My friends call me Lucy!

I have had to take some time off from my blog due to illness. Not the children, thank the Lord, but Mr. Handsome and myself. And, it appears, I am getting sick AGAIN! :( I always feel bad for Mr. Handsome when I get sick because he has to bare the brunt of everything!! When we were both sick, I couldn't even take care of him. And I love to take care of him when he is sick. Well, I love to take care of him when he's well, too. Monday I started feeling like I was getting a cold again but I am definitely wondering if it's all allergy related because I am sneezing like crazy and no one else seems to be getting it. We have had a great time preparing for our Thanksgiving meal. In between all that, I have been making Christmas presents and finishing up school with the gang so we could take a few days off for Thanksgiving. Mr. Handsome has had a whole week off and it's been quite a treat spending the last three days with him. We will really miss him when he goes back to work. Especially Kristinie the Great. She was telling him while we were driving to church that he needed to go back to work!! But when Monday morning comes she will be the first one (well, maybe second, I might be first!) following him to the door crying because he's leaving us!

I am looking forward to our Thanksgiving dinner this year. We are home which means it is just our little family together. We invited some friends to come eat but they had other plans. We have a three year rotation with the holidays between my parents, Mr. Handsome's parents, and our home. It works out really well. This year we are having a Snoopy Thanksgiving. All the accoutrements necessary to celebrate have been bought. The jelly beans were bought under the wire! Beatrice and I found them at Olde Tyme Pottery yesterday when we were looking for a cornucopia. I wish I could say that I was better at planning for parties and meals, but I am not very good at it. I love to have things look nice but forget a lot. If it wasn't for Beatrice reminding me about the cornucopia, I seriously doubt we would even have one today. AND God blessed us - we got it 30% off!! Can't beat that.

Here is what my Christmas present can do!! I am soooooooo very excited!! This is a polyester fabric with glitter in it, too. Mr. Handsome bought me a new die cutting machine that far exceeds the cricut. I can use my make-the-cut program with it too! It is called a craftwell e-craft machine. And it's pink. That is very important if you know me even just a little!

Here is a letter close up. Doesn't it cut great?!! 

And here is my mother-in-law's Christmas present. I cut all the poinsettias out with the e-craft, too. I will take a photo of a finished one once I get myself back to normal, if that is possible since my friends DO call me Lucy for a reason! OH, and my mil's present is a set of napkins, one of which was "accidentally" cut (about 3") by our Maddie. I was not a happy camper! Lucy is definitely my name!! :) 

Here are Beatrice and Kristinie the Great playing the wii. They are riding a tandem bike. It is hilarious to watch them play it together! They are so cute. Beatrice came in the kitchen a few weeks ago and said, "Mommy I can spell!" And I said, "That's great" and she said, "Listen! M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I!" I said, "Wow!! That is great, what does it spell?" She yelled, "PENSACOLA!!" And I said, "um, no [while trying not to laugh too hard], not Pensacola." She tried again: "Minnesota?" It was so funny!! I am glad our children have great senses of humor because I could not stop laughing about it! 

Here we are at the new park right near us. It is a beautiful park! We went with Mr. Handsome one day and walked all the way around the lake - 1.4 miles. That may seem like a small distance for most people, but for us with all the children walking, it was a great feat!

We went and saw my brother participate in a Veteran's Day program in Hampstead. He shot a rifle a few times. It was very nice.

Kristinie the Great sliding down the slide at the park.

Here are the banners a friend of mine and I made. Remember I asked my brother to put the letters on? Well, I am in the process of making NEW Thanksgiving banners. The only thing I will say is that I learned a hard lesson at the expense of my whole church. But I will say, Lesson learned loud and clear!

Here is part of a Christmas present for the children. I am going to put NCState on shirts for each of them. I cut the design with my e-craft. It's a pretty amazing machine!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving. I am so thankful for my family. God has blessed me beyond measure and there is so much I can thank Him for!!! 

The Banners were hung on the walls with great care!!

