12 Days of Handmade Ornaments!

I am so excited to bring to you all wRIte iT DOwN's 1st annual (hopefully)

12 Days of

Handmade Christmas Ornaments

December 1st - 12th

This is an awesome group of crafty bloggers creating

a different handmade ornament each day.

Make sure to check back on December 1st to see the first ornament.

Tell your friends, tell your friends to tell their friends and fell free to grab my button over on the left for your own blog.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wishing you all a very

Happy Thanksgiving!

I have something very fun in the works over here for Christmas - it will start December 1st!

2 New Quilts

These are my latest quilts.

The first one I gave to my mother in law a couple of days ago...

I tried a swirly/looping motion to quilt this time - it was actually much easier than the meandering motion. I will have to do that again.

And this is our Christmas quilt.

Which I am actually a little upset over because the red on Santa bled onto the white on that fabric panel. It really isn't that noticeable unless you are close up - but I notice it.

It kind of looks like one of my boys spilled Kool Aid on it - maybe I will blame them for it! J/K

This is the back, a simple patchwork of the Moda "Isn't Christmas Jolly" line.

I have actually gotten an order from a friend of a friend to do a t-shirt quilt for Christmas. And an order from a family member to do 5 small quilts for baby dolls.

I can't believe it.

If you asked me in June if I would be making quilts in December for Christmas gifts I would have looked at your like you were crazy.

But here I am! Getting ready to start Mom's quilt for Christmas. Fabric should be here soon.

Have a Wonderful Thanksgiving Everyone!

Turkey Day Crafts and a Turkey Day Play

Here is my little one, who is not so little anymore. He has proved that over and over this past week. First the big news, this little guy is now officially potty trained. He was my dream child, completely trained over a weekend, nighttime too! And today he had his first class performance on a stage in front of a room full of parents taking bazillions of pictures. He did great. My little pilgrim!

I have also been happily sewing each night in preparation for Turkey Day. I have discovered I love working with felt. So almost everything I have made this past week incorporates felt in some way. This is my "Happy Thanksgiving" sign hanging from our dining room ceiling.

I have seen this fabric wreath on several blogs, cannot remember which ones at the moment, but I thought I would give it a whirl. I like it. The husband looked up at dinner (its also in our dining room) with a "what is that?" look on his face. Just to make him happy I told him that I would be moving it into our bedroom once the season is over. He was thrilled.

And I found a tutorial for this little guy over at Make it and Love it. This is for a certain 2 week old baby boy (his momma, my lil sis, loves owls).

And last but not least, the kiddos will be at their own table this year. This one to be exact, with a table cloth and some cute decor and these on their chair backs. I hope they will like them. I also have another sweet craft for the kiddos but I will post those after Turkey Day.

Almost ready for the big day, just gotta get cookin' and cleaning! That is what tomorrow if for.

In the meantime I am waiting patiently to find out more about my ornament swap buddy. My ornaments are made and sitting here waiting to be shipped of to somewhere exciting.

I am also brainstorming an idea that I may have to get my friend the Craft Rookie involved in. Hmmmm.....this might be interesting.

Gobble, Gobble!

Thanksgiving is coming...

My Big J has apparently grown about 5 extra years on me.

He decided he wanted a belt and for his Thanksgiving Worship at his preschool he wore is little belt and dress shirt and dress shoes. He looked so cute and not at all like a 4 year old.

Mommy and Daddy were so proud to see him and his sweet class sing Our God is an Awesome God (sign language included!) in front of the parents, he even took a bow at the end.

That is my baby!

Here is a proud Daddy with his boy.

And a proud mommy with her baby!

Some absolutely adorable pilgrim and indian artwork.

And one very sweet boy. Love him!

Lil J's Thanksgiving celebration is next week and he will be on stage singing a song with his little class. I will be sure to have my camera ready!

We have started an eventful weekend of potty training Lil J. He has been a dream child so far. I cannot believe I will not have to buy diapers anymore. This is a wonderful thing people!

Look at this giveaway!

Go take a look over here at The Benner Daily for this awesome giveaway. I am also participating in the ornament exchange hosted by Shealynn, ornaments (yeah 2!) have been made, cannot wait to exchange them!

http://shealynnbenner.blogspot.com/2009/11/sponsor-giveaway-vintage-pearl.html

My sweetie pies

I love my babies.

I cannot believe they are not babies anymore. We are gearing up to potty train Lil J this weekend and maybe, just maybe, we will have 2 kiddos out of diapers. Very strange as my sister is starting all over again at her house.

They held their new baby cousin tonight and were so in love.

They did such a great job, and make me so proud

My boys, they are best buddies.

A sweet new baby boy - no, not mine!

