Merry Christmas

May your Christmas be merry, 

May your heart be light.

May the good Lord bless and keep you this very night. 

Let the warmth of love comfort you,

As you share the magic of Christmas,

May your spirit be fresh and new.

Tonight, Rick and I are home alone, finishing up the things we need to before getting together with all the family tomorrow.  It's so much fun to be together, to watch the grand kids get excited with their gifts and the joy they get from being together with their cousins.

I am so fortunate to have such a wonderful family.

Merry Christmas.

 

Christmas is coming!

Here's a picture of part of our Christmas decorations.  We put these up and  Sophie was "helping" us!  We put up some more lights on the front of the house (to the left), but at this moment, we haven't taken more pictures.

Today Sophie and I were outside and she alerted me that Santa was untethered.  He was laying off to the left, all unhooked except for one tether.  Someone tried to steal Santa!!!

 

Thank heavens that Sophie let me know and saved Christmas!! 

She is truly a very smart girl!

(I'll bet she gets a really good treat in her stocking!)

Cuteness

 

How can you not smile when this is looking up at you?

Dance like no one is watching

This wall hanging was made for my daughter, Kelly...a gift for her birthday that was on October 17th. 

 

This wall hanging was made for my daughter, Jennifer.  Her birthday was November 19th. 

I hope they both enjoy them and think of me when they look at them.

Sweetest Dog Ever

This is Gracie.  We lost her to bone cancer back in January of this year. We still miss her so much.

We have moved on, we have a new puppy that we named Sophie Grace.

Sophie is a dear puppy, she brings us lots of laughter and a lot of work, but we will ALWAYS miss our Gracie.

We had Gracie for 10+ years and she was such a good dog.

I'll soon post some pictures of Sophie Grace, but this post is to honor and remember Gracie Lou Freebush Burdette.  She was a wonderful addition to our family and she will always bring a smile when we think of her.

Monkey, Elephant, Gray and ORANGE??!!

  I was asked to make 2 of my "Drag-a-long" blankets for a friend of my daughter.  She wanted the blankets to be gray with orange.

My mind was screaming,
"ORANGE and gray?", but as we all know, the customer is always right!  I called my customer and made sure that what she told me was in fact what she wanted.  Yes was her answer.  She wants these for friends who both have gray car seats and one has orange trim. "OK" I said and did a little Googling and did see that car seat.  It wasn't my style, but then, it doesn't have to be.

.

She wanted one with an

elephant and one with a monkey.

 

It's raining outside, so these pictures vary due to the lighting in my home.  Maybe later I can get a picture outdoors, but they are being delivered tomorrow

Vivian...4 now

Vivian is now 4.  In this picture she is only 3.  

You can see how she has matured by looking at the next two pictures!!

Seriously, she's a beautiful child, a deeply passionate and very determined.  She has an impish spirit upon occasion and she makes us laugh!  In the following pictures, her family has deemed her nickname, "Crazytrain"!

She is holding her banner for her bedroom door that Mimi (me) made for her for her birthday.  This year each of the grandchildren got one of these for their birthday in the colors I chose for them.  I hope they treasure them as they grow older and remember that their Mimi (and Papa) love them so very much.  Happy, happy birthday Vivian!  May your year be filled with wonder and love.  

This is the final grandchild birthday for the year, so now I need to come up with another project for next year's birthdays.

Treva starts preschool

Little Treva started preschool this year.  Although her preschool supplies a tote bag, each of the grandchildren were presented with a personalized tote bag from Mimi (me).  This is Treva's.  It has a little matching coin purse to carry a little change when she might need it.

First thing she did with it was to put her blanket into it!  She's a cutie!

This is her tote bag...









This is Treva...

Happy Birthday Anna and Nathan!

Wow!  6 years old!  

Aren't they just the most adorable twins you've ever seen?!  Spoken just like a proud Mimi.  

What a fun day was spent at their house.  Family was all together, there were lots of friends, there was lots of delicious food! 

Anna is about 5 minutes older than Nathan...

can you see the age difference?  I thought so, too.

 

Nathan is just as sweet and gentle as can be.

Jennifer holding Treva with big sis Hadley right there with her big smile!









Kelly, holding Vivian...with Hadley's back to the camera!











Sweet kids and birthday presents!  So much fun!

Scott with Vivian in the foreground.  Not easy to get a picture of our Viv...she's quite camera shy.

I love all of us being together. 

The Three Quilts

I'm referring to these quilts as "The Three Quilts".

I did a fabulous job on making them, if I do say so myself.  They are beautiful, they are custom and they were made by commission.

I have a sad spot in my heart when I think of these quilts.  It's a long story, but there were hard feelings when they were let go to their new home.

A woman who worked with my hubby emailed and asked me to make three quilts for her soon-to-be-born triplet grandchildren.  Her email stated that she loved my work and would pay whatever I asked.

She wanted them all similar but each different.  The boy's quilt should have turtles.  The girls' quilts could be whatever zoo animals I wished.  I had free reign to make and design them as I saw fit.  Just my style...hate taking direction when it comes to creating.

Anyway, when the time came and the quilts were ready, she kind of freaked out about the price.  To make a long story short, I got paid for materials only.

Each applique was digitally created (except for 3 giraffes, 3 elephants and 2 turtles.  That's 28 appliques, each taking 45 minutes or more to stitch.

To the right is the turtle quilt.

The quilt on the left is the elephant quilt.  Lots of time, effort, love and creativity went into each of these.

The back of each quilt is minkie...I love using minkie on baby quilts.  It just gives them such a cuddly, warm-fuzzy feeling.  (That warm-fuzzy feeling is a phrase I borrowed from my girls' kindergarten teacher.)

Elephant quilt is light pink and mint green.  

This last quilt is the giraffe quilt.  Different sashings and corner blocks from the elephant quilt.

If you click on the pictures, they get larger and you can see the quilting.

Anyway, "The Three Quilts" were given to the mother-to-be and a thank you message was received by me from the grandma-to-be on Facebook.

That's the end of the story, but I've learned a very bitter and hard lesson.  I will never, NEVER make another quilt for someone without giving an estimate and a down payment.