Happy Thanksgiving!

I am so thankful for you all, my dear friends.  I so enjoy sharing my life and stitching with you!  Each new follower I get makes me feel special.I hope each and every one of you has a beautiful day!

Things I am thankful for today:

That David's fever went down and our Thanksgiving get-together will happen!
For my health.
For the ability to cross-stitch. ;)
For a roof over my head.
For a husband that is an excellent cook. :)
For the beautiful weather today.
For a wonderful set of parents and an awesome brother who love me.
For two beautiful, healthy children.
For the generosity of others.

And sooooo much more! God bless you all today!

A generous giveaway!

Robin is having a great blogaversary giveaway! Click her name or the title of this post to check it out. :)

Another new post is below...

my tiny angel, Christmas lights, and more..

Hanna and David (with a little chocolate on his face)

Tonight was the annual lighting of the Christmas lights in our historic downtown area.  I took the kids for a little while- Krispy Kreme was giving away a free doughnut to anyone who wanted to wait in line.. lol.. he was even dipping them in chocolate and putting the sprinkles on right there! So the kids and I grabbed a doughnut and waited for the lights to be turned on, and the kids also mixed up some reindeer food (glitter and oats) to leave on the lawn for Santa's reindeer. :)  These pics were taken with my phone so they aren't stellar, though I like the one of the kids.

A shot of "Main St"

the (magnolia) Christmas tree

I've also been working on my Brightneedle Christmas ornament at lunch- I am subbing overdyed threads for the DMC and finally have my conversions all worked out I think- except for one that I missed.

I couldn't get a good pic of this- if I turned my flash on it was too washed out, so I had to use this one. It is one floss thread over one fabric thread- this is sometimes a little nervewracking but I love the dainty stitches. What needles do you use for tiny stitches? I think mine is a little too big.

And last but not least, the bookmark I did for my mom for her birthday- she loved it. :) Some of you may have seen it on the Freebie Gallery blog already. It's by Linen Flowers and it's a freebie! It can be found here . They have lots of really lovely freebies on this site.  Happy stitching!

For all primitive/Early America/antique lovers

Check this place out- no cross stitch here but some wonderful items!
Carole's Country Store Be sure to check out all the different areas!

Need help finding Kate!

I need some help from the blog world- I won a giveaway on a blog a while back, and I received the chart yesterday- wanted to let the giver know that I had received but no longer have her email, and can't remember which blog was hers.  Does anyone know of a Kate that blogs, a fellow stitcher, that has recently moved? She is in the U.S. Thanks so much for your help! Worst case I can just drop her a line back by snail mail I suppose..

Will hopefully post a pic or two soon of something- most stitching has been for Christmas, some for people that may read my blog, especially now that it's linked to my facebook page.

Snowman card pattern winner!!!

Bet you never thought I'd post! Sorry it took so long-- David closed his eyes and reached into the bag o' names and he picked...FAYE RAYE!!  Woo hoo! Faye, email me your address at angelrose1108@yahoo.com and I will get this out to you Monday- congrats!!

Super stitchy giveaway!!!

Erynne is having a super generous stitchy giveaway on her blog! Just click the post title or her name to check it out. :)

A little giveaway

I came across this card pattern the other day- I have already stitched it-so if you would like it please leave a comment on this post only and I will draw a name Friday or Saturday. :) I'm hoping to finish up a gift tonight, will get it in the mail and hopefully in a few days I'll be able to show it to you. :) Not much else going on today except the usual!

My grandma's card finished!

Just a quick post to show you the card I made for my grandma- this was my first card-making attempt "from scratch" - meaning no cards with openings for stitching to be inserted, etc.  I tried to wing it last night or Friday and it didn't turn out, so I reviewed a tutorial I had received from a fellow stitcher on the San Man board, and gave it another shot. It's pretty simple, but I figure as I know more what I'm doing I can get a little fancier. :) Plus Grandma's birthday is tomorrow so this is going to be really late!! I love these brads I found at Michael's - I think they are so pretty- there were two different sets with them as well, one kind of funky (in a good way) and the other kind of classic. The design is from a Cross Stitch Crazy magazine "extra" I believe. (Too lazy to go look-lol) I know it was a British cross stitch mag.  Sorry for the crappy picture- I used the flash but it still turned out pretty dark!

Who'da thunkit?

LOL! You know that headache I had for a week?  Well all it took to cure it was a night out with my hubby and a margarita and a half at Chili's. hee hee..  Rob surprised me Friday by finding some friends to watch the kids and taking me out to Chili's for dinner!  It was delicious and so nice to relax.  And as mentioned above, the margaritas did the trick! Weird huh? Mind you, alchoholic beverages are not going to become my headache medicine. ;-)

And here is my progress pic on my LK flip-its- not as far as I thought I would get but after Hanna goes to bed I've been working on her Christmas present- once I make some progress I will post it here as she doesn't read my blog, unless it's over my shoulder once in a while as I'm typing. 

I am going to be listing a couple of items on ebay if anyone is interested-  the pattern and leftover threads from Bent Creek's Blackbird House zipper-

and a cross stitch mousepad kit- it has been opened but all the original items are in there. My ebay ID is hannasmom1198. :)

And last but not least, here is a picture of some trees near our townhouse- sorry the pic is not of the full trees but I didn't want the neighbors' vehicles in the photo.

I really wanted to wait til the middle tree had turned also, but I was afraid the leaves would be off of the other two by then!

Not exactly as planned...

