Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving, we celebrated with lots of family at my brother & sister-in-law's house. We had so much food and family fun.

The girls were silly, as usual... I like this picture, with my sweet grandma in the background:

Keith was considering a career in farming...on his first John Deere tractor...

Grace is taking piano lessons - fascinating for the other kids...

and I couldn't resist taking a picture of all these wonderful desserts! we had two kinds of cheese cake, a couple of chocolate pies, a couple of pumpkin pies, pumpkin cupcakes, pumpkin bread, pumpkin mousse, a jello/whipped cream dessert, and a coconut cream pie... I had a terrible time deciding which ones to eat!

dino stuff

For Christmas this year, I made my nephew a dinosaur scarf and hat. so fun. I can't wait to see him wear these!

sweater hat

one of my co-workers was throwing out this old sweater the other day, so i grabbed it...and made myself a hat out of it. i really like this hat! and it is warm! i've been wearing it around the house this weekend...my husband likes to make fun of me for that... :-)

a quick get-away

We went back to the Hocking Hills for an overnight get-away. I took a long weekend off work and we went back to Thunder Ridge cabins. We took 2 pretty long, hilly hikes (I'm feeling it in my legs a little still!) - the rim trail at Conkles Hollow and another long up-hill trail at Clear Creek park. We couldn't have asked for nicer weather or more beautiful scenery for our time!

hats and scarves

This year is going to be a home-made Christmas. I've been working on things and looking for ideas for several weeks and today I finished hats and scarves for 2 of my nieces. Thanks to some amazing creative bloggers, I found a great tutorial for a hat....

and then another tutorial for a scarf...

and then I added some of my own embellishments...flowers and butterflies and buttons...

I thought it turned out pretty cute :-)

birthday silliness

My dad and my sister share a birthday (a few years apart, of course) on November 9. This year, mom & dad came to columbus to celebrate with everyone. I didn't get any pictures of the birthday people, just of the kids being their silly selves (well, mostly Caroline... and Ben in his fireman hat).

birthday slippers

my newest experiments: pajama pants and slippers. i sort of made up my own pattern for both, and gave them to my sister for her birthday. i haven't heard any updates from her on how she likes them, so hopefully they were as comfy-cozy as i was hoping for!

i appliqued a kitty on a t-shirt for her too:

OBX 2010

we went to the outer banks again this year. a lovely week on the beach!

we stopped at williamsburg for an hour or so...walked around in the rain...had our pictures taken in the stocks...


...and then on to the beach!!! here's a really awful self-taken squinty photo:

and the mighty fishermen:

A Joyful Day!

One of my best friends got married this year (August 14th - I'm a little behind in the blogging!). I had the privilege to be the matron of honor in the wedding ("matron" sure makes me sound old, doesn't it?). It was a beautiful, celebratory day!

more awesome little friends

Even though we don't have kids of our own yet, I'm so thankful to be able to enjoy other people's kids - especially my nieces & nephews. We don't get to see everyone as much as we'd like, but it is nice to have my brother's kids fairly close by.

A few weeks ago, Grace and Caroline were looking through a costume magazine and asked me if I would help them make their Halloween costumes this year. So, the 3 of us took a trip to the fabric store and picked out patterns and fabric and all the fixin's for costumes. Grace wanted to be a "dragon ninja" - so we found a pattern for a karate uniform and went from there. Caroline was a little more complicated. She wanted to be a puppy dog and we had a hard time finding the right puppy dog costume pattern. Grace asked her at one point if she wanted to be a dalmatian, and she said: "NO, I don't want to be a dalmatian!" Later, when picking out our fabric, she looked up at me and said, "Aunt Laura, can I be a white puppy dog with black spots?" But not a dalmatian, right? :-)

Ben didn't ask me for a costume this year...maybe next time, ok, buddy? Here's Dragon Ninja Grace. She still wants a sword to complete the costume:

The girls playing in their costumes:

white-puppy-dog-with-black-spots Caroline:

one of my favorite little friends

I changed the format of this blog a few months ago, from just posting random things to posting things that bring beauty and joy into my life. I couldn't do that without sharing a little about our little friend Winnie. Winnie's mom and dad adopted her from Ethiopia several months ago and I have absolutely loved getting to know this kid. It's been so amazing to watch her mom and dad go through the adoption process and see their family grow, and to be able to share in that a little bit. It's such a bright spot in my week to go over to their house for small group on Wednesday evenings and have her greet us with "Laura! Keith!" (it actually sounds more like "Lura! Keet!" and I love it!). Winnie hugs are some of the best hugs - medicine for my soul.

We got to spend a week at the beach with some of our good friends, including Winnie. So much fun on the beach and catching crabs and playing in the pool... I even got to show her how to use a boogie board a little bit.

Here she is playing peek-a-boo with me at Williamsburg:

modeling the dress I made for her...who wouldn't love that smile??