Christmas 2008 and Family....

I thought I would share a couple of photo's of our Christmas trees and some family photo's.

This first photo is my Snowman tree which I placed in my new sitting room. It is full of snowmen that Wayne and I made last year and some I purchased.



This is the lighted flocked tree in our Gathering Room. I don't decorate this tree with ornaments. This year I put red bows on it with a large red bow with streamers at the top. This is the room that we open and share our gifts.




Our son, Gordon, had not been home for Christmas in four years, so Christmas was very special to Wayne and I this year. Gordon is our only child and we are very proud of him. He is serving his country in the United States Air Force, stationed at Ramstein AFB, Germany. However, the beginning of this month he was deployed to Qatar (prounced "Cutter"). He will be there four months (or so they tell him). Tammy, our DIL, is staying at their home in Germany.

This first photo is the four of us. Wayne, Tammy, me, and Gordon.




This photo is Gordon and his dad.




And here we have Tammy and Gordon.




I've been spending this month relaxing and cross stitching. I've actually completed several small projects (need to do the finish on them). I actually can't believe how relaxed my stitching has become this month. I believe this is because I made the decision not to participate in any swaps with any of the online groups I belong to. One small group is doing a birthday club and I am going to participate in this, but we only have to send a card with a skein of thread. My choice in stitching has turned more to the primitive level and I enjoy these designs very much. They are very simple and usually very quick to stitch. I still enjoy Lizzie Kate and have her new "Boo" charts to stitch for Halloween, and of course I will always love Little House Needleworks and The Sampler Girl charts. But, my world has opened up to several wonderful primitive designers.

Hopefully, later this week I can post some of my stitching, until then...

Blessings to Each of You,
Barbara

and the Saga continues

Okay, I'm back with more photo's of my home, and this will be the last of the remodeling project.

The photo below is the family wall in our gathering room. I started with a photo of Wayne and myself in the middle and went to the right with my family and to the left with his family. We enjoy looking at these photo's very much.



This photo is taken in the gathering room. The reason for this photo is so you can see the sunflowers on the mantel. Gordon and Tammy know I love sunflowers and there is a company in Italy that makes ceramic items and and that is where the sunflowers items came from. Now the ones on the hearth did not come from Italy, they are just plain silk flowers!





The photo below is the gathering room so you can see the carpet. The color of the carpet is Fossil, and it is very easy to take care of. Sorry it turned out so dark.





This is someday going to be my sewing/craft room. Right now it is very messy, but much better than it was a few days ago. I'm slowly working on getting it into some kind of order that will be workable for me. We also need to paint this room, and I think it is going to be a light green.




Here we have our guest room (we still refer to it as Gordon's room even though he hasn't lived at home in 20+ years! It is painted Faraway Blue.




And this is the Master bedroom and painted Thai Silk, pretty bright, but I love it.




Now, this is the bathroom, but I wanted you to see the floor covering in here. It is Mannington covering, also very easy to care for. This is also the flooring in my kitchen. Oops, I forgot to take a photo of the front entrance flooring, oh well, it is wood flooring, and I think very pretty.




And finally, my counter tops. They are Quartz, suppose to wear better then granite, and all I have to do is wipe them with Windex window cleaner! Now you can't beat that!




And that is the ending......In a few days I will post some Christmas photo's, was going to do it today, but this is already long enough!

Thank you for looking. You can click on any of the photo's to see them up closer.

Blessings to All,
Barbara

Remodeling..........

