Storms, Sales and Candy

It's been a hectic few weeks of selling at the Holiday Market in Eugene, wholesaling our jewelry to the First Alternative Food Co-op in Corvallis and a great run of sales on Etsy. The big pile of money built from the obligatory holiday gift buying frenzy has been temporarily accumulated and will soon be dispersed to all the utilities who keep us going each month. This includes the power company that sadly did not keep us going with power for almost 3 days after the "big storm" in the midst of this holiday maddness. We had just returned from a big food shopping trip when the power went out. Who knew it would stay out for 3 days? (Nick the realist did.)It was fun for about 1 hour and then we had enough of "camping". Henry was sobbing the next morning when the power was still out. But it could have been worse. We could have had a tree fall through our house like our neighbors did.
We had a great run of sales on Etsy the week before Christmas. We got really lucky and were featured on the front page in the hand picked items on one of those great shopping days and had 4 sales that day. This was the pair of earrings that was featured:
The Cobalt Blue long and dangly glass earrings

Besides trying to take advantage of the season's money making potential we have also been trying to create the "best childhood ever" for our kids . In an attempt to make Chanuka just as awesome as Christmas the kids got presents for 8 days straight and really got into lighting the candles. (Which came in handy during a power outage.) Here is Max enjoying the Chanuka gelt ( chocolate money):



















But somehow that never compares to the pure bliss of the candy cane first thing Christmas morning. He just laid down on the couch and really got into it. Then he ate his entire chocolate Santa.
Now onto New Years...

Party Hats for Mice

Henry's 4th Birthday Party. This is one of Max's rare happy moments that day. He was sick and tantruming on and off all day long.Henry and the others had fun. You can see lots more pictures on Nick's Blog

This is Henry's new get rich craft scheme. He cut out tiny little party hat's for mice out of the tips of the party hats left over for his party.

We put them on the book shelf so that the mice can come and look at them and pick out which ones they want to buy.He plans to sell them so that he can have money to buy more toys,preferably Thomas trains. He say that this is his job. Now if we can just find some mice with some money in need of some nice party hats. He says they cost $1 each. The mice will say "Oh! Party Hats! We love party hats!"

I am slowly returning to the world of the living after being stricken by a nasty cold that started in the throat. I no longer have a coughing fit every 2 minutes. (That really helped the sales this weekend... NOT.) I paid a young girl to watch my booth for an hour on sunday morning while I took the best pathetic nap ever in the car.