All dressed up for Christmas!

Well, we certainly got ready 'early' this year to decorate. I was just in the Christmas mood to get it done! I wish I knew how to take better pictures because no matter 'how many' I take the lighting is not right. I flip on and off lights and use daylight, so the pictures of my tree don't do it justice. It really is pretty. We had to get a small tree (artificial due to my allergies to real ones) because we now have a smaller home and not a lot of room to decorate. I probably used 15% of the decorations that I have! Makes putting things away easier! :o)

I tried to get a nice close up, no luck! I bought some pretty gold balls this year that I love! I haven't used glass balls in 30 years! I've always had kids and grand kids home so this year I get to use glass balls!

This little manger Julie and I worked on. Michelle cut them out for us, I sanded mine down smooth, Julie painted the figures and I painted the manger. I love this manger and thanks to Julie for painting it for me! I painted Michelle's set after a lot of worry how it would turn out. It was fine. I had Julie's painting to copy from! Ashley made the sign for me for Christmas last year. It goes perfectly with the manger!

I bought this manger and nativity set from Fred Meyers about 25 years ago. I bought a really nice one in Hawaii that was hand painted and wonderful, but I gave it to David and Angela as they did not have one. I like both sets, but I have nostalgia from having this one that's 25 years old. After the holidays and before Christmas 2011 I'm going to touch up the manger and freshen it up!

I guess you might say 'I love poinsettias'! I have them all over! I love these picture blocks Michelle made for me last Christmas. I like to add a little color during the holidays with them. They are so easy to accent! Don't I have a gorgeous family?!!

I love these little choir boys. Neil loves trains and I found this cute snow globe last year. I love the picture frame and only use it at Christmas time.

I added two little girl angels. I have more, but two was all I needed for this.

We made these kissing reindeer in relief society about 8 years ago and I provided the pattern and this gal cut them out for everyone and I let her use my set to paint and show for a pattern to paint from. She paints really great and I was so lucky to have mine painted!

So, now I'm ready for Christmas. Shopping, wrapping, mailing, candy made, all I have to do is sit back and relax and enjoy the holiday!

Christmas cabin

My hall bathroom has a 'woodsy' look. I like to decorate this little cabin (birdhouse) for Christmas. I was looking for some tiny Christmas lights and couldn't find any. Michelle saved the day and sent me some that she had. If you look at the resin trees near the porch you'll see them on the trees. The two faux trees in the background are sprayed white. I found some tiny garland for those two trees. I found some cute gingerbread garland and restrung it. The gingerbread decorations were two inches apart which was too far apart, so I restrung them to be closer to 1 inch apart.

I took this picture with the lights on and I like the pictures with the lights off. I think it shows up better.

Spaghetti Squash - I had never heard of it!

This is a picture of a spaghetti squash. I had never heard of them before. I read about it on a friend's face book page. I was curious, looked it up, bought one, and cooked it today. YUMMY!!! :o)

I pierced holes it and put it in a shallow pan and baked it for 1 hour at 375 degrees.

I cut it lengthwise in half and scooped out the seeds. They looked a lot like pumpkin seeds.

I took the tines of a fork and shredded the squash within the shell, I added butter, salt and pepper and mixed it right in the shell. Yummy! The other half I added a four-blend cheese and shredded Parmesan cheese and mixed it right in the shell. I put it in the microwave for 30 seconds and it melted the cheese. Oh yum, oh yum!



I fixed Parmesan and tomato chicken patties and green peas. You can see on the plate that the squash is from both shells, one with butter and one with cheese. My husband is a plain eater and he took one bite of the buttered one and ate it. He even took a regular size serving and ate all of it! (I wonder if that is because I had told him that if he didn't eat at least one bite he would have to cook dinner for a week! Hee! Hee!) He said that he actually did like it but wouldn't touch the cheesy one. He's not big on cheese. I will definitely fix that squash again! The texture is different and to me has a slight pumpkin taste to it. Neil said that the squash taste didn't remind him of anything.

Trick or Treat!

Friday I took Kirsten with me and we drove down to Oregon to visit Lisa's family. I wanted to see my little granddaughters dressed up for Halloween. Lisa and her friend Sally (in the picture below) planned a theme for costumes. Alice in Wonderland. Lisa and Sally 'sewed' the costumes and did a fantastic job! :o)

This is Lisa's friend Sally and her two little boys. She made the costumes, the Mad Hatter and the White Rabbit. They were so cute. Before the church Trick or Trunk they met a Jordan's parents and set up a little 'tea party' atmosphere with a little table and chairs and tea set and took pictures. I hope Lisa posts soon. I didn't see the tea party set up. I met them at church. I saw some of Lisa's pictures they took and they were so cute!

The gal on the left is Lisa's friend Sally. LaRue is dressed as Alice in Wonderland and Tillie is the Queen of Hearts. She was soooo thrilled to be wearing 'lipstick'. When I met them at church Tillie ran up to me and was sooo excited, 'Grandma, I'm wearing lipstick!' She will be '4' in about two weeks.

Here is Tillie. I love her costume!

This is Adelaide with her daddy, Jordan. She was dressed as the Cheshire cat. I loved the tail! It was soft and puffy! Adelaide is 18 mos. She was so excited with all the things happening!

LaRue as Alice and she was adorable! Another view of the Cheshire cat!

