wishing you

a merry Christmas.

...yes, I shall praise the Lord, and thank Him everyday,
that I was taught to love His word and follow in
His ways... judy rogers

Brrr it's cold outside, and I am very thankful for my warm home. It snowed here all day Sunday and was so pretty. Nothing stuck, but it was light and fluffy and flying around everywhere. Did you know that a trampoline is perfect for viewing the tiny flakes up close? I am sure you already do. But what beauty, Townes finally said, "you already told me 3 times that the snowflakes give God so much glory."

We've been playing lots of card games too. Apples to Apples, uno, go fish, and Dutch Blitz. I love dutch blitz. It would make a great present to anyone. It's fast and furious. It's definitely for a little bit older child. Our 6 year old understands but is not very fast, so it frustrates him. Our 9 year old wins half the time, so there you go. It really is lots of fun.

We've also been enjoying doing a jesse tree Bible time. Though we're already very behind and are having to double and triple up! I am using Ann Voskamp's book, that I bought last year. She is the holy experience blog on my list over there. Her blog is just beautiful, and I think you can download the book there for free. It has pictures to make the ornaments. And since Hutton is mr.el destructo, we are hanging them onto the tree, out of his reach. But she makes a little tree out of bare branches for her home. I love that.

And speaking of el destructo, he is presently "at large" doing his worst, so I better go round up the rascally villain.

i made a mosaic...finally figured it out!

This is so fun, now I will have something to show for my wasted time on flickr. Well not totally wasted, flickr gives me lots of inspiration. I will definitely be making more of these, they just make things look pretty over here. And there's a link at the bottom to give credit where credit is due.

1. Granny Stripe Scarf, 2. Pillow Talk Swap 4, 3. Closeup 2, 4. 2+2 in Cosmo Cricket

well I am hoping to do some actual sewing today. I mean I have not been in the sewing mood lately, which is weird. I hope I am ok :). One thing I did sew this week was the "figure 8" scarf with anna maria's velveteen and voile.

Can I just say that velveteen is "like butter!" I want to have all of it, in lots and lots of yardage. I want to make a skirt in each design, I want tights, and I want boots. Sooo, since I can't have all that (well I can have tights, and maybe yardage for one skirt), I ordered the scarf kits. It's great because the long length (about 72 inches) is precut. You just have to square up the voile and the velveteen pieces to match. She has a tutorial on her blog on how to make the figure 8. I followed her directions, but I ended up making it just in regular scarf form. It's so soft, warm, and gorgeous (and trust me it's the fabric that makes it so, not the sewing!). I was once again reminded how much I lack in sewing skills. I think I am an impatient sewer, which means hasty, which turns into sloppy, which wrecks a beautiful project. I am trying to overcome this by being mindful of the joy in the work of putting something together as well as the joy of being done with a project. I really do love using my hands, the cutting, the pinning, the ironing, the putting together of pretty fabrics. I have got to keep that on my mind whilst I work! So anyway, back to the velveteens,

they are beautiful!

I've been singing, again...

By the sea of crystal, saints in glory stand,
myriads in number, drawn from every land.
Robed in white apparel, washed in Jesus' blood,
they now reign in heaven with the Lamb of God.

Out of tribulation, death and satan's hand,
they have been translated at the Lord's command.
In their hand they're holding palms of victory;
hark! the jub'lant chorus shouts triumphantly:

"Unto God Almighty, sitting on the throne, and the Lamb, victorious, be the praise alone.
God has wrought salvation, he did wondrous things. Who shall not extol you, holy
King of kings!"

Beautiful music brought to you by your Trinity Hymnal. We had just one, but for years and years I wanted to order some so we could sing from them as a family at home. I finally did this past fall. That original one is all beaten up, and is full of pen marks where Joseph has come up with new tunes to go with some of the hymns. He plays the guitar, and has made some sweet songs even sweeter. This is one of those. I don't know if I've ever sang this in church, but here, well it's one of my favorites. And I love the last stanza. It's just perfect for Christmas, and so that is what I've been singing today.

and here are some random pictures of our rascally family, and I do mean rascally...don't even picture us sitting around every night singing sweetly from our fresh and new Trinity Hymnals. When we do have some Bible time at night (which I wish we did faithfully every night), half of us don't sing, we still have to remind the kids constantly to be still and listen (I have big kids, this shouldn't be the case with them!), and most the time at least one person gets in some sort of trouble!

Some of mine. Oh how we love them...the sweet moments and the not so sweet ones. This is definitely one of the sweeter ones. The ones that I want to capture! Most of the time I am the one that gets in the way of such sweet moments. I get too concerned over messes and time.