Holiday endings, New Beginnings

The past few days we have been busy taking down the Christmas decorations and packing it all away. We actually enjoyed getting our house back as it's usually a little crowded with the tree and Christmas decorations. The girls love having the tree in front of the picture window instead of in the corner of the living room so we give in and live with the furniture crowded for a few weeks to please them.
Above I have posted a few pictures from our Christmas pictures.
From top to bottom: My girls with cousins, hubby Christmas morning, my sis and mom with one of her wonderful baked delights, Christmas gifts: my sweet little Electrolux vacuum, new tea pot from my MIL which I love!

We did have a wonderful Christmas and as always I'm excited to begin a new year! Each year I ponder the journey of the previous year and my goals and anticipation for the new year ahead.
I love to write out my list of blessings from the previous year and the goals for the coming year.
God has been so good to us this past year and I'm so thankful for his love, mercy, protection, and blessings during 2008!!

One of the things I have done is claim a VERSE FOR THE YEAR, as suggested at HEART OF THE MATTER. I spent a while this afternoon praying, reading, and journaling in some quiet time with the Lord! Oh, my goodness, it's really difficult for me to choose ONE verse! I love so many of God's precious promises!

But..........I have prayed and chose two verses..........

"But those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint."
Isaish 40:31

also.......

"Fear not, for I am with you; Be not dismayed, for I am your God, I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand."
Isaish 41:10

As I read from Beth Moore's devotional book, Voices of the Faithful, my heart was truly blessed as I read her words.

She says, "Our souls crave new beginnings. Fresh starts. Calculate with me just how willing our compassionate God was to accommodate."
"God Himself came up with the concept of an annual New Year's Day when He ordered creation and gave the sun and moon their instructions" (Gen. 1:14).
"God didn't think an annual new start was nearly enough. He who created the human psyche also compartmentalized those hundreds of days into 12 months. Every month we get another first. But 12 new starts were not enough, either. The very first verses of scripture unfold a seven- day period of time we call a week. Think how we look forward to a "weekend" and a subsequent new beginning on Sunday. Fifty-two new beginnings a year sounds like plenty, doesn't it? Ah, but not to God, He who configured our needy souls ordained the sun to rise every single morning and set every single evening. A curtain of darkness falls systematically on the scene of every single day, calling it history."

Lamantations 3:22,23
"Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not.

They are new every morning.

Great is your faithfulness."

Praise God for New Beginnings and his compassion each and every morning!!

Countdown till Christmas

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

With only a few more days till Christmas.........
we have so much we want to do!!

I did find time to stitch this little pillow to decorate our home for
Christmas

Our Country Theme Christmas Tree with a few handmade ornaments
and store bought ornaments made to look homemade

Here the kids are making sugar cookies and decorating

Gingerbread House made with friends

Church Christmas Program

Today the children presented a wonderul Christmas Program during the worship service. Recitations and Christmas hymns were sung. The little ones were so cute and of course very funny. Some were shy and wouldn't say their part. One little guy held the microphone and made a face as if he were going to cry and said, "Oh, I can't," as he handed the microphone back to the song leader. How cute!!
Others were not shy at all and danced and waved at family in the audience. One little guy gets so excited and decided to sing a solo, we enjoyed it so much.

Other recitations were given by older children who had memorized their parts and did very well.
Of course I am very proud of my own daughter who participated and read the opening recitation.
These are our leaders of the future and I'm very thankful for all of them!

With so much running around and activities the past few weeks I'm planning to get my house in order this week. Tiany has some very helpful information to help me with this so I plan to spend a little time visiting her blog! Thanks to all of you who share your tips and encouragements each day!!

Have a Great Monday!

Making Memories

Checking in to let you all know I'm still here. We are having a wonderful time "Celebrating Christmas" with lots of activities to fill our days. Fun with friends and family are what makes the Christmas season so special.
Although we have been pretty busy I make sure we are taking time to relax and enjoy the season and spend time together as a family! Here are some ideas to help enjoy the season to the fullest! These sound simple but sometimes we need to be reminded to slow down and enjoy the season.

