Holidays – Page 4 – Thimbleanna

Merry Christmas!

7 Comments / December 25, 2018 December 25, 2018 / Holidays

Merry Christmas! I’m a day late with my annual viewing of Christmas Eve breakfast, but you know — it’s a busy time of the year! This years selection was Grandma Hill’s Browned Butter Cookies, Angel Slices, Lemon Gems, and Classic Sugar Cookies. Sadly, no caramels this year as I broke my caramel pan the day before I was to make them and have had no time to order a replacement. Anyway, it’s favorite cookie time of the year!

I’ve been a little grumpy this time around — having to do with a certain telecommunications store, a Christmas purchase, and then several e-mails to the recipient of the Christmas purchase from the stupid store after the stupid store assured me several times that the e-mails wouldn’t be sent. Totally ruined the surprise and my Christmas spirit. Bah Humbug!

Alas, Christmas truly does come but once a year, so I’ve had to give myself a little pep talk and get over it. I hope you’re having a Wonderful Christmas and that Santa brings you your heart’s desire!!!
XOXO,
Anna

Happy Easter!

15 Comments / April 1, 2018 April 1, 2018 / Holidays

Holyyyy Cow! How can it be that so much time has passed since my last post? And that we’re 1/4 of the way through this year already???

I hope you’ve all had a Very Happy Easter! I had a hard time getting computer time this weekend to post — TheManoftheHouse hogged the computer ALL weekend for Work work. And I was busy in the kitchen all day. We had our usual Easter fare – Ham (I think the troops are all ready to revolt though — half of them don’t really like ham and were voting to discontinue the tradition), Cheesy Potatoes, Carrots, Green Salad, Deviled Eggs and Dinner Rolls. There would have been a beautiful Miette Lemon Debutante Cake too, but I had a MAJOR cake fail. I had to make the cake twice and then, the icing failed too. I’ve made these cakes several times before and never had trouble — I guess it just wasn’t meant to be. It made me sad though — I’ve been craving cake all night LOL!

It’s been a busy six weeks here in ThimbleannaLand. Work, work, and more work. TheSecondChild has been back at home for several months and we just moved him to a new apartment and job in Indy — I’m so excited for him. And us too — he’s only 2 hours away, which is SO much better than 16 hours away. I’m looking forward to seeing him a lot more often.

Then, in the middle of it all, we went to see TheFirstChild, SweetiePie, and our little cherub for a week. We had a really relaxed week — I didn’t even take my big camera! Oh how fun it was to play with our little doll — she’s 20 months old now and so much fun. I made her a little dress before we left and I was so excited that it fit her just right. Here are a few iphone pictures that I posted on Instagram.

The dress is the Aliana dress from The Freckled Pear and the fabric is from the new Kinder line by Heather Ross. I had this cute little apple print in my etsy shop but it sold out right away, so I should have some more (plus the red apple print) arriving this week. (Btw, I have sooo many cute new fabrics that have arrived this spring — I need to find more time to sew!)

I’ve been working on other projects too, but no big finishes yet. I’m doing a little test knitting for an instagram friend. I’m hoping to finish up this cute little project in the next week or two.

And, after a too-long break, I’ve been working on the little quilt for FinallyAGirl again. I’m about 3/4ths of the way through. I’m such a slooooow hand-quilter. I need to get with the program though — FinallyAnotherGirl is due to arrive this September, so I’m going to need to start another quilt! We’re SO excited!!!

Hopefully it won’t take me so long to get back here this next time. Maybe I should just post on holidays. Or chocolate holidays LOL.
Happy April!!!
XOXO,
Anna

Happy New Year!

12 Comments / December 31, 2017 December 31, 2017 / Holidays

Boy, oh boy. One minute it’s Thanksgiving and the next it’s New Year’s. I don’t know how that happens, but these past 6 weeks flashed by here in ThimbleannaLand. Here’s our traditional New Year’s greeting from the animals. Simba, visiting cat of TheSecondChild, gets to deliver the greeting this year — mostly because the other cats can’t stand him (they’re all jealous – he’s the coolest kitty ever) and they’ve been hiding under the bed. Simba is looking a little grumpy himself, as he just spend a week in the kitty hotel.

Since Thanksgiving weekend, I’ve had my head down working on two quilts for Christmas gifts (which I’ll show after I get some pictures). The quilts took almost every waking, non-working moment of my time. I got them done with just enough time to pack for our trip to Utah on Dec. 20th. Our whole family (there were 12 of us) rented a condo so that we could spend Christmas with TheFirstChild, SweetiePie and FinallyAGirl and so that the kids could all spend some time skiing. Sounds perfect, right?

This was the real deal.

CrazyBIL got the flu on the 22nd, and progressively, over the next few days, about half of us also got sick (mostly the older adults LOL). And on Christmas Day, we had to take MeMum to the hospital, ’cause the flu and asthma don’t mix. We had hospital fun for 2 days and had to delay our return home by a day. We’ve been home for two days now and pretty much slept the whole time ;-D. And hopefully by 2019, we’ll be done coughing and will have our voices back.

