Last year first, since it occurs to me that I never managed to post about those projects.  You already saw his 2011 birthday sweater and the pumpkin.  His birthday table this year (shown here), was set up on one of the gorgeous play stands that Steve built for him last year.  I’ll be sure to get a picture to share of them all set up at the new house.  They are currently there and I am currently not.

This is the crayon roll that I made for him: 

And this is the shield that Steve helped Iain and Elijah to make for him:

It was Steve’s design, there are two leather strips on the back to slip your arm through.  Galen decorated it himself, after the fact.

He’s very fierce you know, even with what I believe to be a bit of blueberry juice on his forehead.  How it got there, I couldn’t possibly say.

There was also a cloth bag that I made to hold the little wooden animals that my parents got him.  It was just a simple drawstring thing, made out of a fabric printed with nursery rhymes and vintage looking illustrations.  It’s in a box right now, so no pictures of that either.

And now on to this year!  We made much less this year.  Considering everything that’s been going on, I let myself off the hook for the doll that I had been planning to make him.  I thought that was uncharacteristically reasonable of me.  It’s possible that I may even be learning a bit of self-preservation.

There was, of course, a birthday sweater…

The pattern is Hestapeysa, again.  The same as for Elijah’s most recent birthday sweater.  This time I didn’t modify it at all.  I just made the child’s size.  Well, I did add  in a bit of a fourth color on the on the yoke, but otherwise…

The other bit of home-made came from Iain and Elijah, in very typical (for them) style.  They went out into the woods and cut a branch, then came home and whittled an entire baseball bat out of it, just like that was a regular old, every day, type of thing to do.  Which I guess it is.  For them.

I think it was his favorite gift ever.  He just kept shaking his head, wide-eyed, saying, “I just don’t know how I can ever thank them enough!”