Christmas Adventures - catching up on posts #1

Steph was good to post about all of our Christmas adventures together. I'm just trying to catch up a bit. Here is Campbell at our dinner at the Red Iguana in Salt Lake City. (He learned to wave "Bye, bye" today. The Garners, Eli and Brenna, Brett, me, and my MIL went up to SLC to meet the Fords and eat and go to Temple Square to see the lights. We had a wonderful adventure! I love being with my family.
Steph and Brett.
Creed, Brenna, Logan, and Eli.
Steph, Margrett and Larry.
Mike and Marissa.
Mike showing off the great food.
Then it was off to Temple Square to see the nativity.
The Garners
The Salt Lake Temple.
Marissa and Campbell
More Marissa and Campbell
Eli and my soon-to-be daughter-in-law, Brenna. (Isn't she adorable. I tried to warn her about what she is in for with Eli but she's taking him away. I should take a picture of his room...you can't even walk in the door. He promised me an immaculate cleaning for my Christmas present but I've yet to see it. I gave up in his bathroom it myself. I can only stand to be grossed out so much if you know what I mean.)
Don't they make a handsome couple?
My incredible husband and I. (A women in one of the medical offices I visit for work made the headband for me. I love it and it really does keep my ears warm in all the cold weather we've been having.)
A glimpse of the lights and the temple.
Just hanging out and enjoying each other and the reflecting pool.

There were tons of people. It made for a festive holiday spirit.
My favorite temple. I just marvel at the details and craftsmanship. It beautiful.
Eli, Larry, and Creed
The Garners. Yes, it was cold!


The Fords. Creed was getting a little tired and cold. We left soon after this and had hot chocolate back at Stephanie's house. We missed having the Stringhams with us so we had to call them and call them and call them so they could still feel apart of the hoopla. It was so hard not having them here. Of course, they did miss out on having the 24 hour stomach flu that went through everyone, plus fevers and chills, and colds. Amazingly everyone got it all but me. Hey, someone had to stay standing...
Logan and I made snow out of this stuff. You just add water and stir and it expands. He loved it. He played with it for hours moving it from one bowl to the other and making more batches. It was worth every penny (and it wasn't expensive. I bought it at our local grocery store.) It is made to use in your holiday scenes and reallylooks alot like snow.

Don't you just loooove that hair? It's so crazy.
See, doesn't he look happy?
Here is a close up of this year's present wrap so I can remember what I did when I look back next year. (I may have to use the same paper for the next 5 years. Each roll is huge. Some of it we found last year after Christmas for $5 a roll. I think you can literally wrap 100 presents with one roll.)

Steph designed my tag for me. I think she should have Eva (her friend at Sycamore Press) letter press them and sell them. I think they are great! There were two different styles.

My husband and I always write things like this on our tags. It's a carryover from my Dad who always wrote romantic tags for my mother's packages. I loved it! My husband even does a great job wrapping my presents. This year he surprised me with small hand letter press and die cut machine. I even tried it out this week as I made book marks with this year's youth theme for my lesson in church today.
A few more Christmas decoration pictures. I packed everything away New Year's weekend. It was hard to see it all go. It made the house so cozy and homey. I loved watching movies with my husband with just the Christmas lights on.



So, this is the last year that you will see this wall in my family room. If all goes well it will be gone to make way for a new bigger family room. The old family room will become the library and extra dining area for parties.

Sorry, but I have a few more days of Christmas posts along with some gift ideas I loved.

How is everyone doing with their New Year's Resolutions? I love to think about my life and decide what I want to have happen for the coming year. When I told my friend and exercise partner that I wanted to loose weight for Eli's wedding, she asked, "What are you going to do differently." I've given that lots of thought about more than just weight loss....just food for thought. So, what are you doing differently?

Eli's Engaged!

