A Beautiful Christmas Project

 I was so touched by this Christmas project that Lynda Ann is working on.  She created a Christmas card with her personal message and sending one out to the Navy moms through out the United States.  What a huge service project to undertake but so meaningful.  Annie said there is at least one or two moms in every state.  These are moms who are on a special face book post that is for just mothers who have a kid in the Navy.  Lynda said there is a lot of communication from all the moms.  Sometimes it is for help, other times it is for support and advice, etc.  Wonderful way to get acquainted without actually meeting face to face.  

Lunch with Mindy

 It has been a long time since Mindy and I went to lunch.  We finally came up with a day to meet.  We met at the Art Garden on 9th East and Vine.  We had a delicious lunch and visited for nearly 2 hours.  After lunch we went into their Curio Shop next store and browsed around in there for a good long time.  Didn't buy anything just enjoyed looking and wandering.  We finally had to head to our home.  It was so fun to be with her and catch up on the kids and our own lives.  We even talked about Jeffrey and how much he is missed.  Shed a few tears off and on as we chatted about life.  

I've been so blessed to have amazing daughter-in-laws and son-in-laws.  Not a lot of mom's can say that.  I freely admit that my children picked the best and I reap the blessings from their excellent choices!  Love them all.  This is a picture of a wombat that we found in the curio shop.  Mindy loves them.  He almost looks real.  Darling picture of Mindy!

Projects

 Every now and again Sally Curtis and I exchange projects that we need each other's help on.  The project she handed to me a couple of weeks ago was not a fun one.  She had started a counted cross stitch of Noah's Ark.  It is done on linen and when you work on linen you have to be ever so careful that you don't miscount the threads.  If you do it throws the whole thing off.  Well, that is exactly what she did and I think she must have become discouraged and just never finished it.  Unpicking counted cross is tedious and miserable!  So she asked me if I could possible figure out where she went wrong and fix it.  I won't go into detail but I will say that I was able to correct her mistakes and finish the project for her.  It isn't something I would ever pick out to do myself so believe me when I say that it was a "project" for me to finish it.  

I was beyond happy to take the last stitch in it and happily give it back to her.  I will say that she in turn helped me finish a baby quilt and also, without my knowledge, when the extra mile and made a teddy bear to go with the quilt.  Cast your bread upon the water and it comes back two fold!  Something like that.  

The back of the quilt is a soft warm fuzzy material.  Sally has a quilting machine so the even quilted around the blocks.

This is the front side of the quilt.  These are embroidered nursery rhymes that Susan did years ago and just found them recently while doing some cleaning.  I ask her for them and had Sally help me figure out how to put them all together into a quilt.

This is the bear that she made to go with the baby quilt.  The arms and legs move.  Sally is amazing and certainly went the extra mile making the bear to go along with the quilt.  The hours put into Noah's Ark stitchery and the quilt and teddy bear probably cancel each other out.  Nice to have good friends.  This quilt and teddy bear will be a surprise for Susan at Christmas.  

Fun Times

 The holidays are always fun.  It is interesting that we go from Halloween (which I don't particularly care for) right into Thanksgiving and then right into Christmas.  I still remember that Lynda Ann had a choice to have Hayley on October 31st or November 1st.  She was adamant about not have a baby on Halloween so she chose November 1st.  Apparently her doctor was going out of town and those were the two dates he gave her.  She wisely chose November 1st.  I bring this up because the Gertsons invited Neal and I to join them at Chili's to celebrate Hayley's birthday.  It was a fun evening and fun to celebrate with Hayley.  

November 1st is also a date that I usually start putting up Christmas decorations along the Thanksgiving ones.  Neal and I had Brock and Boston get our Christmas containers down from the loft when they were here getting the lights on the outside tree.  Fun to go through the buckets and pull out different Christmas decorations that bring back so many memories every year.  Some memories bring tears of sadness for a brief moment and then a smile.  Putting up the Jim Shore nativity (which belonged to Lila Mae) made me long to be with her.  How I miss her.  

The next project was the Christmas Tree.  Neal and I have a tree now that is manageable and much easier for two older people to decorate without having to climb a ladder!  As I was pulling out the decorations I came across this neatly packed Christmas ornament that Abby gave me in 2008.  So fun to still have it and be able to hang in on the tree.  I'm not sure why Mallory's name was scribbled off and Abby's name put on there.  Maybe someone can remember the story behind that.

We decided to put our tree by the big North windows this year.  I didn't have the tree skirt around the bottom because I couldn't find it.  Since then the lost skirt has been found.

We are pretty much all decked out for Christmas and will just be awaiting the celebration of Thanksgiving and Christmas.