A Merry and A Not So Merry Christmas!

 My hubby and I took a wonderful trip to Tennessee during Christmas. I'll post more about that later.

  On Christmas Eve morning we received a text message from our oldest grandson that Logansport's First Baptist Church was burning down.

 I quickly got up and got on Facebook because everyone puts the latest information on there. My heart just sank when I saw the pictures. It was still burning, and burned way up into the day.

  Arson is suspected, and there is an intense investigation going on to try and prove that.

  The church burned down in 1963, but the big beams in the sanctuary were saved along with the baby grand piano. NOT this time! 

 They did manage to save the newest building built which is the fellowship hall that has a modern kitchen and bathrooms plus room enough to have church. 
 Let me share a few pictures, and then I'll tell more.

Before

 The CROSS still stands and so does the Word of God! Nothing can take that away!

 The cross will be taken down and added to the new church building.

 Our small town fire department, most of which is volunteer, and others (including my son), worked as hard as they could to put out the fire. It was a raging, hot fire. 

 I'm sort of glad we weren't here to see it. We went by there as soon as we got back into town on Monday, and there are no words to describe it. Our pastor was driving around still looking at the rubble, and he looked so pitiful.

  We were married in that church, and our son was baptized there along with various funerals of family members, weddings, and such. Lots of memories. My husband grew up here and watched the other church burn.

 The church sits right next to the property where the old school used to be. The school burned in 1991, and it was arson, but no one was ever arrested. FBC bought the remaining school grounds along with the old gym, and the old home ec. building which is now the youth building.

 At least they have plenty of room to start over and places to use. They are bringing in portable buildings for the offices.
  So please keep the church members in your prayers. We have several older deacons that aren't in good health, and this has really taken a toll on them.  
Thanks,
ShirleyC

Want to See a Little Snow?

This is so cool! Go to Google.com. Type in "let it snow", and hit return (enter). Your screen will turn to snow and white out. Then click on "defrost". (You must have Firefox, Google Chrome, or Safari for it to work.) 

  Also you can use your mouse to "write in the snow". Pretty neat little trick, Google!

 No, it's not snowing here! These pics were from nearly 2 years ago when we kept the kids overnight, and it snowed. We had a blast!

Occupy Your Sewing Room!

I posted last week about this event coming up. I hope there are several of you that read my post that plan to participate.
  If you want to Link Up to Occupy Your Sewing Room - then click HERE!
 I have been working hard even before this week, and I did manage to get a few things accomplished.


 Just Friday night I embroidered this little shirt for our foster grandchild for his birthday party. He loves trucks and cars of any kind, and he sleeps with a little red monster truck so I couldn't resist this cute design from www.designsbyjuju.com. The big 5 came from the alphabet "Landon" by www.planetapplique.com, and the name is from Kabo designs #114. I think he will love it!

 This week I also worked on my fabric gift bags. Now I'm not finished, but I wanted to show you the ones I have made. They are nothing fancy, but they serve the purpose and eliminate a lot of extra garbage for the landfill at Christmas. I bought the fabric after Christmas last year at Hancock's, and also the ribbon at Hobby Lobby.
 Sorry I didn't pictures of the bags with gifts inside. I just haven't had time! I will add some pics later. I've made 6 of these so far.

 
These are some shirts I did at the beginning of the week.

Saying from Applique Corner

Snowman face from Sew Terrific

Jingle All the Way from Bunnycup Embroidery

Some other shirts I've done for my grands will follow. I try to make them a few each year. We rode the Polar Express right after Thanksgiving, and I made all 3 a shirt with "I Believe" from Planet Applique. I had to have these done in November.

 Yes, I've been busy! However, this isn't all I've done. I'll have another post coming up of a few more things I did in November. 
 I still have a couple more things to make. This will be a very, very busy week! I'm just thankful that I'm retired and I can enjoy the month of December no matter how hectic it gets.
  I love Christmas, but I always try to remember the real reason for the season. Jesus Christ was born to save us all! John 3:16.


Hugs to my blogging friends!

Update on Myself and My Grandson...

  Yesterday was my 6 months checkup with my tongue/mouth/neck doctor, and Dr. Kim said everything looked good.
  I was so glad to hear this after all I went through in May with the "suspicious lump" that turned out to be a clip.
  It has been 3 and a half years. I just don't know where time goes! 
  Please remember my grandson, Bubba, who was in the wreck in September. He will be having a bone graft on Dec. 20 on that same leg. He is able to bear weight on the leg now, and after he heals from this surgery, he will be having therapy.
 Also Clayton, Bubba's brother, is having his wisdom teeth out on the 16th - right before our family Christmas. Ouch! 

 Leaving you with a little view of my daughter's Christmas card this year. 

 The naughty side:

The nice side:

 I didn't even ask what she had to bribe them with to get these pics, but I KNOW them, and I KNOW it has to be good. LOL!
 Thanks for looking.

Occupy Your Sewing Room

  Read all about it HERE.

Cooking Up Some Thanksgiving Memories!

