Merry Christmas!

Cought our little doxie trying to get into the presents early. 

Wishing everyone a wonderful joyous day surrounded by the people you love. Merry Christmas!

xx Beca

Gifts For My Nursery Workers...

Hello!  

How is everyone?

I've been away for a while now.  I'm still trying to adjust to my new life as an associate pastor's wife.  Life has been busy to say the least.  There is always so much that needs to be done.  It's been hard to find time to sit down and update my blog. I've neglected it a bit you could say.

 I haven't crocheted anything since we moved here six months ago so I'm afraid there is no yarnie goodness in today's post. Hopefully I can deliver that in the weeks to come.  Instead today I will share with you something I've been planning and working on for a few weeks now.

 I am the nursery director at our church and I was wanting to do something special for our nursery workers.  I thought a small gift would be a nice way to show our appreciation.

 After much thought I decided Bath and Body Works was the way to go.  I mean, who doesn't like Bath and Body Works?  

With all of their sales, promotions and coupons I was able to get nice gifts for all our ladies and keep costs down. Can't beat that.

 I even splurged a little on myself.  Friday they had the three wick candles on sale for eight dollars. I went with my oldest daughter who needed a few candles to give as gifts and I couldn't resist bringing one home for myself.  I even bought the pedestal too.  

 The scent is Merry Cookie and it smells heavenly.  I set it on the piano next to this snowman.  I thought they looked good together.

 Here are the nursery worker gifts all wrapped up and ready to give.  There is a good mix of hand soaps and lotions in all different scents. It is with our hands that we hold those babies, feed them, play with them, and change their diapers.  Might as well take good care of our hands and pamper them a little bit, right?

 I got the cellophane bags, tags, and ribbon there too. They were free.  Bonus!!

I also included these hand written tags.  I hope the ladies feel special when they get these.  I want them to know that they are special and appreciated. Without them the church wouldn't be able to function the way that it does. We all play an important role.

xx, Beca

Afghan Squares Completed And Some Hot Tamales

 Little by little my Christmas afghan is coming together. 

 

 I managed to finish crocheting all 30 of my afghan squares.  I would like to be further along than I am at the moment but  I haven't had a whole lot of time to spend on this.  I've only been able to work on it in the evenings and sometimes mornings. So many other things to do and places to be have taken a priority.  December is always such a busy month.

This is the part I always hate...weaving in the ends.  There's only about a gazillion of them...

One down, 29 to go.

(((sigh)))

I decided to make tamales today.  Can't have Christmas without tamales.  My mom makes the best tamales ever.  She makes them every year and always gives us some to take home.  

About three years ago I decided I needed to learn how to make them.  My mom is not going to be around forever and if I want to keep the tradition going in my family to have tamales every Christmas then I needed to start making them myself and learn the process so that someday I can teach my kids how to make them.  They've turned out pretty good every year .  I just wish they wouldn't take so long to make.  

It's a whole days work and a whole lot of dirty dishes but they're worth it. I ended up with about five dozen tamales today.  My husband doesn't like to eat pork so I made them with beef.  Tomorrow I plan on making some chicken ones too.

Our oldest daughter arrived home on Tuesday from college.  It's nice having her home for Christmas.  We missed her as you can tell.  It feels good to have everyone home together again.  

I hope you are surrounded by your loved ones too and cooking and eating and having a good time. 

~Blessings~

Daughter's Coming Home For Christmas

Sitting here anxiously waiting for the clock to turn 5:30.  That's when we'll leave the house to make our way to the airport where we'll pick up our oldest daughter who's coming home from college. She's been in Pensacola Florida at PCC for the last four months. They don't let out for Thanksgiving so we haven't seen her since August 31st when she went back for her sophomore year. It will be nice having her home again. School actually let out on Friday but she flew home with her best friend to spend a few days with her before coming home. She is flying in from Wisconsin stopping in Minneapolis and Dallas before actually making it home.  She's flying home solo so I've been a little antsy watching the clock all day and hubby's been texting me wanting updates on everything.  You know how it is when your kids are traveling. You don't really relax until you see them home and safe and in one piece.  I'm sure you can relate. 

This is our oldest daughter P on the left and her best friend H on the right.  This is a good photo of them.  They were all dressed up for a fine arts formal at school.  Aren't they lovely?  They almost look like sisters.

  Looking forward to spending time with her and having her home again. 

♥

My Christmas Wish List

Every year around this time my husband asks me a question that I don't really have a good answer for...  "What do you want for Christmas?".  

I'm not the type of person who has a whole list of wants.  I rarely ever buy myself something that is not a real need.  I mean, I do buy myself things, what I mean is that I don't normally splurge on myself.  Anyone out there who has one income, a mortgage, and college tuition payments knows where I'm coming from.  Whenever I go to the store I'm usually thinking about what my three kids NEED instead of  "ooh, I want that....ooh I like that".  Those things don't usually end up in my shopping cart.

However, this time of year, I know the question is coming and I try to really think about what I'd like to have that I wouldn't normally buy for myself.  And so, here are a few things that I thought of.

 I'm probably a little late joining the fan base of this show but we don't have cable.  We only have an antenna to catch the local channels and PBS is one of those.  On Sunday evenings I sometimes catch pieces of Downton Abbey while my hubby and son are watching football. Hubby has a habit of changing the channel during commercials and here lately he's been changing it to channel 2 and we all watch a few minutes of the show until the channel gets turned back to football again.  I must say though I'm getting hooked.  Sometimes on PBS.org they'll show episodes of the show online.  I've watched a few of them and now I want the whole series.  I want to watch it from the beginning.  Oh, it's so good!

