New Dress for Mae-Marie

For Christmas this year I made a few things for the children. I made a doll quilt and a dress for Mae-Marie and a "sports" teddy bear for Tucker. I will post pictures of the quilt and bear later, but here is Mae-Marie's dress. I used Jennie Chancey's Girl's Regency dress pattern. Her site is http://www.sensibility.com. It goes together very nicely. I have made many dresses out of this pattern. This dress I altered just a bit to enlarge the area where the sleeve sits in and I lowered the neckline, front and back, a bit.

The print on it is hard to see, but it is a print of little violet flowers. I have enough left over to make a regency dress like this for myself. Hopefully, I will have it done by spring. When I get it done, I'll post pictures of it.

I haven't sewn much at all since we moved, but after the beginning of the new year, I intend to start back up again. I'm almost finished organizing my sewing room, which is nice to finally have. Now I won't have to completely put a project away when I am in the middle of it. I will just be able to shut the door. Less clean up time - more time to sew!

Gingerbread Houses and Christmas

Well, having just recently moved, and not being completely unpacked (boy does that take a lot of time!), we didn't decorate the house much, only a little here and there. We did take the opportunity to make cookies (lots and lots of cookies) and hard candy (caramels and strawberry hard crack candy) and gingerbread houses. I have always made one at Christmas, but this year we started a new tradition. The children each made their own, small version of a gingerbread house out of graham crackers and a plethera of candy that Daddy brought home for us. We spend hours, and made a big mess, but we had Lots of FUN! Sometimes I get so caught up in the daily grind of what has to be done when, and chores and schedules that I forget to just relax and have FUN! This was a great reminder. We enjoyed it so much that we have decided to make it a new Christmas tradition! Anyway, here are some pictures.

These are the children's houses: Albert's, David's, Scotty's, Mae-Marie's and Tuckers (left to right).

This is my version of the gingerbread house. I copied the basic pattern from Martha Stewart's book - Homemade Christmas. It went together really easily this year (too many years of total frustration paid off, I guess), but I like to decorate them differently each year. Next year I think I am going to try for a "mansion." We'll see how that works!

This is our mantle in the living room. Like I said, we only decorated a little, plus I couldn't find half of our decorations (mismarked boxes!), but at least it was something. We put a few things on the mantle in the kitchen too. Just enough to feel a little like the holidays. I've decided to decorate my living room here for Christmas in red, gold and black bears, so my husband bought these two to start my collection. What a sweetie!

Our Christmas tree. It has a story behind it, too. We are accustomed to going out the week before Christmas and picking out a fresh cut tree for Christmas. This year, we went out only to find just about all of the trees gone. We were told they had sold out for a couple of weeks. Wow, was I amazed. We looked at the alternative of an artificial tree, but it was always a tradition for us to get a cut tree. What to do?! My husband managed to find one place left that had a few trees. Actually, some fairly tall ones. The area where we wanted to put the tree could handle a 10 foot tree. So, that is what he got us. However, we could not find our tree stand. So, Scott went out and bought a new one. When we went to put the tree up, we realized that the base was too skinny for the stand and it was too tall for the stand. Our tree kept tipping over! Ack! Being fairly adaptable individuals, we explained this to the children and our tree, although nicely decorated, stood leaning somewhat into the corner for Christmas. Truth be known, our poor Christmas tree ended up looking very similar to a very tall "Charlie Brown" Christmas tree. But it was still just as beautiful to us!

Anyway, I hope you all had a Merry Christmas. Remember as the year comes to a close to thank God for what blessings and experiences He has allowed into your life this year.

We Moved to Wyoming!

After they came and packed all our earthly belongings into boxes, the moving company loaded it all on the truck including our van on the 15th of November and took off for Wyoming. The next day we drove to the airport in rented cars and boarded an airplane bound for Denver, CO. Then we got on a little "puddle-jumper." It was TINY. It only had the capacity to carry 19 people! When I first saw the plane, I did not want to get on it. I am a bit nervous about airplanes as it is, but I could not imagine getting on that tiny plane.After some loving reassurance by more devoted husband, I climbed aboard. I wish we had pictures of how small that plane was. One seat on either side of the aisle with three seats across the back. We sat in the back, Mae-Marie and Tucker in front of us, then Scotty, David and Albert across the back. Talk about bumpy! For a while I thought I was going to be ill. But I prayed about it and relaxed and realized how well I got to see a view of God's earth. Unexpectantly, the ride turned out to be a blessing to me. We flew over mountains and open fields. To the right of us was open plains, we could even see the spirals on the ground from the path of the waterers. To the left were the mountains. They were covered with snow, but in small areas the pine trees peaked out from under the snow. It was the most beautiful plane right I have ever been on. We arrived in one piece, albeit a little shaky from the bumps coming in to the airport, but we were on the ground. We picked up our rental vehicle, went through the town (it is absolutely beautiful - just like a small town from years ago) and drove to our new home. It is in a little community outside of Sheridan, named Story. It is nestled at the base of the Big Horn Mountains. You drive up a winding hill and as you come around the bend at the base of the mountains, there is the town. The area is thick with pine trees. It is like we live in the woods. It is so peaceful. Deer are everywhere and apparantly don't seem to care if people are around or not. They just wander around along with the turkeys that are everywhere. David, who is chomping at the bit to begin hunting, has asked many times now if I am sure that he can't hunt in the back yard. LOL. It is great! Hopefully we will be here for a while (at least for a few years). Welcome to our new home!