Nothing New

Since I don't have anything new to blog about this week, I gathered up a few pics from some of the kids 😉 We are living life in the slow lane- lol. The weather has been cold for Texas, which means we stay home more than normal... which our normal is pretty hard to beat. Audrey was commenting to us last night about the fact that we made it to 2022 without getting covid. I am surprised about that too, but maybe that is one of the blessings of not going very far. We went and watched one of Jaden's high school soccer games yesterday morning and then went to watch a gymnastics meet for Eli yesterday afternoon. Today we had two children attend our primary class that haven't been there this year. I don't know if it was their personalities or what happened but our class was "crazy" 😉😕 Actually our senior sing time was crazy too... so I don't think it was just our class. For my Brown Baby Bird business... I am pretty sure that there are boat loads of stuffed animals and fabric stuck off the coast of California, that supply chain seems to be having problems. It will be interesting to see how the next few months go. I got a cute picture of Gracie helping me on my sewing table. 😸 We are at the end of January... time to work on Valentines day stuff- haha.

Here are pics, in no particular order. New taggie, called "Stay Wild". Gracie and Kitty. Dallin and Emmy. Dallin is old enough to pass the sacrament and go to the temple. Mike and the boys at a San Jose Sharks hockey game. Ryan turned 11 this month. Owen got a big January birthday party, even though his birthday is in December. The Simms had a good trip to the temple with Weston, for the first time. Earlier this month, Owen prepared the sacrament, Nathan and Jared blessed the sacrament and Weston passed the sacrament. That was a special day.

 

January Brown Baby Bird

My sales for January have been better than expected... at least at Homestead Handcrafts. There is a website that I can go to, that shows me my sales there, as they happen. I won't know what happened in Bandera until I go back there on Feb. 6. I know that one taggie set sold there, because I got a text message about it. The customer traded the taggie blanket in that set for another one. I went to Homestead last Monday and brought all of the Christmas sets home. (They wanted all Christmas items gone by the 15th) There were several vendors there that day, all working on their inventory and displays. I left 4 "winter items" there on sale, brought Christmas home, and took a few new Spring items. Since Aurora is having supply issues, I looked into a new line of stuffed animals called EBBA. I guess Aurora owns that line, but it didn't seem like as many items were sold out. And I could order online and see supply numbers and/or etas for items coming. I think this will be a good "move" for Brown Baby Bird... with some fresh items. Hopefully I will be able to find cute fabric to coordinate with. I am at the point where it will only take me a couple of weeks to "sew up" all of  my current merchandise. Then I need to do some serious shopping for new fabric. Plus Ebba has some items that I can just retail, to go along with my handmade items. Once I get those projects going... I need to set up an Etsy shop and give that a try. Here is my January booth at Homestead Handcrafts and a sneak peek at Ebba. I am excited for some NEW 2022 merchandise for BBB.

Done Downstairs

 I have gotten a lot of "odds and ends" done the past couple of weeks. In fact I am mostly finished with any downstairs decorating projects. (I only have one wall to paint downstairs left.) I painted all of the trim work that Daniel did in the kitchen... it looks great. I hung a couple of black hooks and black bar on the island. I also hung a couple of decor items on both sides of the TV. (I have had all of those items for several months, just waiting to be finished.) Now that I have a new lamp, the sofa table and the small off white bench, and I ordered two round rugs for the front room... I can't think of anything else that was on my wish list for downstairs. I am starting to plan out a few projects for UPSTAIRS 😉😂 When I started figuring out what I wanted to do upstairs it was like one project led to another project, which led to another project- haha. I didn't like one corner of our bedroom. It had a small black shelf in it and just some random books, magazines, and stuff. I sorted through everything and either put it in a box to donate and or found a different place for it. Part of what was there was my small drawers of cards, envelopes, stamps, addresses etc. Sorting that out led to up dating my Christmas card address list and then putting the Christmas letters that I want to keep in the correct notebooks. I also organized my "Birthday Card" addresses and supplies. I decided I wanted to put the black shelf in the guest bedroom closet, which meant I needed to clean out that closet. (Which needed to be a project anyway. Luke and Hazel always play in there and I had too much breakable stuff stored in there.) Again...I made a donation box, a trash box, and moved some items to a different place. I realized that I had some framed pictures in there that needed to be reframed because I wanted to keep them. And since Daniel did a new accent wall in the TV room upstairs, I now have a place for those pictures. (The accent wall isn't painted yet... but I know where those pictures will go 😉). I have several walls that I want to paint upstairs, one wall to wall paper, and the master bathroom to paint cabinets and walls. I have been hunting for the right colors. I am going to start with the wall paper and match it. (That will be in our bedroom.) So, back to my empty corner... that is where I will start. lol. When I sell enough unwanted items, I will purchase one more piece of furniture for our bedroom. See... I have the plan... let's see how long it takes. 

