Happy 2016

To all my friends and family in bogland, wishing you the most fantastic New Year, filled with blessings, joy, laughter, peace happiness and health!
Love,
Noreen

On Teaching Girls the Art of Giving and Hospitality

 Happy Wednesday to you!  Most of the day is gone and I'm just now sitting down to post.  As you know, twice monthly I work with our four oldest granddaughters teaching them sewing(which is interesting since I'm not a seamstress).  I had mentioned the girls were making their moms two presents~the first was a stationary holder that Miss S is holding below.  Inside, I had place two separate sets of custom made greeting cards for my daughters.  One set was of Ireland and the other set was of Kauai.  The other present the girls made was a travel curling iron cover/holder.  The stationary holder was made from a placemat, while the curling iron cover was made from a pattern.  Miss M is on the left holding that; I absolutely loved the fabric(probably because I love Cardinals and wish we had them here).

 The girls also made their sisters a skirt for their American Girl dolls.

 Unfortunately in our haste to get everything done, we wrapped the stationary holder before we took pictures-it was identical to the one Miss S was holding.  Miss O was holding the skirt for her sister's doll.

 This morning we had our quarterly tea, except that it was a breakfast with all sorts of yummy foods. 

 The theme was Little Women and after we had eaten, some questions were asked by Carrie about the story.  Typically, the girls do a craft and also have some sort of special treat or goodie~but this time Carrie decided to follow suit of a story line in the book and give to others who were needy.  The older girls understood the significance of the lesson and the money that would have been spent on a craft and goodies was donated to Compassion International to help a Mom with a Baby.  I was so touched by this gesture!

Last night our two oldest grandsons came to spend the night, it is always such fun!  This morning while I went to the dentist before the tea party, they had a nice big breakfast and played Yatzee with Papa.  Kim dropped on Little Man on her away to the party so he could have some boy time.
What a wonderful morning!  This afternoon hubby and I began to take down the Christmas decorations; we got one room completely back together and will work on the rest of it tomorrow.
We don't have any major plans for tomorrow night, except for going out to an early dinner at one of our favorite restaurants.  We will be home before six and probably just watch movies.
I hope your last two days of the year are smooth and that you enter the New Year with joy and happiness.
Until tomorrow,
Noreen

A New Book from a Giveaway

Good Morning to you! Can you believe it's the last week of the year? Right before Christmas I was notified by my friend and fellow blogger, Sandra, that I had won her book giveaway. It is a book that shares 20 "Cuddley Designs to Piece, Patch and Embroider" by Linda Kopp. It came on Christmas Eve and I am now just getting to post about it. Sorry about the bad photo-for some reason my pics kept coming out blurry.

It is filled with wonderful designs and quilt templates and I can assure you that it will get lots of use here in my family-with girls and granddaughters who embroider and quilt, there won't be any sitting on the shelf for this book.
If you don't know Sandra at Thistle Cove Farm, you can find her here:
http://thistlecovefarm.blogspot.com/
She is a wonderful lady  who has a deep walk of faith and lives on a beautiful farm. Stop by and say I told you to visit.
Blessings on your day!
Noreen

Our Family Christmas Celebration

Good Morning to you! I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and a relaxing weekend. We had such a fun family celebration on Christmas Eve morning, but I want to explain that as a very large group our kids found it easier to gather together on Christmas Eve and then have their individual family time on Christmas morning. We gathered, ate a wonderful brunch and then began to open presents. Here all the girls cousins are sitting together~a good thing because Nana and Papa gave them all duplicate gifts.

Little Man waiting paitently.

We also give fill each stocking with some sort of goodie-little man and his mama got a container of Agave Bears, because he can't have sugar.

Papa and the older boys made him a bow, just like theirs.

Love Miss A's smile!

Little Miss E didn't get the two gift cards as the older girls(due to age) but got a cute stuffed dog with a necklace that said Love and on the back had her initial.  Miss E is crazy in love with dogs and she loved this.

We game the boys a drone for their present.

Hubby made me a bread board and also a cheese board that is also inlaid; I love the purple heart wood  that he used.

Papa got a new tool for his tool chest.

We also gave the girls a set of four cups that we got from Beleek Pottery in Ireland.

One of the creative projects I worked on for the girls was making greeting cards with the photos of Ireland that we took~I will post another day; I also made cards of Kauai that we took several years ago.

We gave the sil's Spotting Scopes for their hunting/target shooting as well as spotting wild life in their back yards.

Hubby and I were also spoiled so much; we are so blessed by our family! Love each one to the moon and back!
On Christmas night we had dinner at Carrie's~oh was it good!  We enjoyed just visiting and watching the kiddos play.   We knew it was snowing, just didn't know that it was blizzard like outside.
WE got ready to leave and let's just say we were both very happy to be within a ten minute drive.
The weekend was pretty relaxed, I did go to Macy's and got a new pair of snow boots for every day use.  My daily winter shoes(Merrills)were given to me 5 yrs ago, after my dear friend passed away. They fit me like a glove, but were already several years old, so it was time to upgrade.  I got a great deal and I know they'll last me many years.
I'm looking at my week and it is pretty relaxed, except for one dental appointment on Wednesday.  I think I'll take down all my decorations on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday.  Since our early years, we found that having everything put away by New Years lets us enter the New Year organized.
I hope you had a day filled with Joy and Love.
Hugs,
Noreen

                    From My Heart and Home to you and yours,
                           Merry Christmas.  May you experience
                           the Love that first loved us!

Christmas Program

Good Morning My Friends! On Sunday our grandchildren were in a Christmas Program at their church and hubby and I always go. It is so fun and of course I love Christmas music, so got my share of singing~it made my heart sore. Our two youngest weren't involved in singing, but aren't they just so adorable!  Mr. L is now 3 and Miss E is 2; they loved being with each other.

This is Kim, our youngest daughter with her hubby. I think Mr. L has his mama's eyes.

Carrie and her hubby; have to say her hubby was in a pretty jolly mood Sunday evening and teasing all the adults.

The children of the church actually outnumber the adults. Some were serious about singing and others were not. For a little bit, Mr. L stood on stage(you can see him on the far right next to his cousin) holding his cousins hand(not singing mind you), but then raced back to his parents.

I'm thankful to have gotten this post done, because hubby and I have some serious running around to do today and I'd likely forget like yesterday.
I hope your day is filled with contentment and patience, as here in northern Colorado the traffic is simply nuts!
Joy to you!
Noreen

It is last last few days before Christmas and I'm already running behind. This morning I worked on a gift project that will not be done for Christmas, but hopefully will be done for New Years. Before I knew it, my bff Kam had arrived; I was taking her out to lunch to celebrate her Christmas birthday. We had a great lunch at Pannera, my go to place when soup and a salad sound good. We ran some errands and got caught up; I've missed our hanging out together! The afternoon buzzed by and we just finished dinner when I remembered I hadn't posted today. I have a feeling tomorrow will be as busy.
I've been reminded today of five friends who are battling for their lives this Christmas-so if you believe in the power of prayer please left up those hurting this season. Cancer affects all of us, either directly or by touching loved ones.
I'll be back in the next day or so, but I wish you joy filled days!
Hugs,
Noreen