Quilts and pieces

Back in June, I put this hand embroidered quilt in the frame in my living room. My mother made it over 20 years ago. I decided it was time to have it quilted. Thanks to some help from my MIL and friends, Deanna and Rita, I finished it just before Christmas.

It turned out better than I ever expected it too.

The details are just beautiful!

I also finished little Miss Sadie's quilt.  As planned she was named Sadie, but I didn't finish the quilt until the day after she was born just to be sure. Sadie's daddy works as a lineman where I work. I had asked you fellow bloggers if I should add the name before she was born. It was unanimously a big NO.
 

I always like to included the year I make the quilt.

Another project finished just before Christmas.

Now this project was started months ago and is getting a little closer to completion. This is a paper piece pattern for those of you that don't quilt. This piece measures 20 1/2 by 8 1/2 inches and has 126 pieces of little fabric!!!  I can't show you the front yet, as it's a surprise for someone. However there are two more pieces that measure the same size and those two combined have 508 little pieces of fabric in them.

By the time this small quilt is finished I expect it to have close to 700 pieces of fabric and will not be as big as a baby quilt.

Do you all have leftover cranberry sauce you made?  Here is what I made with ours today. I have the recipe on my pinterest. If you haven't joined pinterest yet let me tell you, it can take up more time than blogging and facebook combined!

Back to my tiny pieces of fabric. Stay tuned!

GREAT guys in Mom's eyes

Lunch time with mom. Today her two oldest great-grandsons came for a pizza party. Along with them was mom's great nephew. Of course I took mom's other two great-grandsons too.

Here is a group picture of all the fine young men. The three on the back row are all active military, 2 are seals, and one is a Marine. They are home for a very short Christmas break. Thank you men for serving our country, we are all very proud of you and that includes your great-grandmother and great aunt.

Mom and her four great grandsons.

Check this out

You can find today's post at Osagebluff Blacksmith's blog.

You will even find out what this is.

While you are there, sign up to be a follower.

You never know what you might find for sale there.

Christmas at our house

The kids open their presents in front of aunt Sarah.

Lizzie opens presents dressed in her Sunday best!

Stockings hold goodies too!

It takes a crew to put things together.

We don't have many pictures of our best photographer.

This one is blurry so that tells you I'm not the best photographer.

Lori is checking out her new kindle cover and light.

Christmas is high tech, using the video cameras to watch gift opening.

We miss you Sarah and Rusty!

A lady and her castle.

Sharing a sweet moment with her Daddy.

The oak handmade back pack was a hit with Jeremy!

 Dudenhoeffer's baskets are awesome.

So an awesome basket, for an awesome son.

Dinner time! Santa is ready.

The menu:

 baked ham, broccoli casserole, 2 cranberry salads, river potatoes, and grandma's fruit salad!

Aunt Sarah and Uncle Rusty bought Alex the blacksmith shop lego set.

It took a real blacksmith for the assembly.

This is the morning after photo.

 No need to do dishes with company,

it's time to visit and watch the kids with their gifts,

 the big kids too!

#24 children sleeping

Tomorrow's the day! Hope you all are ready!

#23 A shining star(s)

I don't remember when or how I met Tipper at the Blind Pig and the Acorn. It's been several years. Some day we will meet in person. She lives in the beautiful Appalachian Mountains.
Her family is very talented when it comes to music (among many other things).  We have several of her daddy's and brother Paul's CDs, some that I won, and some that I bought. I currently have their Christmas CD that plays over and over in my car. When Christmas is over I am going replace it with a CD with songs from her two daughters, Chitter and Chatter, who are singing in the above video. It was something I won several weeks ago.

Be sure and visit Tipper's blog. You will find great stories, wonderful recipes, awesome music, and so much more.

Thank you Tipper for letting me post the girls beautiful rendition of Beautiful Star of Bethlehem!

#22 December daily photo(s) - Holiday greetings

Oh that Grace, what choir leader she is!

#21 Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow

Just a few more post to go Susan for 25 photos in December!

Hard to believe this is our little Lizzie 2 years ago.

#20 A winter wonderland

I'm still working along with Susan on December in 25 photos.

If only this was 2011, we have rain, rain and more rain today. This was December 2010.

Christmas Caroling with Mom

Sunday, Mom's nephew Jay asked to was coerced into singing at Mom's home. We all gathered in the great room and the entire facility was invited to come and join in.

Jay did great even without his back up singers.

If you listen closely you can hear the residents sing too. (Watch for the back up singers taking a break).

We posed for a group photo afterwards. Branden, (Mom's grandson), and his girl friend Ashley, daughter Lona, nieces Doris and Cathy, and Jaybird. Mom and I are center front.

After the show, Lona and I were visiting with Mom in her room and who walks in? . . . her great grandson Dalton. He is a Navy seal, and surprised Mom with a Christmas visit from the west coast. Thank you Dalton for serving our country! 

Mom had one of the best days in a long time.