Enjoy hot chocolate together often
Read a good Christmas book or better yet the Christmas Story from the Bible
Make cookies together
Visit a nursing home or elderly person
Take a meal to a neighbor
Set up a night with friends, church members, etc. to go Caroling
Play in the snow
Sing and learn about Christmas Carols together
Watch a Christmas Movie

"Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign; the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.
Isaiah 7:14

FRIENDS

We have a very special home school group that we love very much and we are spending time doing lots of fun activities such as:
ice skating, join together to see a symphony and a ballet, The Christmas Carol, caroling at an elderly apartment complex, Christmas party, and next week we will meet with a few close friends to make cookies and ginger bread houses.

The kids are not the only ones who are having much fun and fellowship, our mom's had a Mom's Christmas party and had a blast!! We sang and acted out The Twelve Days of Christmas
and also exchanged gifts as we played the game of "stealing the gift" theme. What a hoot these ladies are!! We had such a great time as we laughed, enjoyed wonderful food and fellowship and even danced a bit!

FAMILY

Taking time out to visit our family is something we are doing this year as we try to show the LOVE OF CHRIST during this special time of year. Little visits, helping with wrapping gifts, shopping, and anything else needed that me and my girls can do to help others.
We have also enjoyed shopping together with family and of course grandma who lives next door always makes Christmas special by baking cookies together and making special recipes that are traditional each year. Now, mind you, our children and the nieces and nephews are all teens now, but, grandma still has a stocking as she has every year filled with goodies for them to enjoy before Christmas. Spoiled I tell you! Spoiled rotten.

SERVANTS

As we continue to teach our children (young adults) to serve others by example, we can lead in guiding them to serve during the holidays.
The youth in our church served in a homeless shelter a couple of weeks ago and this has been such a blessing for them to reach out to others less fortunate. The timing of being so close to Christmas really touched the hearts of our teens as they realize giving is better than receiving.
Many of them testified about how much this meant during a special Youth Service during the morning worship service.
Another way they helped to serve is by buying for two children from an Angel Tree set up in our local Mall. The youth did the shopping, budgeting, and wrapping of this project.

HOMESCHOOL

Yes, we continue to do school between all the wonderful activities that surround the Christmas season. We are doing a bit of a Unit Study on Christmas which includes reading several good books for the season.

The Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson
The Christmas Barn by C.L. Davis
The Christmas Box by Richard Paul Evans

We are also using several of the wonderful resources found here.

HOMEMADE GIFTS

A few of our gifts this year are homemade. It's become a tradition to make the GIFT JARS like the ones found here and here.
Oh, what fun we have making these, especially the cookies using M&M's are really pretty for Christmas and the most YUMMY and very pretty are the Chocolate Chip Oatmeal!!

We hope you are enjoying this Christmas season as much as we are!!!

Christmas Shopping

We enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving with our family and had lots of turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pie, and also much laughter. It seems to have become a tradition with my side of the family to watch the Home Alone Christmas movies each year to officially begin Christmas! What a great time we had. No matter how many times we watch this movie we always laugh just as hard as we did the first time, which is till we cry!

Then the next morning my sister, mom, daughter, nephew and I were among the crazy early bird shoppers! Yes, I was at JC Penny at 4 a.m.!
As usual, around 10 a.m. I begin to wonder why in the world I have lost my mind as I'm standing among the other shoppers......mad crazy women. Silliness begins to set in as we wonder from department to department and store to store. We had such a great time and we really did get a lot of shopping under way!!

Later in the evening, after my little nap, we also trimmed the tree and decorated the house. Wow, all this in one day! Needless to say, I was draggin by the time we finished. Hurray.........Christmas is here!

Happy Thanksgiving
The past few weeks have been very busy for us, just as I'm sure they have for you too. We have already begun to enjoy the holidays with fun activities with friends and family. Ice skating, birthdays with family, shopping, decorating, and much more have been packed into the last few weeks.
We are so thankful for this wonderful time of Thanksgiving!
As we celebrate with family and friends we have so much to be thankful for. Love and peace within our family, good health, our comfy and warm home, so very much! Most of all I thank my Lord and Savior for sending His son to die on the cross so that I may have a home in heaven one day soon!! PRAISE GOD!!
Wishing all my friends who visit my blog a very BLESSED THANKSGIVING!!
See you soon!

As we take our morning walk we are greeted by friends along the way.

The view of the mountains is gorgeous!

































This is the picture of another "Frenchy Bag" from the Amy Butler pattern I made for a birthday gift!
How do you like the colors? This will make a nice winter bag.
The four pockets are deep and have plenty of room inside.

