happy wednesday . . .

I'm going to start with the big news, right off the bat . . .

One.  Hundred.  Days.  

Can you believe it?!?  How much stitching do you have to do in order to be ready for it? That's the million dollar question, isn't it?  LOL!

Late Sunday afternoon I finally sat down to stitch, but got distracted by a new TeaTime Holidays magazine . . .

Yeah, more Christmas! Though the first tea party they share is a Thanksgiving one! It justified having the pumpkin blondie with my mug of pumpkin spice tea.

I combated Monday work blues by 'fallifying" my office space:

Tea service was swapped out first thing!  I love this miss-matched setting! ♥

I made the leaves with laminated paper and die cuts. Both at work and at home, I'm using more and more hand-crafted seasonal decorations. It makes me smile!

I did get around to finishing my cute little squirrels stitchery . . .

Very pleased with how it turned out!  I'm enjoying the simple hoop finish, too.  I'll back it with felt and maybe embellish the edges with cording.  Happy things.

Now ... what to stitch up next?!  Maybe a pumpkin??!

I'm headed out of town (one state over—Georgia) for a church planting staff wives retreat with several of the staff wives from our current church.  Should be a fun couple of days; these kinds of trips always make for the best of stories!  I'm driving, so I'm really hoping the rain from Hurricane Sally doesn't impede us too much.  Then it's home to a camp full of Boy Scouts!  Yay!   Y'all have a good remainder of the week!

:)

christmas ornament swap . . .

Greetings!! It's been so CRAZY!  I love this season so very much, but it is time consuming, ya' know?!?

Stephanie, over at The Enchanting Rose, hosted a sweet ornament exchange this year, and I participated in it!  I was gifted to by Deb, a non-blogger, who took some time to get to know me (via my blog) and really found the perfect little ornament for my tree . . .

Isn't that precious?!  A s'more snowman! Just perfect for me!  In addition, she added some fun little happies to go with the ornament:

What a happy package!

I had the privilege of gifting to Cindy at Creations by Cindy -- who, funnily enough, had gifted me in a prior teacup exchange!  So it was fun to be able to shop and gift her!

I chose a snowflake ornament (funny how the theme of both what I was gifted and what I was given was snow!) and a few little happies to go with it.  

This was a fun exchange and I so appreciate Stephanie for hosting it -- linking up to her blog for the swap exchange!

In other news, I went with Ellie and Evey to see . . .

We did the (home)school field trip performance, and it was a lot of fun! The director came out during the intermission and talked to the children about ballet and introduced some of the performers. The girls enjoyed the bird's eye view of the stage and being able to see the orchestra.

The girls took turns sitting next to me . . . and afterwards we went to lunch at a girlie restaurant. Terrific day!

The next weekend I watched the girls while their mommy and daddy went on a date.  We made ornaments!

Aren't these fun?!  They did such a great job making the dough, cutting them out, and painting their own ornaments (and handprints) Even Edith wanted in (and got in on) the action! "Cook -- I cook!"

These are such sweet sister. It's a joy to have them close.

And then there's these three . . . 

Gosh I wish I could be doing Christmas fun things with them!  Look how grownup and beautiful/handsome they are ... I miss them so.  :)

On the homefront, I did get the RV decorated . . . 

Yay!  I love turning on all the Christmas lights and the fireplace and just sitting quietly.  It's my favorite place to do my quiet time!

And I decided yesterday that I wanted to make something to gift to my co-worker ... tomorrow.  LOL!

So I've been busy working on this, too!!

Enough for now . . . if I don't make it back here before Christmas, have a very merry day!

:)