Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas all!

Have a wonderful Christmas and many blessing in the New Year to come.

Brenda

Manger

My favorite Christmas decoration and usually the first I get out is the Manger.  I spent a few years collecting the figures and hubs built the Manger itself.

I picked this particular group from Italy because it is some sort of molded plastic/rubber and hand painted, because my daughters were having babies and I wanted something that would not break.  Most years the toddlers move the pieces around and it gives the adults a chance to talk about baby Jesus.  I think this was the first year they did not change how I had it set up.  It was a little disappointing for me, I did not have to hunt for the baby Jesus to return him even once.
I was all set to join up with Alphabe-Thursday over at Jenny Matlock's M party this week but she decided to take a break from the normal Alphabet link up.  Linking up anyway because I have been missing in action so long I expect everyone will think I just don't know what I am doing anymore.



Hey, M is also for Merry Christmas!  Blessings!

Celebrating the Season!

Hello out there good friends!  I hope you have not given up on me.  The last three weeks have just flown by.  I have been having fun with family and friends.  Thought I would show you some of the highlights.  The first weekend of the month I celebrated my birthday with these lovely ladies.  I took the picture so I of coarse I am not in it.

 Hubs and I went to our five year old granddaughters Christmas program.  Here she is with grandpa after the program.

My camera does not take very good pictures from afar but I did take this little video I can share with you.

One of our grandsons has a December birthday so we celebrated with him this past week.

His mommy (our daughter) built this awesome gingerbread house for the children to play in at the party.

We had our family Christmas gathering at our house yesterday.  We had a wonderful time with the grandchildren and having all the family together.  The granddaughters looked lovely.

We passed a gift out to each of the children and made them wait until everyone had a gift before they could open theirs.  I got some cute pictures.  Looked like they were waiting at the starting line for a race. 

There were quite a few late nights getting this afghan done for the oldest grandson but it was well worth it.  I am going to make one for each, working from oldest to youngest.

And I always get the grandchildren new PJ's for Christmas.  They always like getting them.

I know that you are all busy and I do not know how you manage to keep your blogs everyday.  I hope to start posting more often now and I hope you will all come back for a visit.  I hope you are all enjoying your family this season as I am.  Love and Blessings!

Update

Thought I would give you an update of the happenings here at our house in the woods.  Of coarse we had a great Thanksgiving gathering.  Great Grandparents, Grandparents (us), Children and
Spouses and the Grandchildren of coarse.  Here it is.  I did not take pictures. I was too involved with the cooking and spending time with the loved ones.  My mom in law took lots of pictures which she is going to put on a disk for me but I do not have any right now.  We had a wonderful day!  Because I am going away this weekend and because Saturday is my birthday there was also a birthday cake and some presents on Thanksgiving while we were all together.  Lets just say my sweet tooth is good and sweet.  My grands got me some sweet gifts.  There was a Scottie mug with hot chocolate, wrapping paper with flower seeds embedded in it (you just put the paper in you garden in the spring and cover with dirt) and a pretty little music box with a necklace.  You get the picture I am sure.  I also received this:

From this wonderful sweet lady:

Mom in Love

This lady bought this little desk for herself a couple of months ago to put in a spare room upstairs for an extra computer set up.  I mentioned I had been looking for a desk this size to put on a wall in our dining room, and if she found one in her second hand shopping sprees to let me know.  I have been told she has found another to replace this one but I know her heart and I expect it is not exactly what she wanted.  I am blessed.
I also received this new magazine in the mail this past week.  I won it over at The Quilted Fish and it has some great blocks.  A couple I think I would love to use for pillow tops.  Also you should go visit Amanda over at the Quilted Fish she has a lovely blog.

I am still working on the felt food for a Christmas presents for the little grands.  Here are what the pancakes and eggs are looking like.

And I have brought home some more fabrics for to make gifts for my wonderful lady friends.

The trees are up and lit.  I have went out and bought new lights for the village because I never did find the box even after pulling everything up the steps.  I will share pictures of those things at a later time.  It is busy for everyone right now and I know you will understand why I am not posting as much and I am taking a break from the blogging parties this week.  I am going away with my friends for a couple of days and hopefully I will do a better job taking some pictures to share.  Since I am getting a little wordy today I think I will just say goodbye for now and I will catch up with you all soon!  Blessings!

Sunday Praise

Beautiful.

From Me to You

Happy Thanksgiving Dear Friends!

Wishing you and yours a blessed Thanksgiving Day!  

And for you Black Friday Shoppers have a great time, I may even join you later in the day!

Brenda

A Wonderful Gift

If you visit Prairie Flower Farm and meet Linda, she has just gifted her blogging friends a sweet quilt pattern!  I have just met Linda in the last week and have been reading her posts whenever I have had some free time.  She is a wonderful giving lady and I think you will all love her if you go over for a visit.  I hope you do you will be blessed.  Prairie Flower Farm


Have a great evening! Blessings!

Sunday Praise and a Thankful Heart

I try and have a thankful heart daily but this time of year always reminds me that  I am not as thankful as I should be.  As well as being thankful for all my family and friends around me I am also thankful for all the dear friends I have met since blogging.  Blessings to all!

