Christmas

Christmas week is always a busy week. And now with Ryan and I engaged and starting our future we had to combine our Christmas schedules. This was very easy this year though and worked out well. It made for a long day with small amounts of traveling but large amounts of family time!
We enjoyed dinner Christmas eve at my grandparents house with them along with my parents and Ryan's parents as well!

Christmas morning we enjoyed breakfast at my parents house. Dad made delightful egg cups followed by the opening of gift from my dad's mother. Mom was totally shocked when she opened this lovely LLBean scarf that gram gave her (with the help of a few elves along the way!).

We followed by going to my mom's parent's house where we enjoyed lots of company and child entertainment. My mom's cousin came with his two kids since his family is in Florida for the holidays so the kids we going to have a quiet Christmas at home. Instead we got to enjoy their company.

My cousin Preston enjoyed playing the wii with Matt for a change.

Bella opened her laminate bag I made her. And three packages later.....she opened a swim suit from my grandmother which matched perfectly! We had no idea the two items matched till she opened them, she was extremely excited.

Prenton made gram and gramp a bat house. Gram isn't quiet sure about this but we will put it up in the spring out back at the edge of the lawn next to the field.

Matthew enjoyed cheap entertainment with this box filled with peanuts. In there were many little gifts (bag of cookies, crackers, candy cane, name tag) along with three wrapped boxes. Two of which were mighty empty and the third help just a single gift card.

*This box will get put to good use though and has plans to be used again as an aid to help pack and mine and Ryan's moving adventure!

Matthew and Preston decided to put together some on Preston's new legos he got from gram, while everyone else sat around and chatted.

Ryan and I then made the adventure to his parents house. This is the tree at his parent's house where we had Christmas with his brother and sister in-law along with his parents. Lots of gifts and lots of fun.

Carol enjoyed her Christmas present thoroughly as she got a NOOK from all four of us. She was totally not expecting it and when she opened it she screamed so loud!!!

Ryan had more fun hiding from me while he was opening his gifts then letting me take a picture of him!

We finished off the night with dinner! Then we watched a movie and had dessert before we all left his parents house around 9.

It was an eventful and challenging Christmas all at the same time. This seemed like the hardest Christmas since we lost Jason even though this is the third Christmas.

Jewett Christmas

Our Annual Sunday before Christmas get- together with my dad's side of the family is always fun and interesting. It was a bit different this year, No Jason, No grampa and of course 3 missing cousins. But we all enjoyed playing with Lorali (My cousin Jermey's daugther)!
Lorali and mom enjoyed a large amount of time playing with the bag of toys. We watched great expresions by this little one year old girl who was taking everything in.

The three kids decided to pose with their mother after she opened her gifts. This may be about the only time we get a photo of all of these wonderful people together.

Lorali enjoyed every moment and watching everyone and following us all around!

A little different this year and a slightly challenging day but I made it through it and we move on and see what Christmas day brings.

White Christmas!

Woke up this morning to a beautiful surprise!

Ryan and I really enjoy winter and we LOVE the snow. So when we woke up to this wonderful surprise this morning I was just excited! I got up and went right to town on shoveling the driveway, and the pathways. By 8 am I had everything shoveled out and went to gram and gramps to shovel of the deck and pathways.

The office sign looks beautiful with the small coating of snow.

Our vehicles in the yard look great while the snow is still falling!

Ryan spent some time snowblowing the driveway. I shoveled most of the driveway before the snowblower was up and running and brought outside to finish the driveway.


So, after all we will enjoy a white Christmas!

Christmas Parties......"Happy Hour"

The holiday season always comes with lots of friends and family get togethers. These are enjoyed by many people. Some of the best holiday get togethers aren't necessarily the ones that we have with the family yet, it usually ends up being the parties that we enjoy with friends.

The "Happy Hour" crew this year decided to draw names and buy presents for each other for a gift swap. Some of these people mind you are very hard to shop for. So it was decided that it would not be held at "happy hour" but we would enjoy a Saturday evening together.  

So 12 of us enjoyed this lovely evening together.  

A table for 12.....all prepared and set up looking beautiful.

A large Christmas tree with 12 wonderful presents.  It looks lovely!

Three girls enjoying their evening together!  

Grampa just loves his new hat from dad!

Jim and his Captain are calling!

Dad got this new head lamp from gram.  Annoying!!!  He enjoyed it all evening.  

Mom will surely enjoy this gift by Dan!

There is that annoying light!

Lynda had many homemade gift wrapped in individual packages to keep her busy!

Cindy is loving her home made purse by mom.  She is stylish with this and her new matching wallet made by gram!

And Jake has had enough of all the fun.  He is tired and just enjoys the aftermath!

Winner, Winner, Winner!!!

