Christmas, New Years and other stuff (Warning - picture heavy)

Happy New Year everyone!!



I'll start this post with the stitching updates in case you don't want to read the babbling and take a gander at pics of the rest of my post...



Here is my finish from New Year's Eve. I only started it about 10 months ago. It's Jingle All the Way by Amy Bruecken. I am going to finish-finish it into a pillow for my bench. Into the basket of finished stitches to be finished-finished it goes!!



Here's another friendship sampler with my band - the bottom one is mine. They are all turning out so nicely. This was the one for January to stitch; it's ready to pass on ahead of schedule. Now I can move on to February - the person before me was ahead and it's sitting next to my chair - waiting!!

I enhanced my stash a bit - needed the Guacamole to finish Jingle, the other two are kits I just couldn't live without - may start one of them today...after all, what's the new year without a new project.

I also finished the quilt in the header. It was quilted and ready to be bound in October but with my back issues and the holidays, it didn't get completed until Christmas day. It's for my husband and has been a WIP for many years.

This is my nephew, Ashton and the quilt I made for him for Christmas. He loves the University of Michigan and hopes to attend there upon graduation from high school - he liked the quilt!

Cody received a new bed from Santa this year - he needed one terribly. He also was gifted the great antlers - he wouldn't leave them on his head so we had to put them by his collar to get a pic. My son put the blanket on him with the antlers once Christmas morning festivities were done.

He's very curious and helpful when Jordan was opening his gifts - do you think perhaps there may be doggie cookies wrapped somewhere under that tree?

This shot was when "his boy" was coming down to inspect what Santa delivered - Cody was already comfy on his bed!

Our tree, this year, Christmas morning.


Because I loaded pics in the wrong order and find it a pain to move them, here are some pictures from Christmas Eve. My mom, sisters and their families and my family have a celebration. This year I had Christmas Eve off (I am usually the only one who may have to work, besides my husband), so we started mid-afternoon with the festivities. Since we had snow, the kids decided sledding was in order!

This first picture is of my sisters, mom and myself. Cindy is on the right side, I am in the middle, Tammy on the right. That's my mom in the front.

Let the hill climbing begin! This is my sister Cindy with niece, Amira. Amira is a daredevil; she and Cindy went down the hill almost to the river. My mom's house is on a hill that goes to the river, which was not froze over. Amira thought that was great!

Olivia and Brea preparing to head on down the hill next...they did eventually fix Brea's hat so she could see.


The boys were breaking the trail initially - there was lots of laughing, squealing and rosy cheeks when they came in!

Then we did lots of munching on appetizers and hot cider. Fixed a delicious dinner...opened presents. I received books and a sweater from my Mom. Afterward, my son and I went to midnight mass.


Unfortunately, my husband had to work Christmas Eve, so he was not part of these festivities.

Christmas day was relaxed (as always the norm for our household). We had breakfast burritos, fruit and candy (it's Christmas, after all). Laid around admiring presents...after a visit from my Mom to check out Santa goodies, we ate dinner and watched movies. My son was surprised with his Santa gift - which was nice since he helped with the picking out the past few years and I love to give a surprise! My husband was delighted with his mittens, slippers and flannel shirts. I received a rolling case for my sewing machine (this will be so much easier to take it to classes now), a couple books I wanted to add to the "read" pile and my son bought me an Eminem CD - "Recovery" which I really wanted...and he did it all on his own, own money. There are advantages to having a 17 year old.

My husband was off all week, so we were able to go the movies (he works nights, so that's rare for the middle of the wek for us) - saw Little Fockers and it was very predictable but we still laughed. It was a light-hearted, fun movie and we loved the previous two in the series!

New Year's is always pretty quite around here too - we had yummy ham, green beans, brussel sprouts and cheesy potatoes for dinner yesterday - watched football most the day. Jordan wanted to watch a movie last night so we watched The Other Guys. I didn't really care much for it, not a Will Ferrill fan...but John and Jordan found it entertaining. I liked Letters to Juliet, which I watched while John catnapped on New Year's Eve. He did wake up just before the ball dropped, Jordan arrived home from a friends shortly after midnight.

Off to stitch now - I plan on doing that the balance of the day. Might read a bit.

I close with this pic...my husband is not a poser or ever likes having his pic taken, EVER, but he agreed to take this one - Santa brought Jordan a laptop for Christmas and we put this on there for wallpaper!

Until next post - stitch happy, enjoy the rest of your weekend (though there's not much left) and Happy January!!

Hugs,

Sherry :-)