Pillows for Christmas

Now that Christmas is over, I can show a few of the things I made for gifts this year. For my nieces I made these pillows.

They were fun, and I learned a few things along the way.

For my friend, Sherry, I made this pillow

again, it is a learning experience. Just hope I remember the things I should have done differently by the time I get around to making more pillows!

Taking my time getting the Christmas stuff down - I see no need to rush!

A doggie Christmas

Yes, I know, Christmas was days ago but I'm just now getting here with a post! Things get 'off schedule' a bit during the holidays. (not that I have had a real schedule lately, but you know what I mean)
We had a nice Christmas here. We had 'our family' Christmas in the morning then went to my sister's for lunch and Christmas with the rest of the family. The doggies got 'dressed' after we opened our packages.

I'm not sure Squeaky was impressed with her new fashion accessory.


Nicholas, well, he is just Nicholas.

I can't believe Autumn actually left it on until we took it off!

I'm spending this week trying to get back in to some kind of routine. I am going to take my time getting the Christmas decor put away and hopefully get it done in some kind of order so it will be easy to get out next year.

Hope you have a wonderful last Monday of 2008!

Merry Christmas

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!

Two Christmases

Yesterday I met Sherry for an early lunch and some shopping. Then I met Sandra and Sarah for dinner. Two dates in one day - and neither with my hubby!
Here's a picture of the loot I came home with!




The little scissor pal has my name on it - too cute!

Thought this was hilarious! And so true! LOL

I forgot to put the stack of notepads in the picture with the other goodies so I'm putting it with this cute little Santa I picked up at The Christmas Store. I don't know how long the 50% off sale had been going on, but they were pretty cleaned out!

On the tree

Do you know what happens when you start too many projects at once? Yep - none of them get finished.
Anyway - I thought I would show you that not all the ornaments on the tree are firemen. (and since I don't have any pictures of finished projects that are not gifts!)Not the best picture but here is the whole tree. I put it here this year because it involved moving the least amount of furniture.

The kids have all gotten a new ornament every year since their first Christmas. Since they were old enough, they usually pick the ornament they want. (and when they have their own home and own tree, the ornaments are theirs - and I will have a naked tree!)
Anyway - Timothy always picks either Taz or a truck


You never know what Brian will pick


Jason could probably still tell you all about the Ninja Turtles

I picked the ornament for them this year :)

The rest of these are mine and hubby's

The two felt ones were made by my grandmother

One of the kids made this one in school - a long time ago. We always put it at the top of the tree and it has survived so far!

This was the year we moved into this house.

Baby boy and his bride came in yesterday and will be here at least through the week.

Hope you are all ready for the holiday. I still have a little grocery shopping to do - some things you just can't buy too far ahead of time.

Fireman Christmas

Whew - I completely missed posting yesterday and was beginning to wonder if I was going to miss today!
Wednesday was my last day at work. I've spent yesterday and today trying to finish up Christmas stuff. I 'think' I have everything except some last minute groceries. I'm still in the process of getting everything wrapped - I hope I don't come across something I've missed and have to get out shopping again! Anyway - I thought I would take a break and show you a few of the ornaments I am thinking of using on the guest room tree next year.
Every year we add at least one fireman ornament to the tree - I'm not sure exactly how many we have but here are a few.

The first four are all Hallmark ornaments. The last one is a glass one (I love glass ornaments!) Maybe when I take the tree down, I'll put them all together and see how many we actually have.

I guess I better get back to my wrapping. I've got to get the mess out of the guest room - baby boy and his bride were not supposed to be here until Tuesday but he emailed this morning that they will be here tomorrow! Oops.

Oh - and the weather here - cold, fog, drizzle early in the week, then warm, humid and really foggy yesterday. Today it was bring out the sun shades and open the windows (we are supposed to hit the low 70s). By Sunday morning - we will be back down to the low 30s. We have a new season every day - sometimes we get two in one day!

