Days of Christmas

Christmas program practice. King Herod sure is a popular guy... :) 

Finished Object Friday: A Little "1"

It is very hard to believe, but one little sweetheart turned one a couple of weeks ago!! And believe it or not, I had a little time to sew something fun up! (I actually did most of the sewing while we were still staying with my parents. I had a lot more extra time then as well as crafty energy.)

What I didn't take the time for, unfortunately, was to get out my actual camera... You may have noticed that most of my blog posts recently have been with mobile pictures. It is just so much easier to post straight from my phone! (And I actually get blog posts up!).  But I still have pictures!

Here's the super fun outfit! The whole thing was so easy and fast to put together! So fun! Just a quick basic bow with a flower button to match the skirt, and a "1" ironed on with Heat 'n Bond. I used this tutorial for the skirt. 

Here are a few pictures from her birthday celebration showing the outfit in action:

First cupcake!! 

Yep, that was pretty good alright!! 

Opening presents: 

Of course, the paper is the best part! 

The skirt seems to look super long in these pictures, but it really isn't to her ankles. I did make it a tad long for her age so that she can hopefully wear it on into next spring. Here's a baby toes shot!! 

Such a sweetie!!! I'll be back tomorrow with more settling in. My mom came over for a little while today and helped me. It's wonderful to have someone to help me get in there and get something done! 

But now it's your turn to share what you have been up to!! :) Maybe you all have had more time than I have for fun fall projects. 

Chari Tree Chat: Birthday Celebrations!

Many of you may remember that this time of year is very busy for my family. My sister, dad and myself all have birthdays within one week's time! (She has said that it is a bit harder than Christmas in some ways... Everyone wants their own celebration!) :)

Angie starts us off at the end of August. Of course, with her back at Bible college, we celebrated a bit early.

For my birthday, I kind of invited us over to visit some friends in the DFW area... Ok, so maybe "kinda" isn't the word... I DID invite us over... Isn't it wonderful to have the kind of friends that let you do that? We visited the Perot museum and really enjoyed touring that!

Loved the bird section and the gem and mineral section!

One of my favorite parts was the musical staircase! (I would love to return some day when we have kids old enough to enjoy it... Preferably not on Labor Day weekend...)

Then we had a lovely lasagna dinner with baked Alaska for dessert! Yummy!! 

Sunday, my actual birthday - the 1st - we had dinner at another dear friend's home! 

And Sunday night, mom surprised me by inviting yet more friends over! So much fun to celebrate with so many close friends and family!

The next Tuesday was my dad's birthday. We surprised him by arranging for several friends to meet us at a local barbecue place! Fun times! 

So yes, busy times!! But very fun!!! Thanks to all of you who made my birthday special!!! And a big shoot out to my Mom for making sure each of us has a special birthday. Every. Year!! 

We have found a bit of time to sneak in a little project.... Come back Friday! (And yes, FOF WILL be on time... The post is already written and scheduled!! ;) 

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Last but certainly not least, please pray for my friend Erin. She had brain surgery Wednesday to remove a tumor. Thankfully the doctor is "99%" sure it isn't cancer! She is having some difficulty after such an intense surgery. I know she will appreciate your prayers! 

Finished Object Friday... but not really

I should have posted this sooner... but y'all would probably get worried about me if I actually posted on time!! heehee!

Nope. I haven't been very crafty recently... too busy doing this:

Whew!!!

Thankfully, we've had lots of help!

Impossible to get a non-blurry picture of this... she was moving tooo fast!

(Yes, this little "Love" is walking!!! Those sisters sure walk early... my sister and I were cautious. We waited until we were well past a year before we ventured forth on two feet!!) ;)
Speaking of sisters....

(I'm probably SO dead after this one....) But might as well have some fun while we are working!!

We had a wonderful crew last Saturday and got a big bunch packed away!!!

(and with more help coming tomorrow, we hope to pretty much finish up!!)

So a big thank you to all who have helped and are going to help!! :)

And yes, we did sell our house! I would say "finally" but I know that there are others who have their homes listed a much longer time. It has been an eventful summer - one I hope we don't have to repeat for a long time. On July 3rd, Angie and I were in a fender bender:

Fortunately, we weren't hurt much at all (just a tad stiff...) but it did total our car. (Paid off... cold air... ran good - we weren't ready to let that one go!) But we got a new ride! (New to us, anyway...) And are really thrilled with it!

 

Anyway... with all the mess/paperwork/phone calls that come with a wreck, within a week of that we had a contract on our house!! wow!