Update from Friday Night Sew-In

Spent the evening sewing in the work room yesterday.  It was the first time I joined the Friday Night Sew-In.
Made it downstairs by 6:30.

Ladybug came down to keep me company for a while.

Had a cup of coffee and hubs laptop with a movie in it.

I finished the project I was working on except I forgot to buy ribbon for it.  I cannot tell you what it is because I am making some of these for my friends and a couple visit my blog.  This is the outside.

I may have to keep this one for myself.  It was the first and I am not really sure I am happy with the fabric choices I made for the inside.  They looked good together when I had them all laid out on my work surface.

But after sewing everything together I think I should have used the batik purple fabric somewhere on the inside to pull the main fabric in better.

It was good to find I can complete this project in an evening and now I just need to get out and pick up some more fat quarters and hopefully I will bring the color combo together next time around.  If you ask me in a comment what this is I'll send you the answer and the link for the instructions.  Have a great weekend!  Blessings!

Friday Night Sew-In

Yeah it is Friday!  I was so ready for the weekend.  I will be getting ready for the Thanksgiving dinner we will be hosting here at our house in the woods.  There will be grocery shopping and house cleaning going on this weekend.  But this evening I am having just a little fun time.  I just went around the corner to my neighbors shop and found a few Christmas treasures.  I usually find a couple of Santa's each year to add to my collection.  I guess you could say I'm a sucker for Santa.  You can visit the blog for the Saltbox Farm here.  Sharon is a very sweet neighbor and I love to visit her shop.  These are the goodies I came home with this evening.

Now I am just going to have a bite to eat and off to the work room to do some sewing.  I am going to be working with this fabric I bought a couple of weeks ago.

I have it all pressed and cut to size so I am ready to sew.  This is going to be a Christmas present for a good friend.  I am going to participate for the first time in the Friday Night Sew-In at Handmade by Heidi.  I hope to have something to show you all tomorrow!  Blessings!

Icing on the Cake

The expression "The Icing on the Cake" is used to refer to something good that happens on top of an already good thing.  I have visited my two youngest daughters homes over the last couple of days and they had put up their Christmas villages.  I was not going to start any of the Christmas decorating until the weekend after Thanksgiving, but after seeing theirs all lit up and looking so pretty I decided to carry all mine up and find a place to put them.  Hubs put flat tops on our cupboards this past summer and replaced the badly installed plastic trim with some he made himself so I cleaned everything off one set and got my village arranged.

  And you ask, what would the icing on top be?  The icing on top would have been to find the box with the snow and the rest of the cords with the lights that tuck into each house.  After going up and down the basement steps about twelve times I still only have two lights.  Maybe tomorrow I'll dig a little deeper but for now it will be a very dark little village.  Linking up with the letter I for Alphabe-Thursday.

Thanks for stopping by!  Blessings!

Sunday Praise

I am loving this song!  Many blessings and enjoy!

I'm off for the day!

Just wanted to let you know that I am off with some friends.  Checking out some craft sales, at least one quilt shop and then out to my best friends house to work on some Christmas gift making.
I do not believe I understand how to set up a post to publish itself on a specific day.  I typed this up last night and thought I had sit it up correctly to publish itself this morning but I have just gotten home a short time ago and just found that did not happen.  I must need to more schooling to get it right.  Have a good night!  Blessings!

Vintage Inspiration Friday

It is Vintage Inspiration Friday over at Common Ground today so I thought I would show you what I use my vintage planters for.  I love using them for organizing my craft things.

The pink flower pot is a McCoy.  I actually use to keep a plant in this one but I have moved it into my craft area and keep all my decorative scissors in it now.  The green one is labeled Marietta and USA and has always been a catch all since I bought it. 

This little Scottie was actually a gift from Debra at Common Ground a few months ago.  I added the ribbon, the bow might be a little large but I think it is so cute.  I usually keep all my smaller scissors in it. 
I also use one to put my remote controls in on one of my end tables.  I bought it just because I loved the color.  It ended up being useful after all.  The bottom of this one is just marked USA 77.

Have a wonderful weekend!  Blessings!

H is for Hen

I let the hens out of the run today so they could do some scratching and pecking at the grassy, leafy ground.  Because of the large hawks we have I feel like I need to be out with them so they do not get carried off.  Love my hens!  When they are out of the run they move around pretty quickly and I mostly get pictures of their derrieres, which I think are fluffy and cute but I do not know if you all really want to look at my hen's behinds.

I finally was able to get some better pics after they slowed down in their hunt for bugs.

Some of these girls are getting some drumsticks on them.  Better stay away from hubs because he is always saying we are getting way to many eggs and we might need to roast one of these girls up.

But he is only teasing.  Hubs knows how I love these silly fat hens.  They make me smile just watching their shenanigans.

Here is my favorite.  She knows it too because she always hangs at my feet and gives me little pecks until I pick her up.
Since it is Thursday I am linking up with Jenny at:
Cannot believe it is almost the weekend again.  I have some fun planned with women folk.  So looking forward to it.  Have a great evening!  Blessings!