Now if only I could see them and be there!! :( I am happy, and VERY relieved, to report that the banners my dear friend and I made, with the assistance of my brother, were hung today. And my preacher said they looked great. Lord willing, I will be well soon, and I can go see them. And I will take photos.

And here is a funny episode in the life of Jackie and Taylor:

Today, Beatrice says, "Mommy!! I can spell: M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I!" I said, "Great! What does it spell?" She said, without missing a beat, "Pensacaola!!" I, trying not to laugh hysterically, said, "No, not Pensacola." Before I could tell her she yells, "Minnesota?" Robert told her what it was. It definitely brightened our day!!

I should be at church

Today was Homecoming at our church. And tonight is AWANA. Mr. Handsome and I are home sick. As in, I can't talk and my head is seriously congested with a fever. Mr. Handsome has a bad cough and is also congested. One of my friends agreed to take all the children, who, thank the Lord, are healthy and robust. I am praying they stay that way. Being sick is rather boring. So, since I am well enough to sit up but not well enough to go to church and tired of lying down, I figured I would do my blog early. We had a great week. I have been working on our Thanksgiving celebration. This year we are home and it is just our little family; well, BIG family depending on how you look at it. We have a three year rotation where we go to my family's one year, Taylor's family the next, and stay home the next. We do this at Christmas too. We decided for Thanksgiving to do a Snoopy Thanksgiving, so I am excited about the decorations. I have the napkins finished!

I call this photo candy corn-acopia!

Here is a napkin ready to be hemmed and the candy corn sewn on.

The finished product!! We also had Fall Festival on Monday. The children were so excited because they got to spend the time with their cousins, John and Rachel.

Here are John, Kristine, and Rachel waiting to get their faces painted.

Kristinie the Tiger!

Here are all three of them!

Spiderman John!

Princess Rachel

This is one of our church kids with Kirstine!! She and her sister and her brother are the sweetest young people! And our children love them.

Mermaid Beatrice

Our pastor, for some time, has wanted banners for our sanctuary. I have really wanted to make them but he has been looking at catalogues. I guess he got tired of it and mentioned it to a friend of mine and one of my dear friends was standing nearby and volunteered us to make them or something like that - I wasn't there so I am not sure!! But I am excited one of them volunteered me. I am the big pin! She is the cutter. We found out the ripstop nylon is VERY slippery when doubled and pins just slide it all over. So I volunteered to lie down. It helped keep the banners still. We were going to do the letters ourselves but I do not have access to the program that could do that for me so I had to rely on my brother for help. As you will see further down, he did a fabulous job. My friend and I made the banners and trimmed out the letters. 

Here we are at the nursing home. Beatrice and Beaker LOVE the fall display!

This is what happens when you put crayons in the washing machine AND dryer. THE BOY did this to his dress shirt. Thankfully it was the only damaged aritcle of clothing in the wash. It is a whole lot worse than it looks, too.

Here is a letter being sewn out for practice on Tom's machine.

Among our busy week, we got to watch a friends' four girls! They are terrific and all the children are buddies!! Robert feels a bit odd man out but makes the best of it.

Here is Banner Number One! I hope our pastor likes them. Our sanctuary AND our church looks just about like it did when they were first built - he is very fastidious and I hope this satisifies his fastidiousness!! He loves the Lord and he loves us and wants us to have a beautiful place to worship the Lord.

Here is Banner Number Two.

Yesterday was spent finishing the banners and dropping them off at church. I am excited that I was able to do them and my friend and I have lots of great ideas for other banners. My excitement for the week was Mr. Handsome buying me my Christmas present early. I guess he saw how frustrated I was not being able to use my own equipment and I knew my cricut just didn't cut it anymore (no pun intended). He was asking me what I was looking at online last week and I showed him the die cutting machine I was going to start saving money for. He said, "Why, Honey, why don't you let me get that for Christmas?" IS THAT A TERRIFIC HUSBAND OR WHAT????!!! He even let me order it now so I could have it early this week. And God blessed me because I found it 30% off free shipping AND no tax!!! I can't wait to get the machine and work on some new stuff. I'll post photos next week of the machine and the fun the children and I have with it. We have revival this week too so, Lord willing, when I am better, I will be able to go to a few services. Maddie and Robert start basketball practice. Taylor's family is coming to Wilmington for the third time in thirteen years to celebrate Christmas at the beginning ot December. My sister-in-law and I are getting ready to go Black Friday shopping. Our AWANA Thanksgiving dinner is coming up. I love this time of year. From November 1 through the end of December there are always times to be thankful and remember the birth of the Saviour!

