Christmas in January

We celebrated Christmas with family a little late this year because a blizzard kept the Fargoans off the roads. But, we had the added bonus of Auntie Sherry and Cousin Hailey joining us from the Milwaukee area when we got together a week later.


As you can see, it was a Rock Band Christmas. The kids (big and little) had a great time jamming together.

Hana enjoyed all the attention, but didn't quite understand the present opening ritual. Next year should be much different. She received many wonderful books, clothes, and toys from relatives and a cool easel from Santa.

Hana is still more interested in walking and climbing, but at times she shows interest in scribbling. She's also starting to put objects inside of things. This is, however, unfortunate when when she hides her sippy cup of milk.

I'm going to try to blog more often this year (let's see) and discuss the various things I learn about and run across, which will probably be mostly parenting and craft related. If you're interested in WCCO-TV news stuff, you can follow me on twitter (mnishi) or on facebook (Maya Nishikawa Wcco) or go to this link.

Things I really like:
18 year-old balsamic vinegar. I found an olive oil store in Mendota Heights called the Olive Grove just before the holidays. You can taste all of their various olive oils and other specialty oils and vinegars. They will bottle what you choose. It's a lot of fun to try out all of the oils and the traditional balsamic (18 years-old) is awesome. I put it on everything from bread to chicken and broccoli. It tastes like a very sweet wine. I'd eat cardboard with this stuff.

Things I learned recently:
Norwegian Purling: I doubted my friend Jen when she said how fast this technique is, but once you get the hang of it, it's really speedy. Check out this youtube video.

If an adult tooth gets knocked out, rinse it with liquid (preferably saline or something with salt like gatorade) and put it back in as soon as possible. Leaving it out for half an hour will mean no chance of re-attaching it. This came from a dentist who visited our ECFE class.

If you sell stuff on amazon.com, they'll charge 15% commission plus a sale closing charge. Be careful you don't sign up for a merchant account without realizing they will charge you $40

Things I hear people talking about:
Nurtureshock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman Good advice or more hype?
A year's worth of slow cooker recipes at
Crockpot365.blogspot.com

What's off/on the needles:
Lots of gifts:

Just finished four doggie sweaters for Christmas from The Gift Knitter, various cat themed dishcloths, and fingerless mitts (Humanity pattern available for free on ravelry.com) for a cold co-worker.

Next up: more baby knitting and finishing the Central Park Hoodie I started two years ago.