Decorating for Christmas

decorating for christmas was necessary to my sanity! i needed to pull out the bins and decorate a bit to bring the christmas spirit into our heart and home.

and i might just leave it all up until the end of january!

Catching up...

i hope you all had a great christmas and a safe and happy new year! i've been without internet or phone for 3 weeks and i am so behind. the last time i blogged my life was centered around these.

LOTS of these...

we made the decision to move before christmas so that the kids could enjoy christmas morning in a new home. a little crazy, well, in hind sight, a lot crazy. but in the end, it was wayyyy worth it! although shawn may not agree, especially when his to-do list looked like this. (he did his very best, gotta love him!) we had planned on moving the weekend before christmas, however, due to rain the men decided to move on a tuesday night after work. our good friends, the riddles, were our life savers and with their help, the furniture was moved in one drizzly tuesday night.

the days that followed were exhausting, for all of us. one afternoon i walked in my room to find nolan curled up on the edge of the bed fast asleep.

and i cracked up when we woke up sunday morning to a poor attempt at toilet papering. in the defense of whom ever did this, it was raining.

i am grateful to the friends who helped us and brought us dinners. i am so very grateful to my mom who watched the kids, attempted to make dinner in a make shift kitchen, and who helped me, in spite of my crazy hubby! thanks mom!

so bare with me as i catch up on the last 3 weeks. so much to blog about, so little time!

Not much Christmas

goin' on around here. we are in the process of moving {finally}... at first i was opposed to the idea of moving right before christmas, but when it became an option, the thought of having christmas in a new home with happy, happy kiddos, made my heart happy and i new we had to do it. poor shawn is soooo busy painting the bedrooms, but they look super good! i've been packing, unpacking, packing, unpacking... the carpet comes in tuesday and then we can move the furniture in. so as for christmas decorating, well...there isn't any YET! although, i did get this stinkin' cute gift from a dear friend that i LOVE.

and we had our quilt class christmas party friday night. we each made a smallish quilt for the person who's name we drew. i scored a fabulous gift that i will share with you as soon as i find the memory card to my camera :) and the gift i made was the christmas presents quilt {showed in the previous post}. it's one of cheri's designs, of course! i had fun making my person her gift. i LOVE my person!

the food was delicous as usual and i would love to share a spectacular corn dip recipe with you if the other person that i LOVE wouldn't mind letting me...

W.I.L.I.N.G. 2010

here is a sampling of my

W.I.L. {ING}
w. - working, i. - in, l. - line, {ing} -stitching, binding, appliqueing, cutting...projects

{funny} 4 of the 5 are cheri's. the flower shop quilt is by renee plains.
i can't show you a good picture of the last one cuz' it's a gift.

i also worked on and finished two tops. masyns' basket bed quilt and a {twelve} year old ufo by country threads called garden club. i'll show you them once they are actually quilted and done.

gotta get back to my packing....*ugh*

"My toys!"

as i mentioned, we are moving. therefore, i am packing everything that isn't used on a regular basis and this includes toys!

yesterday, nolan asked for a couple cars that i had packed. here's how the conversation went...

nolan, "where my race cars?"

me, "i packed them."

nolan, "you kidding me? you get them for me."

me, "ok"

so...i searched for the box that had his toys in it and retreived his race cars. i then went back to doing what i was doing...

several minutes later, i hear him making a whole lot of noise. he was loading all the toys that i didn't pack into a bag.

me, "nolan, what are you doing?"

nolan, "taking my toys"

apparantly he didn't want me packing anymore of his toys. he carried the bag around with him for the rest of the afternoon.

he insisted on taking them when we went to get the kids from school

and they HAD to stay on his lap.

poor kid!

Make it do or do without...

and in this case, i'm making do...
last year at this time, my living room looked like this



and this.



and this is how it looks now.
the walls are bare (with a couple exceptions), the couch and chairs are getting a makeover, and we are making do with our {camping} chairs...the decorations are (for the most part) all packed up and moved to our {new} house.
we are officially moving and my poor house is not boasting it's typical holiday cheer.



but i'm not complaining
we are all very excited about moving!

and about the camping chair re-do...
gavin said, "it's ghetto"
masyn said, "it's desert fashionista"
she thought i did a very {fashionable} job :)
and nolan...
he said, "it beautiful horrible"
{i'm going with beautiful!}



p.s. {i have been soooo busy quilting & packing that i haven't made it to the post office, but i PROMISE i will go monday!}

A Wonderful Thanksgiving!

we spent THE BEST thanksgiving weekend, with the riddles, in the desert!

we played, laughed,



broke things, rode things, and did donuts!



but the best part, was thanksgiving.
craig & karen deep fried their turkey, while shawn bbq'd his. both were delicious.
we celebrated not only with an amazing feast, but also with a reflection of gratefulness around the campfire.



the weather was beautiful, the company was superb and everyone had a chance to relax and do a little of what makes them happy.



me, i finished a couple quilty things.
it was a great weekend with great friends!

W.I.L.ling 2010-2011

once school started up again, i decided that i could get a lot done while sitting in my car, waiting in lines for kids. i've titled them {W.I.L.} which stands for working in lines.
i'm gettin' ALOT done working in lines!!!

my first task was to square up ALL {480} of the 1/2 sq. triangles that made up masyn's basket quilt. (did i show you that?, hmmm) that took FOREVER!



after those were done, i finished this project. (looking at it, i notice that my snowman doesn't have his eyes...poor guy, i've gotta fix him!)



as well as many others. i will show you the rest as soon as i take the pictures ;)

Pumpkin Bread

i made mini pumpkin bread loaves for class today and thought i'd share the recipe



pumpkin bread

ingredients:

3 cups sugar
1 cup veg. oil
4 eggs
2/3 cup water
1 {15} oz. can of pumpkin
2 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. ground allspice
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ground cloves
3 1/2 cups flour
2 tsps. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking powder

directions:

preheat oven to 350. lightly grease {2} loaf pans or {6} mini loaf pans

combine sugar, oil & eggs and beat until smooth. add water and beat until well blended. stir in pumpkin, and spices.

combine flour, soda, salt and baking powder. add dry ingredients to pumpkin mixture and blend just until all ingredients are mixed. divide batter between prepared pans.

bake at 350 for about 1 hour. {about 40 min. for mini loaves}

enjoy!

my sister made these cute tags for me. LOVE them.
i'll ask her what stamp set she used.

{hey, suz...could you leave a comment and let us know what you used to make these fantastic tags!...LOVE you!}