Here he is on the way out the door to propose. I'm not sure why I didn't take a picture of the ring. It's a beaut! Eli proposed on Christmas Day. He had Brenna's boss call and say he had an emergency and could she come? He said he would pay cash and had a big long story. When Brenna showed up at the office, Eli was there and told her that he was the emergency. When Brenna saw Eli all dressed up with roses in his hand, she started crying thinking that he was going to propose on the spot. Eli said that he felt bad that the ring they had custom made wasn't done in time to propose to her on Christmas day so he had a nice date planned instead. (Eli had already asked Brenna to go out to dinner that night at the Sundance Tree room resturant so she was dressed up for their date already. He told her that Candice and Mark gave him a gift certificate for his Christmas present which was true.)
Doesn't he look happy. He didn't even seem nervous. Anyway, he waited until after dinner and had the waiter serve the ring on the dessert plate covered with a napkin. When Brenna took the napkin off, Eli got down on one knee and asked her to marry him. She started crying again and said yes. So it is official. The wedding is June 19th.
Here is the quilt Eli and I made together for Brenna. Brett, Eli, and I were working on the hand binding until 2:30 am Christmas Eve. Eli and I had a great time sewing together, putting the quilt on frames, tying the quilt, and then sewing the binding together.
Typing the quilt.


We added labels to the quilt. This label is from a shirt that Brenna brought back from France for Eli when she was on semester abroad.
I also made aprons. Here Marissa is modeling Brenna's mom's apron. Candice's was out of the same fabric. Marissa's was out of reds with turquoise buttons, Steph's is out of greens. I'm still working on hers.

I had great plans to make all kinds of projects but Mike's grandfather passed away the week after Thanksgiving ans they came for the funeral and stayed for over a month. I was happy to put all my projects away and focus on family. What is more meaningful anyway?

So, that's one of the reasons you haven't heard from me. I literally but everything aside and tried to enjoy the season. (Of course, I still had my job to do and chores around the house that I had to try and keep up with.)

I've been working hard trying to get Christmas put away, the house back in order, the piles of sheets and towels washed and start on my New Year's goals. I'm once again trying to get the house dejunked and organized, get activities together and plan lessons for our ward Young Women program, revamp my thinking with my job because of all the Medicare changes. I hope for free time but other than getting in daily exercise, I never seem to have any. I'm always busy and cram as much as I can into each day but the days just fly by. How do you all do it?

So, I'm back. I hope you've missed me... I've missed you.

Christmas Decorations 2009

This year my little feather tree has more vintage ornaments. Creed's grandchildren did not want his vintage ornaments and knew that I would love them so they gave them to me. I was thrilled. Now the tree is full of my grandparent's ornaments, Creed's ornaments, and 1 ornament that Candice found for me when she lived in Kentucky. I even have a few ornaments that we had on our tree when I was growing up. The rest of the display are reproductions and trees that I found in the last three years.
Yes, it is behind my couch. I don't have a lot of surface area in my house. This couch is large so the "sofa" table is actually a drop leaf table with the coffee table on top of that. I used stacking boxes under the white sheet to create height. All my paper towels, paper plates, punch bowls, etc. are stored under that table. Where do you put your Costco size paper products? My kitchen is just not that big.
A close up of the garland on top of the entertainment center. I love all the vintage reproductions. Silver and glitter...what could be better?
This is the inside of the front door taken from the living room. I love the bubble lights. They remind me of the ones my grandparents had on their tree. I have many happy Christmas memories and love things that bring back those memories.

I have another arch from the living room to the dining room that has even more ornamentation. I just didn't get a photo. They are full of glittered snowflakes, icicles, and silver glass ornaments of different shapes and sizes.
I decided to change things up on my family room mantel this year. I found those silver glittered trees at Tai Pan for around $3-4 each. I really wanted things to sparkle. The base is a green pine garland with mini lights, then I added two weeping cedar garlands end-to-end. I added LED icicle lights so the lights could be wrapped in the cedar trailing down. I added light cozies to the mini lights, glittered metal snow flakes, big glass silver ornaments, silver beading, crystal candle holders with silver glass finials on top. I love sitting in the family room at night with it all lighted at night. It makes the family room feel so festive.
I also added new Christmas stockings this year. I wish I could say I made them but these were too inexpensive to pass up at 30% off. I bought the last three from the Busy Biddy in Orem. (They have tons of great Christmas decorations.)

I don't think the pictures show you how sparkly everything is. I was a little afraid it was too over the top when I first did it but now I really like it.


I love these stockings. So European looking to me.
The glass jars on my kitchen counter.
The top of the Armoire in the living room.
A few of my nativity collection that I put out this year.
A little corner display with leftover things.
A small Santa display. I didn't put out at least a fourth of my decorations. Just trying to keep things a little less cluttered this year.
I hope you enjoyed this year's decorations. Feel free to check out last year's decor here and here.
If you would like to see other fabulous decor check out the Hooked on Houses Holiday Tours
or Rhoda at Southern Hospitality