Sharing Christmas photos

Finally got a chance to download some photos of the holidays in CT.... enjoy.

 First fire in the fireplace in years...... Now all we need is the glass doors, so we can close it at night.

 Three of my favorite people...daughter, Amber and son Zachary, and Malakai

Can this family photo ever get taken without some of us fooling around?

 Probably not.

Great shot of Malakai and Anaka playing.

Ompah and Papa

Emma and Jason opening our "dinner and a movie" (they got movie tickets with the pizza stone)

 Morgan in her new pjs... surveying the other gifts.

 Julie, Amber and Ann in kitchen...hanging out before dinner.

 Hamming for the photographer....

 Okay ... on to my brother, Bill's house for Christmas Eve....

 Here is my mom and her friend, Amby.

Hmmm..... I'm not sure I have enough pie on this plate.... 

And here's the real dessert table. Have a little milk with that, Bill...

Cousins get to catch up with each other.... Scott,(future son-in-law), Leslie and Kathy.

 What's your favorite present Kai....? well, Grammaw, my scooter, but I need my cookie (in hand) and my water.

Don't you even doubt I busted a gut, when he came in the den one morning and wanted to show me his 'stuff' (tucked in his pants). It was the hat and glasses that had me in stitches!

 Come on, Grammaw, take my picture.....

 Isn't he just the cutest???

This was one of our trees..... It was so crammed in the dining room, we couldn't be in there to open presents. The living room gets too crowded with the bed for Les and Scott, so we put up the spiral one in there, and this year, we tried this in the dining room. (Last year for that thought).

Change of Plans--sewing!

Yikes! Well, the quilt in the last post never even got touched...Why, you ask? Because I couldn't find it!! I may have left it at church or it's in another bag brought home from the last meeting, but I wasn't wasting time looking for it, when there are so many other things to do up there.

First things first, ... I needed to de-Christmastize the room; get the box of tags and ribbons boxed up, store the wrapping paper, put away the leftover gifts --they'll be used for someone's birthday or such-(I always buy more than I need in case of emergency) and...well, what do we have here?...A few pieces of clothing that needed mending/repairing. I can do that quickly! (And I did)

The table looks much better than it did, but it still has a long way to go.

Okay, I found a couple of quilts, already tied needing to have binding made/found etc. (I'll put those aside).

Ah! I keep moving this partial heartstring block, out of my way(the one on the left)... why don't I just finish it. Done! (Ok, it's done, but not used in a quilt, you say...not a problem. We have other HS blocks at church to be joined at some point. It will go there and be joined with others like it.)

 Here are the two that needed to have bindings pick out, put together and sewn on them. They have it just at the pinned over, then my mom can hand sew them to the finish (she' loves that part). The one on the left (Blueberry HS) is going to a lady at church who has cancer, the one on the right (Easter Eggs) has no home yet, but it's always good for a child.

This is the pillowcase that never got made for Christmas (I use them to give to the grandkids and put their birthday/Christmas gifts in...). This will go into the stock pile (of 1). I have to make 10 a year, but in a few more years I'll add another to the list (Lee's son Jason and wife Emma are expecting, but the pillowcases only start coming when the grandkids are in their own bed).

This is the design wall in my room at the end of the day... I added some solid brown to two sides of the leftover blocks from Shattered Tiles and cut them to 12.5". Then I threw a few things up on the design wall to piece together for a backing. This is for the quilt "Shattered Italian Tiles". The medallion at the bottom is just a test run of something else, but I like it.

I also added some side borders to my Black Rose Panel quilt (not photo-ed yet) and it made a great quilt top.

Damn, do I feel great!!

In all this producing, I also started saving bags of crumbs (I had a few small bags that I consolidated into one) and strings to donate to my hearstring quilt project group (a yahoo group).

Aftermath.....

Well, the house is finally quiet...
Daughter Julie and son Kai are off to visit friends before the big snow storm hits later today/tonight/tomorrow, ... Papa is watching tv (probably snoozing) from the couch, ... and I mean to get my piles of papers that I never get to organize, organized/tossed out/taken care of, ... and bills paid to the end of the year.

Then, when no one is here to interrupt me (I'm hoping the kids are still gone), I intend to attack the sewing room!!!! Yes, and maybe quilt!

