steph's stuff

My favorite memories of 2010

It's time to say good-bye to 2010! I thought I'd post some of my favorite photos and memories of this past year month-by-month.

January

January started a new life for all of us - fittingly at the beginning of the new year. We put our house on the market and decided to take a leap of faith that we would sell it in one of the worst housing markets in history.

 
And we all looked forward to a lot of changes!

 
February

February was all about cleaning the house. And showing the house. And cleaning the house. And showing the house. Over and over and over again.

 
And Andrew started really reading for fun!

 
And I started wearing reading glasses. Ugh.

 

March

In March, we sold the house (still can't believe we sold it so quickly!) and bought a new one.

 
And we dealt with inspection after inspection and then negotiation after negotiation on both houses after the inspections found problems at both houses. It was the craziest month of the year.

April

On April 1, Libby pulled the best April Fool's Day prank ever on Daddy. You can read about it all here.

And we moved.

 
May

In May, we had to say good-bye to my grandmother. :(  This was a life-changing weekend in many ways for me. I think I'm still working through all of it.

We did a lot of unpacking.

 
And Emily donated her hair again.

June

We really started settling into the house in June and totally fell in love with it.

 
We threw some parties.

Took some photos for Father's Day.

 
Had some down time.

 
And took our first trip to the beach.

 
 July

July consisted of a lot of beach and pool time. Probably the most relaxing summer the kids and I have ever had. We missed Maine tremendously but spending the 4th of July at the beach wasn't so bad, either.

 

We took a trip to Chicago.

 
And played in our vacation room. Still love this room and can't wait for the sun to shine again.

I had some minor surgery and having such a beautiful room for my recovery was lovely.

 
We sent Emily away to camp for a week and I cried buckets.

And we fenced in part of the yard. This was HUGE for us because it gave Sawyer total freedom. I love this fence.

 
 August

August started out in a glorious manner. Day after day at the beach with friends.

Emily got braces!

We played in the water a bit more.

And then the fun stopped. And school started. A new school for all the kids. Change. Fear. Anxiety. And tears. A lot of tears.

September

In September, Libby broke her arm. Actually, it was broken in August but it took 2 weeks to get a proper reading of the x-ray and to get it casted.

 
Andrew lost both front teeth.

And Libby had her first horse show.

 
Poor Emily was so unhappy at school that I don't even have any photos of her taken during September. She spent much of the month crying and begging us to let her go back to the previous school. This was probably the hardest thing she's ever gone through.  

October

October started off with Libby's seizure when she got her cast off. While it took us all by surprise, she bounced back faster than ever and we moved on. Again.

Fall truly came to Indiana and found Tom and I enjoying some evenings out with friends and really enjoying some couple time.

 
Emily finally started settling into the new middle school and accepting her new life.

And I broke out the sewing machine for first time in over a year. Quilting keeps me sane.

 
 
 November

We had snow early this year!

 
And the cozy days brought more time for quilting.

 
And one of the highlights of the year for me! Tom and I got away!!!!! For only the second time in over 13 years, we were able to take a trip without the kids. It was a very quick 24-hour trip but it was exactly what we needed.

 
And we hosted Thanksgiving!

 

 
December

December brought a lot of snow - all month long! And a lot of sledding with friends.

 Decorating was a lot of fun this year!

And December also brought the first year that our Christmas tree fell down.

Emily truly loving her new school!!! And excelling at every bit of it. :)

And then Christmas. :)

 
2010 was not a "normal" year for us. It was a year full of change, fear, transitions, a lot of hard work (both physically and mentally), a year of re-grouping, prioritizing, and dedication to making things work. In the end, as I sit here on the last day of the year and think back on all of it, I'm sure that all of the decisions we made were probably the best decisions we've ever made. 

We took many leaps of faith this year. And made many decisions to just keep forging ahead, not knowing what the future would hold, but believing that as long as we were all together, it would all work out.

And I do believe that we were right. :)

Happy New Year!
 

December Daily: Days 20 - 25

I'm so excited to have this project done!

Day 20 brought the end of the big sewing project I had this year - a quilt for some family members. 

The annual holiday baking...

Pretty gifts for all of our neighbors.

and the wrapping.

 
Christmas Eve is traditionally spent at Tom's brother's house in Michigan. In the car on the drive up, we sing Christmas carols. I love that part of it! I also like it when we all pile into Tom's car and are cozy. In the van, the kids are all spread out and it's just not as much fun on these short road trips.

The kids opening some gifts and playing with baby cousins.

And then Christmas morning and waiting for Santa...

On the second page, I added a collage of photos taken throughout the day. Simple and easy.

And I don't think there's a better way to end the night than reading a new Star Wars book with Daddy.

 
And a very simple back cover.

 
Can you tell I'm glad to be done with this project? LOL! 

