*December Moments*

I've had several different posts running in my head over the last couple of weeks, but no time to complete them.  We have had a full Advent season here full of lots of celebrating and reading our favorite Christmas books.  There is more celebrating to come as we head south.  Tonight, here in Indiana, the wind is howling like mad.  It was snowing (Yippee), but now I think it's might be sleeting (Boo).  Thankfully, the weather is suppose to be cold, but Sunny when we are suppose to leave to drive south.  When I checked the forecast for Mississippi, I realized I'm going to have to get into the short sleeves!  There will be no surprise snow this year.  It will feel good and we will be able to go to the park to get the wiggles out of someone!

UPDATED:  I rechecked the weather forecast, looks like its not going to be quite that warm where we will be since there is also rain in the forecast, but compared to here today, it will be balmy!  

Christmas for the animals.  We were suppose to make dog treats too, but that didn't happen.  Maybe when we get back.

Probably my favorite decoration.  My father cut these out, my youngest sister painted them and they gave them to my Mamaw one year for Christmas.  I don't know why, but I got them after she died.  There are several sheep, a camel, angel, even a palm tree.  I love them.

Our special dinner before we head south.  Notice that awesome red pot.  A birthday gift from Cameron.  He has "permission" to buy me that kind of stuff as long as he knows I want it.  No vacuum cleaners though. ;)

My newest find at the antique mall.  $12.00!!  It's not old and it wasn't made in Germany, but I love it!  I'm not even sure what you call them, but I've wanted one for a long time.  There are three levels of figures from the Nativity story.  It's so beautiful when all lit up.

Gotcha Day!! 

See what I mean.  Full!  In a good way!  I'm so thankful for this season of celebrating.  There is the obvious gratitude for the birth of our Savior, but also, it makes cold, grey skies not so dreary.

Yarn Along

Thank you to Callie for the picture

Well I haven't been reading a whole lot, despite the huge stack that is piled beside my bed.  Someone is tempting me each evening with Netflix!  I am working on Honey For a Child's Heart and I was listening to The Shallows on CD.   I've tried really hard, but I don't think I'm going to be able to get through that one.  It's very interesting in a way, but just way too detailed and technical for me.  I love Honey for a Child's Heart though.  It's so, so good.

I didn't get a picture of the final product before I had to give it to my mom for Christmas, but I made her this cowl with the yarn you see here.  I like the yarn suggested in the pattern, but those colors would not have been good for my mom.  I really enjoyed knitting this pattern.  I think I want to make myself one and I didn't think I was a "cowl person", but I like this one.  It's not too tight around the neck and not too bulky.

Homemade Gifts

Every year I have these grand plans of all the gifts I'm going to make for friends and family.  Every year I'm very excited to do these things and plan to get an early start.  Last year, Cameron was gone all of December.  I think there was only one hand made gift.

 Sorry about the red eye.  One of these days I'll figure out how to edit pictures.

Some time in the months since then I have realized something about myself and hand made gifts.  It's not that much fun when there is a deadline.  I love to make things for the girls.  Absolutely love it!  However, since we are home together every day it is very hard to keep things that I'm working on a surprise.  I'm not good at waiting until they go to bed to sew.  I'm tired and I make mistakes that then have to be fixed.  I have realized that, for me, it is much more fun and less stressful to make them things through out the year and maybe for birthdays and choose the things that have to be purchased for Christmas.

As far as friends and family go, I can still make that list of ideas I would love to make, but also make a list of purchased gifts.  If I can get to the hand made gift, great!  If not, I can buy whatever is needed instead.  It's way better than staying up until all hours of the night and then being grouchy the next day.  Not that I would or have ever done that. :)




This year I was able to make something for all of my younger nieces and nephews and my mom!  I started very early on the football hats for my nephews and the things for my nieces and my mom didn't take too long.

I love doing it and hopefully they will enjoy their gifts.

{This Moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week Thanksgiving.        A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. 

My sister and I were relaxing on the couch when these "pilgrims" walked in.  Carter will get me for this one day! LOL

Getting The Tree

I downloaded the pictures as soon as we got back and then totally forgot about them!

Last year, since Cameron was only home two weekends in December, we didn't go to our usual place to get a tree.  We went to Lowe's and set up the tree in record time so he could leave again.

It was nice to go to our local tree farm again this year.

This year, we had a visitor with us.  This picture was taken right after they had tipped the cart backwards!

They were begging us to get this tree. 

It was so warm, we didn't even need our jackets.  Very strange.  We usually are all bundled up and a few times we have walked through snow covered fields to get our tree.

The best part this year were the slides.  There was a smallish one in the barn and then there was this....

Oh my goodness!  It was so much fun.  We all went down, the kids multiple times.  You should have heard the whining when we said it was time to go.  All of the sudden, you would have thought that they had had the most miserable day ever!  Suddenly, Kate had a splinter and was crying and Jared was just plain ticked that it was time to go.  They were so pathetic that I actually had a hard time not laughing!

Hopefully we can go back again this year just for some fun.

Advent

Tomorrow is the first day of Advent.

For years, I would want to do something, but usually didn't really know what or wouldn't realize the exact date to begin until it was "too late".  For the last several years though, we have made this tradition part of our celebration.

 If this is something that you have always wanted to do and like me, felt it was "too late" for the current year, don't be discouraged!  If your children are younger, they aren't going to know if your starting late or not, and if they are older, they aren't going to care!  If they do, just ignore them! LOL  In our house, it's Mom that get's hung up on the details having to be just so and can let a good thing get away.

This year, I'm doing things a little differently.  I'm sort of combining two different ideas.  For three or four years we have done a wreath with a different tag for each day with the number on one side and an activity written on the back.  I got the idea here.  This year, I wanted to do something different as far as how it looked.  I also wanted to use Ann Voskamp's Advent devotional and Jesse Tree ornaments.  Then, I saw this idea.  I decided to sort of combine the ideas all into one thing.

I cut out circles with the number on them and threaded them onto some leftover yarn from my first knitting project that just happened to be red. :)  Then I printed out the Ann Voskamp devotional and cut out those ornaments.  Instead of hanging them on a tree we will tape one each day on top of the number for that day.  The activities will be (still have to do that part!) written on the back.   I was also planning on using these little snow men clothes pins that I bought last year, but I think they are going to be too heavy.  We'll just use the tape.  It's nothing fancy and it took very little time, but I'm happy about combining the two activities together.

The activities are as simple as "watch Charlie Brown Christmas tonight" or maybe "go see Christmas lights".  Things we would do anyway, but this way they don't get forgotten and we have a plan.

I love a plan!