Good evening dear friends! I took the day off today to spend with the kids, take them to the Veteran's Day parade, etc. Rob was supposed to work today.   Well the parade was cancelled due to the weather. Rob took the day off, not necessarily a bad thing..  I went to the chiropractor this morning to try to get rid of this never-ending headache.  I felt better after getting adjusted but the headache was still lurking, and slowly got worse as the morning went on.  We did some running around, ate some lunch, and Rob suggested that when we got home I should take a shower and let the hot water run on my neck-where most of my tension was- and then lay down.  I told him I didn't want to sleep my day off away.. and he said "Well then just lay down and watch a movie."  Great idea! He kept David busy and Hanna had a book to read for school so I did as he suggested- I have been in the mood to watch "Emma" ever since I finished reading the book(maybe even before.) So I popped that in and lay down to watch it and try to relax, and also complete one more thing on my Jane Austen challenge list! Next thing I know I am waking up and part of the movie is over. Argh! And even then I couldn't stay awake, kept dozing off and on.. though there is an advantage to falling asleep while watching the movie- I dreamt of Jeremy Northam. hee hee..  So I guess I did NOT complete another task on my Jane Austen challenge. lol  The good news is my headache is mostly gone, I hope it will stay that way and I won't wake up with it again in the morning.  Overall it was a good day, after waking up from my nap/movie watching I just stayed in my flannel PJs the rest of the day.  It has been raining since yesterday so I knew I wouldn't want to go anywhere else- even though I wanted to kit up Hanna's Christmas present and I was missing a skein of DMC.. argh! Will have to go tomorrow and pick it up.  I worked on my LK flip it blocks again and am making some decent progress- will post a pic after I work on it tomorrow.

I also read a little.  I'm reading Exit Wounds by J.A. Jance- it is really good so far. Unfortunately it is #11 in a series and now I will want to read all the others. Like I don't have enough books on my goodreads "to read" list! :-O

Well it's back to work tomorrow so I suppose I better get to bed- I hope everyone had a great Veteran's Day and took some time also to remember and pray for our vets and active duty military.  I just found out a good friend of ours is going to be deployed fairly soon to Afghanistan. :(  What sacrifices they make for us!!

I feel like I've been away forever..

but have just been really busy!  Friday night we had a few tween girls over for a sleepover for Hanna's birthday- she turned 11 on Sunday!  We watched "17 Again" with them- I am not a huge Zac Efron fan - guess just from over-exposure- but it was a cute movie.  One of the girls couldn't spend the night but the other two stayed, and they all wanted to go to zumba class with me Saturday.  It was ok, we really didn't have much else to do so it would get them out of our little place and give them someplace to burn some energy.  We had a good time-came home and Rob brought home some subs for lunch.  They hung out a while longer then headed home.  I was having a bit of a rough weekend because I had a headache that started Friday and still has not gone completely away, though it has gotten better. It seemed nothing I took would help, and the one thing that did, kind of, was Excedrin Migraine, but it gives me heartburn and acid indigestion.  At that point anything was better than a headache.. but I think a trip to my chiropractor is in my not so distant future.  I haven't been adjusted in a long time.

On the stitching front, I got a bit more done on my bookmark this weekend but not as much as I would've liked.  Tonight I worked on my Brightneedle ornament, and my lunchtime project is a Jane Austen ornament for a friend of mine- the freebie was sent out with Tanya's (Sampler Girl) orders from her $5 sale. :)

We also had something a little odd happen yesterday- the kids and I came home from church and running errands and their were ladybugs all over the front of our building!  We also had several in the house as Rob's and my bedroom window was open and evidently we have some little holes in our screen.  So the window was quickly shut and Hanna and I began ladybug-catching.  We tried to be humane and set most of them free, though I fear when I was vaccuuming up dust around the window one or two may have met their end. I thought we had most of them, then realized the seal around our kitchen door at the bottom has come off and there was enough space for them to get in- so we caught some more.  I also filled up the crevice with tin foil until I can call our property manager to replace our seal/ or the ladybugs move on, whichever comes first.  According to Hanna they were still around when they got home from school with Rob!

Well, that's the update- sorry no pics tonight, I am feeling a bit tired and lazy- maybe tomorrow. :)

Did you know...

Brightneedle is now only designing teaching designs and not retail? They are retiring all their designs. :( I may be behind on the times, but I didn't know this until I went to their site today.  So sad.. :( I love their designs!

Halloween pics, a gift, a finish, and an ebay win!

Well, back to reality!  Mom and Dad's visit was great but much too short!!  We had a great time as always!  I did happen to get a little stitching time in the evenings as we watched movies, and finished my L*K flip-it!   (***OOPS!*** Not quite finished- realized last night I forgot the border.  Am going to LQS to get some WDW Snowflake today! LOL)

Mom went with me to take the kids trick-or treating-And on Friday I received this beautiful giftie for my birthday from Sharlotte!

 A great weekend!

And today I won a pattern on ebay that I've been wanting- the Celtic Band Sampler by Homespun Samplar. I love this design! I meant to get a whole lot of pics with my parents this weekend, but again I failed.  I guess it's cause we just hung around town and did some shopping and went to Starbucks mostly! We did go to Raleigh for a bit on Sunday, but just to church and to grab a bite.. went on a disappointing trip to find a LNS that I had heard of - but evidently I had heard of it a lonnnnng time ago cause it was no longer there, and the neighbor had never remembered and LNS being there. Any of my NC blogging friends remember You Count w/ Freda in Cary?  I had never been there- I guess I waited too long to check it out! Oh well!

I guess I better go get some stitching done!