a long debriefing (and a giveaway) . . .

So it's that time of year when you *blink* and two (or more) days weeks have passed.  LOL!  Can I get an amen on that?!  I always struggle, when I finally make my way back to the ol' blog (which I always do), with what to post. Do I go back and fill in the blanks?  Or just pick up at 'today' and pretend nothing happened?

Because I use my blog primarily for me ... as a means to remember events, projects, and life, over the course of the year ... my tendency is to go ahead and fill in the blanks.  Case in point:  I just stopped blogging after my May 13 post this year.  Until October (when I got the itch).  And then I went back and BACK DATED at least twenty posts. <insert sheepish grin here>  That, my friends, is how I roll.  Which I guess answers my original question.  Buckle up . . . there are a LOT of photos!  ;)

We celebrated Thanksgiving at my folk's house this year.  It was Joc's year to celebrate on the day with her in-laws, so we chose to celebrate together on Friday. Since it's more about the giving thanks than the date, it wasn't a problem for us! One of my sisters was even able to fly in with her youngest, and celebrate with us.  

The more the merrier, right? Plus it was great-grandpa's first time to meet/hold Ezra!

Four generations . . . oldest and youngest of our family (for the time-being, anyway)! Ezra wanted to spend time with his Pawpaw, though . . .

He really wanted to get a fistful of that beard! Maybe he thought he was being held in Santa's lap??!

We missed our California crew, but they checked in from a Thanksgiving morning walk! ♥

That Sunday evening a group of us traveled out to see the light show at the Toyota Field Stadium.  It was a first for me and it was lots of fun!

We would have had a bigger crew, but Everley had stepped on a pencil earlier in the day, and broke 1/2" off in her poor little foot! She's fine ... after a trip to the pediatric ER.  Whew!

So the transition from Fall to Christmas kicked off with the lights. Next was the RV decor . . .

I love decorating our little space for the holidays!

I also love this darling little chub-a-lub!

On December 2, we had our Christmas Open House at work. Not only am I on staff, but Todd is volunteer staff, so it's a family affair. 

We didn't do it last year (covid), so we were excited to be able to advertise it this year -- but there were still some concerns for keeping it safe.  We decided to pre-bag everything we weren't serving pre-packaged. 

We did a good job (if I say so myself) and a number of guests commented how much they appreciated our efforts in that regard.  My favorite was the pretty little fruit cups . . .

I had the vision for these.  Kind of like the jar-cuterie, only done with just fruit. They were very festive looking and a big hit, plus we found we had a lot less (of everything) leftover this year!

Friday we had a most unseasonally beautiful day.  In the 70s with no winds, sunshine with just a tad of cloud cover ... we had planned to hit the lake (in DECEMBER!) but Todd was not feeling well, so we decided to stay home and I headed to the Nook.

I had stitched up a couple of the simple snowman stitchery I'd created for Ellie, and while I'd made a wall-hanging with one, the other was just sitting in the hoop.  Rather than leave him there, I decided to use him to make the center of a pillow cover for the completely-out-of-place brown pillow (see RV holiday picture above).

It looks really cute (again, if I do say so myself)!  Ellie has decided this is how she's going to finish her project, too!

I feel like we jumped into the season with both feet! Two days later we had our Stitcher's Etc. Christmas party. (This group is different from our guild group; this is a smaller subset.) We had a great group of women gathered—twenty-four in total—which is the biggest gathering we've had in a while!

There was stitching, lunch, an ornament exchange, desserts, show 'n tell and more stitching!  Grand time.  

And both my "affirmation sisters" were there, too, which was the cherry on top!

These two are precious to me.  :)

Then came late Saturday afternoon ... time for the SEC Conference Championship game.  

I won't say I wasn't a tad bit anxious going into this game (I mean -- we were the underdog!), but I sure was super-excited about the outcome!

Sunday morning was the second Sunday of Advent. My old Advent wreath was looking a little shabby and covered in candle wax, so I decided to do something a little different this year . . .

The Nativity candle will, appropriately, be my Christ candle. I think it looks pretty and fun and outside the box, which I believe Jesus was (at least as far as the Pharisees were concerned), so totally appropriate!  

If you've hung in all the way through this post ... way to go, you! To reward you, leave a comment (make sure if you're a no-reply blogger that you leave some way for me to contact you) and I'll choose one lucky winner to be the recipient of one of the sweet ornaments the girls have made this year:

This is Ellie and Evey's 6th annual ornament fundraiser! The girls made yarn angel ornaments and sold them for $5. I bought four! All proceeds go to Food for the Hungry, to purchase things like seeds, animals, tools, medication, water purification, shoes, Bibles, and more!  The girls select the items and then [Jocelyn makes] Ellie call the order in herself.  This sweet little handcrafted angel represents the fulfillment of a basic need. ♥ So I'll make a pick and announce it on Monday!

Whew ... this was long. I need to do a better job of staying on top of this thing!!

:)

six more days . . .

I found a new and totally fitting way to help celebrate the season of Advent this year, compliments of Jo, over at Serendipitous Stitching!  She hosts a very sweet stitcher's Advent, and today is my day to share!

