even won a prize for it, but I couldn't find the photo of him (but you'll see it below when ds#2 wore it). 
The year after, ds#1 wanted a Scooby-Doo costume - that one was a bit of a challenge for me as I had to free-hand draw Scooby's face. Ds#2 wore ds#1's old Gingerbread-boy costume.
Ds#1, continuing his trend of making me sew difficult costumes, wanted to be a goldfish for Halloween that year. Nobody, but nobody, sells patterns for a goldfish costume. Thank goodness felt is a forgiving medium. Ds#2, natch, wore ds#1's old ladybug costume.
The following year, I got off easy. Ds#2 wore the old Scooby costume, and ds#1 wanted to be a zombie! So I tore up some clothes and put face paint on him. Works for me!
The final year the kids dressed up, my sister's husband, bless his thrift-shop loving heart, found an elephant costume for us. Yessss!! Ds#1 decided he'd like to be a LEGO brick. Luckily, I found instructions for how to make one at About.com.
And that was it. After that, we did treasure hunts at home where the kids didn't have to dress up, and where we gave them treats such as books and small packets of LEGOs. They claim to love that much more than they ever liked trick-or-treating, which is great because it saved me from ever having to sew or create a costume again.
As you can tell, I keep my nails as pretty as a Hollywood starlett's. *cough* How did she know that my pampered hands (Hah!) magically become sandpaper this time of year and that my cuticles start cracking off, and I have a habit of biting them and then bleeding to death?? Never fear, my poor bleeding fingers, Gracefruit is here to the rescue with her Nail & Cuticle Stick! It's in a terrific take-along form, smells delicately lemony, and feels so good when I rub it in. Maybe now my poor dh can finally stop smacking me on the wrist and saying, "good gawd, woman, will you stop picking at your fingers?". ;)
"The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet." ~ James Oppenheim
See all the goodies I got for my second swap, with Elizabeth of Gracefruit?! I believe I asked for 3 bars of soap and a Wattle Balm, but she added another bar of soap, a Nail & Cuticle Stick (which I flaked out and forgot to put in the photo), AND, to my children's utter and absolute delight, a package of vanilla fudge...from Scotland!!
The rules are to post 6 things I value and 6 things I do not and then pass the honor to 6 other incredible bloggers. 
Have you ever found unintended uses for things? I needed to roll a hank of yarn into a ball to start knitting a sweater, and the kids were off doing their own thing, so I used the arms of this antique chair that my MIL had given to us to help me roll yarn. It was a good use for this otherwise underused chair. 
"The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet." ~ James Oppenheim
I have faith that some day, our orchid will grow up to have beautiful flowers - like maybe when we ship it to Florida!
"The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet." ~ James Oppenheim
"The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet." ~ James Oppenheim
Did you see that?? Not only does Carrie-Gigi place an order with us, making my son very happy, but she sends us stuff with the check! Is that a first in the history of retailing? ;)
Speaking of baking, I tried the Magic Blondies recipe that I'd printed out from MarthaStewart.com We'll have them for dessert tonight ~
Ds#1 took a photo of the chickens (the roosters who will reside permanently in our freezer in another month or so) when they'd gotten up on the roost poles for the night. They've gotten so big already. ~
I finished my first pair of cotton socks. I could have sworn they fit me when I measured them, but I discovered that they're just a tad too small, so my sister, who has smaller feet than I do, will get to take these. ~
My dh is pretty clever. Our wonderful friend, C, gave us these peach baskets, but the handles were rusty wires that cut into our hands when we carry heavy things in the baskets, so dh cut off sections of an old garden hose and inserted them into the handles, which makes them really comfy to use now. The pear basket is without the hose insert, and the apple basket has it, for comparison. ~
And now, back to scurrying around...
The crescents in the oven:
Last year when I made the crescents, they were superb (I scribbled that on the recipe so I'd remember to make it again). This time, it wasn't nearly as good. Not sure why, but I suspect it may have been that not all the limes I used were ours (only the one little one). The other limes were organic ones that dh found in Kroger, but they weren't nearly as tasty.
I also made Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins (shown in a dish ds#1 made in ceramics class):
I baked hot dog and burger buns too. Does anyone know how to make buns look better? Mine turn out nicely after being baked (i.e. they're tasty), but they are the ugliest things before baking:
I stayed up until 11pm (way past my bedtime) stringing up our chile peppers. I think they look rather like we're having Christmas in Santa Fe, don't you?
Today we (3 moms and our various homeschooled kids) had a landscape painting workshop taught by a local artist, Judy Farnsworth. As usual, I completely forgot to bring my camera, and so I have no photos to post of our very fun and educational afternoon.
I got the fabric from a lovely Etsy gal, SweetSpice, and they were perfect for this project. 
"Happiness depends upon ourselves." ~ Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC)
This next photo shows photo cards with photographs taken by ds#1 and are on my handmade papers. 
I also made a set of gift-tags/mini-notecards that are similar to the above. I hope she likes them! They smell really nice. ;)
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3) Neither my sister nor I ever wanted to have kids; my sister kept her word, I got talked into kids by dh. 
"Happiness depends upon ourselves." ~ Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC)
And here are the cookies:
Yummy!
The reason why I cleared off the table was so I could make paper downstairs instead of in the kitchen so I'd not be in dh's way when he got home to make dinner. Food is often the motivator of most of my actions.
This was the latest paper - "There's a Tomato Leaf in My Garden" is what I call it. It's tinted green, and is scented with Bramble Berry's Tomato Leaf and Green Garden fragrances. As well, it has petals from a flower I'd picked from our yard. If my brain were here with me instead of being on vacation in the Bahamas, it'd tell me what that flower was, and I could share that information with you.
Incidentally, the papers I've been making are tinted with junk papers, just like the rest of the pulp. I don't add my own colorings.
*Warning: next photo contains meat products!
And on the topic of chickens, I will close with a great quote from Jacques Pepin - "For most kids now, a chicken is rectangular. It's got plastic on top, and it doesn't have eyes or feet. This is scary. You should never eat something you cannot recognize. A simple principle, but important."
Here is my very fine bruise after the Force of Gravity introduced said bottle of wine to my knee
To those of you who come here often enough to observe that I seem to injure my extremeties a lot, I have to say: you're right. I am a total klutz.
The winner is #5! Congratulations, Teresa! OH WAIT, that's me!