Wayne and I have lived in our home for 37 years. We built the house ourselves from ground up, with help to pour concrete and lay up the fireplace. Over the years we have painted the rooms, had siding put on the house, put up new storm doors, just general things to make the house look good. This past August I got on a kick to do some changing around inside, like cleaning out closets and starting to down size and painting the inside of them, then painting each room, putting down new carpeting all over and new floor covering in the kitchen and bathrooms, new counter tops in the kitchen and maybe even tearing out a wall dividing the hall from the living room. Okay this is in August, so we are slowly starting to do a few things, thinking we had lots of time to get everything in order, no pressure, no company for Christmas, just the two of us. However, this is all about to change.........in October our DS starts talking about coming stateside for Christmas, okay............we told ourselves, "oh this is not going to happen, they won't make the trip," then in November an email comes in saying, "we are coming home, arriving in KC on December 10, will be at your house on December 19 (after spending time with DIL's mother.)" Here we are in a MESS, and I mean a MESS! Things are everywhere, you can't find anything. SO..............I moved fast. Went to Lowe's where the counter tops were coming from and said,"I need them put on before December 1st" they said "no way", I told them to "try". Low and behold two days later they called and said "how would you like to have new counter tops put on before Thanksgiving", "GREAT". Got that done, in the mean while we are trying to paint with the help of our friendly painter friend, who is slow as the seven-year itch! He went by the wayside......so DH and I are painting. CARPET....to be put down on December 1..no way, still painting..put off until December 8...still painting, okay every room and every closet got cleaned out and painted before December 8, except the little bedroom that is going to be my sewing/craft room. Fortunately, Wayne and I are still married. They finished putting down carpet/floor covering on December 10, then everything had to be put in place and boxes unpacked. Well, my sewing room became the catch all and the door got closed. Christmas, had to decorate, got the boxes out of the barn, went through them, brought things to the house and did some decorating, not a lot, but two trees went up, centerpieces came out and put on tables, snowmen (not all) came out.......okay DS and DIL coming on the 19th, we are at the 17th, most everything is done. On Thanksgiving it was decided that the family Christmas gathering would be at our house on the 21st.......okay, time to think FOOD. I did the ham, dressing, sweet potatoes, and green beans. My mom came from Las Vegas and stayed at my Aunt's, they did the turkey and made the pies, everyone else brought other food. There was 27 of us that gathered that day. Gordon had not been home for Christmas in 4 years. My family had not gathered together in many, many years. This was wonderful.........THE VERY BEST CHRISTMAS THAT WAYNE AND I HAVE HAD IN MANY, MANY YEARS.

Okay, I got carried away...you are here to see what we did to the house....

The below photo is what used to be our living room, it is now the dining room and sitting area. Where the white rocker is, was once a wall!






This next photo is looking at it from another angle in the room. Here you can see Maggie Mae relaxing!



The next two photo's are the tin backsplash we had put on. It is smoked pewter and I love it. We also installed a new kitchen faucet and new garbage disposal.





Anyone for a RED wall? I have always wanted a red wall, but was never brave enough to do it...well, I figured at my age, what the heck! This is my new sitting area in the dining room. We haven't hung anything on the wall yet, because I enjoy just looking at it. But, I am searching for just the right thing to hang on this wall. Before all this change I had a quilt rack with a quilt hanging on it that Wayne's mother had pieced, but this all got moved to the hall wall.



I hope I haven't bored you to much. Tomorrow, if you want to check in, I will show you more of the rooms and some Christmas photo's.

Thank you so much for stopping by, please leave a message, I would love to hear what you have to say.

Blessings to All,
Barbara

Finally.........my USB cable is found!

One of the online stitching groups I belong to held a Christmas Santa Swap and Nancy from Ohio had my name. The above photo shows what a wonderful gift I received from her. She knitted me a Prayer Shawl, made from the softest yarn in a beautiful deep gray color and trimmed it with bangles, which you can see in the photo below. She also included a tin with a gingerbread cookie, a packet that says, "let it snow", which is now hanging on my snowman tree, a red rose, and all was wrapped in a beautiful piece of fabric, which will get much use and tied with a piece of white lace, which will also get lots of use.

Stay tuned in, tomorrow I will share photo's of our remodeling project!

Blessings,

Barbara

And a very Happy New Year...........

The beginning of a new year.........what will it hold, only good things I hope.

Wayne and I had a wonderful Christmas, actually the best Christmas we've had in many years. DS and DIL came home from Germany, my mom came from Las Vegas, my sister came from Ardmore, OK, and DH sister and BIL came from Durant, OK. The Sunday before Christmas on Thursday was our family gathering and we had about 28 people here. It was a lively, fun filled day.

I can't post any photo's right now, because in the mist of doing our remodeling project my USB cable disappeared! So I have a new one ordered, and photo's will be coming soon.

I do want to wish each of your a Very Happy New Year and hope that the year will bring only good things to each of you.

Blessings to each of you,
Barbara