Sunday was the ever wonderful..... Alweives Fabrics Holiday open house! So after Christmas parties mom and I decided that we would scoot out early just so we could make it there before Happy Hour. The saying was, "every person wins something, no purchase necessary."
So gram and I picked out some fabric we wanted. I got some fabric to FINALLY make MYSELF one of those ever wonderful laminate bags. I have made one for Autumn and one for a cousin and think they are so versatile. I just want one for myself so indeed. I will have one after the holidays.
Gram got another charm pack to do the ever fun let's twist pattern that we took the class together on.
And mom, oh nothing. She has decided that saving for a wedding is a better deal, and honestly I will go along with that one.

But everyone was due for a free prize anyway. So gram draws her prize and wins a free fat quarter. I pull the same thing. Not that I could always use a free fat quarter, I have a stash of over 100 going.

Then mom, oh mom, she reaches in and pulls out a very well decorated piece of paper. She opens and and immediately starts dancing.


She even continues her dancing outside in the street after she tells her father how excited she is!

She won and $50 gift certificate!

She was so proud of herself because she was saving money for a wedding but now she has decided that it is fair to spend this $50 on herself! As she should spend it on herself.

Way to go mom!

wrapping presents

Well December 16th was the day! I said I wanted to have all my presents wrapped by December 15th....I didn't make it :-( I completed the task on December 16th with the help of the worderful "future hubby".

So the stress is over.  I am shopped out, I am wrapped out.  And now I can sit back, relax, and enjoy the holiday parties to come!  I have holiday party Saturday 18th, Sunday 19th, and then the Christmas day is going to be loaded.  

Christmas schedule has been worked out.  It gets a bit tricky when you have two Christmas' with your family and then you add that fiance thing in and you add to more stops to Christmas day.  So our Christmas day will start early in the morning and finish late at night.  We will enjoy every stop along the way and relax and have a great time in between!

Shopping done!

I was so excited Friday evening that before I went to work, I ran a bunch of Errands in Augusta and got my Christmas shopping done. I enjoyed going out and running errands around time in order to get all of my shopping checked off the list. It is always such a relief for me to get that much done so I don't stress about it the week before. I said not to long ago that I wanted to have all my shopping done by December 10th. It was all done. December 10th at 5 PM! I succeeded in one mission.
Sunday morning I decided it was time to start wrapping the presents. I got the majority of them wrapped and have only 5 more to wrap. I need to get boxes first to put them in. I said I wanted to have all of my wrapping done by December 15th.


This mission was not succesful because I did not have time to run to town to get boxes. I now have all the boxes now I just need to wrap!




It feels great to get some of these things done so I do not have to stress about them last minute.

A special Person

So, after a lack of sleep last night do to an upsetting evening and a difficult dream situation I decided I just needed a slight pick me up and this picture does just that.  

After loosing my brother to a tragic accident I find that some days I have a hard time functioning do to missing him.  

Last night after finishing my wrapping and getting all the presents under the tree.  I later realized that there was nothing under the tree for my brother.  I had a difficult time with that.  It's not that I don't give him a present, I do!  But this just hit me hard yesterday and made for a night with no sleep.

So, today I sit at work trying to find things to keep myself busy.   And while I do my work I look back on this fabulous picture to remind me of the last few months we spent together which were absolutely amazingly great times!

A Special Birthday!

December 9th was a special day for a little special girl who turned 1!!!! We celebrated with a birthday party on December 11th. I made a cake for my special niece along with cupcakes all around. I spent my Saturday morning constructing Mickey's head and decorating Mickey and his accompanied cupcakes.

We gathered together at Lindsey's dad's house on Saturday afternoon to spend time with this special girl and have cake and open presents with her!
She was mesmerized by the Mickey balloon. She enjoyed the first hour or her party but then decided that everything was slightly over whelming.

She enjoyed her special cupcake along with her Mickey figurine that was placed on top. This kept her busy for all of 5 minutes then she decided she no longer had an interest in her cupcake.


Mckenzie decided that she wanted to sit in cousin Autumn's new chair while Autumn was busy opening her presents. So Mckenzie enjoyed herself and watched what everyone else was doing.

Autumn surely had plenty of presents. Younger cousin Leah was there to help get into everything and see all the new things that Autumn got!

Younger cousin Leah and older Cousin Mckenzie decided to join Autumn on the floor to investigate all the new packages.

Autumn loved her new doggie Ryan got her and she was surely exhausted after all the days events. She had enough and wanted some quiet time.

It truly is a lot of fun and was an enjoyable time by all.

A completed project!!!!

Love, Love, Love this!!

I made this vinyl bag for Autumn for Christmas to put a bunch of her stuff in when going from one place to another.

I think I might just need to make one of these bags for myself. I find that I could probably use it a lot with groceries and with many other things around the house and on trips.

Probably won't get to this before Christmas but I would like to think that I could make one of these wonderfully universal bags for myself!

