A Wonderful Christmas

A picture is worth a thousand words, so they say, so I am telling our Christmas story in pictures!

Beautiful white Christmas as of Christmas eve morn...

Sam and Rachel got out in the snow for some fun...Rachel wearing her jingle collar and coat!

Dinner at the Lootens Christmas eve so I could give my Christmas presents (since I had to work my last ever (hopefully)

Christmas day shift!)

Audrey napping before dinner!

One of Laney's presents...a felt flower headband!  Check out the hair do!

Laney playing Superman...with Grandpa

and then Grandma!

Audrey in her new PJ pants...I made them without a pattern....so, we had some baby plumber's butt going on!

Maybe next time I will use a pattern!

Audrey's Mizzou headband....

And some snuggle time!

Then for the first time ever, Sam and I opened our presents on Christmas eve before bedtime!

Santa must have come while we were at dinner!

Never too old for the fun of finding and opening presents!

Rachel got a new dog bed and she really loved it!

Sam got a Snuggie but wouldn't model it for me, so I did the modeling!  Just lovely!

I got a shop vac,

and Sam got a car emergency kit, and a baseball book, lots of clothes...it was a good Christmas!

And my niece got me this Keep Calm and Craft On picture for my sewing/crafting room.  I just love it!!

Christmas went by so fast, it is hard to believe it is over!

An early Christmas Gift from Sarah Claus!

I got a package in the mail a few days before Christmas from my sister Sarah...it was stuffed full of all sorts of really

cool handcrafted things!

Like this set of wooden JOY blocks.  Such great colors and they can be stacked like this....

or lined up like this.

There were two coasters made out of fabric and ribbon scraps, quilted and then covered with a layer of tulle.  These are soooo cool and I hadn't seen this idea before.

And then these twill tags to personalize and sew into my creations!

And handmade soap with a soap holder to use in the shower, in a pretty mod podged box.

The soap holder is crocheted with cotton yarn.

And then there is this believe Christmas ornament!  It looked great hanging off the arm of my snowman.

A cute little piggy whisk filled with Hershey kisses...I whisk you a merry Kiss-mas!  Such a great idea!

Then there is a really sweet snowman magnet for the fridge!

Then this sweet little wool package!  Perfect for underneath my little pine tree!

And of course the latest in craft magazines!   Then I found a problem....

It's these earrings at the bottom of the package...Sarah and I have been trading these earrings back and forth with every occasion we have to mail them to each other.  They are really gruesome and we keep embellishing them and altering their "beauty".  These wild earrings have been around for probably at least 20 years!

Sarah glued some beads on them to spice them up a bit!  Of course I will (not) wear them all the time!!! 

The Last Gift is Finished...Snow....Merry Christmas!!!

Since I had the yarn already and since they were on my original Christmas list for my son and since I have all the time in the world, Tuesday I started a pair of knitted felted slippers!

I love the softness of this Fishermen's Wool from Hobby Lobby.  I created my own pattern, adapting several different slipper patterns I have made over the years.

Three strands of yarn and size 10 needles made for a fast project.   Sam wears a size 14 shoe, so the finished, pre-felted slippers were ginormous!

My knitting needles look like toothpicks!

Here they are beside his tennies!

They are insanely soft and snuggly! And this yarn felted so well you can't even see the giant stitches!

I may have to wash them again, because I want them to be snug on his feet. 

This is what I awakened to this morning...such a wonderful Christmas present. 

Just beautiful and so quietly soft!