Christmas in the guest room

Since I have nothing crafty I can show until some gifts have been delivered I thought I would show you a little more Christmas around the house. This tree is in the guest room.

The room is done mostly in red/white/blue and I have silver, red & blue balls on the tree along with some tin stars. This is the room where all of hubby's firefighter memorabilia is displayed and I'm thinking next year I might use all the firefighter ornaments on the tree in here. (they are on the main tree in the living room, but that is another post for another day)

This is a little corner of the room - not a very good picture, but I stitched the Shepherd's Bush Christmas piece several years ago. It has been hanging at the frame shop and this is the first time I have actually had it hanging in my home.
Hope you all have a wonderful day. It is cold and foggy here in east Texas (I even saw a couple of counties on the weather report that had 'freezing fog'.

On the tree

I thought I would show you all my exchange ornaments actually hanging on the tree.

Have a great day.

One place you should never go

Is on a step ladder that puts you high enough to see the top of the door facings and the tops of tall furniture!
I finally got around to hanging the Red Thread Sampler.


Not the best of pictures but it is so long it is hard to get a good one. I have it hanging over the doorway between the living room and dining room. We have 8' ceilings and there isn't a lot of room above the doors so I framed it without a mat - obviously it would not have fit if I had used a mat!

This picture is for Nola

She asked about the French doors in the dining room. As you can see, if they opened in to the room it would be very crowded so we put in out-swing doors. Where the doors are now and over to about where the left side of the framed apron (which, btw was my grandmother's) there used to be a set of 4 windows and on the right where the mirror is hanging is where the back door was before we changed it up. Somewhere around here there are pictures of what this room looked like before - however, those pictures were pre-digital camera so I'll have to work on finding them. I found one from the outside but not inside.
Once again this Texas weather is the pits. Last night we left here around 4:45 to go to a Christmas party - it was 68 degrees. When we got home at 8:30, it was still 68. This morning when I got up - 36 degrees, and they are saying twenties tonight. Argh.
Have a great Monday.

And the stockings were hung. . .

Uh oh, no chimney! Where do you hang your stockings if you don't have a fireplace/mantle? Last year I had a little metal stocking tree that went in a corner - well, that corner is occupied this year so I thought I would try something different and hung them on the top of the bookcases.

Nope - that just isn't doing it for me so I tried something else. (and after looking at these pictures, I decided I need to do some work on the bookshelves - not really happy with the way they look either!)

Remember the dvd cabinet hubby built for me a while back?

I decided to decorate it like it was a mantle and put the stockings there.

Much better. Of course if anyone wants a dvd out of that cabinet it might be a problem!

I stitched these stockings way back - when there were just 4 of us. I stitched the names and my grandmother made the stockings for me. I had enough foresight to get enough fabric for one more stocking so when baby boy came along all I had to do was stitch his name and we were all set. Of course 20+ years ago, I never thought about someday needing to add to the stockings again so I had to buy Ashley a stocking. I've been wanting to make us all new stockings for a few years now, but it is still on the 'to do' list. Maybe next year.

This is the little 'Charlie Brown' tree that I have in my teenie tiny office. Someday I may put handmade ornaments on it, but for now these work fine.

I will so more of the house as we get closer to the big day.

Hope you are having a wonderful weekend!

Texas weather

Ya gotta love it!
Monday - 70*
Tuesday - rain and wind (2 1/2 inches before I ever left for work
Wednesday - this is what my car looked like

I had to defrost it again before I left work that afternoon and again after stitch night.

Thursday - the only time I went outside was to the mailbox and it was a bit nippy

Yesterday - I left the house in a jacket but had it off by noon, sleeves pushed up and air conditioner on!

Today - who knows.

Christmas letters

Do you send Christmas letters? Some people love them, some people hate them. I like getting them and I usually send one with the cards I send to family. While I had no internet the other day, I used the time to write my Christmas letter. One of those things that had been hanging around keeping me feeling frazzled. Today I managed to get my cards addressed, stamped and ready to go. I won't bore you with the letter I enclosed but thought I would share the picture I sent with cards this year.

