A Prancing Pony

One of our best friends has an affinity (possibly bordering on an obsession) with a particular car maker.  To that end, FH and I came up with an interesting Yule gift for him.

One prancing pony, carved in leather.

I'm not sure which he liked better.  The finished result or watching FH do the carving whilst seated in his kitchen.  In the time it took me to fry chicken and make mashed potatoes, FH had this marked, cut, and tooled. 

He will be making a frame for this piece himself as he's our favorite woodworker.  I'd link to the posts featuring the pieces of his that we're proud to own but they're lost in the blog, tag-less.  Maybe I'll have time to dig them out of the darkness but not today.  I have a ton of projects in the queue that need finishing and a few that need to be started with definite deadlines.  The next several blog posts were written all at once and scheduled to post.  I'll be officially back sometime in the next couple of weeks.

Christmas Eve 2010

First of two posts today.  I had planning on combining them, but there are too many pictures.

Christmas Eve saw FH off from work since Christmas was on a Saturday.  Snow was coming down thickly so we shifted our plans around to deal with that.  We had word that a pregnant friend had gone into labor that morning so off we went to buy a "Baby's 1st Christmas" ornament.  We got the last one in the store... no choices... Classic Winnie the Pooh or nothing.

Then we did some food and spirit shopping (yay for Jameson) and went to see our borrowed kids while their mom was at work.  That's when things got "interesting."  The kids weren't at home and their mom had no idea where they were.  Keeping in mind the hazardous weather AND the simple fact of them not being allowed to leave the apartment without their mother's permission.  Also the little darlings knew we were coming by.  This was planned the night before.

Once they reappeared (only because they had a minuscule bit of forethought and had a cell phone) they were bodily tossed into our car with me barking like a drill instructor the whole way.  Apparently they were "bored with waiting" for us to show up and it was snowing so they decided to go outside.  They neglected to call either their mother or us before disappearing, which of course was their major blunder.  I told them since they couldn't be trusted to be at home by themselves to consider themselves grounded until their mother got to our house after work. 

I proceeded to shovel the driveway just to be outside and not looking at them for a bit so I could regain composure.  They were allowed to read, but were confined to the kitchen table for the remainder of the day.  Little D was allowed to finish his mother's Christmas gift, but that was it.  Grrr.  The really irritating part is the boy is almost 16... more than old enough to know better.

Anyway once their mom got to our place and heard the full story she decided that since I had succeeded in putting the fear of God into them, and that they'd been in detention for over 6 hours, that they might have learned their lesson.  Maybe.  We'll see.  But the three of us are watching.

The actual fun part about this post are the pictures of the things the kids made for each other and their mom.  So here they are:

Medicine wheel Little D made for his mom.

Detail of the center carving.

Necklace and matching earrings Hummingbird made for her mom.

Leather bracelet Hummingbird made for Little D.

Back of the coin purse Little D made for Hummingbird.  Her name is carved on the front and looks great.

Oh and before I forget, Jackson Mathew entered the world around 6pm eastern time on Christmas Eve.  He's healthy and gorgeous.  His mother is doing great and ready to be at home.