I believe that this is probably my last paper scrapping project. It's been 4 years since I started digital scrapping and I've tried to maintain paper scrapping as well. But, really, I'm just being repetitive and I'm ready to be done with paper. I was irritated every single time I had to sit down to work on this because of the mess, the adhesive, and the searching for supplies. So, I'm about to put all of my supplies up on eBay. If you know of anything specific that you may be interested in, let me know. :)

December Daily: Days 11 - 19

My December Daily album is done! The earliest I've ever finished one of these. But, I have family coming into town unexpectedly and so have to have my house clean. Which means I decided to end the December Daily on the 25th. But, that's okay.

Here's part of it and I'll post the rest of it later today or tomorrow.

Elizabeth's birthday party was a riding party at the stables.

Our tree went up next and I used a couple of pages for that.

 
Promptly followed by a sick day. (Actually, our Christmas tree fell down after we put it up but I didn't include all of that. LOL!)

A very hastily-taken Christmas card photo. No time this year for a nice backdrop or even in-focus photos.

My favorite spot in the house.

A letter Andrew wrote to Tom. :)

Christmas vacation officially starts when the kids get off the bus on Friday afternoon!

Emily baking with her "fashion frames" on.

Just a reminder to the kids to always give and help those who need our help.

Back with more later! 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The Colorbrick Quilt

I started making this quilt after Thanksgiving as a Christmas present for some family members. I absolutely love this fabric - it's the Maison De Garance by French General fabric.

 
I saw the fabric online and just scrolled right past it. It just didn't appeal to me at all. But the next week, as I was shopping in our local quilting store, I literally stopped in my tracks when I saw the bolts of fabric displayed in the new section. I couldn't believe it was the same fabric. It is absolutely gorgeous!!!

The pattern is this Colorbrick Quilt by Rachel at Stitched in Color. It's a gorgeous pattern and I just knew it would look great with this fabric.

The sashing and backing are Kona Bone.

I wanted a few more details on the back but I ran out of time so I had to make due with the four blocks.

The only part of Rachel's pattern that I didn't follow is the machine quilting. I love organic straight lines so that's what I did with this quilt. Similar to this UT quilt. But, if I had to do it over again, I would have quilted it using wavy organic lines instead of straight organic lines. It would have been a bit softer and broken up all the straight lines of the fabric, I think.

Parting with this quilt was not easy and I love the fabric so much that Santa brought me a jelly roll of it. ;)

 
And a new sewing machine to go with it. Yippee!!!!!!!!

 

 
 
 
 
 

The best part

One of these years, my kids are going to be all grown up and I am going to miss having little kids on Christmas morning so much. Even though they're aren't really little anymore, they are still young enough to (mostly) believe in the magic of Santa Claus and the Christmas morning anticipation is my absolute favorite part of the holiday.

In our house, Daddy has to go downstairs first to make sure Santa came (and to start the coffee!!!) before the kids can come down. They hate this part but I love this part. Because I get to be a witness to their excitement.

This year, we have a staircase that is perfect for waiting on Christmas morning.

And I just love it. :) 

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all of our family and friends!

We are grateful for each and every one of you.

 

All is calm

The baking is done.

The gifts have been wrapped.

The sewing is finished.

And all is calm.

 
 
It's been a good week. :)

For the love of digi

I have been doing a lot of digital scrapbooking lately. And I just received a shipment of printed layouts and can't wait to get even more printed. On the layout below, I actually tried to smooth out the paper, thinking that it had gotten wrinkled in shipping. It took me a minute to realize that it wasn't real. Even on these bad cell phone photos, you can see how realistic it is.

 
 

As always, all products are from DesignerDigitals. You can click on my gallery here to see more about each layout and the product links.

Here are my most recent layouts.

 

Coming out from under the tree

Tom and I just climbed out from under the Christmas tree. It only took us 48 hours to get the tree back up. It was propped up with a chair for the last 2 days. (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, scroll down and read the previous post first.)

We have no excuse except that we were too tired. And Tom's been at work and putting the tree up takes two people. So, it's finally back up. And tied to a cabinet so it doesn't fall down again. Of course, many of the lights still don't work so I have to take every.single.thing. off the darn tree today and start from scratch with new lights and then take inventory of all the broken ornaments.

If I'm not back in the next day or two, look under the tree because I may be lost under there again.

Or else I'll be joining these two in a nap on the couch.

 

You seem tense

Last night was interesting. Andrew was up sick with me until after midnight.

Tom was halfway across the state at an arbitration that lasted until 1 a.m. And he had to drive through a blizzard to get home. He finally got home at 2:40 a.m. and the Christmas tree promptly fell over, shattering all kinds of ornaments. We were up until 3:40 a.m. cleaning it up.

When we finally got to bed, Tom said I was kind of tense.

Really?????

The alarm went off at 5:45 a.m.

Good morning!