2010: A Crafty Review

I made a total of 10 quilts this past year, along with a few other miscellaneous projects. I have a few on the docket for next year, and plenty of fabric waiting to be cut, and several ideas rolling around in my head.

1. Baby quilt for Isaiah, my nephew
2. Quilt for my grandmom, on her 80th birthday
3. Baby quilt for Bethany, my friend's 3rd baby
4. Baby quilt for Jamizen, born to our friends who moved to Arkansas

1. Baby quilt for Joan, daughter of my friend living overseas

2. Bean bags made for Maddy, Tiff's daughter for her 4th birthday
3. Carseat cover made using this tute, for as-of-yet nameless-baby-Barton
4. Quilt over which my SIL cried upon opening on Christmas (best reaction to date)

1. my fall quilt
2. Nathan and Stephanie's wedding quilt (Tomorrow is the big day!!)
3. my other quilt
4. Pillows to match my fall quilt

1. Daniel modeling Bekah's birthday apron
2. Caden's Car's quilt
3. Christmas fabric which has since been cut and will soon become a Christmas quilt
4. Baby tie onesie, does it get much cuter?

Christmas: Part 3

So I didn't get many pictures from Christmas with Tommy's parents. 5 children + my ineptitude with the camera = notalotta. The boys had fun opening presents, and we had fun giving our gifts.

Earlier in the week Christina and I took all 4 boys and had pictures taken to give her mom for Christmas. They came out great! Unfortunately they aren't ready for pick up until January 6.
Here Isaiah is still wearing his red shirt from the shoot.

Tommy's mom made a tee-pee for our house and one for his sister's.

Isaiah wasn't particularly excited about all the hoopla, but enjoyed himself still.

It took quite a while to put everything in its right place once we got home. We decided on a few toys to pass along to others so we could make room for the new ones. And I think our returns are pretty much finished!

Christmas Morning: A Christmas to Remember

Christmas morning we celebrated with my aunt and uncle and their family. Someone's alarm went off at 7:00am waking Daniel who cheerfully woke the rest of the house.

My guys opening their stockings. Tommy got jerky and a hanky and Daniel got sippy cups and tub tints. And me? Well let's not go there. My gifts were too big for my stocking... yeah, that's it.

Putting gifts to good use: Reeses trees = protein. Right?

Doesn't Steve look so excited?!?

Melinda & Joshua

Tommy was really excited to show Nathan what he made for him. Let's take a closer look shall we?

It all happened so quick.

Perhaps the Zombie Invasion Kit should have come with a first aid kit? Fortunately Tommy married into a family of medical professionals. After several phone calls to my Uncle David we were told to avoid the ER and wait until he brought the stapler over.

Everyone was pretty excited about it (Tommy's knee, yes, but mostly the ZIK). And I must say it was pretty awesome. I'll put up some better pictures of it in another post (the ZIK and maybe his knee too).

Melinda and Steve have now learned that you can fit at least 9 people in their hall bathroom. And Tommy learned that just as one always treats a gun as though it were loaded, one must always consider a knife as sharp, even if it has a plastic handle.
Sadly, David didn't have the stapler, so he just glued Tommy's leg hair (and cut) together. But not before scrubbing the wound. Prior to which most people would have had an anesthetic.

All in all we had an enjoyable if not eventful Christmas morning and even made it to our next destination on time!

Christmas Eve

I decided to break my Christmas blogging into 3 posts, one for each gathering we had. The first was on Christmas Eve with my grandparents. We had a great time, and Daniel did very well despite the dreary weather and having to stay inside.

Daniel found two pairs of glasses in my dad's shirt pocket. He took the first pair out and put them on my dad (whom he calls Daddad) and then put the second pair on himself.

Aunt Melinda got some Legos for Tito.

I am still learning my way around my new camera. I brought the manual down with me so I could study it some, but I brought the spanish version, not english, so that didn't exactly help. But regardless, when you but this many great people together you are bound to get a good picture.

Melinda asked me to take some family pictures. (Don't worry, I'll still send you a disc!) They told me to say something funny to get them to smile so I reminded Linda of the time Sarah asked about Ruth and Boaz. She wanted to know what a kinsman-redeemer was. Linda told her that it means he cashed in her coupon.

Most of us went to church afterward. Most of us stayed awake for it too.

Daniel wanted to sit by his Granddad the whole time. And I think Dad was as enamored by Daniel as Daniel was by the candles.

Anticipation

Pretty packages are one of the best ways to decorate for the holidays.

Thanks to my packing genius husband, we fit everything but your present in the car!

Enjoy #2

Enjoy

Writer's Block

I typically like to include a brief note in our Christmas cards to update our friends and family about what has happened over the past year. I plan on mailing out our cards later today, and no such note has been written.

Plenty of good things have happened over the past year: In January Tommy accepted a career position at the Seminary, complete with benefits; in February we bought our first home; in May Tommy graduated from SWBTS with his Masters of Divinity; in August we took our first trip to the beach where we celebrated 5 years of marriage. We continue to enjoy Daniel and his creativity and humor, and all that he teaches us about ourselves and about God.

But it has also been a challenging year. Our church has seen many trials over the past 12 months. Our pastor had to step down for health reasons, an 18 year old young man was killed by a drunk driver in September, last month a friend delivered a stillborn baby boy at 31 weeks, and just this past weekend a young man we met just after moving to Fort Worth passed away after a 4 year battle with brain cancer.

