Christmas Program

Sunday was our church Christmas program. I sang in the choir and Sarah sang in the kids' choir. The choir sang 4 songs and the kids sang 1.



If you aren't sure, I'm the 2nd from the left in the front row - the taller of the "twins"! It was funny, Penny & I showed up wearing almost the same thing!









William sleeping on our friend Christy (our church met at their house when we first started)


















The girls sitting with Grandpa & Grandma.
Sarah was Mary for the kids' choir.









The kids' choir sang Silent Night/Sleep Baby Jesus. Sarah actually sang! This is the 4th time the kids' choir sang and the first she didn't just stand there! She's also the youngest "member" of the choir, so I think she did great! As you can see, our church is higher on the girl side!












Sarah as Mary and Isaac as Joseph (Isaac is my "twin" Penny's son)

Icicles

I took these pictures of icicles on the end of our 3 season porch. They are gone now as it got up into the 40's Sunday (and then into the teens on Monday!)

Tatting Shuttle Giveaway!

I am entering a giveaway at http://ladyshuttlemaker.blogspot.com/ for a handmade ceramic tatting shuttle by Lady Shuttle Maker! Sherry is the creator of the TIAS lighthouses I tatted. She also dyes the prettiest HDT (hand dyed thread). But I have too many threads as it is to justify buying more! Maybe someday!

Hands-On Nativity--Step Two

Here is my progress on my Nativity for the kids.





I had to pin all the headdresses, trim, faces, and etc before I could sew them.








The original used felt for the faces, hands, and beards, but I wanted something that was more durable/washable, so that meant I had to turn under the edges for the fabric faces!

I decided to embroider the animals after they were sewn so I'd know where the features needed to go.

Here they are all sewn.

The next step is to embroider on the faces.

My Newest Project

I have had this project on the "back burner" since about 2002. (I was originally going to make it for my students to use!). I saw the box downstairs this morning and figured I'd better get it done or else another Christmas would come and go without me getting it done! It is going to be a stuffed Nativity/wallhanging.





Here are all the supplies










I have basically everything cut out except for the beards (but I didn't feel like figuring out who would be getting what color beard!)

The top row of people are: Joseph, Mary, Jesus, angel

The middle row is the shepherds

The bottom row is the "wise guys"

The white blobs on the far left are going to be sheep!

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

We woke up Monday morning to about 10 inches of snow! The kids loved it. It wasn't so great for me when the snowblower broke a belt and I had to shovel the driveway out! Here are some shots around our house. I pulled the kids around on the sled and we built a psuedo snowman. The snow wouldn't roll into balls, so we just pushed it together into a blob!

Putting up the Tree!

We usually put up our Christmas tree the Saturday after Thanksgiving. This year, the girls helped quite a bit. I decided to tie the tree to the wall this year as we had an incident last year with it getting tipped over!



We have an artificial tree and while this one isn't the greatest, it is bigger than the one I had before it and it only cost $5.

One of these years, I'll get a better tree at the after-Christmas clearance sales, but I think I'll probably wait until the kids are older so I can put out more of my breakable ornaments. No point in having more room for ornaments if I'm not going to use most of the space!
















William likes the pretty ornaments!



















We got this soft Avon Nativity set from my parents. The kids all like to play with it and William seems to prefer the donkey and the cow.