I do have a top that was hurridly 'bordered', before it was squared (oops!), so maybe I can rip that apart and square up, in front of a good movie-- one that I can't watch with a 4 yr old in tow....

I used the sewing room as Santa's wrapping station and it's in need of a good going-through before it serves it's purpose as a sewing room again. (Although I did sneak up there and take the 7" square pieces of fleece (corners cut off from a tied blanket for GS,Kai) and made him two blanket/sleeping bags for his Zhu-Zhu pets this morning.

Merry Christmas to all....

We'll be heading out later to my brother, Bill's house for the holiday. I still have wrapping to do, but my appetizer is done and in the frig. Really should get the house cleaned as Leslie and Scott are coming to stay the night. They'll open up gifts and then leave to have breakfast with his folks around 10am.  I'll add photos as I can.

Great news!!!!

In all the panic of Kai, I forgot to blog about the best gift card we got this year!

Lee and I have 6 kids, collectively, of which 3 are married and one to-be. Of those kids, I have 5 grandchildren, but one couple has not had any (and I truely didn't expect them to have any). This couple tends to give us restaurant gift cards/movie passes and we do the same with them. I think it's getting to the point where we're waiting for the year we give each other the same restaurant (we've done it before), then we'll go with each other.

Well, this year they gave us our card at Lee's oldest's Christmas party (last Sat), and when I opened the little envelope, the card's front had this on it..."6<>26<>11". The <> is a rinestone. It puzzled me only because my oldest is getting married on the 24th.,,, but of July. Still puzzled, I opened the flap to see the most precious wallet-sized ultrasound picture!!!! All I could do was inhale sharply....and almost forgot to exhale, until someone else (other gramma), yelled! Wheeeee, yippee!

Second best gift..... after thirteen yrs of not being able to have my car even 'breathe in ' the air in the over-sized two-car garage, I now have a space in the garage for MY car. (We've always had antique car(s) in there, but since he sold the 1960 Falcon, the 1954 Ford Customline... I share the space with the 1948 Willy's

Night terrors in a 4 yr old...

It's a reasonable time now, (5:50am.., well, maybe not for some), but I've been up since 1:10am  with my grandson, Kai as he's dealt with the struggles of night terrors and hallucinating. He's been diagnosed with Reactive attachment disorder (RAD) and impulse control issues (slight hint of ADHD) and was recently put on medication (Concerta) for it. As in yesterday evening. They told my daughter, Julie (who still lives with us) that he may have some symptoms of sleeplessness. Well, I gotta say (pardon my language, but I've had 2 hrs sleep), No shit, Sherlock!! I 'felt him leave my bedroom and head down to the first floor. I followed. The back door was wide open, he was talking about being afraid to go back to bed (they sleep in the basement), so tucked him in with us in our bed. He kept fidgeting and lifting his head up. Since Lee is a light sleeper, I took him downstairs to tuck him in and lay with him.

Then the 'sky opened up' and all he did for 5 hrs was talk about 'bats coming out of the hole', and 'do you see those eyes, Gramma?'... "There is a cow over there (pointing to the cellar window) and he's blocking our way. He's going into space."...." this story is just coming out of my brains!"... "Did you see that? There was a ghost flying by!!"... "But I caught him, See Gramma, he's sitting in my hand."... There's a crab/spiders on my leg/in my bed/ on my hair!! Get him off!!!"... and so on. He would sit up, and then lay down for seconds, then "Did you see that spider? There is his shadow!"...By 5am, he had all his clothes off and his mom was talking to the doctor on call (but he still wouldn't sit down in his bed- he was standing there). She is now at the Manchester ER hoping to have them tell her what she can do for it (was it a reaction? a side effect? a poisoning of his system?...).

Now how do I get through the rest of today. Probably with a lot of coffee...Pray for us all.
****
Update on Kai,.... doctor said to cut pill in half and give to him on Christmas eve (I say go one more day since we're going out that evening- in case we have a bad episode), and Christmas day and see how he is on Sunday. If fine, then give full dose on Sunday and after that. Julie wants to only give 1/2 dose all week then see how he is. (He was fed crackers and orange juice in ER, then allowed both of them to get some sleep before discharge from hosp). He still talks about the crabs/spiders in bed, but I sang him to sleep with Christmas carols and stories of Goldilocks.

