The Sun Setting on 2009

Christmas

Christmas at our house was fun with so many little ones. 

 Gran had lots of help with the Christmas story, 

the gifts were all a hit,

 

but the biggest hit of all....................... bubble wrap!

Books, Doll Quilts and an Apron

I've been a busy little elf sewing, embroidering, wrapping, and smiling.  It is so much fun to make things for loved ones at Christmas.  I wanted so badly to make little doll quilts with a book theme for the grand daughters this year.   (This idea probably came after reading this post on Kleios Belly .  She does really great embroidery, and has wonderful ideas posted on her blog, if you haven't read it, you should!)  I started with vague ideas, searched the net, found some really inspiring ideas, and got to work.  One of my grand- daughter's favorite story is The Little Red Hen.  My original idea was to make a quilt and give the book that goes along with the story, but since this particular little girl loves this story so much, I just had to make her a Little Red Hen quilt, even if she already has the book.  I'll just give her a different book. 

 The other stories all had fabric to match, like Little Red Riding Hood fabric for the Little Red Riding Hood quilt, etc.,  but I scoured fabric sites and came up short on The Little Red Hen.  However,  I found this amazing quilt and story on a blog ironically called  The Little Red Hen .  It is a beautiful blog with gorgeous photography, beautiful quilts and needlework, and just the idea I needed for my quilt!  I wrote Lynn and asked if she would mind if I copied the pattern.  She graciously consented telling me her sister had gotten the pattern from an old children's book .  You really must go over and look it, for my work doesn't do the pattern justice!  I'm very much a beginner as you can tell from the quilts.  

I didn't figure my oldest grandson would want a doll quilt so I made him a Thomas the Train apron.  He adores Thomas, and I found a beautiful book, The Goodnight Train, to go along with it.  

This has been so much fun!  I have another apron in the works, and want to do a Pokey Little Puppy quilt as well.

Now to start wrapping and cooking!

It's Beginning to look like Christmas...Without a Christmas Card

So here's the scoop, I went over to my daughter's to take a photo for their Christmas card.  She had the scene set up so beautifully with a fire in the fireplace, the tree decorated, everyone dressed to a T, each girl's hair fixed just so, Sweet Cheeks still had a rash from an allergy to fruit, but every card's gotta tell a story,  right?  With four kids, it was a major job to get this all set up.  In all honesty she had been working up to this moment all day.  I arrived on time and started snapping away.  You all know the unprofessional quality of my photos, but my philosophy is this: take a ca-zillion pictures and one has to come out right.  I left the flash off, hoping to capture the true ambiance of the fire and the tree.  A warm overall feeling was what I was going for, and the glow was there, believe me.  The only problem was,  by not using the flash the shutter was open too long and every slight movement was caught.  The results were at least one fuzzy person per shot, add to that the fact that you can NEVER get four children and two adults looking favorably at the camera at one time, especially without one of them moving.  I have tons of photos to back up this theory, and here are just a few of the shots to prove it.   The last two were taken with the flash, but as you can tell by this time some were beginning to become uncooperative.  To see just how funny these really are you need to click on each one to enlarge it.  Scooter, in the polka dots has some wicked looking eyes in one of them. 

By the way, there was a card made and it features none of the above photos, but it wasn't exactly perfect either.  If I recall correctly one of these precious dears has a finger up her nose.  

Wedding Blog

My son and his gorgeous wife were married last April. I shared a few pictures from the photographer's blog back then.  Their wedding has just been featured on a wedding blog called Inspired By This .  I thought I would just share the link with you, not that I'm a proud parent or anything (she says smiling sheepishly.)  

It was a wonderful day and they are such a sweet couple.  The photographer did an amazing job as you can see by the photos.  Check  out the blog if you have time.  If not here's a little sneak peek!  

 This by the way, is the same sweet son who brought me fresh hot banana nut pancakes to the house for breakfast this morning, and they were yummy!!!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

  

Family Farm Fun

It is so much fun during the hustle and bustle of life, especially this time of year, to slow down and just spend time out of doors with family.  Simple, good times together, making memories and enjoying each other.