Dusting off the sewing machine

This past Christmas, I decided I wanted to try to make more of the gifts I gave instead of buy them. The result was about 25% homemade because I quickly learned that buying something and making something take drastically different amounts of time. There is only so much you can do when you are a procrastinator like me.

After learning to do some basic sewing this past summer, I decided to attempt this Dish Towel Tote Tutorial. It turned out to be fairly easy and I was pleased with the result. The only problem I had is that you need more than the 5/8 yard of fusible interfacing - a yard would probably be best. I had never worked with fusible interfacing before and it was a little bit ornery. I also only used a dish towel on one of the totes I made because there wasn't a large selection of dish towels to choose from. Instead, I used two pieces of 5/8 yard fabric.

Without further ado, the totes:

These were gifts to my sister-in-laws, Kelly & Keri:

I follow the blog, Sew, Mama, Sew, in my reader, and it has so many great ideas and tutorials. All their posts in December about made my brain explode with endless possibilities. I think I want to try this fabric basket next, but we'll see - maybe in 3 months when I dust the sewing machine off again!

Finally, a few more shots from the evening. Garet is so creative and had the kids play this game:

Kara took her turn with the big girls in Ring-Around-The-Rosy. She thought she was the greatest thing ever:

The Christmas Sweater

In case you missed it in the previous post, Levi spelled his name "Evil"...several people told me that they hadn't noticed, but that is why we found it so comical.

Anyway, back to this post. When I was working full time, a staple in my day was listening to the Glenn Beck Program - I loved it. Unfortunately, my life now does now allow me to listen to a 3 hour radio show, but I still have some time to read. Glenn wrote a book called the Christmas Sweater and I picked it up thinking it would be a nice little feel-good holiday book full of Glenn's humor.

**Minor Spoiler Alert**

Not long into the book, I quickly figured out that this book was not exactly a happy one. The story is about a little boy who loses his father to cancer and then his mother to a car wreck. I know that children are supposed to bury their parents, but the boy in the book buries them at 10 and 12. The whole premise of the book is how this boy deals with his new life without parents. I think I started crying on page 10 and never stopped.

What got to me so much was thinking about Levi and Kara growing up without Garet or I. They are so young right now and I know at this point in their lives that they would have very few memories of us. That thought just tore me up!

While I was contemplating all these things, we received word that a close family friend was near death. He has 3 boys with the youngest being twelve (the same age as the kid in the book). Our friend passed away shortly after Christmas and the hardest part of the funeral for me was seeing the boys. All the words from the book just kept flooding back into my mind and I just wanted to scoop them up, hug them, and tell them it would be OK. (I consider them my "babies" anyway - I babysat them for close to 10 years and our families did countless things together over the years. The middle child was our ring bearer and Garet said he officially felt old when he could talk to him at eye level!)

Despite the tears over the holidays, the events did cause me to give a few more hugs, say a few more "I love you's" and spend some more time with the kids. I know that I can't control the future (thankfully God has that one covered so I don't have to worry about it!), but I can choose to be more purposeful in how I spend my time.

Levi wrote his name today!

Unfortunately, he got the letters out of order - is he trying to tell us something? He told us that he had written his name, so we were shocked when we saw what he had done! Up to this point his "writing his name" had consisted of an "L" and an "I". Garet had worked with him on the "E", but we had never attempted the "V". He learned it somewhere! Regardless, I'm so proud! Now, we just need to work on the order....

"Wrapping" at Christmas

We had two kinds of "wrapping" coming out of our house this season. First, the kids helped me wrap Garet's gift - a wonderful masterpiece: Second, Garet "wrapping" with his Shepard's Crew:

The second picture is a bit blurry, but they were hilarious! The kids in children's church thought they were great (and I did too!).

A Merry Little Christmas Vacation

Last Thursday, we took a very spur of the moment mini-vacation up to the Opryland Hotel in Nashville. I consider my love language to be "vacations", so it was huge that Garet wanted to travel after he had been gone so much. It was an absolutely perfect two days.

