Festival of Trees

I don't have any progress pics, but this is a picture of what my mom and I completed today. Of course, she did most of the work. But, I embroidered the faces. These dolls were made in honor of Sophia and Lillian, who were born in our neighborhood this year, to two different families. Lillian has returned to Heavenly Father, but Sophia fights on. They were both born with serious heart problems, which accompanied Down's Syndrome. "Lillian" is on the left, with brown hair and eyes, and "Sophia" is on the right with black hair and brown eyes.

The dolls will sit on two white chairs under a Christmas Tree at this year's Festival of Trees to benefit Primary Children's Medical Center in Salt Lake City. The theme of the tree is "Angels from Heaven". I may have more pics of the tree after next weekend, when I go up to the festival to see it. I can't go up tomorrow to decorate and set everything up, but it's been fun to be involved.

So thankful for Thanksgiving!

I know, I know. It's been a while since I posted anything here. I will be better, I promise.

We spent a wonderful Thanksgiving day at my sister's home, with all of us except our missionary together. Michael, my missionary nephew, recently flew to Prague after a two-month stay at the Provo missionary training center. We were able to talk to him while he was at the Dulles airport awaiting his flight to Vienna. He then flew to Prague. He spent about 24 hours traveling from Utah to Prague. We are now awaiting our first e-mail or letter from him to find out just where he will be in Slovakia, after the mission president assigns him a new companion and area. We missed him yesterday! I'm going to break one of my cardinal blogging rules... I usually don't like posting pics of people I know. But, here is a picture of Michael and his sisters, acting crazy... I had fun taking family photos and this was taken near the bottom of the Mt. Timpanogos trailhead.

I must say that it's been a great week. I took Monday through Wednesday off, and with the holiday time for Thursday and Friday, I've had seven full days so far of staying at home. I have had to answer some e-mails, and am testing a new course evaluation system that was installed early this week, but other than that, I've been able to focus on what I need to get done here at home. And, I've stitched a bit!

I made a wee bit of progress on VS Christmas Village last night. I'm not sure I'm going to love stitching all of that white in the pattern, but the effect will be nice, and I'm trying to mix it up so I don't get too bored with it. And, I am nearly finished with the stitching on DT Box of Stitches Scissor and Needlecase. I was able to learn some tips and tricks to finishing it from Carolyn on Saturday when I drove up to the Craft Center for her finishing class. So, I'm looking forward to finishing it before the end of the year. I'll post pics in my next post, I promise!

I did venture out to do a bit of shopping today, but not until after noon. There were a couple of deals I couldn't pass up at Kohl's, and so we have some early Christmas presents. I've wanted a nice food processor for a while, and have also been looking at the new Cuisinart Griddler. But, I found a nice, large George Forman grill which will work just fine for panini sandwiches, and it was $100 cheaper than the Griddler was. I did pick up a nice Cuisinart food processor and four dinner plates and this cute salt and pepper shaker set to complete my Christmas snowman set. We'll be planning a family dinner party with lots of fun food and I finally have a full set of holiday dishes to use!

I hope that all of you in the US had a great Thanksgiving with family and friends. I'm sad my time off is coming to an end, but really looking forward to Christmas and enjoying all the preparation for the holiday! (I started listening to Christmas music - with lyrics yet - around October 1 this year... that's even early for ME!)