Thankful for an amazing year!

Unfortunately, I am alone this New Year's Eve, separated from Hubby by several states. But I still feel very blessed, especially after thinking back over this year. Here are some of the things I am most grateful for:

--my husband, who has toughed out this marriage with me for seven years as of this month! This year has been the most difficult, but with a lot of prayer, God's grace, and our stubborn unwillingness to let a good thing die, we have held it together. That is an accomplishment worth celebrating! I love you, honey! xOXox

--my daughter, who just keeps growing and making me grow along with her! I love this ride we're on together!

--our garden, which was a new creation, a composite of Hubby's building skills and my daily tending to produce more than we could possibly eat. What a great, new, challenging adventure for our family! (Pardon me while I step away to go order seed catalogs right now!!!)

--our chickens, which were an outgrowth of our gardening adventure, and have both challenged us and blessed us. Hubby and I worked hard this summer on building their coop, which could still use some work, and working together (or trying to work together) gave us ample opportunities to develop our communication skills. :) And of course, as of this fall, those eleven lovely ladies have been blessing us every day with can't-get-any-fresher-than-warm eggs! I am now resolving to find the world's best recipes for quiches and meringues and omelettes and put them to frequent use!

--Maggie May, our Cocker Spaniel, who blessed us with unconditional love until Semptember 19, when she left this world behind to chase squirrels that are never caught while God watches from behind a tree. She was mine well before Hubby came along, but defected quite quickly, and then tolerated our family addition (aka Faith) very patiently in her old age. Altogether, she lived with and loved me for nine years, Hubby for almost seven, and Faith for over two. I called her my Angel Dog and couldn't have asked for a better animal companion, although I do ask her forgiveness for the times I could have been better to her. All in all, we shared some really good times together, and our family will miss her for a long time. She rests in our backyard, beneath a beautiful blue hydrangea bush that I anticipate will be even more gorgeous this spring. I talk to her when no one's listening while doing yard work. :) We love you Maggers!

--Moppett and Maisy, our SC shelter dogs, adopted out of grief and an attempt to honor Maggie (a found puppy herself) by helping other Cocker Spaniels. These two new additions to our family have certainly provided us with some laughs...and some frustration, but they are definitely worth it! Moppett, as his name implies, has a blond mop of hair that won me over immediately. He is all muscle, and we have discovered likes to climb the chain link fence! He also really enjoys chewing, jumping, and snitching food off the table, including a wedding cake I had baked for my cousin!!! BUT he is very good at keeping my feet warm in the bed and on the couch, which is an essential quality in a good dog.
Now Maisy is a sweetie. She is the little old lady of the house. Maisy is very mellow, except when hassled too long by Faith, which is understandable. Maisy is mostly blind due to cataracts in both eyes, but still loves to chase the chickens around the yard and keep them on their toes (claws???). She also enjoys burying her rawhide bones and protecting them from any and all intruders. She is very adept at digging under the chain link fence...and the front porch steps...and the house foundation...and the chicken coop... (Yup, that's right, we got a climber a digger. How great is that...not!!!) Maisy is very soft to pet, so much so that I can feel my blood pressure dropping the longer I pet her. And she has a talent for sneaking up and settling in the crook of your knees when you are napping on the couch. Another essential doggy quality. So, we lucked out with both pooches, and our family is all the happier for it! :)

More to come later, but I MUST sleep now!

Jumping with Joy!

Today, we were fortunate enough to be able to run amok in a gymnastics gym (isn't that redundant?) where my younger, much more athletic sister coaches gymnastics. Basically, this meant that I worked up a sweat chasing after my independent two-year-old as she ran from one activity to another with shocking speed and an amazing amount of energy. She never stopped, as is seen in the very blurry photo below:

That was her favorite thing of all--jumping on the trampoline. She ran around, but always came back to jump! Since the floors were all padded, this was the first time she was able to jump on a trampoline *alone* and two-year-olds are all about doing things by themselves! Here is another shot of her on the trampoline:

After watching the other older girls there who were actually practicing, Faith tried several times to join them. That was not an option. However, toward the end of our time there, another coach honored Faith by inviting her to do a split next to her. Faith was thrilled!

We will definitely need to look into lessons when we get home!

Happy Holidays!

Earlier this week, Faith and I went to the downtown library and I stumbled across an old favorite of mine, How Are You Peeling? Foods With Moods by Joost Elffers and Saxton Freymann. And, thus, I suppose that is what inspired today's frenzy of food carving.

Above, I believe they were discussing physics.

Here is shot of our first creation with the book that inspired such childish behavior as playing with food (gasp!):

I **love** those bright page colors! As you can see above on the plate, we used cloves for the pupils in this first orange and in the poor apple that was nearby:

When Faith was asked by her Great Aunt Karen later that day why the apple was sad, she replied "Because it lost it's mommy and daddy," which is very sad indeed! Where does my kid come up with this stuff??? Hopefully, it is not wishful thinking on her part. I know she gets tired of me, but really...