Within our family this year has been difficult. Tommy and I have been trying for nearly a year and a half to get pregnant and have another baby. In this time we have seen nearly every one of our friends grow their families. We conceived this past summer and miscarried at 7 weeks. While I was sad not to have carried the baby to term, I am still amazed at the peace the Lord has brought my heart. His ways are certainly not my ways; his thoughts are far above mine.

I know that our Lord does all things well, even when it challenges my faith and is contrary to ‘my plans.’ He saw fit for Sarah and Elizabeth to remain barren until old age. He remained faithful to them through their doubts and was just as good while they were barren and wanting as he was when he opened their wombs. We have confidence we can trust in his goodness.

While I don’t want to be shy about what the Lord is working in our lives, I hesitated to include a note with all of this in it and omitting it seemed like a sham. So there it is, my Christmas note for all you lovely blog readers.

New Camera

My dad and mom bought me a new camera on Black Friday. A nice camera. A very nice camera. One that I'm not entirely sure how to use yet. Or how to re-format those RAW images to something I can use... But here's a peek into what we're up to:

Here's our newly refinished table. We bought this from Craigslist for $75 and it was an ugly generic pine color. After a little more work than we anticipated, we were finally able to bring it in the house, and we LOVE it.


Doesn't the camera take amazing pictures? Okay, maybe you can't really tell here, but it does.

You can do fancy stuff like make the background blurry.

I love the way the lights look in the background.

I hosted a party for my Metochai table on Thursday and was able to use the Spode dishes my mom passed on to me. They are so pretty even leftover cake looks yummy on them.


Tommy had to try jumping to see if I could get a shot of him mid air.


I can finally get shots of this guy that aren't blurry or of the back of his head.


I could stare at our tree all night. I love all the ornaments and the memories that come with them. We found a train at Goodwill to go under it for $5 (but we only paid $1.67 because I had some store credit.) And I absolutely love that I have the tree shirt my grandmom made for my parents.

I have alot more learning to do about all the settings. I feel like I should make flashcards or something! BTW- it's a Canon Rebel for those curious.

Happy Thanksgiving

Christmas Cards~ For Free!

I am one of the few people I know who mail out Christmas cards each year. After having a child, I found it even more important to and special to share a little about our year with our friends and family. I have typically found it less expensive to throw a 3x5 into a cheap card with a short letter than to buy a fancy photo card. But then you have to actually sign each card. Not that big of a deal, but it does sort of start to feel insincere writing the same well wishes in each.

Enter the Shutterfly photocard. And getting 50 for free!

Shove 'em into the envelope and slap a stamp on those babies and you're set!

I found their small, but very nice selection of 'religious' cards and saw a few that are on the top of my list.

love that scripture, I can hear Handel's Messiah playing in my mind

Cute and trendy with the non traditional colors, and I like that you can use more than one photo, total bonus!

Every good gift most certainly does come from the Father!

Do you send out Christmas cards? How do you decide who makes the cut?

Crafting Guide

I am having my second craft night this coming Saturday evening so I thought I would compile a list of some tutorials and ideas to share, along with some of the projects I am planning to make

Sew, Mama, Sew hosts a Handmade Holidays annual event. Each day is dedicated to a particular recipient, like gifts for babies, students, foodies, travelers, on and on. You can also look through the past 3 years for ideas.

Skip to my Lou has lots of great ideas including a compilation of 10 Free Apron Patterns and 10 Free Tote Bag Patterns.

Moda Bake Shop is always full of great quilt project ideas, but this post for 8 Fun Projects lists some other great ideas for those who don't quilt.

Looking for Felt Food? I drool every time I look at Homemade by Jill's awesome list of tutes all over the web. If you are feeling particularly brave, you could also make her incredible car play mat. I really want to try my hand at one, perhaps next year.

What am I going to make?

For starters, I made some bean bags for a girlfriends 4 year old.

And I'm making a new quilt, but I can only show you some scraps for now.

What's left on my list?

Hooded Bath Towels- does it get any easier than this? You could appliqué an initial or animal or some-such on the back to personalize it a bit.

This Gathered Clutch has been on my list for ages, I hope to whip one or two up for gifts this year.

I also came across this cute Suit Coat Clutch so if I can get my hands on a suit, I'd like to make one as well.

Those are at the top of the list for now.

What's on your list?

RePurpose

This blanket came to us all the way from Turkey. My friend who sent it to us said that the locals traditionally eat on the floor and will use a blanket like this beneath them. They might also use it on picnics, eating outdoors. At our house however, it has officially become the Lego blanket.

Daniel got a big bin of Mega Blocks for Christmas last year and even has a small bag of Lego Duplos. He has enjoyed them both and it has been so neat to watch the ways he plays with them evolve.

A few weeks ago we received a Lego magazine catalog in the mail. Daniel sat at the table and studied it. He sat on the couch and studied it. He rescued it from the book basket to place it prominently on the ottoman.

And then he asked Daddy "Lego, Daddy, Lego!" So Tommy took him to play with the Mega Blocks.

"Lego, Daddy, Lego!" So Tommy got down the Duplos.

"Lego, Daddy, Lego!" Then Tommy beamed with pride as he opened the Lego closet (our guest room closed has generously donated itself to the housing of thousands of dollars worth of Legos found on craigslist and at garage sales).

All his hopes and dreams as a father have been fulfilled. Okay, maybe not all of them, but I think he's pretty pleased for now.

The Lego blanket lends itself to easy clean up and restricting Legos to special father-son time means I'm not stuck corralling them onto the blanket five times a day.