My sister had her sweet boy (baby # 3) on Thursday morning. He is tiny, so tiny and so sweet. I got to visit with them for FOUR whole hours on Saturday (thanks B!) and got to hold him for a long time. He just curled up on his Auntie Kiki and stayed cozy for a bit, sweet baby. He is home now with his big sis and big bro and mommy & daddy. He just fits right it over at their house.

CONGRATS L& J!!!

He is an adorable baby!

My Little Super Heros

These are just some fun pictures of our weekend at Big J's preschool Fun Fair, the annual fundraiser. Lots of fun for the boys, they do almost everything together - little buddies. They got to go on pony rides, train rides, bounce houses and of course the fire truck!

Big J got to sit in the drivers seat! So cool.


Lil J was not so sure about actually being inside a firetruck.

I worked on the silent auction committe and brought home a class basket that I won at the silent auction for the boys as a surprise...the Super Heros Basket. They loved it and are into superheros - they basket had costumes for Buzz Lightyear, Spiderman and Batman. Big J is Buzz Lightyear (costume is a little bit small but hey who cares!)

And lil J is loving the Spiderman costume.

So of course no superhero is complete without a special cape!

Here they are made with love from mommy.

Ornament Swap - so cute!

I am participating in the Benner Daily ornament swap.

This is such a cute idea, I cannot wait to see what will come my way. Just have to figure out what to make or buy for my ornament. Hmmmm.

Click on the picture to participate!

Daddy's Home on his Birthday!

Daddy is home, and it is his birthday.

The boys and I are so glad he is home.

For his 35th year on this planet his babies painted him some treasures for his office,

something to brighten up the place.

Lil J and his piggies.

Big J in concentration mode


Sweet Lil J painting away

This is Big J's creation
and Lil J's creation
Happy Birthday to you...

Happy Birthday to You...

Happy Birthday Dear Daddy...

Happy Birthday to You.

An actual blog award!

A blog award, an actual award. This is so exciting!

My sweet blog friend Dani at The Craft Rookie nominated me for this sweet award tonight. She is awesome, she is the one who made my cute little button, see the green polka dot button up there on the left...yeah, she made it just because she is nice - she's awesome!

These are some of my favorites! I hope you check them out.

Sue Bees
This my Auntie Sue and she has been blogging for awhile now. She is really into thrifting and good finds! She guided me through my butterfly garden this summer which has sadly been eaten by a 5 month old yellow lab pup.
Check her out.



Amy Smith Photopgraphy Blog
Check out these pictures Amy takes. Seriously, she is amazing. I wish I had one millionth of one percent of the photography talent she had. Oh and she is taking our family pictures in December - can't wait. She does beautiful stuff.

NieNie Dialogues
Ok, who hasn't heard of NieNie? She has been on Oprah recently, that must make her a superstar! Seriously, take some time to read all of her old posts as well as the post accident ones. It is unbelieveable what she has been through.



Simplify
Camille's blog is so pretty. I am into quilting so I just love to look through her wonderful photos of her quilts, her home, her fun posts. Go check her out!

TDC Before & After Party - Again!

The Thrifty Decor Chick is having another before and after party -

click below to go to the party!

So we have done some major renovations in our sweet little house. Every inch of this place has been redone in some way, but I wanted to share our 2 biggest before & afters.

They are quite exciting!

First is our kitchen, please put on your sunglasses for the first picture - the counter top is straight from 1974, the year the house was built.

It is just fabulous!

This picture was taken the day we saw it with our realtor. The house was great, new paint, new carpet, not a bad price and then we walked around the corner and found this little beauty. WHOA!

You see we were married about 3 weeks prior to seeing our house for the first time and all of our money was going to the down payment, this kitchen was a shocker but we managed to do a sweet little kitchen on a tight budget.

Originally we painted it a dark green and we do not have the table anymore -

this was pre-kiddos, see only 2 chairs.

And this is our kitchen today, literally today. I just took this picture :D

Getting the itch to paint it again. Not sure what color but tan is getting on my nerves,

too much tan in our house!

And now for our biggest before and after, the outside of the house.

Here it is on June 10, 2003 - for sale sign in the yard and all.

Not sure if you can see the house numbers (1197) but they were so incredibly ugly that they were ripped off the house the day we closed on it.

And here it is after some clean-up work...

And then in March 2004 we painted the whole house in one day. We used to accomplish so much when we didn't have the boys. I cannot imagine painting a front door in one day with the kids now. Plus we had help from our friends.

And here it is today, again I took this picture today. The landscaping has changed, and grown quite a bit. And the mailbox that the husband bought in 2005 was installed within the last year. It is also fun to see our parade of different cars throughout the years.

And there you go, our kitchen and our sweet home. Hope you enjoyed it!