So, to move on with the excessive photo sharing, below you will see the happy orange trying to cheer up poor, sad apple. Faith added a clove sideways to the orange's mouth, which I rather liked! It looks like it has lost a tooth.

It was really funny to me that just by changing their arrangements, their expressions seemed to change as well. I guess that is part of the art of the book!

So, after two rather grand successes, if I do say so myself, thankyouverymuch, I was desperate to try my hand at more sophisticated, subtle emotions. But, ALAS, there was no more fruit in the house (I know, get thyself to a store, woman!). After much fretting, I *finally* (I'm slow, have I mentioned that?) realized that I could carve two more faces in the opposing ends of the two pieces of fruit I had already whittled. So, with no further ado (I *know* you are on pins and needles!), here they are:

Bored, maybe miffed or whistling Apple, and REALLY SUPER HAPPY cross-eyed Orange! And again, just changing their positions, changed their whole attitudes (well, maybe just Apple's):

Above, Orange is still REALLY SUPER HAPPY, but Apple now looks just a little worried rather than aloof. Ahh, the subtle moods of food...

You might have noticed that I used dry black-eyed peas for the eyes this round, instead of cloves, which allowed for much more expressiveness, I thought. And the large, bulbous nose on Orange is a grape attached with a toothpick, in case you were wondering.

Later, I realized that I could switch them up and introduce set #1 to set #2! So, below is Sad Apple #1 peared up with Super Happy Orange #2 (and yes, that was a very intentional pun!):

Enter Granny Smith, who had been hiding out in the fridge, forgotten until late in the game:

Above, I was going for a Lucille Ball wailing expression. Below, I was encouraged by Hubby to use a red kidney bean for the mouth. Honestly, I don't really care for how that one turned out (sorry honey!).

I suppose this is Gagged Granny Smith!

Later, all this carving up fruit made my little girl hungry, so I let her "have at" one of the apples. Here is the result:

As if Sad Orphaned Apple didn't have enough on his plate, now HE is on the plate!

At least Super Happy Orange was spared! And that makes for one VERY happy ending!

Christmas Canibalism!

Well, I've done it now! I cut apart a Christmas dress that Faith wore last year, but got stained when I tried to wash it myself instead of take it to the dry cleaners, like I should have. The stains were only on the sleeves, so I resolved to re-make the dress into a pillow using the very sweet smocked design on the bodice of the dress. After much hesitation about making that first cut, it went fairly smoothly. Here is a picture that shows kinda what the dress used to look like (sorry, but I forgot to take a real before photo!):

It was pretty cute. I am a real sucker for smocking, for some reason. It is one of those crafts that I have yet to venture into...thus, making it rather mysterious and appealing as a result. Oh, yeah, and a lot of the appeal of this dress was also due to the fact that it cost me all of $1.50 at Goodwill. Yeah, you read that right...a BUCK FIFTY, people!!!

So, fast forward to the crafty cannibalism... I set out to make a Christmas pillow that showed off that beautiful smocking. And that turned out great! Here it is:

I love the sweet simplicity of this pillow!

What I didn't anticipate was all the others things that would just come to me as I was realizing how much fabric I had left over after the pillow was finished!!! I saw the leftover, stained sleeves and felt like I was viewing someone's amputated doll arms. It was rather sad. And as I have mentioned before, I have a problem with throwing stuff away, so I felt like there had to be some use for these leftovers.

And then, inspiration struck! I could use the sleeves to make two new hot socks to replace the one that Maisy the Dog chewed a hole in earlier this week. And so, TA DA!!! TWO new hot socks to use as foot warmers on cold mountain nights--one for Faith and one for us! After I fill 'em up with rice, I will simply stitch up the ends of the sleeves (the white part) by hand.

Also, I sort of accidentally came up with the idea of making Faith a few bean bags to play with as a stocking stuffer gift (sure hope she doesn't read this before Christmas!). She is all about some very simple playing habits lately, and I have been trying to convince the grandparents to leave the plastic flotsam on the shelves at Wal-Mart and just give her some cardboard instead. Seriously, she has been playing with ROCKS everyday, all day, for over a week now! I try to tell people this is not because we are poor. Alas, I ramble (what's new, right?). So, here's a shot of the cute bean bags, waiting to be filled with rice, as we are fresh out.

I think she will love these. I hope so. She had been carrying the old hot sock around (before the dog ate it...why is this post starting to sound a bit red-neck?) in a dish towel, calling it her baby and putting it to bed. See, I told you she was all about some simple playing habits! So, maybe these bean bags will become her mini babies to put to bed. But, hey, I have been very wrong before about what she would enjoy, so we'll see.

Anyway, after all that crafting, I still had a pile of red fabric scraps and a collar leftover.

