Miscelaneous stuff

Every year this excellent church

converts their basement to a Bethlehem bazar. It's pretty fantastic. All the people are in character and very knowledgeable about their station. The lady selling brassware can tell you all about oil lamps, the people at this 100 year old, hand written, Hebrew scroll can tell you all about how the scroll is read. It's all very Christmasy. (Sorry about my lousy pictures - I don't know what's wrong with me.)

This is the lady who wrote the kids' names for them in Hebrew.

This girl is smashing grapes with her feet.

Here's Maggie making olive oil from olives.

Their costumes are fantastic.

You really feel like you might be in Bethlehem. The floor is covered in wood, there's salted fish and little breads. Everyone says Shalom greeting you. Everyone asks if you've heard about the baby who is said to have been born - the king of Israel.

Isn't this expensive? Isn't this crazy tons of work? Yes, but people here in the South, really love Jesus. There are even camels, and real frankincense and myrrh.

I've been fretting about all the sewing/projects I wouldn't get done in time for Christmas. But then I decided that what makes Christmas special is not the beautiful table runner, and painstaking hand-made gifts. What makes Christmas special, is the pie.

This is what is left of the cream cheese pumpkin pie that Paul made. It was so delicious. I made a cheddar crusted apple pie. It's already been devoured. However, I decided I prefer a regular crust, the texture is better. For the record, Paul's crust was flaky and tender. Wow. I didn't know he could make pie crust so well. I was impressed.

Here's the bedding I made for Boone from this duvet cover I cut up. I added the owl.

And for the few of you that check my blog and notice that I haven't been posting lately, and not many pics of Boone... that was intentional. Boone is so cute and darling, but for the last 3 weeks he's been having some terrible baby acne. I kept thinking I'd put up pictures the next week, when his acne cleared up, but it still hasn't. So now I'm swallowing my pride and letting you see my angel. Please look past the skin. He is an absolute dreamy, perfect baby.

He's growing so fast. He smiles when you kiss his face. His cheeks are so chubby. He almost never cries, and when he does, is easily soothed. He sleeps about 18 hours a day. He goes right back to sleep at night after his feeding. Really, he's been no unpleasant work. When he wakes up, I eagerly go to snuggle him. I love him being around. Who do you think he looks like? I can't decide.