In homage to the rejected curtain!!

Bet you're curious now, eh?!! Well, you'll have to wait till I get to Saturday to hear about the subject mattter. This week was another busy week - we had school, visited with my sister-in-law and her two children a couple times, visited Dorothy, sewed, etc. Monday moring brought a very serious trip to the chiropractor. My last experience was a nightmare of colossal proportions (I have always wanted to say that but have never had the opportunity - until now!). They waaaaaay overcharged, tried to scare me, threatened me, and tried to manipulate and intimidate me. So, it was with great reservation that I would go again. Thankfully, a friend of ours mentioned that he and his wife had a good chiropractor. (I immediately conjured up images of some person dressed in tribal garb stirring a cauldron with snake eyes! Just kidding!) But I did cringe because of my previous experience. We had this conversation about a week prior to my accident. Or Sad Tale of Woe as I like to call my whining. It sounds rather romantic when I write that way. Last week I was at Dorothy's and my nephew and Kristinie the Great were playing right below me. Let me stop right here and say that when you are six feet tall and wearing skechers shape-ups (which make me 6'2") you don't see much below your elbow. I didn't see them and in order to keep from crushing them, because not only am I fairly tall, I'm also rather big (it spreads out nicely on a tall frame) I had to jump twist and stumble to keep from hurting them. I heard something pop but since it didn't hurt I didn't worry. Well, two days later, I was in some pain but not terrible. By Monday, (back to my story), I was in serious pain. So I decided to call said chiropractor. I got there, signed in, and they took me back. And boy, was I surprised!!! They were great. The doctor said she could fix my back in FOUR visits!! I couldn't believe it. They recommended a maintenance plan but said they would work with what I had the time for. AND she said if she didn't think they could fix it they would help me find someone who could help me!! After my first visit, I was significantly better. By this morning, I was in virtually NO pain! I was thanking the Lord for that.

 And here is the wonderful table that they used to fix me up!! AND since we have met our deductible it was extremely inexpensive. Praise the Lord!! :)

 Here is our little buddy Dagmar, the most spoiled dog in the world.

Here is John and Beatrice in the Adventure Bus. He and Rachel love riding with us. Tomorrow they are coming to our fall festival. I hope everyone stands still long enough for me to take photos!! I can't remember what day I did what but I believe this was Tuesday. All the pictures are in chronological order, though.

 This is my piece de resistance II!! (I think I have a lot of them!) This is Sparky, the K-2nd grade mascot for AWANA. If you can't tell, he is a firefly. (See the wings and the yellow bottom?) All handmade and machine satin stitched. Made by special request for one of my friends for her AWANA classroom.

 The first skirt for my Sister-friend I told you about last week. Thankfully, she loves it. And she wore the black one today to church, and it looked great on her, if I do say so myself.

 Our trip to the nursing home. Notice how great I am at centering photos!! I wanted a nice photo of everyone in front of their Fall display.

 This is one of the entries in the nursing home's pumpkin carving contest. This is a carving of a guy at the nursing home, named Hank Messink; hence, "Hank-enstein"!! He is a nice man and I figured since I haven't gotten a photo of him, I would post his look-a-like!

 Here is the skirt on my friend. Looks pretty good, eh?

 Here are Beatrice and Beaker doing school together.

 Friday was an exciting day. Our church rented a booth with Amazing Grace Missions and handed out Bible tracts and literature for people. It's an opportunity to give the Gospel in a very busy environment. Everyone I spoke to was very nice and polite. I love opportunities to serve the Lord like this. My two bestest buds and the one in the middles' husband. It was his idea to do this. What a terrific idea!!