So where to now? We don't have a house lined up yet. We need a little time to save a bit. So we will be in an apartment for a few months. Not the optimal way to move (especially since we will be staying with my parents for a little while until our apartment is ready for us to move in.) BUT we are rolling with it. The good thing about being in an apartment is it will (hopefully!) give Mark the chance to finish up his Master's work without the worry of a house or yard. "All things work together," right? ;)

Sooo... maybe some of you have had a chance to do some crafting! I hope everyone hasn't had the roller coaster of a summer that we've had over here! :) I'm going to put Mr. Linky up, so enjoy sharing! :)

Finished Object Friday: A "Pinterest-y" VBS!

Our church recently finished up our vacation Bible school. I headed things up this year, and I think somehow it was one of the biggest jobs ever!! Whew! I did the lessons mostly myself - the main reason being that I had already thought out what I wanted to say and it was easier to just teach it rather than pass all that info along! ;) (Ok, that sounds really strange when I type it, but I'm just so grateful to God for His leading in what to teach!)

This was one of the most technological VBS's we've ever done. Not only did I use Power Point for each day - including slides for songs and the lessons as well as fun space facts, but we also collaborated a LOT on Pinterest!! I love the group board feature for group projects!! If your church ever does a space theme, you may want to check out our board! We used ideas here for crafts, decor and snacks!!So.... I wanted to share just a few pictures to show you how some of our "Pinterest-y" things turned out!

I'll start with the cute food!! Saturday was our big picnic! I made these cute cupcakes for dessert.... Nothing like a cute little bear on the moon!!

Original Pin here

And we had "Rocket dogs" too!!

Original Pin

I also used photoshop to design our invitations, name tags, snack labels, digital frames for pictures, award certificate.... you name it!! I'm glad that the template for all of that was something I got done early on! I was able to just reuse the template and size it for whatever I needed. 

 Probably the things I worked hardest on were our moon rocks!! (And a BIG thank you to my Sister-in-law, Mary, for helping! It had been ages since I did any paper mache!)

Original Pin

And here's what the rest of the sanctuary looked like when we got finished!!!

See all those planets!!! (And you can't miss the sun!)

A dear friend crafted each of them for us!!! Thank you, Miss "M," for all your hard work!!!! And she did every single one of them - yes! Even dear little Pluto!! (I'm not ready to exclude him from my list of planets!!)

Although we are all glad to have VBS over for another year, we all did have a blast!!!! The kids had fun and hopefully learned something too!!! (I know I learned a LOT!! I think the teacher usually ends up learning more than the students!) We are already starting to plan next year's VBS!! ;)


How about you? Have you had time to do anything "crafty" this summer? It seems that the year is just flying by!

Finished Object Friday: Little Apron

Ok... So FOF is only a couple of weeks late this month, but that's just how it goes sometimes... ;) Thank you all for your patience!

I actually made this little apron back in November for one of my little friends. I didn't share it intentionally because I had another one to make!! :) Piper got one too!!

I cut out the main part of both the aprons at the same time.  I just used a cheap child's apron I had bought for a pattern, basically just to get the proportions right. I've done this, I believe, on each of the little aprons I've made. I just rounded off the corners for these, invented a fun little pocket pattern and then used seam binding for the ties. They are both fully lined with the polka dot fabric. Super easy!

This little girl is such a joy. She has quite the personality! You aren't around her long before you have to giggle! She is a wonderful little helper too, and loves her baby sister so very much! It's hard to believe that she was this small not very long ago!


Ok, now it's your turn!! You've had two extra weeks to be "crafty" this month! ;)

Chari Tree Chat

Note: the above title is what I use when I have so many things to say and I don't know what to title the post... usually these type of posts are what I write to catch you up on my life events... ;) On to the post!

Wow! The last few weeks have been so very busy and life shows no signs of slowing down any time soon!!!! I won't even get into what is coming up, I'll just fill you in a bit on what has been happening!

The last week of April our church had a special speaker in for about a week. We truly enjoyed the challenging messages and gathering with our church family. However, on the first Sunday of these meetings our family got some sad news. My aunt passed away following a severe stroke. She was only 55 years old. In fact, on Mother's Day. she would have celebrated her 56th birthday. It is so hard to be faced with such a sudden goodbye! We weren't able to see her and my uncle a lot in the past several years, but did enjoy the visits we did have with them. Please pray especially for my uncle as he faces life without his wife and partner. The second weekend in May was spent planning, traveling to, and having my aunt's memorial service. (and thus the reason that FOF totally slipped my mind that week...)

