Craft Night Christmas Party

Last week we celebrated our annual Craft Night Christmas party!  As usual, we each make everyone a handmade gift and exchange them at the party. Last Christmas I felt a bit overwhelmed by the extra December crafting, and I wanted to be able to enjoy it more, so this summer I made my plan to make Christmas pillowcases and went ahead and bought the fabric and started stitching. I’m very glad I did that, but I still ended up finishing at the last minute. 

We enjoyed helping Amanda arrange her delicious charcuterie board!

Fancy!

Festive veggies!

Everyone enjoyed snuggling under my new electric blankets while we played games and sang carols.



Always fun to put Jenno’s bows on your head. 

Thanks for the lovely gifts, ladies!

I made 16 of these puppies. And here are pictures from the tutorial that I followed, in case I ever want to try it again. 

This Weekend

I was laying in Caleb’s bed this evening, wondering if anything bloggable had happened this weekend, so I looked through my pictures and was reminded that all sorts of things happened in the last few days!!  

On Friday night, we attended a 4-H Banquet honoring students who had won 4-H awards this year - best chicken, best speech, etc. Josiah and his teammates from school represented our county in the Clover Bowl last spring.  All five of us enjoyed a tasty dinner, and then the guys dropped us ladies off at Bryan College to listen to their Christmas concert with Lou!  It was lovely as well. 

On Saturday, Heather and I joined my mom for a Christmas shopping extravaganza at Turkey Creek. Our first stop was Mimi’s for a delicious breakfast with cousins and aunts and uncles!  (Uncle Ernie is hiding, but he was there too!). We shopped til we dropped, or rather, til we had to head back home for our next activities. Heather was singing in a church choir concert (which I heard was fantastic), and I had to get back to see Josiah march in his first parade!

Eleonora got to watch the parade beside her best buddy, and her sweet kindergarten teacher happened to be standing on her other side!

There goes Josiah, trumpeting away!

He broke ranks when he spotted his cousins!

The smiling cousins in front of our historic courthouse. 

And with jolly old St. Nick. 

Next Chris build a roaring fire in the cabin and got busy on his work. The kids brought in all their presents they “bought” at the AWANA store, and I brought in all the presents I had so far, and we wrapped for hours!  Caleb and I probably tied for most gifts wrapped. 

This morning, Eleonora was puny, so she and Chris stayed home and watched our pastor from the cabin. How cool is that?

This afternoon, she had perked up, and joined me in adding bows to all our gifts. 

A lovely time was had by all!

Thanksgiving

We were so happy to get to celebrate Thanksgiving twice this year. First we headed to Oak Ridge to celebrate with my mom’s side of the family. We had a delicious feast, spent the night with my sweet cousin and her family, and played a game of Bolivia the next day, and this is the only picture I took of the entire event!

Next we headed to my Grandmother’s house in Kingsport to celebrate with my dad’s side of the family. Eleonora must have been worn out with all the feasting. She fell asleep under the coffee table!

Josiah nearly fell asleep on his Great Grandmother. The boys will be taller than her any minute now!

The next morning, my hero/the best hostess in the world, prepared biscuits and gravy for our breakfast, if you can believe it. 

Then we put up her Christmas tree!

A lovely time was had by all!

And for an adorable blast from the past, this is one of the first pictures I took on a phone, the boys with their turkey bread baskets they made at the library. Tender!

Eleonora.

Our kids are at such sweet ages!  On Sunday after church, Chris took the boys up to work on the truck, and Eleonora and I went to a wedding shower. Afterwards, we ran a few errands. Eleonora was excited to be the one to drop off the library books, don’t know that that’s ever happened before. Then we ran into the Dollar Tree to get bags for Altoids, and decided to go ahead and shop for my students. We picked all their presents and got home and wrapped them!  What a fun afternoon with a wonderful helper!

A fun thing she does right now is to grab me and squeeze me and say, “What a cute, cute, cutie, you’re the cutest girl I’ve ever seen, you’re the sweetest girl I’ve ever seen!”  What a cute, sweet girl she is!

Thankful Tree

 My birthday fell on a Friday this year, so I decided to pick the Family Movie Night movie since I was the birthday girl.  We watched 'Anne of Green Gables' and had a lovely time.   During the movie, when Eleonora saw Anne's hair looking like this, she decided that she needed to recreate the hairstyle.  She asked me to do her hair like Anne's, like a "weef" (wreath).  I was thankful to oblige!

 I was also thankful to receive many sweet birthday cards and gifts from students, friends, and family.

 All this thankfulness (and also one of my favorite blogs) inspired me to make thankful trees for my home, Jenno's home, and my classroom!

 The kids and I had a great time with this!

 Caleb's leaves.

 Ta-daa!

The Lord has done great things for us, 

and we are filled to the top with joy!

November 27

The kids and I were off of school the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, so we asked Poppa if he was up for an adventure, and of course he was!

He took us to Bald River Falls and Indian Boundary Lake.

 We enjoyed a little hike around the lake where Caleb got stuck up in a tree and had to ask for assistance to get down, and Eleonora turned into a reindeer.

 Thanks for a fabulous adventure!

 When we got home, it was time to get dolled up for our family Christmas pictures.

The truck wasn't quite ready for us when we got up the mountain, but with a little help from a four-wheeler, the truck made it to the meadow for some pics.

 We had about five minutes before the sun set, but we made the most of it.

 I alternate nights laying in the boys' beds to read to them (Caleb=Even Steven and Josiah=Odd Todd).  We also take time to watch funny YouTube videos from time to time, our favorite right now feature the funny duo Rhett and  Link.

  Not long after I made it from the boys' room to my room, Matthias had our pictures ready for us!

The End.