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

Oh Boy! Can you believe it’s here already? It’s been three weeks since I posted and I just can’t believe it – time is flying by!

Our rough week after Thanksgiving got even rougher — the Grandmas in Thimbleannaland haven’t been doing very well. MeMum has had pneumonia and was in the hospital for a week. When she came home, we took the opportunity to move her into our house — we’ve known it’s been coming for a long time, and this seemed like a good chance to make the move, since she’s always vowed that she’d never live with either of her girls. So, this is just “temporary”, but it’s really not. ;-8 TheManoftheHouse has escaped the fun for a few days to go and be with his mother who is gravely ill. Today is her birthday and she has her three boys with her and I’m hoping that they’ll be comforted by having their family all together.

So, not much decorating or baking this year and … gasp … wait for it … no Gingerbread Houses either. In over ten years, this is only the second time we’ve missed the fun — hopefully we’ll be able to pick back up next year. The boys and MyDadLovesMeBestSister are having an “in-law” year, so it’s blissfully quiet here. The Grinch tried to sneak in, but, as you can see, Grumpy Monkey and Luna Lapin are having none of it!
;-D.

I asked MeMum, if she could only have one cookie for Christmas this year, what would it be? I knew she would say our beloved Angel Slices, and she did. So, I squeaked out a pan of them on Thursday night (along with the best caramels) and made a batch of sugar cookies last night. After all, we had to have our traditional Christmas Eve morning breakfast — even if it didn’t have the variety this year that we usually have.

I also found some knitting time and made one of Julie’s adorable little stocking ornaments. Won’t it make a fun gift with a penny or two from this year tucked inside?

Now, I’m looking forward to a VERY relaxing Christmas Day — watching movies and quilting — it’s been too long since I worked on FinallyAGirl’s baby quilt and I’d like it to be done before she goes to kindergarten!

Wishing all of you a very, VERY Merry Christmas – I hope Santa is oh-so-good to you this year!

Merry Christmas!
XOXO,
Anna

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Well, I’m a little late to the party, but Happy New Year! Our usual tradition is for the kitties to wish you a Happy New Year, but they’ve been traumatized by 10 days worth of the adorable Winston and there was no way they were going to pose for a picture. So, Winston, the perfect, always happy dog, would like to wish you a Happy New Year.

TheFirstChild, SweetiePie and Winston just left to go back home and we’re going to miss them — after we rest up. Whew – I’m tired! It sure was fun though — especially the dog walks with Winston. He’s just too cute!

We have two other New Year Traditions around here. The first is to put a gingerbread house or two out for the birds and squirrels. So far, we haven’t had any takers, but we’ll see. It’s so sad to put them out there without any snow — usually our January is white and wintery!

And the other tradition is to look back at 2015 and create a little collage of the year in sewing, knitting and travel. I don’t get as much done as a lot of you, but it sure was a fun year!

So, now, on to a new year. A clean slate. I love all the dreaming and planning that comes with a new year. I’m hoping to plan some new projects and maybe finish an old one in the next few weeks. I can’t wait to see what 2016 will hold for all of us — with a new grandbaby on the way, our year promises to be exciting. Wishing all of you a Healthy and Happy 2016!

XOXO,
Anna