Front Page

It's not every day you see your husband on the cover of a magazine, but that's what happened this month.  OU Medicine featured an article on Joel's Survivorship Clinic at OU Children's Hospital.

 If you know Joel you know it's absolutely no surprise that he became a Pediatrician.  He prefers kids to adults any day of the week.  My kids have no idea just how lucky they are to have him as their father. 

Gift Deadlines

There's nothing quite like a deadline to get the creative juices flowing.  In my case, Christmas was looming ever closer, and I still had one more quilt to make.  It also needed to be mailed, so that made it even more pressing.

 It's been a while since I whipped out a quilt in under 24 hours, but it happened this past week.  I started the quilt top after the kiddos went to bed, and got the blocks pieced before bed.  I got the kiddos off to school and then pieced the quilt top together.  Luckily, Little Guy was happy to read books next to me while I sewed. 

I layered and quilted it while he took his nap, and then we watched a couple of episodes of The Voice while I hand-stitched the binding.  Wahoo!

This quilt is actually for my nephew who will be making his debut in February.  My sister is having her second child.  It got delivered on Saturday, so it made it there with a couple of days to spare before Christmas.  Phew!

Christmas Stories

For our last Sunday together with the Young Women this year, all of the leaders shared a Christmas story or poem.  I shared "The Legend of the Candy Cane." 

 At the end, each girl was given a personalized journal to use in class.  It has this upcoming year's theme on each of them: If ye love me, keep my commandments (John 14:15)

Cookie Exchange

I think I'm up to 9 years of doing a holiday cookie exchange, but I've kind of lost track.  It's always fun to get together to eat cookies and then leave with more cookies.  This year I decided to do two cookies that are classics but with a twist. 

1- Pumpkin Snickerdoodles:

 2- Butterscotch Pretzel Chocolate Chip Cookies:

 I never get pictures during the party, but this year I got one! 

Minkiness

It's not really a word, but if it were I think "minkiness" would describe something that's ultra warm and soft and fuzzy.  I love Minky fabric, but it's harder to sew with and always makes me a it nervous, but this time around it was just making blankets, so it wasn't too bad.

I had a friend who asked someone to make 2 crib-sized minky blankets for her.  It was a paid job, but after a full year the lady still hadn't made them, so my friend asked if I wouldn't mind making them for her.  Their family LOVES anything OU, so I'm pretty sure the grandbabies are going to love them as well. 

Beehive Love

I have one of the best callings at church.  I get to work with the youth.  I'm over the 12 and 13 girls and I have the best girls!  They're wonderful.  We've had a girl turn 12 each month for the last three months in a row, so right before they turn 12 we "kidnap" them for our class activity. 

We also make a big deal of pulling them out of Primary.  I may have had a bit too much fun with glitter glue when making that crown, but it was worth the look on her face as all of the Young Women and their leaders entered the Primary room to get Evie.

Ari turns 12 at the end of the month, but we kidnapped her tonight and made spray drip art.

Even Sister Wade tried her hand at some art.

These girls are seriously adorable!

 Last week we had our White Elephant Christmas party.  We served the girls dinner while we planned next year's activities and lesson topics.  For the White Elephant gift that had to make something or re-gift something that was already in their home.  They weren't allowed to go buy anything.  Some of the gifts were really creative.

Catching Up

We've had a bit of a crazy week, so I'm playing catch up in just about every area of my life.  For posterity's sake, I'm throwing a bunch of phone pictures on here, so I can remember simple moments that mean something to me.

I love these two, beautiful women.  Bernadette (on the right) has become one of my favorite people.  She's amazing!  She is such a strong woman of faith and I was so sad when she and her family moved to Houston a couple of weeks ago.  This was at her farewell party.  Mercedes, who happens to be 99 years young, showed up matching Bernadette.  It was picture perfect!  Mercedes composes music by ear and still performs at church.  She also happens to have a very winning personality.

Little Guy saw snow for the first time this season and wanted to know what it felt like.  He was happy about about 2 minutes and then when he realized it was rather cold on his fingers he became decidedly less enamored with the white stuff.

 He makes me laugh with his precocious personality.  He likes to dress himself.  It doesn't matter if it's sunny and dry outside, his rain boots and random costumes come in handy.

Little Guy does not like to play by himself.  He's usually somehow connected to me the entire time his siblings are gone at school.  If I need to be at the computer then he's in my lap.  If I'm talking to someone he's hanging on my leg.  If I even think about trying to look at my phone he places himself between the book and the phone.  He likes to "read" beside me when I'm reading.  When I need to work on a sewing project he creates his own reading corner next to me.

The last picture is from when my parents were visiting.  My dad wanted to go to the doughnut shop that everyone raves about in Guthrie.  We came back from Missy's Donuts and Dad made his feelings very clear about his purchases:

Directional Stitches

I barely got my do.Good Stitches quilt block done in time for November.  We were asked to make a scrappy arrow in either dark greens or blues.  This is my arrow: