Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year's Eve eveyone!!  My last stitches are below ... I really enjoy finding a new font to stitch the year in ... this years color was WDW's Grapefruit ...

 and here's how it looks in it's pillow ...

The table is all ready for the party to begin ... but first we're going out to dinner with Ken and Lisa ... then home for some bubbly, games and dessert ...


Looking back on 2014 ... it's been a great year ... I turned 60 this year and had a couple of wonderful trips ... one with my best friends, who both turned 60 this year too 





 Then in September I took my fantasy vacation ... a 5 day trip to Paris to celebrate turning 60 with Lisa .... OMG what a trip!!!  of course you've seen a lot of those pictures!  lol



We also lost our beloved Chip ... miss you!!!



and I stitched!  Here's some of my finishes for 2014 ... I know a few are missing, but this is most of them ... 2014 Stitching

all in all it was a wonderful year with good friends and family ... I'm a bit sorry to see 2014 go ...


but I'm looking forward to what 2015 has in store for me ... Terry and I will celebrate our 40 anniversary in June 2015 ... we are planning a trip to London and Paris!!!  We are both soooo excited!  and of course there will be many other highlights to 2015 along the way.

I hope you're 2014 has been a good year for you and hoping that 2015 brings you health and happiness and lots of stitching!  Love you all!



I hope you find your Joy in your stitches ...

I'm grateful for a good 2014 ...



Thursday, December 25, 2014

Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas from my house to yours ... I hope you are having a wonderful day with family and friends.




I hope you find your Joy in your stitches ...

I'm grateful for the spirit of Christmas, today and everyday ...

Monday, December 22, 2014

Trees!

I just love trees ... naked and decorated ... but I think I like the process of getting our tree the most.  We start out with breakfast, then off to find our tree.  After picking out and cutting our trees, it's home to our house to put up our tree, decorate it, then off to Chris and Monica's house to put their tree up, decorate it ... then finally dinner and a movie.  It's a great day! 

This year Chris and Monica were getting one too.  Here's the tree we found ... funny, it had the straightest trunk, but a cute little bend at the very top ... we had fun decorating this one!  Here's Robert cutting it down ... Terry is helping! lol
 Success ... and ready to take home to decorate ...
 and here's the tree all decorated and ready for the big day ...
 some close ups of my favorite ornaments ...







These are Chip and Maddy's ornaments ... miss them so much *sniff*


 I didn't get a picture of Chris and Monica cutting down there tree .. but here it is all decorated ... cute!


I have an all stitched ornament tree that I put in the entryway ... love love love this tree.  There are ornaments that I have stitched, but there are also tons of ornaments from stitching friends over the year ... it's a very special tree indeed ...
 
 some close ups ...



 another kind of tree ... my dad and I did Christmas shopping on the 12th ... it's been a long standing tradition of ours.  Started years ago, we'd go shopping for mom's Christmas presents.  When she passed years ago, we continue the tradition, shopping for the grandkids ... this year he did most of his shopping online, with a little help from me.  After our online shopping we headed to Molbaks nursery to pick up some poinsettias.  I had to get a picture of him in front of their beautiful poinsettia tree ...
 
and of course we had to take a selfie ... love this man!

Only three more days!  are you ready??  I'm ready except for cooking for Christmas Eve.  We'll be spending Christmas Eve with my Dad, my brother and his family and of course our kids ... 13 of us!  It'll be a great evening.  Christmas Day the kids will come over for our Christmas, then we'll head out for dinner with Terry's dad.  He enjoys going out to eat, so that's what we do.  It's all good!!  Smaller room, just Terry, me, the kids, Terry's dad and cousin Pat.  Has long has we're together we don't care what we do ... plus not cooking todays in a row works for me lol.

I hope your days have been merry and bright and not tooo stressful.  Merry Christmas to everyone.  Love you all!

I hope you find your Joy in your stitches ...

I'm grateful for coffee ...

Sunday, December 07, 2014

The favorite coffee cup ...

Happy Sunday ... hope everyone had a great weekend ... we had a very full, busy and fun weekend ... I'll share pictures tomorrow.

After showing you my Christmas coffee cup/mug collection I said I would share my favorite one ... well, that turned out to be more difficult that I expected! lol ... I love all of them for lots of reasons ... but when push comes to shove I do tend to go back to using one or two more than the others ... and well I would have to say that this beauty is definitely one of my all time favorites ... I got it a Starbucks (I know, you are really really surprised! lol) in 2004 ... lovely isn't it?!

Thanks for stopping by and thanks so all your comments ... I love reading each and everyone of them.

I hope you find your Joy in your stitches ...

I'm grateful for coffee ...

Wednesday, December 03, 2014

A finish ...

 Happy Wednesday everyone ... hope your December is going well!

I finished this sweet little stocking last night ... I did way too much frogging on this piece ... why is it that the small designs can drive you more crazy with mistakes than the larger ones!
Lizzie*Kate's Reindeer Sampler,
from Flora McSample's 2014 Stockings leaflet
Stitched on recommended fabric with 
recommended WDW threads

Do you have a favorite coffee mug or tea cup?  I have a few Christmas coffee mugs *smile* but yes, I do a favorite or two in the cupboard ... come back tomorrow and I'll share my favorites ... I'd love to see yours!

I hope you find your Joy in your stitches ...

I'm grateful for coffee ...

Monday, December 01, 2014

Happy December!

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  Our's was small, but very nice ... and the Seahawks won which made the day even better!  Here's a picture of our holiday table ... Dad does a great job of setting a Thanksgiving table *smile*

 Yep, that's Terry and I ...
 and the rest of the family .. My dad, Chris, Monica, Terry and Robert ...

 Brrrr it's cold here ... but sunny!  I love days like this!  We had a bit of snow on Saturday ... just a dusting actually, but it's been so cold the dust is still on the ground.  I started my decorating over the weekend.  Terry decorates outside while I decorate inside ... well he really does a lot more, like bring all the boxes down from the attic and then down to the living area of the house ... and he hardly complains *smile*

I'm pretty close to being done ... still have the reindeer to put out, but they should be done by tomorrow.  We will be going to get the tree on Saturday ... so I am almost done and an enjoy the decorations ... I do love this time of year.  Thought I'd show some of the decorations ...

This red dresser sits in my kitchen ... the salt and pepper shakers are from Pottery Barn ... collected them over the last few years ...
 This is my Christmas salt and pepper shaker collection ... I hang a lot of my stitching on the wall too ...
 This area is in the kitchen eating area ... we have two metal bookcases in that fit in under the garden window ...

 and this is my kitchen window ...
 Here's my mantel ... I love changing it up every year ...
 A close up from the mantel ... love this little vignette (is that the right word?) ...
 The deer vase belonged to my mother-in-law, Gin ... she gave it to me years ago ... I treasure it even more now that she's gone from us ...

Thanks for stopping by and I love reading your comments ... so keep them coming *smile*  I hope you find your Joy in your stitches ...

I'm grateful for family heirlooms...