I took this Thanksgiving day - it was the best I could get. Do you know how hard it is to get the four of them in the same spot at the same time? Another one of the things I miss from the kids being younger - they didn't always have so many places to be and it was easier to get pictures!

It is still cold here but at least everything isn't covered with ice this afternoon. I had to de-ice my windshield yesterday before I could leave for work (then it was iced over again when I left work to come home!) - I took a picture but need to download it from the camera. Maybe I will get to that tomorrow. I am slowly catching up - but 'caught up' keeps moving so I don't think I am getting anywhere! LOL

Have a great evening.

Outside

This is what the outside of the house looks like when the lights come on at dusk. I'll try to get an after dark picture soon.

No internet or cable yesterday morning and I really had planned on posting! That would have been two days in a row. :) We had some pretty good storms blow through during the night. It thundered so much at one point I could hear the plate collage on the bedroom wall rattle. The storms made way for colder weather. It was sleeting a few minutes ago but I think it has stopped for now. I could have told you they had predicted 'snow flurries possible' (before I ever saw the news last night) when I pulled into the parking lot at the grocery store yesterday. If you live in east Texas you know what I mean! Just the mention of the possibility of snow flurries and there won't be a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk to be found!

Frazzled

Are you frazzled? I am. So much to do, so little time! I haven't finished my shopping yet - I've started, but I am not finished. Hubby did go with me on Saturday and we got a few more taken care of. (I don't think he really likes going, but since I used to do ALL of it and still do MOST of it by myself - including deciding what to buy - it doesn't hurt for him to go at least once - I may try for twice this year and see if I can get him out again next weekend)


I stitched this advent calendar when the kids were little. Not knowing anything about finishing, I just turned the edges under and hot glued them down. A couple of years ago I took it apart and washed it but I never got around to putting it back together until after Christmas last year. No hot glue - or any kind of glue this time. Much better. The kids used to fight over who would get to take the candy off every night so we had to use the 'shift system' (hubby was a firefighter and they work on a 24/48 shift system - on 24 hours off 48 - so we used the same system with the boys). They each got assigned A, B, or C shift and that was their day to do those things they always fought over (who rides in the front seat, who takes the candy off the calendar - those kinds of things) You can't do the even/odd thing when you have three kids!


I do think about blogging every day - I just don't get around to it. See - I actually took this picture to blog about on the 5th.


I spent most of yesterday here. Can't show anything since everything Bertha and I worked on will be gifts and some of those people pop in here now and again.
I'll try to start showing some Christmas decor pictures this week. Do you like to see how other people decorate for the holidays? I do - although it usually makes me feel pretty inferior - I do still like to look. I always imagine myself doing better next year. Ha ha.

Ornament exchange

This year I was in an ornament exchange with 6 other ladies. We stitched and exchanged one ornament every other month and last week I got my final ornament from this exchange.

Isn't it cute?


Here is a picture of all the ornaments I received throughout the year. They are now all happily hanging on my Christmas tree. (pictures will come - sooner or later) I really enjoyed this exchange. One ornament every other month doesn't sound so hard, but I still stressed about it each time it was time to start another one. I don't know why - I mailed each one on time. I haven't decided if I am going to do any exchanges in 2009. I really want to spend some time getting to know Big Bertha better so we will see.
Ever have one of those days when nothing seems to go right? Well, I'm having one of those weeks. I hate feeling rushed and that has happened every morning this week - so I really should be getting ready for work rather than making a blog post but I haven't made many posts lately and I really want to post more than once a week - so here I sit, typing away.
Tonight is stitch night. We missed the last two weeks so I am looking forward to it - except that it is my turn to cook. I'm taking the easy way out and putting soup in the crock-pot and I'll stick some cookies in the oven while I'm home for lunch so we will have dessert. (notice I didn't say I would be making cookies - the dough boy has them all ready for me to pop in the oven!)