 

My life has also been busy with a myriad of other things, some big, some small such as:

• My Sunday morning "duty" of helping little bit get her nap in. (I'm so glad to have such a good friend that lets me enjoy her baby's snuggles! Also... I seem to be the only one who can get her to sleep in church. What can I say? I have a gift!) ;) (I also have a very willing little helper photobombing in the background. That girl loves baby snuggles!) ;)

• Visiting my parent's property:  Here are some wild blackberries that I picked between rain showers. :)

• Doing a bit of "styling": Pinterest sure has helped me figure out how to dress - I also have some great fashion consultants... Isn't texting a great thing?? :) One of my dear friends sent me this scarf, along with a sweet card. I had fun styling it, and couldn't resist adding my sequin goldfish shoes to the ensemble! ;)

 

• I recently enjoyed going to a lovely concert with my Mom in a nearby city. A Christmas present from my hubby and a Mother's Day gift for her! 

• And so many other things that have been keeping me hopping: teaching our church kids - often two lessons a week, keeping our home clean and ready for showing, planning Vacation Bible School, and many other things... ;) 

Coming up this Friday - a very late Finished Object Friday!! ;)

Days of Christmas: Day 20

Well, I had a very busy day today!! So today's picture is from a few weeks ago - before we started Days of Christmas. The last Thursday in November, Mark and I enjoyed the local Christmas parade with our friends Andrew and Clara! Here we are after the official tree lighting! :) (Warning: very grainy cell phone pict to follow... sometimes the memories are more important than quality photos...) ;)

Days of Christmas: Day 19

Story time with Mr. Andrew. We had a Sunday School Christmas party at our house this evening. I'm just a little tired... ;) Mr. Andrew is a great storyteller... He read about Humphrey the Camel.

Days of Christmas: Day 16

Church Christmas program! The kids did so good!!!

Days of Christmas: Day 2

Some Christmas-y snuggles with my friend's youngest little one. She is growing fast!! :) (This was taken at our Church Christmas dinner and party yesterday).

Finished Object Fridays - Big Sister Shirts

Funny. It seems like when I was doing FOF every week or even every other week, I hardly had any projects to share... now - when I do it once a month - I have a hard time picking WHICH project to share!! This one wasn't too hard to pick though. Such a fun and exciting time for our little church family. We got to welcome a new little member! :) My friend Regina just gave birth to baby girl #4 a couple of weeks ago!! Welcome to Baby "D!" (or "Love" as she will be known here...)

Last year my mom, with her nose for bargains, found a Cricut machine at a local Goodwill. My sister and I snatched it up and we share joint "custody" of the machine. And.... since she's off at college, guess who gets to store it!! :)

A while back Melissa made these shirts for Brittany's boys. I had heard that this kind of project was easy with the Cricut, but I wasn't too sure until I got into it. (It is EASY, but even easier if you know how to run the machine... I'm learning!) :) I used this tutorial - great explanation!


So Regina came over one afternoon and we started working on these. I finished them up and made a little surprise for baby "D!" I also made bows to match.


Here they are posing with their shirts right after they got them:


And here are the three big sisters posing with the little sis!!

Yep... they are ALL smitten with this little one!!!

And wouldn't you be?? This is a picture I took of her just this week:

She's growing and changing so fast!!

Maybe you have a project to share? I'm excited to see what you all have been working on!!

~PS. Just FYI, Cricut doesn't know I exist... not an advertisement, just craftiness at work! :)

In August...

... we spent some time in Tennessee...
Visiting sites...

and visiting with family and good friends. The time is never long enough! I sure didn't get much "creek side" time in, but just a little before we left. :)

We got to celebrate Angie's birthday with her before she left for her second year of Bible college. We sure miss her!!

Happy, 21st, sis!! (Sigh... what happened to my "baby" sister??)

Where was I? Oh, yes... back to August....
We visited a very nice American history museum in our area.


Celebrated the (hopefully SOON!) arrival of a new little one!

Oh, and big sisters deserve a treat too... :)


And also enjoyed the celebration of a new family created - my cousin Brent married his sweetheart!


We also spent some time with good friends at the Dallas Arboretum.


Whew... what a busy month we have had!! And with all that, I also haven't been feeling so great. Hopefully that is pretty much behind me!

And this past Saturday? Another birthday.... mine this time. Nothing fancy, just some fun with family. :) This is the "cake" that I wanted... Yummy!!!

So yes, it's been a very busy summer!!! Wow. So hard to believe that it is September already! We are looking forward to an exciting fall!