Toyland Day #19

Here I am in my kitchen, I even had an electric stove. You see my Daddy was making the dish cabinet in the basement weeks before Christmas. I asked him what he was making and he told me a tool cabinet.

Imagine my surprise when I woke up Christmas morning and told him, "Santa put my dishes on your cabinet Daddy."

I still have my little pine cabinet. I am pretty sure it's made from pine fruit shipping crates, as there is part of a label inside. Here is a picture I took last January. Lizzie is playing with my dish cabinet.

These are the moss rose dishes that came with my cabinet on my 5th Christmas.

Children and toys . . . makes Christmas complete!

December in photos - HIPPOPOTAMUS

I couldn't for the life of me figure out why a hippopotamus was included on the 25 photos of December. That is until my co-worker reminded me of this song!

Being a quilter and being a participant in the 25 photo of December, I knew I had the perfect quilt block. Here it is on my Noah's Ark quilt!

Silver bells

So I've been MIA. It's really because I couldn't find any ribbons and bows (no presents wrapped yet), something sticky (no candy made), reindeer in Missouri (no way), or hallways (I live in a modified cape cod house with no halls).

I don't really have any silver bells either. Thank goodness for google and youtube!

Besides, I've been spending my time trying to figure out pinterest. Good news is, I am almost there, or so I think!

The 3rd annual Sisterhood Christmas party

The Sisterhood party is always so much fun. Today's theme was 'get comfortable in pjs and sweatshirts'.

The tables were all set.

The young nieces were ready to go. 

Our hostesses Janie and Grace started uncovering all the food. There were meat and cheese trays, veggie trays, stuffed mushrooms (thank you Mandy), chicken spaghetti casserole (thank you Marla), sausage pinwheels (thank you Leah), warm blackberry pie (thank you Darlene), little smokies (thank you Karen), chocolate peanut butter bars (thank you Lori), a few pitchers of screwdrivers, and I brought a marinated cheese tray and raspberry lettuce salad.

Lot of conversations were going on at a time.

Lizzie awaits her screw driver. No wait, she had plain orange juice!

Lizzie and I played bingo.

While bingo was going on upstairs . . .

 . . . the guys were playing cards in the basement.

Everyone was letting Lizzie try on their hats.

We played a games of charades. One team would do the charade and the other team had to sing a song.

It was a great day of being a kid again, with adult food and drinks.  Thank you to all my sister-in-laws and family for bringing out the kid in all of us!

#10 Away in a manger December photos

I'd love to tell you about my set. My Mother tells the story of how I saw this at a local hardware store when I was 5 years old. Money was tight. My daddy worked in a shoe factory.  Mom was a stay at home mother. She told me if I wanted it I would have to use the money in my bank. Sure enough, the next time we went to town, (which sometimes was by Greyhound bus for the 8-10 mile trip), I took my bank along and bought it. It is showing signs of wear over the years, but I still love it the same as the day I bought it 54 years ago.

The other day my SIL had a luncheon for her sisters, sister in laws, and Mom. Grace can set one heck of a showy table. We all know Grace has many sets of everything. This includes her decorated Christmas trees, 15 this year. 

Starting on the left and going clockwise is Grace, Janie, Darlene, Mom, Marla, and me. One sister, Karen, and sister in law, Larraine, missed out on a great luncheon!

These sisters are all in love with the family recipe for hickory nut cake. I am proud to say the hickory nuts came from a tree in my backyard!

Another family tradition are shavings. These are basically the same recipe you use to made egg noodles. You roll them as thin as possible, cut into rectangles, make slits, and fry. Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon while still warm.

I snapped this picture in the bedroom when I put my coat in there. I only wish I had taken pictures of the other 14.

Stay tuned, for tomorrow is our Christmas sisterhood party!

Day 7, 8 and 9 in other words . . . catch up!

Someone is falling down on their job, and I don't just mean me, as I am 3 days behind in my 25 photos of December posting. I wanted to get a particular picture for the red ribbon on a wreath. For years there were huge handmade natural wreaths hung on the Missouri State Capital. Today I knew I would be in town and my plan was to take that photo.  To my surprise when I got to the beautiful capitol, there were no wreaths. There were yards and yards of hand made natural garland with lots of red bows but no wreaths!

So I thought, surely a block over at the Missouri Governor's mansion, there would be wreaths on the double doors.  I'm not so sure I spy one, but it's the thought that counts. You can see lots of red bows and an added bonus is you get to see the beautiful Governor's mansion without leaving your seat!

Day 8, stamped and addresses Christmas cards. Not necessarily in that order! I will be first to tell you I'm not ahead of schedule.

Day 9, Santa Claus. I picked a table full to show you. These I made many years ago when my sister and I did craft shows. These are paper mache, done over styrofoam cones.

Lastly, I will show you a vintage Santa suit. It's your's for $20 plus shipping if you want it. I have it advertised on craigslist and so far no takers. It has a small rip in the top of the pants and the hair on the hat has some red fuzzing. Size is large 42-46.