Anyway, on to our other New Year tradition — looking back on the makes and travels for the year.

My year mostly consisted of working on the blocks for The Happy Flower Quilt (I can’t. wait. to get back to them!) and making goodies for FinallyAGirl. I’m really looking forward to 2018 — as always, I’m full of hope that I’ll have more time than ever for all my projects, haha. I’ll be spending this week deciding which projects need the most attention in the next few months. I’m going to aim for 3 big finishes by the end of March — wish me luck LOL.

Happy Happy New Year — I hope 2018 brings you lots of Love, Happiness and Time for all the things you love to do!
XOXO,
Anna

Back from Break …

24 Comments / July 16, 2017 July 16, 2017 / Family, Holidays

Well Hey Hey! I’m back from our super fun trip out west. It was supposed to be all business (moving TheFirstChild and his cute little family to Utah for a year), but we had lots and lots of fun instead. The move went great — MyDadLovesMeBestSister, MeMum and I (along with Winston) drove the kids’ cars out without a hitch. No traffic, no construction, no mess! Winston was in my car the whole time and he was the perfect travel companion.

After the kids were pretty much moved in, we played. A Lot. Here are just a few of the highlights:

Horseback riding in the mountains (the mountains don’t look very big, but that’s because we’re already waaaay up there ;-D ) —

Checking out teeny little cemeteries for my ancestors. In all the times I’d been to the little town where my grandfather grew up, I’d never been to the cemetery. I found lots of ancestors — as far back as my g-g-g-g-g-grandmother who was born in 1780. I Love these old pioneer cemeteries — it’s so interesting to see the really old ones that don’t even have grass anymore. So many stories to tell.

A ridiculously fun 4th of July in MeMum and BigDaddy’s hometown. My very favorite place to be on the 4th — they have the perfect small-town gathering with activities ALL day long — starting with a pancake breakfast in the park and ending with fireworks at dusk. This little doll couldn’t have been more cute —

Three-legged races —

Potato Sack Races (MAN DOWN LOL!!!) —

Egg Toss —

Watermelon Bust —

Greased Pole — it used to be only the boys who loved to do it, but the girls are all in now too. That pole is VERY slippery — the objective is to grab the greasy flags at the top. Look at all those spotters there to protect the girls in case they slip and fall —

And just all-round fun ALL day with family that we don’t see very often. Being the only small child around, our little FinallyAGirl was very popular —

There was more fun after the 4th too. It was SUPER hot in the valley, so we escaped to the mountains and hiked to not-so-secret Cecret Lake (where we actually saw a skier on those glaciers — in July!) —

Saw the largest flying US flag, hanging in Pleasant Grove canyon —

And the day before I came home, we did a 5k in lavender fields (luckily we took cell-phone pictures because my camera settings were WAY off and the pictures didn’t turn out — ooops!) —

And now it’s back to real life. Going back to work was Hard. And Depressing. Thank goodness I can sew and quilt and spend too much time on the internet for distraction LOL.

Have a Great Week!
XOXO,
Anna

Happy New Year!

19 Comments / January 4, 2017 January 4, 2017 / Holidays

Well, Happy New Year!!! As is our tradition, we like to have the animals appear in their Happy New Year portrait. This year, Scruff (aka TheEmptyNestChild) is the star of the show. (Mostly because I can’t find Paul — he’s been hiding because we’ve had so many “visitors” in and out in the last few weeks.)

The other tradition is to look back on the previous year in sewing, knitting and travel. It was a rough year here in ThimbleannaLand boys and girls, so there’s not a whole lot to show for it. ;-(

Luckily, we had our new little FinallyAGirl make her appearance in June, which cheered up the whole sad year! Most of my sewing and knitting centered around our sweet little cherub. The only travel was three trips to Utah last year — sadly, one trip was to take our beloved BigDaddy back home for the final time, and the other two trips were for quilt market and just a fun family get-away.

Have you seen these fun Letter Folk Co boards? They recently posted this picture on Instagram, and with the exception of the arrival of FinallyAGirl, it pretty much sums up my feelings about 2016:

I’m really looking forward to 2017 and hoping it will be a whole lot less busy with mundane responsibilities and a whole lot more fun with lots of sewing and knitting. Crossing fingers! I suspect Utah trips will continue as our FinallyAGirl will be moving there later this year and this Grandma will be distraught! I must sharpen my facetime skills LOL!

Now I’m off to contemplate projects for this year. Have you noticed that Meredithe and Anne are having a 17 UFOs in 2017 challenge? I’ve been reading about it on several blogs and smugly thinking that I hadn’t let my UFOs get THAT out of control. But, silly me — I was tidying up a teeny bit in the sewing room this morning and several UFOs that I’d forgotten about were lying around — who knows how many I would find if I really cleaned up down there??? It’s a very sad state of affairs!!! Must. Get. Busy.

Happy New Year — May 2017 bring you lots of love, happiness and time to do all the fun stuff that you can dream about!
XOXO,
Anna