More Christmas Stuff and a WIP

I wanted to share a photo of the banner our daughter made for our little planter in front of the house. It's at the top of this post. I usually buy a Christmas banner, but I couldn't find one anywhere this year. I love this one far better than any banner one could find at a store.


I also wanted to share a special ornament that I received back in 1983 when our daughter was born. Isn't it sweet? It was stitched for me by a dear friend of mine that I've known for 38 years. Last weekend, in fact, we got to see her and her son perform in The Nutcracker.

Here's the ornament:

We always embellish stockings with our own felt details. Here's the one our daughter made for our newest family member~ my great niece. Bunnies were added since my niece loves them so much!

Finally I have a stitching WIP to share with you. This is a bit of my house sampler, and since I have had this heavy cold the last few days I haven't felt like doing much besides stitching. It's coming along but I have another 7 or more houses and details to do before this huge piece will be done.

Here's the last update I shared with you on this piece, so I guess I have made a little bit of slow progress.



Thanks for visiting my blog today. If you know of any great cold remedies, please do share them with me.

Christmas

Another Christmas is over. Sigh. I always feel a mixture of relief, contentedness, and sadness when it's the day after Christmas. I mostly feel relief at this point. I always enjoy Christmas, but I am just fine with it being done for another year.

Here's some photos that highlight some of what this Christmas was for us.

These photos show our baking day spent at my brother and sister-in-law's house. I love cooking and baking at their home as they have a large, modern kitchen. Don't get me wrong, our kitchen is fine but in 1957 they didn't make the kitchens very large. That's an understatement. Anyway, we baked for hours, and we also made a few other treats to share with people. In fact I gave away seven tins of goodies to co-workers. Here's the beginning preparations of the white chocolate snack mix I made:



The following photos show cookie production in various stages. My mom and daughter helped out this year.







A few days before Christmas Eve our son-in-law replanted our front planter. It looks so pretty now! Our daughter made a felt banner on the spur of the moment, but you can't see a bit of it here. I must take a close-up picture of it later on this week. The reindeer was given to me as a gift by one of my students.
It's made out of palm fronds! Our planter and porch area:





Here are some photos from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We had family over for both of them, and sadly some of the folks on Christmas Eve couldn't be here for Christmas Day.

Here's our table on Christmas Eve:


And the tree:


My niece and my mom on the 24th:


I wish I'd gotten a good picture of my great niece on her first Christmas Eve. The one I took turned out blurry so I can't share it here.

Christmas Day in the kitchen:


More family members on Christmas Day:


Finally, our dog on Christmas Day. Our daughter made him the bow out of felt.



It was a great time. I hope you and yours had a wonderful holiday, too.

Almost There

I took this photo last Christmas, so it seemed like the right time of the year to share it one more time. I need to get the camera out and update things.

Today I finish off work before the holidays. I'm looking forward to the time off, but I am nowhere near ready for Christmas. I will be though by the time it arrives.

After work yesterday we went out and did a lot of shopping, and we have more to do tonight. Nothing like waiting until the end, right? The stores are crazy, crowded, and full of long lines. Every year I say it will be different 'next year', but I still haven't quite found that elusive 'next year' where it's all done earlier.

Enjoy yourself this weekend!

Almost Mid-December

I had to share this photo of some really beautiful Japanese embroidery. If you click on it, you'll get a much better view than I'm providing on the blog page. Isn't it lovely? The colors are so brilliant, especially viewing them today when it's a bit cloudy outside.

The month is almost half over, and it's been frightfully busy. We finally just put some Christmas decorations out yesterday. I usually do that the day after Thanksgiving. We still don't have our lights up outside, nor do we have a tree. I have only bought a few gifts so far.

My job is keeping me too busy, as is my Master's program. I will be glad when it's over in a year or so.

I now have the dreadful cold that my husband had earlier this week. He still has it a bit, in fact. He was sick a few weeks ago with the flu so it's been a rough two weeks for him. Somewhere in between illnesses we had our trip to the midwest, so that was a nice respite. (if somewhat exhausting at the same time)

I hope to get some stitching in today, and if I do I'll post a project picture. I haven't stitched in a few weeks.

Thanks for all your comments and kind words!

A White Wedding

We just returned from a short trip back to the midwest. As a matter of fact, I wish we'd have stayed longer as the trip was simply too short for the amount of travel time required.

The first part of our jaunt is about a fifty mile ride to the largest airport in the area, and that trip amounts to a few hours due to traffic. After that our flight is about three hours. From there it's a short ride to the car rental place, and onto our destination another 165 miles from the city to which we fly. All told, it's about 12 hours from our doorstep to our destination back in the small town we visit.

We were there only three nights, so that gave us two full days at our destination. It truly wasn't enough time, but our main goal was to attend a wedding and we got to do that so it was all well worth it.

We live where the temperature is about 60-70 degrees during the day, even in the winter months. When we arrived at our destination, the temperature was six degrees. Brrr... It's the first time I've been back in the midwest without snow in the winter. It was odd to see it bright outside without snow when the temperature was so low.

The oddity ended on our second day there when we awakened to this:



Naturally that was the day of the wedding we were there to attend. Our sweet niece got to wed on a snowy day wearing a strapless dress and strappy shoes. Her attendants also wore strapless gowns!

Here's another picture of the weather the day of the wedding. I think it's so lovely, even if it is cold.



Here are the attendants with our niece in the middle:



Here's a photo of the fathers of the bride and groom. They're attempting to light the gorgeous snow sculptures that will lead guests to the church ceremony. The constant snowfall prevented the lighting from happening at all.



It was a beautiful wedding, and we had a complete blast experiencing our first small town wedding. There were 350 people at the reception! We ate a wonderful meal and danced the night away. I even got to polka for the first time since my ballet days, and unfortunately I was a bit too exuberant for my partner. My partner fell on the floor, in fact. No one was injured, and the fun continued.

I loved the snow, but it's great to be back here where the temperature outside is over 70 degrees today.