 This little rabbit is from  Rosy Little Things.  Her name is Miss Maggie and she comes as a kit to be made at home.  I really wish I could just buy her already made but I guess half the fun is making her yourself.  I have always loved bunnies.  I have a few ceramic ones and I've also had a few real ones.  I think she is so sweet.  What I'm really looking forward to is knitting or crocheting her some clothes.

 These little bunnies are from Hiltos and are found on Etsy.  They are hand knit and are simply adorable.  I think they would look so cute propped up on a shelf somewhere.  And the fact that they are bunnies makes them even more irresistible to me.  Precious!

 Theses earrings are a favorite of mine. They are also on Etsy and are handmade from silverware.  I've bought two other pairs of earrings from her over the years and I really love them.  They are fun to wear.  I wouldn't mind having a third pair. 

I really love this candle set.  I've had this on my Etsy favorites for a while now.  They would be so pretty on a coffee table or entry table.  I love candles around the house and these are perfect because they also have scripture.  I like things that have scripture on it.  Did I ever tell you my husband teaches an adult Sunday school class at our church?   Well, he does, which makes these even more appropriate.

Is there something special you want for Christmas?  Would love to know.  

Hope you are all doing well and staying warm.  

Til next time,

Early Christmas Present For Me

Look what came in the mail.  It's a surprise...

...for me. ♥

Back in October I joined a Secret Santa Swap hosted by Suzanne at  The Colorado Lady.  I thought it would be fun to shop for someone else and send them a cute little package in the mail and at the same time eagerly await one for me too.  Well... the wait is over.

My package has arrived!  Yay!

Let me show you what was inside.  

First was this sweet little Christmas card .  It says, "It was a pleasure being your secret Santa. Trust you will like what I chose for you.  I was surprised to learn we have so much in common.  Wishing you and family the best Christmas ever."  Isn't she sweet?  

All the gifts were wrapped so pretty.  There were quite a few of them in there too.  

I would have liked to have taken a picture of all of the gifts layed out on the table but as you can see, my youngest daughter was just as excited as I was to unwrap everything.

As  a part of the swap we had to fill out a questionnaire so our Secret Santa could know a little bit about us.  I wrote that I had a little dachshund dog named Penny.  I was tickled to find a little orange dachshund doggy in the first box.  

It's a pen too. Cute!!! There was also a pretty little bookmark in there too.

Eight perfectly wonderful vintage cookie cutters.  Love these! They are going in my big glass jar where I have all my other vintage cookie cutters.

A large cross with scripture.  So pretty!

I also mentioned in my questionnaire that I loved vintage linens.  Especially the kind that has embroidery work on it.  Well my Secret Santa didn't disappoint.  She sent me not one, but two of these vintage dresser scarves.

Three vintage doilies that are in excellent shape.

And another vintage embroidered dresser scarf.

Also in the box was this vintage embroidery hoop and a vintage needle card.

Inside it's full of needles of every size.  

Here's all the goodies all spread out.  I feel so special that I was the recipient of all these lovely treasures.

Although I don't know who my Secret Santa is, I know that she is a very generous and thoughtful person for putting all of this together for me.  I know she took great care to read every detail of my questionaire because everything in the box is something I wrote about.  I feel she understood me so well and hand picked everything just as I would if I were out shopping for myself.  There isn't anything that I don't absolutely love.  Thank you so much Secret Santa.  I'm pretty sure I got the very best one of them all. A big thanks also to Coloradolady for hosting the swap.  Can't wait to do it again next year.  It was a lot of fun!

Christmas Afghan

While I was making the baby blanket that's in my last post, I got an idea for making a Christmas afghan.  I had visions of a beautiful, colorful afghan that I could pull out year after year to drape over a chair or sofa and curl up with during those cold, blustery days of Christmas. I searched and searched for a pattern I liked and finally decided on this one from Drops Designs.  The pattern is also on Ravelry.   

This is my first square.  I followed the instructions with the color placement but I think I'll do my own thing and mix it up a little bit for the other squares.  

This is how it's supposed to look.

I REALLY like this version.  It's soooo pretty!

photo by Ravelry member CascadeKnitter

These are the colors I chose.  I know turquoise isn't a traditional Christmas color but I thought it went well with the red and green.  I might regret it later but for now that's what I'm going with. 

Someone contacted me yesterday and asked me to make a custom order for Christmas so this afghan might not get finished before Christmas. I still have a few days before the yarn I ordered for my custom order arrives in the mail so I'll continue to work on this until it gets here.

On another note, I still pick up my needles and practice my knitting every time I get a short break.  It's going good.  I'm getting better at it.  My stitches are still a little wonky but it's a lot better than it looked a few weeks ago.  I'm finally getting the rhythm of it and my hands don't cramp anymore which I think is a good sign of progress.

Til next time, 

Christmas Mantel

Hello!  Welcome to my humble home!

I wanted to share with you some pictures of my Christmas mantel and other vignettes I've put together this week around my home.

I used a lot of golds and browns in the family room.

With just a little touch of red.

Red is my favorite color.  

So you know we've gotta have a little red.  :)

This vignette is just to the right of the fireplace.

A couple of years ago I made this sheet music wreath.  

I think it goes well with the carolers I bought at Cracker Barrel a few years back.

Aren't they the sweetest??

Dreamsicles...remember these?

I probably picked up this one at a yard sale or thrift shop.  I still love Dreamsicles.  They make me smile. 

Another touch of red.

And you can't forget the reason for the season.  

This plate actually stays up year round but I thought it was very Christmas-sy.  

Thanks for looking! 

I hope you enjoyed!

Merry Christmas to all my blogging friends!

Linking to: A Homespun Christmas, Sunday's Best,