Can I sneak in a sewing weekend?

Yes, I know it's close to Christmas and I should be buying/wrapping gifts, but there has been a 'silver lining' that came in with this dark cloud at our house...MY SATURDAYS ARE FREE!!!

If you read my last post, my 24-yr daughter (who lives with us, along with her 4 yr old son) lost her job at a veterinarian hospital. I used to give up my Sats. to watch her my grandson and that was okay (I actually told her that I'd give her one day of the weekend to watch him for work- it just ended up being Sat almost always), but I guess, since I spend the morning at church on Sundays , I really ended up with a half day for ME on the weekends. And at this time of year, my busy time, that pretty much sucks, since I can't get a lot done for me. He's very active (has issues with ADHD and impulse control), so I spend most of the time loving him and having fun (yes, I'm the entertainment committee).

But NOWWwwwww, I'm free!
...to sew
....and soon I'll have a shortened work schedule (maybe no Fridays), so that's even more time to sew. YEA!

Soon,... very soon, my hubby will be off to work (works every three Sats), and daughter and son will be off to an annual Christmas party at a social club in town, and I'll be alone. Yeah,...alone. I have so many things to do, but I should do the things I can when they aren't around. Like wrap my husband's present (I got a ...well, I can't write it here since he's sitting next to me on his computer), and a few other things I've gotten. Then I can see where I am with buying. I also have to make 3 more pillowcases (I use these for gift wrapping for my grandkids presents). I need to pick out fabric for them and I should call and ask them what they want; dogs, cats, fairies, cars, etc.

I should just make the list here, then cross it off as I go..
1. Wrap gifts already bought
2. Buy/mail MIL's giftcard
3. grocery shop (sometime this weekend)--need milk
4. make and add label to quilt for Darrell
5. write letter to go with quilt with correct spelling of name
6. write letter to go with Betty B's quilt
7. make 3 pillowcases... made two
8. make purple binding for Easter egg quilt
9.buy blue fabric for blueberry quilt
10. Make binding for Blueberry quilt
11. go see if DIL needs help moving into new house(rental)
12. go to http://www.theknot.com/ site to check out what daughter needs for wedding.
13. rip out borders on lasagna quilt that it wicked off-skewed
14 Write to Anna with records keeping of PBPQ; Betty, Darrell, Erk
15. Contact Lelia for delivery info for Erik's quilt --quilt delivered
16. Write annual report for St Mary's- PBPQ
17. Write announcement of upcoming quilting event and send to Noreen for newsletter.
18. ...
I think that's it.

If you wish to see some of the projects that I may be working on at home, this blog is where I posted the photos....(Boy, see how many are getting done?....)

not a good day....Julie

Well, my daughter just informed me she may be losing her job on Thurs....her boss is an idiot, but that's besides the point. Says she can't do her job without others helping her out (then why did they give her a promotion, and raise a month or so ago?)...AND he's offering her a 'good recommendation' if she wants to transfer to the E Hartford branch (veterinary clinic) or she can be 'let go'...(How does that work? You thought she was worth a 'good recomendation', but she doesn't do her work well???? As a boss, I even know that doesn't really make sense!).... I say, take the 'good recommendation, tell him he'll have to 'fire you, get a pink clip and collect until you find another job. Call all the people (car payment, school loan, ins.... those you'd owe money to) and arrange payments considering your circumstances. Better to approach them, then repo the car.

She really has gotten through life the hard way. Mostly by her choices, but she must look for every rough road!

Let's hope she doesn't:
1. lose her car (due to lack of $$ to make payments),
2. lose her insurance on that car (ditto)
3. lose her patience with her son (and the rest of us),
4. lose her mind.... (or ,... maybe that's ME).

Maybe it's like Elizabeth Edwards (RIP) says... that you will find that the winds around you will change often in your life. You just have to remember to adjust your sails. Keep moving forward....everything that comes to mind...
This could be a blessing in disguise, this will be something you learn from, it's actually a blessing for me. I now get my Sat.s back...(I was always babysitting Malakai on Sat.s).

ps... her 'good recommendation' that was typed up, sounded more like a work 'verification' to me...and yes, she's done.