Show and Tell Friday...

I am participating in Show and Tell Friday over at Kelli's place today.

I am sharing some of my favorite Christmas gifts I received this past Christmas. Anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE coffee. My husband bought me this sweet cream and sugar set to go next to my coffee maker. I love the inspirational phrases on them!

He also bought me the salt and pepper set from the same line. Again, such wonderful words and phrases adorn these little vessels.

And for good measure, he bought me a plate from the line to display in my plate rack on my counter....it says "Faith is Your Companion"
It worked so perfectly to add these to our kitchen as they fit right in with the decor of creams, browns, and iron work. I was so excited to open these little gifts!

Thanks for taking a look. Go on over to Kelli's place to check out more Show and Tell postings.

Lost Again!

"When are we?"

Last night was a much anticipated night of TV greatness! Lost is back after its many month hiatus! I must say as much as I hate waiting between seasons, I do like how they play all the episodes back to back this way without re-runs...it is easier to keep up!

We were buzzing with excitement around here and we even had a Lost themed dinner last night! I found some cute Dharma Labels online to have our food looking like it had just been dropped on the island.

I thought the two-hour premiere was greatness! I loved that they jumped right in and answered some questions and solidified the idea that time travel is part of the plot. I read a commentary this morning that I enjoyed. There are some interesting points in there.

Here is another interesting commentary for you. I do have to make a disclaimer that I have not read all of the comments on these commentaries so am not sure if there is any profanity or dim- wittiness in them so read comments on them at your own risk. I do know the commentaries themselves are clean.

Something that struck me as odd and probably important was when Sawyer injured his toe. He has run around the island barefoot for weeks now but the writers decided to center in on him injuring his little pinky toe and pulling an item out of it...I think that the oddity of it has to be significant!

I hope all you other Losties enjoyed! It looks to be an eventful fifth season and I can't wait!




*Lost Poster Image courtesy of Wikipedia

*Video courtesy of CharmedCharlie21 on YouTube

Daisy Afghan WIP Update...

I have one last daisy square to make and then I will have all my squares completed for the Princess's afghan! You can read about it here and here. I taught myself to crochet back in the Fall and have been working on squares as time allows since then. I am excited to see the finished product and have my daughter snuggle up under it! Her room is a soft pink and sage green garden type theme. She has a Victorian Crazy Quilt as her bedding that is made up of different gingham, floral, and daisy fabrics. I think the afghan I am making her will fit in quite nicely.

Here are some of my squares stacked up: Here is the point I was at last week with just a few more squares to go! I laid it out to see what it was going to look like:

After I finish my one last daisy square, I will whip them all together by rows and then whip all the rows together into the afghan. I am going to put a few borders around the finished afghan to pull it together and then a final border of a crocheted ruffle to girlie it up even more!

Oh, and just to share a bit of excitement we had. School was out on Monday so the kids and I had great plans to organize the play room (it is in bad shape). We ran out for some bins to do some sorting and when we got back home the smoke alarms were going off! After deciding that there was no fire and after calling my neighbors to make sure they did not see any smoke rising from the house from a vantage that perhaps I could not appreciate, I was at a loss as of what to do. My DH was so helpful. I called him at work and he says, "Hmm, well, open a few windows and turn on the fans in those rooms and call me back in five minutes if they have not stopped." (note...we had a new AC/Furnace put in over the summer and he was thinking perhaps some of the new oils were burning off and setting the alarm off....HOWEVER, we had been running the heater for months and this had not happened!)

The sound of the alarms were grating on my every nerve and the kids were a bit ancy by now as well. One of our neighbors was nice enough to come over and help me get them down. They are all wired into the house as well as have a battery backup. He discovered that the one in our bedroom was faulty so was making the others go off. My husband called during all of this to tell me he was on the way home to help. I told him our neighbor had helped me get them to stop so DH ran by the local hardware store to buy all new smoke detectors since ours were the ones the builder installed when the house was built 12 years ago. Whew- problem solved! It did however wreck my plans of organizing the playroom, because after running around for 45 minutes trying to make smoke alarms stop going off the only thing I wanted to do was sit down and have some chocolate! Of course I got no complaints from the kiddos over this either ;-)

Camille is right when she blogged that these are the greatest chocolate chip cookies! I borrowed the recipe from her site. I made a batch and the kids, hubby, and I pigged out on these...oh, and we did take half the batch to our dear neighbor for making the smoke alarms stop!

Prayer Warriors...

I wrote in my last post about a blog I started following recently. Kelly and Scott had tried to conceive for many years and were blessed nine months ago with an answer to their prayers. I have followed their journey towards parenthood and marveled at their faith.

Their daughter, Harper Brown Stamps, was born yesterday at 7:03 PM. She weighed 9lb and 12oz. But she needs our prayers. She has pneumonia and had to be flown out of state to a children's hospital. Kelly will be able to join her there sometime today after she is released from the hospital where she gave birth. Scott and his parents are already there with little Harper. The latest update stated that Harper will have to be put on a heart/lung bypass machine.

Please pray for Harper, Kelly, Scott and their family. Pray for the doctors, nurses, and technicians that will be bringing care to little Harper. Lift them all up...

Where I Have Been...

I have been MIA due to snuggling up with my family and enjoying quiet moments as much as possible through the hustle, bustle, and traveling that comes with the month of December!

The kids enjoyed a visit with Santa...The Princess got her wish and Santa brought her a HOT PINK digital camera so she can practice her photography. She was beyond thrilled. The Prince got his wish of a train table and train set - they both marveled at how Santa must have hurt his back bringing that down the chimney! The magic of the season touched us all!

On Christmas Eve we went to the family service at church then came home to our tradition of a lasagna supper. However, on Christmas day we enjoyed a traditional turkey and dressing dinner (this was my first year to make dressing on my own and I must say, I was pleased with the results!)

I am happy to report that I got a new sewing machine for Christmas and have already sewn a few pillowcases for the kiddos and have been collecting fabric for beginning some quilt projects! I will post some pictures of my projects I plan to start and my Daisy afghan for the Princess that is almost completed this weekend.

The Hubby got a guitar for Christmas and has been learning to play. The past 3 weeks he has really done well and has impressed me with his progress! He can even play me "Love Me Tender" which honestly melts my heart. There have been days I have been sitting down in the office working and I hear that sweet serenade emanating from the upstairs playroom as he is practicing while the kids play - no sweeter sound, honestly - the sound of my family!

I have enjoyed keeping up with the blogs I read throughout the past month, but decided to take a break from posting in order to spend as much time as possible with the family. I am back now and plan to update on my projects and what we did this past month over the next few days. I even found a few new blogs over the past month that are simply wonderful:

Kelly's Blog: She is having her baby TODAY...go wish her the best and keep her in your prayers!

Angela's Blog: She is a Moda lovin' mama...need I say more?!?

Bloom: A wonderful site full of beautiful stitch work, quilting, and gardening.

Go give this ladies a visit...they have some beautiful posts!

I'll be back tomorrow to share some pictures of my projects...