home sweet home!

We are home from a whirlwind 11 day trip to Maryland. We saw lots of family, ate too much food and had a wonderful time. Now I am trying to dig myself out from under piles of laundry, groceries, and the general "we've been away for 11 days mess". Our dining room and kitchen table are piles so high with stuff you can't even see the surface, but my Christmas Tree is up... not decorated, but up, none the less.

While we were unloading the car last night I realized we had accidentally returned one of our public library items to the church library (in MD,oops!) and the librarian at the church was kind enough to offer to mail them to our library, since we can't just swing by and pick them up!

I've got a few things I am still hopping to get into my Etsy Shop this week in between cookie making and Christmas sewing (and catching up on my blog reading, there are over 200 unread post in my reader right now!). A few Camera Straps and maybe some sketch books too.

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

one little, two little... five little indians...

Just a few of the many blessings I am thankful for this Thanksgiving!
Happy Thanksgiving, from our family to yours!!!

(It was Pilgrim and Indian night at AWANA, and the big kids couldn't leave out their baby sister from the fun.)

finally fall!

The leaves finally decided to change color around here, almost over night. I walked outside the other day to see this- does it get any better than that?

This is my favorite tree in out yard, the only one that turns yellow, I love how it stand out among the oranges and browns around it!

quilt update

I know, I must me the worlds slowest quilter, but I finally got the top to my quilt done last week!

It is far from perfect, and my husband says it looks like it "came from grandma's house"... he was a bit surprised when I told him I wanted it to look like it "came from grandma's". I don't know if I love it, but I will say I like it more now that it is all pressed then I did when I was only half done with the top. And I always like quilts more once they are quilted- that adds so much character to it.
I still don't have my backing fabric picked out (any suggestions?) and am not looking forward to the actual quilting, it is so big and I wonder at my machines ability to handle such a task. Anyway, at the rate I am going I won't have to worry about that for at least another 6 months anyway :)

what's the baby doing?

Addie was crawling around my legs the other day while I was on the computer. I looked down to see this.
She was after something...
Who needs toys when you've got a trashcan and some crumpled paper?

signs of a productive day

You know it's been a good crafting day when the table looks like this at day's end.

Here are a few of the things that came into being from that mess

And I finished my matryoshka dolls.

lovely ladies

I made another one last night while we watched TV. I definitely need to make at least one more to complete the set, but they are so fun to make, I just may have to keep going.