Wonderful holidays!

Christmas is my second favorite time of year.  

It's definitely my favorite holiday. And this year was a great one! 

We decorated and put up the lights right after Thanksgiving while the kids were off school to help me. (Love that slave labor.) So our house looked festive for weeks!
Ever since Thanksgiving I worked on 4 quilts for the kids too.  I didn't tie them, I free motion quilted them so that was the hard part.  I got a smoking deal for the fabric with help from my friend Tracey who let me know about the sales on Black Friday at Joann's.  Wuhoo!  Instead of paying $70 or so it was $15!  Then I made the quilt tops and bottoms, added a thin batting and basted them all together, then did the free motion quilting and finished with the edge binding.  They turned out beautiful.  It took me all the way up to 11:30pm the day before Christmas Eve but I finished them all before Christmas!

Gideon's Quilt

Claire's Quilt

Isaac's Quilt
 (Those aren't all pieced together,
 its just one big fabric.
His is the only one like that.)

Benjamin's Quilt

I was a little worried they might not like that their big present this year was something homemade and not a fancy blinking gizmo.  I knew that they were something they would value later on in life and that it would hold sentimental appeal for the rest of the quilt's life, but wasn't certain they would love them right off.  When they opened them and 'Oooed' and Ahhhed' and exclaimed how 'soft' and 'pretty' they were I couldn't help crying, I was so glad.

Because I have been watching my friend Tracey's daughter while she is at work she bought the fabric for me and so in all I spent about $38 total (some fabric I'd bought earlier and the batting was on sale for $5 each) so for 4 quilts, that's less than $10each!


I also spent a few hours crocheting projects for gifts.  Jon and Keriann's family, (my bro and sis-in-law) all got a project and Claire got two crochet gifts.  My sister Emma and her family mostly all got handmade gifts as well, but those were made at a Super Saturday my ward RS put on. I feel like this Christmas I really did give a lot of myself in the gifts.  And everybody 'said' they liked them.  So either I have a very kind family or they really did like them.  Either way, I'm pleased, and proud of what I did.

One of the best things about Christmas break was my sister Susan and her family coming up to visit for New Years weekend.  We had so much fun!  We played, ate, talked, ate, played, ate some more and talked till the wee hours. It was so wonderful.  My kids have been lamenting their departure for days.  I'm so glad for the time we had even if it never seems enough!  Amy and Andrew was a part of it all as we spent a morning at their house watching BYU win their bowl game, then they joined us for New Years day dinner. The house was just how I like it, full of people enjoying being together.  Loud, crazy, messy and joyous!  I'm so thankful my family and I have these memories!