Christmas 2016- 2

Ron must really love me...he hates doing Christmas lights...but we have lights on the house. I bought tons of lights last year after Christmas, when they were on sale. Our yard is not very cooperative with lights. No bushes, no larger trees to put them on...but we came up with something :)

Christmas 2016- 1

It's time to get started on my Christmas 2016 posts. This will take me a while and I will do in lots of parts. We knew beginning in July, that everyone would be at our house for Christmas. So..I was planning for 6 months. I thought through most things...like where everyone would sleep, where everyone would sit to eat etc. Even though I had prepared much...I was still not quite ready for the "whirlwind" of toys, kids, dishes, trash, laundry, etc that would descend upon us- lol.  We packed as much "fun" as we could into 6 days. (That was the total time that we were ALL here- everyone arrived by Dec. 23 and then they began leaving on Dec. 28. Some staying longer than others- all had to meet a schedule to be back home.) My first post here is not even our family Christmas at all...but it is our ward Christmas party, nativity story. That was my big project about Thanksgiving time and the first week of December. I could have had more things prepared...last summer...to avoid all of the last minute rush- lol. I will definitely be more prepared for next year- I am hoping that this will be an annual Christmas tradition for Primary. My "lamb" project started out to be just for the Sunbeams and then turned into Sunbeams and Nursery...so I ended up making 15 "lamb ears". My cardboard sheep, have been moving around with us since Bartlesville- I made a new camel, but I didn't get a new donkey done. I made a few new wisemen accessories. The program turned out okay, except we had 175 people there for dinner, so not much space to set up and kind of difficult to see from the "way back" :)

Just a Little Project

Just a LITTLE project, mixed in among my other BIG projects. It is amazing how just that little curtain, takes away the "bare" window look. My hang up here was the fact that the fabric I liked was already made into a table runner, so I had to "pick that out" to use it. Then I had a bit of trouble with the lining and had to give that a couple of tries before I came up with something that worked. I also have new fabric for the seat cushion and a couple of pillows...but that got moved to the bottom of the list...we'll see if I get that far in the next month. I was starting to panic on Sunday evening, thinking of all the things I still need to do before Christmas. I got a couple of those things done this week, got started on a couple more, and sent out an email asking for HELP with primary stuff...that is yet to be resolved :)

2016 Primary Program

Our big project every year for Primary, at church, is the annual Primary Sacrament Meeting Program.
Ours was on Sunday, October 30. Squeezed right in between the Fall Festival and Halloween- lol. I planned for 28 children. We had a few "no shows", but we just skipped those parts. One of those made me a little sad, because I had a specific part for two twin boys, to do together, and they didn't come that day. Another one that didn't come was a 12 year old girl, with a narrator part. Luckily on that one I had given that part to a boy who turns 12 in December, Deacon Cruz. He did a great job. The other three narrators were Isaac Huff, Amanda Martin, and Emma Carlson. (They are all 12 already) The amazing thing that I tried this year was having those kids help the younger kids and also manage the microphone. It was awesome! Every single person that commented to me about the program, mentioned how impressed they were with that idea and how it turned out. I also reluctantly agreed to have a cookie reception in the overflow right after Sacrament meeting. I'm not sure that it had the hoped for result of being able to have the missionaries meet the guests, but the kids loved it. We also switched sharing time and class time that day, so that the reception was only disrupting sharing time and not class time. Although the kids were wound up and sugared up by class time. Here are a few pics of our primary classes. (Of course, I have no photos of the program it's self.) I also included photos for some of our "Scripture Heros" that visited Primary this year :)

Fender Bender

We always go to Kerrville on Wednesday evenings for meetings at church. We have a lady from Home Instead that comes to the house from 4-10 on those nights. That allows us a little extra time if we need to leave early for dinner or visits. That also allows us to stay at church until 9 pm, if needed. On Wednesday, October 12, we went to church as usual and left to come home about 8:45. I was thinking, that we might have a little extra time to stop at Sonic, in Bandera on the way home. But as we were sitting at a stop light, behind two pick up trucks...the truck in front of us started backing up. Ron grabbed the wind shield wiper shifter instead of the gear shifter...so no backing up for us. We had to just watch the truck hit us. Plus on impact, the wipers came on- lol. I knew right away that we would be delayed getting home. I tried to call mom and she didn't answer her phone. Then I called Home Instead and had them call the lady at the house. We pulled off the street and waited for the police to show up. Then the "kid" driving the pickup called his parents, and they showed up. They made a deal with us, that they would just pay for the repairs. (it wasn't too bad, just tore a hole in the front bumper.) Now a couple of weeks later...Ron's car looks brand new :) Plus the other moral of the story, is that when we leave the house and a Home Instead lady is here...you never know what might happen to our schedule. (Mom has not "clicked" into the idea that whatever I need to do away from the house, is limited to a 5 or 6 hour schedule each day.)

This and That

As I was looking through my photos, I realized that I had some random ones to share. One of my sharing times in August was about Samuel the Lamanite. I had ordered a Samuel the Lamanite figurine from Amazon, then I set it on a "rice krispie treat wall". It went well and the kids had a great time taking a piece of the wall. But we suffered "sugar overload" for the rest of primary :)

I have been advertising everything on SALE at The Silver Hanger. Things actually went pretty well in September and I had several good sales. October has been bad...looking like "donations" here we come for November.

I did a cute little teacher appreciation handout for September. A little sticky note pad with thought and a few paragraphs for the Teaching No Greater Call manual. I figured out how to copy and paste photos of Christ, from lds.org to labels...great for primary items.

As I am working on things for Christmas...I really wanted to get a play kitchen and put it in the toy closet downstairs. Plus I bought some new "play food" items. Now I just need to find a small table and four chairs.

GG Birthday

We had a little birthday celebration on Sunday evening, Sept. 18, for mom. Audrey and the boys were here. A little birthday cake and ice cream. Then a foot soak and pedicure ;) Eli led us in singing happy birthday, by standing on a chair and waving a spoon :) On Monday, mom's actually birthday, she got to go to the cancer center for a ct scan :( Such is life around here these days. Here are just a few pics.