Snowmen

I think I posted this in a previous year... the only snowmen in Texas, are the ones inside the house 😉😏⛄ And I mentioned in my post about last week... they may not stay long before I switch to Valentines day. But I am enjoying them for now... not as cluttered up as the Christmas decorations. I also bought a new, used piece of furniture... a  turquoise sofa table. It was only $50 and Ron didn't have to put it together. He went with me to pick it up and then we went to WhataBurger. That was his bribe for going with me. 

This and That, First Week of 2022

I got my blog book ordered for 2021, I got my Past Book ordered, Audrey made family calendars, so I got that ordered. I ordered some Old Testament study guides. We are studying the Old Testament this year. I had a tub of green tomatoes to do something with. The story behind that is, a random tomato plant sprung up in the back yard, right by the steps to the back porch. It took off on grew huge and produced lots of tomatoes. I kept telling Ron that he couldn't have planted that and had it grow like that- haha. Last weekend we had our first freeze here, so Ron picked all of the tomatoes and pulled up the plant. I made mock raspberry jelly, pickled tomatoes, and kind of a salsa- tomatoes, peppers, and onions. It took me several hours last Friday to do those. I went to Homestead Handcrafts and The Shops and marked all of the Brown Baby Bird items on sale. I made good money for December, but I don't expect much for January. We attended the graveside service for Brother Watkins last Wednesday, then we stayed in Bandera and had dinner with the Simmons and Bret and Patsy Hawkins. (that meant that I made two trips to Bandera last week, both Wednesday and Thursday). I got all of the Christmas decor put away and I have "snowmen" out right now. I got the Christmas tree in our closet, but I didn't get it wrapped in plastic yet. The snowmen decor may only last a couple of weeks, then I will switch to Valentines Day. I think since the stores were short on Christmas items, most of them switched to Valentine decor about mid December. The brand of stuffed animals that I purchase for Brown Baby Bird also has a supply shortage. Many of their items are sold out and coming in slowly. I haven't decided what to order there yet. I might try a new brand. We finally came to the end of the "exercise bike saga". The story there is that an exercise bike that we ordered in September only lasted about a month. We finally got the manufacturer to send us another one the first of December, but it had problems right away. After several weeks of trying to get a refund from Academy, they finally agreed. We decided to wait until the second bike quit before purchasing another brand. Well, that second bike "froze up" last week. We ordered another bike that Amazon delivered today. Hopefully this one is better and lasts longer. Ron and I both have gotten used to riding a recumbent bike. Also, hopefully it's not to difficult for Ron to put together.  Here are all of the random pics to go with all of my random thoughts- lol 😂😎

First Sunday 2022

Since Andersons were in covid quarantine on Christmas Eve, we didn't do our normal Christmas Eve dinner at their house. Sam loves to cook prime rib, potatoes, etc. They put the meat in the freezer and we thought about getting together on New Years Eve, but the Petes were busy. So we had prime rib dinner last Sunday evening. It included us, the Andersons, the Petes, the Elders, and the Sisters. The prime rib was perfect. We had also saved our "candy bar" exchange for that evening. Everyone tapes an envelope, with money in it to a candy bar, then wrap with wrapping paper. Then we draw numbers to see who goes first. The first person picks a package and opens it. The second person can pick a new package or take the opened candy bar. That continues until everyone finally has a candy bar. (A candy bar can only be stolen three times, then it stays.) Then everyone opens the envelope to see how much money they got. There were three twenty dollar bills... I think Daniel, Sam, and Hailey got those. The two sister missionaries each got $5. I think I got $1. And since I didn't like my candy, Mason wanted it. 😉😂 I didn't get any pics of dinner, but I got a few pics of the candy game.