Adelaide 'would NOT' look up and get her picture taken. I tried but no go!

Tillie, LaRue and Adelaide.

Lisa did such an outstanding job on those costumes! I thought the girls were so darn cute! ♥

Just one more ...

In the previous post I posted about Kirsten's blankets wearing out and sewing her two new ones. My girls know how much 'pink' is in Kirsten's clothing, etc. So the first two blankets I sewed how 'zero' pink in them! I made her 'one more' blanket and it 'IS PINK!' It's so cute!

Doesn't this picture above scream 'Do Not Disturb!' Ha! Ha! Ha! She is giving me that 'not again with the camera' look. She was tired and wanted to nap!

I took this picture yesterday just after I finished sewing the blanket and she loved it!

I love this blanket! It's so cute! It has a plaid backing and the front has little green frogs on a broad pink plaid. Both sides are flannel. It's so soft just like the other two I made her. That's it for sewing blankets. I replaced 3 worn out blankets with 3 'new' blankets. Kirsten loves all three! :o)

I couldn't resist posting this picture of Adelaide. I took this picture of her this past August when Lisa was here visiting with her three sweet little girls. I twisted Adelaide's hair to look like a cupie doll. I love her kissy bow mouth too!

I rarely post pictures of dad. He was cleaning out our master bath sink. It was draining slowly due to 'hair'.

After he was done here he cleaned the guest bathroom sink. He didn't find much in the drain. I had cleaned it out two months prior and pulled out a mouse size ball of hair! Yuck! It was sweet of him to look at the sink though!

Sew...in with the new and out with the old!

Kirsten has used these blankets for about 20 years. You might say that they have been 'worn out' in loving service.

The print in the above picture is very faded. I wouldn't venture a guess at how many times these blankets have been washed over 20 years! The print on the inside is a very faded Strawberry Shortcake. I can hold these blankets up to the light and see my hand behind the blanket!

These are a few showing the wear. It's hard to see the holes but they are there! Kirsten drools a lot and I put these under her head at night so the bedding doesn't get soaked. I've even resorted to putting chuck pads under them because the drool soaks right through!

Tattered and time worn!

Soon to be permanently retired!

I made her two new flannel, both sides, blankets with a light weight batting in between. They are so soft. They washed up so nice. I didn't put any fancy trim on the edges. This one is a pretty blue with yellow backing.

This one is a pastel aqua with same color of backing.

I showed them to Kirsten and softly rubbed her cheeks on them and she 'smiled' really big! I do believe she'll enjoy these new softer blankets!

Another item I made for her are two new mitts. They are the two pretty colored puffy ones on the left. I made the other three two or three years ago. I made them so she wouldn't hit her head. They are too thin and no longer work.

You can see that these new ones look like boxing gloves! Why? Kirsten makes a fist and bangs the top of her head 'very hard'. I think she does that because she has seizures and I think they give her pre-headache pain before the clusters start.

Neil said they are heavy. I stuffed them with batting. Kirsten had surgery a week ago and while in the hospital she really hammered her head the morning we were preparing to leave for home. I tried my best to keep her from slugging herself. I forgot the old mitts at home, though they didn't do much good. She gave herself a concussion and had one eye much bigger than the other one and it took an hour for it to return to normal! Thus, new mitts as soon as I got time. I made them and she no longer hits herself effectively! It's too much of an effort to slug heself with the new boxing gloves! :o)

Kirsten's surgery - Generator #4

Model 102 is the device Dr. Morris removed and it was either model 103 or 104 he put in her chest. Usually they tell me and it's written on the box it came out of. This time the box only showed the 'batch number.' The 102 model is the size of a stop watch. The new one is the size of a postage stamp, maybe a centimeter or two larger, that's one-third smaller than her old one! If you look closely at the bottom two images, 103/104, the magnet you swipe across the top of the generator is almost the same size of the generator. If you look at the top image, 102, you can see a significant increase in size of the device under the magnet.

This is Kirsten hours before her surgery. She was in a really good mood.

This was taken right after the first picture above. I should have taken a picture after they gave her the Vancomycin, super strong antibiotic. When you are putting a foreign object in the body they use the BIG GUN antibiotic. This time it caused Kirsten to break out in a red itchy rash, not hives, and she was super irritated from it! They had to turn off the IV and her anesthesiologist said he'd give her Benadryl and finish the Vancomycin in O.R. Other than that side effect Kirsten did great! She does NOT like shots or staying in the hospital. I had explained to Kirsten that she needed a new (we call it a battery rather than a generator) battery because her old one was no good anymore and a new one would help make her seizures a lot better. I also told her that her Dr. would take good care of her and that her family loved her and was praying for her. Kirsten had a great attitude and was happy!

She woke up from surgery and never had to have any pain medication. I honestly believe that through our fasting and prayers that the Lord blesses Kirsten and comforts her so she does not feel surgery pain and have to take drugs. What a wonderful blessing!

I forgot to take pictures of Kirsten when she got back to her hospital room. I had a few things on my mind! Oops! So I took this last night. We got home around 11:30am and she was happy to be home!

I took this picture this morning. She is feeling good and when she woke up she was smiling. Kirsten has the most wonderful heart warming and loving smiles. She lights up the room and our lives! We've given her lots of hugs and kisses from all of you! Thank you so much for your faith and prayers! ♥