Any ideas for more crafty projects to make?

Thankful Thursday!

I have been thinking since Thanksgiving, that I would like to make more of a point to reflect on the things in my life for which I am thankful. That was when I came up with Thankful Thursdays! The idea is to post every Thursday with an attitude of gratitude. Well, I forgot last week, which probably proves my point about needing to focus more on being grateful! :/ So, here goes my first post, thankfully! (Yes, the pun was intended.)

So, we have the Christmas tree up, thanks to my Gran and Papa who loaned us their artificial tree, and it is mostly decorated. I just put the tree skirt down around the base tonight and it wasn't long before Moppett found it. He decided that it was a blanket put there just to make him feel cozy! What makes me laugh about this is that this is exactly what Maggie used to do! When Maggie passed away this fall after living with me for nine years, we found Moppett in a South Carolina shelter near where Maggie was found. He looks very similar to her and I have said more than once that it is quite possible that he could be one of her doggy descendants. Once we got him home, we noticed he also shared a lot of her mannerisms (or doggerisms, if you will!).

So, today, I am thankful for this sweet little boy dog, Moppett, who sometimes drives me crazy with his chain-link climbing antics and general youthful exuberance, but is very affectionate, smart, and funny. He is certainly one of the best gifts our family has received this year!

Crafty Christmas Traditions in the Making

This year, I have had so much fun decorating for Christmas! Since Faith is a year older, she is much more capable of participating and we have been very busy with all sorts of new (for her) crafts. I am also learning to appreciate the beauty found in the simplicity of crafting with natural objects.

One such recent endeavor was making pomanders by poking cloves into oranges and tying them up with ribbons and bows. I did this at church when I was elementary school age and really enjoyed it back it the day. So, I was really excited to see whether Faith would be able to do it at a much younger age, as well as whether she would be engaged by the activity. It's pretty hard to keep her attention focused long enough to complete many craft projects. First, we taped off where we wanted the ribbons to be. Then, we poked holes in the oranges with a large knitting needle to make pushing in the cloves a little easier for small hands. Then, Faith went to work!

I loved seeing her level of concentration while working on these! She was actually pretty upset with me for doing too much for her, so finally I got a clue and backed off, letting her do it independently. Then, she was entirely engaged!

We made three in all, including the one I made after she went to bed. (Well, I was really having fun!) They smell amazing!!! Traditionally, they are tied up by ribbons, but I decided instead to put them all together in this bowl as a fragrant and beautiful Christmas arrangement.

Ain't they purdy?!? Most certainly, this will be a Christmas craft repeated for many years to come! I just love making new family traditions, don't you?

Merry Christmas, everyone!

A Very Merry Thrift-mas!

So, as I have mentioned before, I have been bitten badly by the thrifting bug. There is something so satisfying about providing things for my family at a very low price. I thought I would share some of my favorite finds over the past several months that I am finally able to put to use this Christmas season:

This Noel wall hanging is a handcrafted rug-hooking. Being a crafter myself, I have a hard time passing over these handmade items at thrift stores, because I know how much work went into them! I have to rescue them from thrift store purgatory and give them a home that will honor their makers. Weird, I know... but, in this case the retro colors are great and it fits perfectly on the wall by our front door!

I think this matching holly place mat and napkin are so cute! I only found one set, so Faith has a very special place setting for her child-sized table. She was so excited to wake up and find it after I had set it out the night before while she was asleep! She has been particularly excited about the "big girl" Merry Christmas/Happy New Year glasses I have been letting her use:

I found these for a quarter apiece at Goodwill! They are thrift-rific!!! Of course, as of this writing, Faith has already broken one of the six I bought. Oh well! At least they were a great deal. Maybe she will break another one and even out the collection again...

Post-Thanksgiving Thoughts

I hope this just-past Thanksgiving found you all counting your blessings and finding ways to bless others in your life. This year I found myself grateful for:
--my marriage, which has stood the test of time (a few weeks shy of 7 years!) thanks to...
--my husband, who has stuck it out with me
--my daughter, who is only growing more fascinating and fun as time goes by
--our little home, with its garden and chicken coop, which keeps us cozy and well-kept
--our two new dogs, Moppett and Maisy, who are fitting in very well after we met at a SC shelter
--other crafty mama blogs, which have inspired me to get back to sewing and crafting

Well, today was our first day back to "normal" after a four night stay with my in-laws over the Thanksgiving holiday. Honestly, we were all more than a little spoiled. Kevin and I were able to sleep in while my mother-in-law (who is one of those "morning people" that are rumored to enjoy waking in the wee hours before noon) cared for Faith. And my sister-in-law got us a sweet deal on having our portrait taken! All this while being cooked for all weekend!!! How great is that?!? So, this year I am also thankful for my in-laws' hospitality skills!

Next year, I want to make some of these for Thanksgiving decorations:



Isn't it cute?