I think I will be going to a fabric store maybe after the holidays so that I can get some material for myself to make one of these bags. Or maybe I have enough material in my stash to complete one of these. I need to go to the store though to get some more vinyl and handle straps at least.

Oh when oh when, can I make it to a quilt store so tha I can get some material or so I can get more vinyl. I might just have to squeeze this into my schedule. Or maybe possibly my lovely mother might pick some up for me when she goes to town this week to get other things.  

I can't wait to find out.  I can't wait to dig into my quilting material to see if I can find some wonderful material to make one for myself.  

Frustration

Why does frustration get the best of me. I get frustrated and I don't know what to do other than cry and get upset. I would quilt or sew or something to that effect except for those days when I have to go to work. And when I get frustrated about one thing I feel as though I don't want to talk to anyone and I don't want to do anything. I just want to stay home by myself for the day, but that doesn't happen.  This is just frustration at home frustration at work is a totally different issue.

It is getting close to the holiday season and people at work seem so easily aggravating.  It seems like I am constantly repeating myself and seems like I am always going behind myself doing repeated things.  There is nothing I can do about this when it happens at work.  I just have to move on and keep going.  By the end of the day I end up stressed and annoyed.  This is when I love a walk home.  The walk home is enough to de-stress and not bring home all those issues with me.  But some days I don't get the pleasure to walk home because I stay late and have basketball so I don't like to walk home after dark so I drive my car therefore I don't have enough time on the way home to de-stress.  

I keep trying to think of easier ways to de-stress and ways to relax at the end of the night but it doesn't always work.  I think time with the sewing machine, I never make it there.  Time with a good book, never make it there.  Time cuddling with dog, don't make it there.  Oh well.  Will have to try something else I guess.  Or just force myself to find and do something.  

I can't wait till the holidays are over.  Not only are they stressful but they are an extremely difficult time for me and I am sure that does not help.  

A Test Run!

I hope Autumn loves her birthday cake.  I experimented this weekend to try to make a Mickey Mouse cake as a test run before her birthday party next week.

This is the start.  It isn't looking so good right at this point but I have an idea that it will look okay when it is all finished.  

Mickey's face is looking great now just onto his ears.  The cake is now starting to look like Mickey already!

His ears aren't quite finished but I am sure next week when we finish he will look great.

He is looking pretty good.  There are a few spots that I would do things differently next week.  And I am sure he will look better next week.

Mickey was enjoyed completely by the "Happy Hour" crew.  I decided that doing a test run on the cake was the best idea in order to make sure that the cake would be a positive outcome next weekend.  He was enjoyed and I didn't come home with any leftovers!

It made me so much happier after send a picture to Lindsey I received a phone call where she was extremely Happy with the way that the cake had turned out.  

I am sure Autumn is going to love it.  And next week there will be the Mickey cake along with some cupcakes for Autumn to also enjoy!

Quilting NEEDED!!!

I so need to get back to sewing and quilting. I have been extremly busy this week and I haven't visited my sewing machine since Monday! That dissapoints me. I have so many projects that I have started and still haven't finished.

My sewing machine is sooooo lonely and really wants to spend some quality time with me :-)

The project on the left was completed on October 16th it just needs a small bit of hand sewing done..... which I haven't done yet. The project in the middle is the Halloween pinwheel project I did. The binding is machine sewed on and that also just needs hand sewing.....yet to be done. And the project on the right is a quilt all ready to be cut that has to do with dogs!

Today is a hunting day for Ryan so maybe I will get some sewing in today, although mom and I had talked about going to town and doing a few things. We will see what happens. I also need to bake a cake so the sewing maching may or may not get a visit today.

This is a project I need to finish for Autumn. It's a good thing it's not for her birthday on next Thursday......it's for Christmas. I got a little more time to procrastinate on that one!

This is two different quilts that I have both the tops for them I am just undecided on the next step. Do I spend all the money to have someone quilt them for me, or is there some way that I can quilt them on my own. If I quilt them on my own do I really have the time? So for now they continue to sit in the closet with the corresponding batting and backing!

Maybe I need to schedule time to spend with my machine so my weeks and days do seem so long and out of place. Maybe that would help both myself and my sewing machine not feel so lonely.

And of course this material! I absolutly love, love, love this material! I have so much to do with this material and I am just dying to get started. The problem is I have soooo many half project laying around that I want to get finished up before I start an entirely new project. But this project I really do need to start thinking about because this project MUST MUST MUST be done and fully completed by July 1st!

What is it about quilting that makes me feel totally relaxed? I can come home after a bad day, sit at my sewing maching for a half hour or hour and get up feeling like a totally new person and that a totally new day has begun. Maybe this is why I enjoy spending time with my sewing machine and why my week has been so off.

And,

with all that said and done

I'm off

TO QUILT

That is!!!!!!