Revive Our Hearts

As I was riding in the car this evening I turned on my favorite Christian radio station to find Nancy Leigh DeMoss speaking. Nancy has been leading a series of lessons entitled, "God's Beautiful Design for Women: Living Out Titus 2:1-5." My heart was so blessed and encouraged as I listened to her speak. God is so good and knows exactly what I need, and when I need it.
Today's lesson is titled, "The True Value of Your Home".
I would like to share a small portion of this lesson with you.

Through the ministry of Revive Our Hearts, we’re always trying to train women to reflect the beauty and the wonder of God’s ways and His great redemptive plan.

So as we think about homemaking, how do we reflect the beauty and wonder of God’s ways and His great redemptive plan when we live out this mandate to be home worker, keepers at home, guardians of the home, managers of the home, workers at home? How does that reflect the gospel and the heart of God?

Being home keepers, homemakers, reflects God’s heart for the home. God is somebody who loves home. Psalm 68:5-6 tells us, “A Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation. God settles the solitary in a home.”

God is a homemaker, and we reflect His heart for home when we cultivate homes where people can grow and be nurtured and nourished.

When you bring order out of chaos in your home or you make a drab space to be light and attractive, you are reflecting to the people in that home the One who created the world when the earth was formless and void and dark. You’re incarnating the Creator God in a sense, giving people a glimpse of Him.

When you cook nutritious, tasty meals for your family, you are pointing them to the One who feeds the hungry and who satisfies thirsty souls with Himself. You’re giving them an appetite for Him.

When you go to the time and effort to be sure that your husband and your kids have adequate clothing that fits, you are pointing them toward the One who clothes us with His righteousness.

See, every aspect of homemaking is meant to reflect some spiritual, eternal truth that we’re trying to picture to our world. This is what takes the mundane and the tedious and can make it an act of worship, can make it a work of art, can make it something profoundly spiritual.

When you learn how to decorate your home tastefully, you’re giving your family and guests in your home a glimpse of the One whose handiwork and artistry are reflected in creation. The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows His handiwork. I was thinking about God as doing handiwork.

When you do handiwork, hand work, when you do creative work, when you do tasteful decorating, you’re just giving people a hunger for God who is the supreme, consummate decorator.

When you maintain a clean home, an orderly home, you’re creating an atmosphere where your family can appreciate the value of being spiritually clean, cleansed from sin, and of having lives that are spiritually ordered. You’re teaching; you’re training not just to be clean and orderly because that is not a supreme, ultimate eternal virtue. It’s pointing them to virtues that are supreme and eternal. As you are homemaking what you are doing is creating a taste for our ultimate home in heaven.

Jesus said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms . . . I am going there to prepare a place for you” (John 14:1-2, NIV). So Jesus is a homemaker. His purpose is not Himself. “I’m going there to prepare a place for you.”

The thought of what Jesus is doing in preparing a place for us in heaven is supposed to keep our hearts from being troubled. It’s supposed to bring us peace as we wait and anticipate that home.

God has truly given Nancy a gift of encouragement! As you will see when you visit her website, you can listen by podcast or read previous posts.
Please take a moment to visit Nancy's website, Revive Our Hearts, and listen to her message today, I know you will be glad you did!

Around Our Town

My sewing machine has been quite busy!

I love making bags, and this one is probably my favorite, The Frenchy Bag, pattern by Amy Butler. I plan to make more of these soon.

Curtains for my daughters room........

and here is the apron I made from the instructions at The Noble Wife.

Last week as we were coming home it was such a beautiful day that I stopped along the way to take some pictures of our town. We are thankful to live in a small town with such rich history. I won't bore you with the history part, but I'd love to share the photos.
If you have pictures you'd like to share of your town, please leave me a comment, we would love to see them.
The first picture is the "Carter Mansion", the oldest frame house in Tennessee, as you can read on the sign bellow the picture of the cemetery.

Courthouse

Veteran's Memorial in front of the courthouse

Probably the most well know historical landmark is the Covered Bridge, which has a very interesting history behind the building of this bridge.

A Mother's Prayer

This poem caught my attention today and I wanted to share it with other mothers, especially those with younger children. I remember well the days when my children were young and I was so tired, mentally and physically, calling out to the Lord! May the Lord continue to bless each one of you!