 No explanation needed! Ha ha ah ha.. But if you want to know what God REALLY can not do, it's as follows: He can not lie - Titus 1:2; He can not change - Malachi 3:6; and He cannot let anyone into Heaven unless you are born again - John 3:3. I am not putting the verses on purpose. If you have a Bible you can read them in there. It's something to think about. Then read Romans 3:23, 6:23, 10;9-10 and 10:13.

 Here is a skirt I made for one of our bus kids at church. We have a van and a bus that picks up children and adults who otherwise couldn't get to church. It is a great way to get them to church and the young lady I made this for loves coming to church. She is such a sweet girl!

 Here is Beaker a.k.a Cubbie Bear. I guess I need to take my celebration banner down sometime.

 Ahhhhh, here we go!! Ode to the rejected curtain. I have a strange sense of humor and one of my friends and I sort of think alike. Someone decided to paint her AWANA room (my Sunday School classroom) what we affectionately call, gun metal gray. Blaaahhhh!! It was because they wanted to get it painted and it was all the leftover paint he had. He's too funny!! So he used that. Anyway, my friend showed our pastor this fabric and he summarily rejected it with a curt, "No, it looks like a clown." All it would have been was a valance! We thought it was quite humorous that he rejected it so quickly and I had told her it would make a great skirt. Soooooo, she got me the fabric (she works in a fabric store) and here it is!! :)

 And here is the rick-rack that she picked out!! Crazy, I know. It suits me perfect!! :)

 Waiting to get on the Adventure Bus for Sunday School and church this morning.

 Here are the Three Musketeeritos, as I call them!! I think they will be best buds!! They are waiting for the animals to be sent around in AWANA. It was Animal Kingdom Night tonight and everyone got to bring in their not-a-cat-or-dog pet. We had a gerbil, three birds, a snake, two ferrets, and a guinea pig.

 Here is the ferret being passed around. Lindsay is in the upper lefthand corner.

 Rachel is soooo excited to see the ferret. Upper right hand corner.

 Our Maddie holding the ferret.

Robert holding the albino corn snake that got nervous and "had an accident" on him.

Beatrice fascinated with the snake. Why? I don't know.......

Here is our T&T star!! Robert finished his book in EIGHT weeks!!! We are really proud of him!! :)

We have a new Sunday School teacher in our Sunday School class. He is going to be a great teacher. Except I really stressed him out today. He asked us to think about our first memory when we were children. I should have been first because my mind had only wandered back to living on good old Snake Den Road and running through the woods playing with my friends and cousins. Swinging from trees and having a great time! But as he went around the class, I remembered my first memories were not actually of Snake Den Road. So trying to sort things out in my head, he progressed around the class and I realized I could not say what I had to say without breaking down crying. I knew I could not even say it but I was able to calm myself down as he came around to our row. Taylor gave his first memories and he was pretty funny because he has such bad eyesight he is legally blind so he said he couldn't remember much visually because of his eyesight but he remembers his nanny telling him never to call someone a fool. So after he was done, I made a vain attempt to compose myself. I couldn't do it. And I think I ruined the class. My first memories were my last memories of my grandpa. He died when I was very young but I remember how much he loved us. Boy! Did he love us. He always had time for us and danced with us. I vaguely remember him playing his accordian and the piano. I remember when he and Grandma came home from Norway and we met them. It's not like it is now but they did have some security. I could see him coming and I flew under the ropes and jumped into his arms and wouldn't let go. He had all kinds of luggage in his hands!! I can't even remember if they came home by boat or plane but Dorothy has filled in my memory gaps with it because she tells that story a lot. I remember the rock wall he built and he let all of us put our handprints and footprints in it down by the road. I went back several years ago and the part where we had our handprints was gone. I guess I had never associated my memories of him with the time of his departure. Looking back it seems like only moments that I knew him. But it was really several years. I have the best family on the planet!