Merry Christmas!

Wishing you and yours a merry merry Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving!

What I have been up to lately!

I found this cute wire cloche candleholder at Michaels this week…

I love this picture of my son…he is so handsome and smart and I am so proud of him.

My mom has been visiting for the past week and she brought her dog Jack…he’s a Jack Russell Terrier (you didn’t see that coming did ya?)…

Milo is happy…he smiles like this all the time…

Jack and Milo in the sun, hey guys, if it is too hot, why not move to the shade?

I had my chimney cleaned…just had my roof replaced this fall and probably the jiggling around on the roof caused a blockage in the pipe just above the stove.  I started a fire before I realized this and had to carry the smoldering logs out after I figured out there was no air flow!  Lovely…by the way, that is a mummified bat in the left front of the stove!  Ewwww!

I made 32 washcloths from old bath towels on Saturday!

I saw this on the way to work one morning this past week, yep, I stopped and took the picture!

This holly bush was outside my dentist’s office and I have always wanted to photograph it, so I took advantage of the fresh snow to get this shot!

Jack is smiling here…the weekend after Christmas I had five smallish dogs in my 1300 square foot house!  It was wild.  I felt like I should have had a license to have that many kennels in the house. 

The three rat terriers (or the rat pack as I call them) were happy to go home at the end of the weekend!

The paperwhites are blooming wonderfully for the past 3 weeks…I planted three pots of them about 10 days apart so I have had a great show the past 3 weeks!

Happy New Year!

 

PJ Pants All Around for Christmas

This is where it all started…Black Friday, JoAnns at approximately 0600.  And that is what 71 yards of flannel looks like!  It was 75% off that day and if you have never been to the Black Friday sale at JoAnns you can compare it to a stampede of goal oriented hungry cattle after they have had nothing to eat for 2 1/2 weeks.  That’s my baby sister Jenny with me…

Not sure what’s going on with my hind leg there, but it was very early in the morning. I have been known in the past to make everyone on my Christmas list a pair or two of PJ pants for Christmas. 

After this year I am so over the urge to make PJ pants for anyone!  This stack of cut-out, ready-to-be-sewn-up PJ pants mocked me from the time I cut them out until I finished them, yup all 21 pair!  Mocked me!

I bought one pattern, because everyone has their own size preference, shorter legs, longer legs, smaller waist, etc.  I made them from a size 9mos to 2XL tall.  I used two patterns, one a children's size 2-6 and one a multi-size adult.  The baby pants I made my own pattern for…

Milo helped me quite a bit…he stayed mostly by my feet, occasionally standing up asking me if I was done yet.

I cut out the largest pants first with the pattern and then just cut the pattern down to the smaller sizes, the pattern was pretty tattered at the end and I believe it might have accidentally fallen into the trash can anyway! Accidentally of course!!  Then after I got all the long seams sewn, I had to place the hems and the waist line casings…and then the elastic!  I did all these assembly style, just running them through the machine, doing one part at a time.  Sometimes it got very confusing…hope no one has one leg that is tighter than the other or worse yet, a different fabric! 

The cutest pair, for little monkey boy!  I have another pair cut out for Baby Brady but haven’t found the gumption to sew them up yet!

Ruthie’s got a barnyard theme…and Mindy’s had peace signs and monkeys on hers.

Quite a lineup, huh?

Charlie always mauls his siblings with wild abandon…immediately after or sometimes during a photo session!

Laney’s had cute pink, red and orange owls…Audrey’s had cute little kitty cats. 

Here's Mindy with Brady...they have matching PJs!

I just might be linking to these great parties!

Christmas Decorating

Simple was my plan this year in decorating for Christmas.  I cut branches off trees in my woods and used them to make swags, one for the front door and one for the mailbox.  I also got all the branches I wanted from the tree farm…they were very generous.

And I used some branches to fill a flower pot.  I added lights and pinecones and seashells, all things that I had on hand.

It looks really pretty at night.

For the mailbox swag I used the netting that was used to tie the tree up for the trip home…it is red and white striped.

I cut down the tree myself…it was only 4 foot tall, I went to a tree farm and rode the wagon out to the field.  Kinda fun!  It was in the 70s so it didn’t feel much like it was time to cut down a Christmas tree, but it was still fun!

The Baby Jesus ornament is one of my faves!

Since the tree was like a Charlie Brown tree, we only used a few strands of lights and very few ornaments.

Sam and I put our usual tree topper on (it is about 12 inches high) and it immediately fell over!  So I used fishing twine to attach this star fish to the top…looks great!

Hershey’s candy canes in a blue mason jar…

and just a few other decorations scattered around…glittery bottle brush trees (from WalMart, ranging from 75 cents to $2).

Sarah made this for me…I love it!  Our old countdown I made probably 15 years ago and it is hideous!  It’s now in the Goodwill box! 

This is Milo…he is our newest family member, he’s a pug who is 1 1/2 and he is a wild animal!  Tons of fun and very sweet and snuggly.  He is my Christmas gift to myself (he was free, so it was easy!).

Vintage gold ball ornaments from my grandma mixed in with bright blue glass balls.

A gift from one of my nieces last year…

A waterless snow globe in a blue mason jar with a single tree inside.

A few realistic looking plain evergreen trees…

and lots of lights.

A gourd snowman sits on my mom’s little chair (she got it as a child and it has survived all these years!).

Hope you are enjoying the simple pleasures of this Christmas season.