A Mother's Prayer

Please help me raise these precious little one for You. Often I fail and I need Your wisdom and direction to face this grave responsibility.
May Your love and patience shine through me as I teach, train, and discipline like You would have me to do. Help me to not grow weary in correcting. Oh, at times the thought of more discipline discourages me. I long for a loophole out of it. I want to be consistent even when I don't feel like it. When I'm tempted to let it slide, O Lord, at those times do bless me with Your loving direction.
Teach me how to teach our precious little ones about You. Help me teach from sunrise to sunset. I count this my privilege-- my wonderful privilege.
Help me to be a mother who is a living example of our little ones. Help me grow in You. Allow me to show them how You are by my meekness, kindness, longsuffering, diligence, contentment, forgiveness, fruitfulness, honesty, humility, dependability, generosity and loyalty. Help me to be committed to showing them my deep trust in You.
Help me submit to my husband--their father. Help me love, honor, bless, and admire him too. As they grow older, help that same love and admiration to flow toward You--their Heavenly Father.
For all these things, Lord, I need Your help. I cannot do it on my own strength. Thank You for all these dear little children You have blessed us with.

~Your Unworthy Servant

Fun tutorials and a new book

Hello Friends, my computer has been on the blink so I haven't posted in a few days. I spent the past few days sewing and visiting other blogs via my daughters computer.
I found some wonderful tutorials I'd like to share with you.

The Noble Wife has a great tutorial and pattern for a cute apron that's really easy to make. I made one in just a short time and now my daughter is adding some hand stitching along the border. Christmas is just around the corner you know.

Amanda Jean has many wonderful tutorials over at Crazy Mom Quilts. There's a entire list of tutorials from checkbook covers, quilts, storage boxes, bibs, and much more. Give her a visit, I'm sure you will be pleased.

I've started a new book, The Scarlet Thread, by Francine Rivers, my favorite author. I can't wait to sit down, put my feet up and begin with a nice cup of hot cocoa! Yummy.
Dinner's in the crock pot, hostess ham, "how easy is that!" (That's my favorite saying by Barefoot Contessa's Ina Gartner, I just love her show!) Just add a few veggies and those wonderful freezer rolls and it's dinner.
Now, where's my new book?

pumpkin table topper

The weather has turned colder over the weekend and so we are snuggling under quilts and finally after a little hint from the girls, turning on the heat. Oh, it's so hard to get up early when it's cold isn't it? How I'd love to snuggle under the covers just a little longer.
Trying to get this crew up for church Sunday morning was no easy task!

"Snuggling Cousins"

We enjoyed a very relaxing weekend at home so I took the opportunity to finish some quilting and sewing projects.
The pumpkin table topper is finished with stippling complete. Don't look to closely, my stippling is nothing fancy. I'm sure my stitches aren't consistent but that's ok, it's mine and I love having it on my table.


The sun is shining and I'm looking forward to a beautiful day! We are joining our homeschool group at a Gem Mine today to pan for gold! How exciting, we've never been.
OK, now I'm off to get our day started!
I will leave you with some Fall pictures of the trees and mountains here in East Tennessee!

A little quilting progress......

Yeah, I'm so happy that we didn't have plans today! Most days we are out and about when school is finished but today I was quilting!!!
Enjoying the satisfaction of seeing this quilt come together as I added the inner border and cut strips for the outer border to be added later today. I was so excited I had to get a picture while the weather is nice outside. My daughter did a fantastic job choosing the colors for this quilt, they look so nice in the picture with the border.

Sweet Ellie wanted in the picture too!! She would love to wrap up in this!
Ain't happenin!

This is the 6 1/2 inch Outer border that I cut today!
It's an Amy Butler fabric called Midwest Modern.
I just love her fabrics.



Amazing how different it looks when you stand back and take a picture. I love the colors!

Now for some great giveaways to share!!

Elizabeth at Pigtails and Snails is having a wonderful giveaway for her original designed quilt, Lizzie Anne! Take a look!

Michelle at Quilts and Stuff is also having a Birthday giveaway for 13 Patterns from Pearl Louise Designs Banner of the month club.

Fall Giveaway Winner!

Thanks to everyone who stopped by my blog for the Fall Giveaway!
I've had a great time visiting your blogs and made some wonderful blog friends!

Today is a very busy day for us so we picked the winner early this morning

The Winner is...............

Sherri at A Quilting Life!!!!!

Congratulations!