We started the day off with ICE. Having been warned that it was cold, we came prepared. This place was amazing and so creative!

The theme of the ice sculptures was "The Grinch that Stole Christmas":Levi loved this little archway made just for him. We had to walk through it several times:Kara is my warm-bodied child...she loves the cold, so this place was perfect for her. She walked around with this goofy-grin the entire time:The highlight of the exhibit are two ice slides (thus the reason for the blue jackets). Here I am coming down the slide. Wheeeee:

We took Kara up to the top so we could slide down with her, however, it was only one at a time. Against my better judgement, I let her slide down it alone. She, of course, loved it - I only wish we had a picture of it!

After ICE, we went back to the hotel to meet our friends Joshua & Kimberly for dinner. Kimberly blogged about it here (I love the picture she has of the boys walking together!). We discovered that our Sit-N-Stand is good for 3 children:

Noah & Levi picked up where they had left off when Noah moved and we had a good time seeing them again.

We spent the rest of the evening and the next morning walking around the hotel. If you have never been to the Opryland Hotel at Christmas, I highly recommend you add it to your list. We had been several times before, but this was my first overnight stay - LOVED IT!

Finally, no trip to Nashville is complete without a visit to OpryMills! It was especially great, because Garet's sister and kids were able to come by and have lunch. Cousins!!!
This was just the perfect get-away our family needed before the Christmas rush. Merry Christmas, everyone!

We are (Rockstar) Family

I was thrilled when they pulled out Rockband at Garet's work party last week. I have been wanting to play for some time after Garet had played with his co-workers on travel. Levi jumped right into the action: This picture cracks me up with his leg out like that. He looks like such a rockstar:
Garet had the patience to play along with Levi:

The Fields Family Four with backup from Brad and Mitch:

I quickly learned that I was much better on vocals than I was on the drums:

Levi working double-duty:

I had the best time with this game - I can't wait to play it again!!!

I included this picture because Kara is sitting in the box of the "Dirty Santa" gift I won. The contents? A CAT! Seriously, Owen brought his CAT to the party. Thankfully, he was gracious enough to steal it back. If you know me, you know I am not an animal fan and cats make me sneeze. It was pretty funny though.

**Special thanks to Judy for taking pictures of our family on our "non-SLR" camera :).

All Aboard the Choo-Choo Train

Last weekend, my parents treated us to a little train ride put on here locally. Santa rides along and talks to all the children. Levi absolutely loved the whole experience and literally talked non-stop the entire time. You name it, he talked about it. I did enjoy watching his excitement though.

The train car was set-up like an old-timey train:
Here is Levi showing his excitement and telling mom one of the many things he saw outside. Kara was just enjoying the ride:

No attempting having Santa hold the kids this time. I felt like a giant next to him:

This is probably one of my favorite pictures of the year. Levi refused to tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas, but when the conductor came around to take up the tickets, Levi went right up to him for a picture and told him what he wanted for Christmas. I need to send this to the train station:

Kara clapping away as the train chugged along:

The train ride lasted about 40 minutes and was the perfect length of time for the kids. If you are in the area, I highly recommend it!

I just realized that Garet didn't make it in any of the pictures, but he was there!

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Supper with the Big Man

A few weeks ago, we went to eat "Supper with Santa". Garet was out of town, but thankfully my parents were there to help out. When Santa got to our table, it was as expected....Levi wasn't too keen about the big man (specifically the beard) and Kara screamed. Kara did a little better with Santa's Granny, although still no smiles:
Not the best picture, but it reminds me of my life right now:

After a supper of pizza, salad and a cookie, we headed over to Santa's Village. Every December, the Constitution Hall Park transforms into a little snow village - it is so cute! Here are my parents with the kids in the sleigh:

Levi writing his letter to Santa. It, of course, had the one item we have heard about over and over this season....a flying Dinaco McQueen:

Mailing the letter to Santa:

Decorating a cookie in the kitchen:

Every little bit, they turn on a snow machine. The kids LOVED it:

I thought this was a cute picture of the kids in the craft room at the Village: