A Candyland Night

Our little darlings are here for the night and we're feeling blessed to know that we will start the New Year out seeing their beautiful smiles and hear their laughter. It's all things beautiful wrapped up and called grandchildren! After a dinner of french dips (and potato chip beef sandwiches for Jaiden) we played three rousing games of Candyland with Jaiden. Each one of us won a game! How's that for equality, ha. Then spent some time with the I SPY book before Jaiden showed her grandpa she could read a book to him called I'll Teach My Dog a Lot of Words. Hope you each enjoyed a happy ritual, a peaceful evening or a raucous night on the town. Until next year............................

Party Bag!

It's a grab and go bag renamed Party Bag since our Pat Sloan yahoo group are making these today and tomorrow! Isn't it cute? I put the dishrag I'm working on (knitting) into it and it's just perfect in size for that or socks. I have to tell you though my daughter and I should not have jumped ahead on our own. This was a project of major goofs and lots of laughs for such a simple bag, ROFLOL! Off to work more in my sewing room. Decided to clean out the closet as I'd been shoving stuff in there to the point I couldn't get the door open, ha. I'll try to post later to end the year with a message of some kind.

Pumpkin Cake is YUMMMMMMMYYYY!!!!

Pumpkin pie is my all time favorite over the holidays starting in October with Halloween, ha. However I have to tell you this recipe far surpasses pumpkin pie in my minds eye so move over pumpkin pie and let's have cake!!

Pumpkin Cake

1 large 29oz can pumpkin

1 1/2 cups sugar

5 beaten eggs

13 oz can evaporated milk

1T pumpkin pie spice

2 cubes melted butter

2 cups sliced almonds

1 box moist white cake mix

Mix first 5 ingredients together and pour into a 13 x 9 inch glass pan.

Sprinkle the cake mix on top (I sifted it over the top to rid it of lumps)

Sprinkle the almonds over the top

Pour the melted butter over the top being sure to cover all the nuts

Bake at 300 degrees for 2 hours

Cool and serve with whipped cream topping

DELICIOUS!!!

Ta Da...............

Yippeee, the diaper bag for Aime is finished! This was one of the unfinished projects given for Christmas, ha. It has 2 bottle pockets and 2 other large pockets for diapers and such. Then a nice roomy interior for misc. Both girls came over today and we had a girls sewing day without any children. It was great fun and no distractions. Aime worked on her apron, Jennifer made a baby quilt and I plugged along on the diaper bag. Off to eat a banana split, yum. Tomorrow I will post a new recipe for you all to try in the new year!

A little gift show

Thought I'd share a few of the little things I did manage to make as gifts this year. I didn't take a picture of the knitted dish cloths, haha. But here are the wool applique pin cushions I made the girls. They are filled with crushed walnut shells.

So now I see that I didn't snap a picture of the cloth books I sewed for my grandsons. They turned out cute and know my granddaughter will have fun learning to read them to the boys. Here are the stockings I made for Aime, Ted and Ethan. Jaiden got hers last year.

There's a new diaper bag in process for Aime which I'll share when it's completed but here are the boys in their little hats I knit. Ethan still needs the leaf and pea pod attached to his. The "grown up" boys each got a girlie pillow case to "drool" on, LOL!

That's it for now folks, off to make a raspberry mocha, yum yum.

The Story

YES! The kids bought us a Magellan for Christmas! When they hand us the present every one of them groan and say "here's the ruined present! You ruined it because you shopped for yourselves before Christmas and you're always telling us not to do that!" HUH? Gene and I looked at each other and couldn't figure out what they could possibly be talking about. We didn't exchange gifts this year claiming the new camera as our anniversary/xmas gift so we were baffled what was going on. Welllllllllllllllllllll, turns out they had bought us this fabulous GPS for our car when I posted to my blog I'd not only bought a new Blackberry but signed up for Verizon Navigation, LOL. I guess the phone calls started flying between them. We are thrilled with our gift and so excited to start using it. I have to PAY for the navigator on my phone and I'll be cancelling that now, ha. This can go in either car as well as our RV and is going to be so kewl!! Hey, it gave them all something to grumble and moan about for weeks ahead of time, LOL. They are silly to have thought we wouldn't need or want this when it is the perfect gift to both of us. OH, and here's the picture of Jennifer on Christmas since she's whining nobody got a shot to see how GOOD she looks now that she is svelte and shapely. I am soooooooooooooooooooooooo proud of her!!!! More stories to come...........................

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh, what a wonderful day with my family. It was looking like we weren't all going to be together this year because of the snow. Aime, her hubby and the kids have been trapped and unable to get their car out and up the hill. More snow was expected last night which we didn't get thank goodness. So first thing this morning our son in law, Tim, brought daughter, granddaughter and great grandson over with chains on his truck. They then proceeded to get our long steep driveway cleared of snow!!! Now even we can get out if we need to. Last night we couldn't go celebrate Christmas Eve at Aime's as we wouldn't be able to get up their hill either nor back up our own driveway if we got down in one piece, LOL. Once the driveway was clear Tim took off for Aime, her husband and the 2 grandchildren. What a day of gratitude and joy for the season, for the love of family and the magic children bring to Christmas. I loaded up a couple pictures and where is Jennifer you might ask? Busy playing Santa, handing out presents and taking photos. I only got one of her and she'd kill me if I put it up so we'll just do without, ROFLOL! Temperatures are warming up now, my leg is much improved from the thrombophlebitis and I hope to return to work on Tuesday. Tonight we're blessed to have Jaiden and Ethan spending the night so I better turn in as they'll be up bright and early, probably before the sun even rises! I have a few things to share about our Christmas but they will have to wait for another day. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.