Thank you Sherri for entering, I just love your blog and your quilts are gorgeous!!

pumpkins and crab apples

Our little crab apple tree is truly "bearing much fruit" this year, with branches actually dragging the ground. I haven't made crab apple jelly in a few years and decided with such an abundance of fruit I really shouldn't let them go to waste.
The recipe is really very easy and quite fun to make. I plan to make more in the next few days.

Pumpkin wall hanging I've been working on, practicing my hand applique. I love applique but I'm rather slow.
Any suggestions how I should quilt this little punkin?? I planned to do stippling but would love some advice from other quilters.

Enjoying the weekend

Weekend Fun

First, let me say how much I'm enjoying this wonderful weather we are having here in East TN!! Gorgeous sunny days and cool evenings! Oh, how I wish it would last just a little longer.
Looking forward to those beautiful colors just outside our window overlooking the mountains.

Saturday was a very busy day with a little house cleaning early and then lunch with family, and then on to the quilt show here in our town with my grandma. She doesn't quilt but she enjoyed looking as much as I did. I was so busy I forgot to take my camera to get pictures of all those gorgeous quilts. Oh, I get so excited as I look at all the patterns, colors, hand quilted, machine quilted, etc. I'm fascinated because I know how much time it takes to complete a quilt.
I could have stayed much longer but I had a youth board meeting at the church and from there we joined the church for a hay ride to the lake for hotdogs and roasted marshmallows.
Everyone had such a great time, young and old!
Thank you Lord for such sweet fellowship!

Then, believe it or not we swung by the grocery store for groceries. By this time I'm draggin just a bit. Oh, but when we arrived home I was soon revived by the many teenagers who had gathered at our house to watch a movie and eat ice cream. They had rearranged the furniture to fit everyone in. He he!
So happy to hear the laughter and joyful screams as they hooped and hollared.
We were happy to have every last one of them! Several of the girls even stayed for a sleep over......yahoo. I think they had a busy day too, I didn't hear a peep out of them after midnight.

Just a note to say how much fun I'm having visiting all the great blogs who have signed up for my Fall Giveaway! I promise to read each comment and take a look at each blog! It's great meeting so many wonderful ladies!! Thank you all for your sweet comments!

Looking forward to a great week!

Fall Into Fall Quilt Giveaway

We have a very busy day today and will be out most of the day so we chose the winner early!!

Congratulations to Sherri at A Quilting Life!!
You are the winner
for the Fall Giveaway
on my blog!
Thanks to everyone who stopped by to visit my blog, I've had a great time visiting each blog who signed up!







HAPPY FALL!!!

This is my very first giveaway and I'm so excited to be participating! Fall is my favorite time of year so I couldn't pass this up. There are so many things I love about this season but I would like you to share with me what you love about fall.

Begins October 1st and I will be selecting a winner on October 15th.

For a chance to win you must:

** Leave a comment on THIS post telling me why you love Fall also!**

NO, you don't have to be a quilter, only love fall! You don't have to have a blog, only please leave your email so I can get in touch with you.

To double your chances you must *post about my giveaway* with a link to my blog and I'll add your name twice. Please tell me if you are sharing on your blog!

There are 40 bloggers who are participating in this wonderful giveaway!
This means there are lots of opportunities to win some great prizes so take a look by clicking on the scarecrow in my sidebar.

Now, here is what's included in my giveaway, so far. I will be adding a few more
surprise goodies!

A fabric pumpkin I made, decorative goodie bags for fall, and a yummy Paula Dean, Pumpkin Roll Cake Candle!! ooooh, that sounds good!



GOD BLESS YOU!!!

Happy Fall

Burr, it was pretty cool here this morning, even the dog wanted inside. Isn't she cute??

We are enjoying the sunny days and mild temperatures so much....... fall is in the air. We enjoy every day because it goes by so very fast.

I was able to capture some of the fall beauty in nature today.

We had a very productive day today, finished projects, yahoo!
Allison's embroidery, which she drew freehand on the fabric and placed a beautiful border, and my pocketbook.


My oldest sweetie, "college girl" studying so hard while we had fun with our sewing.

My dad usually brings me a little something when he comes to visit. He owned a produce stand for several years so he loves to share tomatoes, pears, apples, and whatever fruit is in season.
Today this is what he appeared with at our door.



**Check back as I will be posting about the fall giveaway October 1st.**