The idea is to share a hand-stitched ornament.  So of course, I'm sharing two.  LOL!  One is one I've had for years and years ... and it's more of a decoration than an ornament.  This beautiful wreath:

It's a canvas and yarn piece that was done by my Pop.  He was a terrific crafter and loved to work with his hands.  It's a treasure I look forward to putting out every year!

The second ornament is one of my own ... a combination of wool and stitching.

I have always loved this sweet little Santa! But I realized as I was searching for 'the' ornament I wanted to share today, that I generally gift my favorite pieces!  Ah well ... the old saying "Take a picture, they last longer," has some merit.  ;)

The other thing we're to do is share a favorite Christmas book!  So of course, I'm sharing two.  (Maybe it's an old/new thing? Or an over-sharer thing, more likely.)  The first is a classic ... one of my favorite stories to read, The Polar Express.

I enjoy the movie, too, but the book makes me cry.  Every.  Time.  (Happy tears.)

The second book is relatively new and called The Sparkle Box.  

I gifted this to both sets of grands a couple of years ago (and did a book review of here).  It's a sweet story that embodies the message of Christmas.  

So there you have it!  Be sure to stop by Jo's blog to check out the rest of the participants!  

Merry Christmas!

:)

snowflakes and snowmen . . .

Last week we had snow overnight . . . this week we had tornadoes.  Weather in North Alabama is always a bit crazy.  We were very lucky and didn't experience any storm damage, and we were able to ride out the warning in the storm shelter under the new cabin in the campground.  It's the first time we've needed to put it to the test since it was build this past spring.  And the first time in the ten years we've lived at the camp that we haven't had to leave the premises to find shelter!  Phew!

I haven't really had much time to do much of anything besides go to parties and wrap presents.  I know, poor, poor, pitiful me, right?!  LOL!  I got a couple of minutes in to stitch on my Christmas snowflake:

I can't decide if I like the Sulky Stick 'n Stitch stabilizer yet. It's probably user error.  Anyone have any experience with it?

I can say that I love this in the metallics!  I'm using DMC's Diamant metallic floss for this one.

I love the green and the red and the shiny!! It's eye candy . . . hence the candy bowl.  Purdy! ♥

Joc has lamented on the lack of 'homemade' ornaments of Edith. She's the only one that hasn't gone to/needed to go to preschool, where they do those things!  So I helped out a little . . .

These will look sweet on their family Christmas tree!  I love playing with the die cuts and the laminating machine!

One party I'm really looking forward to is our annual Christmas Dessert Social at guild! 

This is tomorrow night -- and for the first time in forever, since I'm not on the board, I just get to show up!  (The board members provide the desserts.)  Plus I'm planning on bringing the three newly finished Christmas lap quilts in for Show 'n Tell!  Whoop!

Finally, I have a winner from last week's snowman giveway!  

The winner is Barbara Black, who commented, These are adorable! I would love to add a snowman to my quilt-y tree. So she totally will get to add it (the pink one) to her quilt-y tree!  Thank you to everyone who participated and especially those who became Pearl's Pegs followers!  :)

It's hump day ... yay for that!  Have a great rest of the week!

:)

this, that, and everything in between . . .

Looking back, it's been a fairly busy week/weekend!  It started snowing Tuesday afternoon, and continued well into the evening, giving us a full inch of pretty ground covering . . . 

Coming into the camp.  It took me ninety minutes to get home from work on Tuesday evening!

It was still pretty the next morning, too!

Wednesday I finished up the binding on the last of the Christmas quilts . . .

Three little lap quilts, all with their binding neatly stitched up! Ijust need to pop labels on them.

Thursday we had our annual Christmas Open House at work.  I enjoy getting things set up for it.  We generally have a good number of visitors come through the doors!

My favorite table of visitors . . .

The Christmas tree always makes a great backdrop for this pretty trio of girls:

Does that not just deck your halls?!!

Friday morning we had several visitors over for breakfast al fresco . . .

And along with running some Christmas errands and lunch at a new restaurant in town with Todd, I tried my hand at this darling fabric origami hexi ornament:

Well, I tried my hand twice . . .

These whip up very quickly and make a darling addition to a gift!  Not Afraid of Color shared theirs in a recent Slow Sunday Stitching post and also shared the video tutorial she'd used to make them.  You can find it right HERE!

Saturday, was all about tea!  My mom, Joc, Ellie, Evey and I headed to Chattanooga for a Victorian Christmas tea at Polly Claire's!

Four generations!

We had a very lovely time.  :)

Over Thanksgiving weekend, Mary Corbet at Needle 'n Thread released a darling set of snowflake embroidery patterns.  SO pretty!  I'd been watching the sample pieces on her instagram feed, and knew which one I was going to want to stitch up first . . . 

I couldn't wait for Sunday and have taken a few stitches, but this will definitely be my project for some much anticipated slow Sunday stitching!

And I'm using metallic floss, so it sparkles.  ♥

Linking up to the slow stitching post at Kathy's Quilts--stop by and see who's doing what!  

Have you seen one of the latest ornaments on my tree??

Isn't this hand-painted snow fellow the sweetest?  If you haven't entered my 'giftaway,' and you'd like one like him, be sure to check out my Pearl's Peg post!

Happy Sunday stitching!

:)

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!

:)