My favorite Christmas gift

Yes, these are native Americans and pilgrims made from construction paper and toilet paper tubes. They were made for me by my very sweet, very thoughtful, very wonderful daughters, Heather and Wendy.

Up until this past fall, I had others almost exactly like these freckle faced characters. Heather had made a couple of pilgrims in her Girl Scout troop in 1st or 2nd grade. Then, when Wendy was pre-school age, she and Heather crafted some more pilgrims and a pair of native Americans. I thought they were adorable and always set them out as part of my fall/Thanksgiving decorations.

Sadly, due to an unfortunate incident, I no longer have the originals. In October, when I opened the plastic tub of fall decorations, I discovered some of my miniature gourds had spoiled. Everything was damp and covered in mold! (I'm not sure what happened. I've stored real gourds before with no problems.) It was a horrible, stinky mess. I had to wear a mask and gloves to go through it all.

Only a couple of ceramic pumpkins were salvageable; everything else was totally ruined. I wasn't upset about losing the foam pumpkins or the silk leaf garlands or the candles. What upset me was losing the little hand print turkeys with the colorful craft store feathers and the scarecrow coloring pages and Wendy's family turkey project from kindergarten; all the girls' precious hand made things. Including the construction paper and toilet paper tube pilgrims and native Americans.

I cried as I sorted and threw things away. I cried as I called my mom and told her what had happened. I cried as I went to bed that night. I was heart broken.

Then, Christmas morning, I cried again as I opened the box and saw what my girls had made for me. I barely had the lid opened when I whispered "Oh, girls!" and the tears started to flow.

This is undoubtedly the sweetest, most thoughtful gift I have ever received. It took planning and time; not to mention secret stashing of toilet paper tubes. :)

a little bit of scrapbooking.

Today was trash day. It was a sad day. Why? Because the trash can under my desk was empty. Empty because I haven't been doing much scrapbooking or creating in general lately. And that makes me sad. (and sometimes grumpy!)

But, all of that is about to change. Tomorrow I'm once again participating in a LOAD (layout a day) challenge...31 layouts in 31 days. I almost didn't sign up, but I couldn't stop thinking about all the layouts I wouldn't get done if I didn't at least try. I couldn't stop thinking about all the inspiration I would be missing out on by perusing the Flickr LOAD gallery. I couldn't stop thinking about all the fun I would be missing out on by interacting with other scrapbookers/LOADsters. I just couldn't stop thinking about it period, so I signed up! This will be my fourth LOAD and I can't wait to get started.

It's not to late to join in. Go to ScrapHappy for all the details. There will be prizes! :)
You'll need to scroll down a bit for the info.

Looking forward to a full trash can for the next month!




You can see my layouts from two other LOAD challenges in my Flickr gallery.

A little bit of blog hopping...

I have my favorite blogs and don't think a day is complete without going the rounds, checking them all out.


Two of the regular blogs I visit are Yeah, Write (Angie Lucas) and ScrapHappy (Lain Ehmann). Angie and Lain have teamed up and started a new publishing company, Ella Publishing, producing scrapbook related e-books. This week is their grand opening cELLAbration so they are hostessing a blog hop, featuring prizes. Yeah, for prizes!


So, that's what I'm doing this evening, blog hopping and finding some new favorites.

Win a Lens!

MCP Actions is givng away a Tamron lens! Go HERE! Good luck!

Watering

It hasn't rained for a weeks, so watering the gardens every evening is an almost daily activity. By using the hose in the garage and standing on the deck, I can water the bird bath garden without having to walk around the house and down into the yard. I'm lazy like that. lol!

A little bit of supper

It was just Wendy and me for supper tonight so I kept it simple...PB & J, cinnamon applesauce and chocolate milk. We had a nice time chatting and laughing. Simple is good.

A little bit of a bumper crop

Our gardens are doing so well this year! Remember the lettuce and spinach I blogged about earlier this spring? I've harvested it three times already and may be able to get some more before the heat of summer comes. We'll have cucumbers and zucchini ready in the next few days and some tomatoes by the end of the month. Just 4 days ago, there were only a handful of sugar snap peas on the vine and they looked like this:

And this:

Tonight Wendy and Ernie picked some sugar snap peas.

These are only the beginning, there will be a lot more of these in a few days!

If I take pictures of peas, does that make me a pea shooter? =)

Thanks for stopping by!