Thanksgiving will arrive tomorrow, but who said we can't make a few memories ahead of time!
  My DH is the dressing maker in the family, and he's already made 3 batches for 3 different occasions including ours for tomorrow. He is the best!
  Since our grands were out of school this week, and their parents had to work, we said we'd help out with the babysitting. We got up early Tuesday morning and drove the 30 min. drive to get them. When we arrived at 7:00 a.m., they were standing in the carport with their elves stuffed under their shirts. They thought we wouldn't let them bring those mischievous elves so they hid them. LOL
 The weather was fairly nice as it had rained early that morning. They couldn't play in the yard, but thank goodness we have a patio! They started dragging out various objects from the utility room and around the yard. 
  The best way to describe this is just to show pics. We got quite a few laughs from their concoctions! 

Oh yes, you're seeing right! That's my good ice bucket out there. We finally had to confiscate it back.

A little frog stew, anyone?

Cayden is very creative, and he will take any piece of trash and make things out of it. Today he said he thought it would be neat to be the "Dump Man" because you could find all sorts of neat things there. LOL
  I'll show one more pic. PawPaw was (supposed to be) watching the kids while I made some coffee. Cayden built this tower out of the bricks. EEK! Mimi nearly had a heart attack thinking about how bad it would have hurt if the bricks had fallen. 
 I promise you we DO watch our grands! 
 I wanted to say Happy Thanksgiving to Everyone! Blogger is not letting me do as I want tonight. So I will end it here.

Coming up for Air!

 I've had so many good intentions of getting a blog post done this week, but life happens, and it's just been impossible.
  More to come about that! I wanted to share a precious pic of my grands taken by their mom. They make my heart sing. 
 These are truly their happy faces and what you see is the way they are the majority of the time.
 Notice Shelby's flip flops.  That's our girl! Cayden is getting to be so grown up. I just don't know where our babies have gone!

Fall Photo Shoots...

 These are some neat pictures of my little grands my daughter took recently. I just can't believe how grown up they are becoming. 
  Yet I am so thankful they are healthy, happy kids. I wouldn't want it any other way. 

The natural smile!

Her cat wanted to be in on the picture taking.

Some from Halloween....

She did not choose to try for the apple!

Well, we know what she would look like as a redhead!

Redneck Trick or Treating sitting on stumps on a trailer pulled by a mule! (the kind on 4 wheels)

Always living the part! LOL

  Thanks for looking. I'm working on Christmas shirts and projects right now. This will be a very busy next few weeks!

I've Really Been Here!

 Life has been hectic for a few weeks. I try to pop in and catch up on my blogs I follow, but I know I've probably missed some. 
  I suppose it's good to stay busy and be able to enjoy some cooler fall weather. We are still way far behind on rainfall, but we keep praying some will come. 
  I've been sewing in between little short trips and spending days going to keep the grands for a few hours. I have really got to get busy on the Christmas sewing for sure. Wish I could hibernate for a few days. :)
  These are a few things I've done for the little ones.  I made Shelby a little pale blue corduroy jumper with the princess pumpkin carriage from Planet Applique. I saw one similar last year, and it was just so sweet. Her mom has been trying to get some good pics, but the shoes she wanted to use didn't arrive in time. Hopefully before Thanksgiving, she can get some more pics. 

The Halloween shirts and some cute turkey faces are for the boys. Pumpkin faces are from Embroidery Garden, Candy Corn cutie and Turkey face are from Planet Applique also.

Shelby's not dirty. Those are fake tattoos. LOL

I made this for neon day at Cayden's school during homecoming.

 

  I have some more fall pictures to share of the grands, but I'll save them for another day. 
 Thanks for looking!
  ShirleyC
 

Special Deal

I hope Monica is enjoying her My Memories Suite 2.0 software. I wish I could have given it to all of the ones who commented.  If you would still like to purchase your own software, you can use this code for $10. It doesn't expire.  STMMMS28173 Just click on the blinky above!  Remember there are lots of freebies once you purchase, and My Memories Suite on Facebook is always giving away free downloads. Plus go look to see what people are contributing to the contests. You will be amazed.  There are also many good tutorials to help you. Thanks again to all of you who entered the contest!

The Winner is.......

First I would like to thank all of you that took the time to enter. I really appreciate it. If you didn't enter, then you passed up a great opportunity to win a fabulous software program. 

  This code STMMMS28173 is still available if you want to purchase your own software for $10 off the original price which would make it $29.97. Click HERE to go directly to the My Memories Suite Page.
  I will also be posting an opportunity to download free kits to use with your software.

 Thanks again to My Memories Suite for giving me this opportunity to share with my blogging friends.

 Now to the WINNER!  Drum roll.........................
Congratulations MONICA! I have sent you an email, and if I don't hear back within 48 hours, I will draw another name!

 ShirleyC

One More Day to Enter!

 You have one more day to enter the giveaway for the My Memories Suite 2.0 software.
  Go to the giveaway post HERE to enter. Anyone can enter. Just be sure to leave your email if you don't have a blog.
  This is one example of what you can do! Ideas are endless!

Don't Forget to Enter!

 I'm  surprised at such few entries for the My Memories Suite Giveaway.

  Click HERE to read all about it! It's easy to enter, and you will love it! 

My Memories Suite Giveaway and Review!!

  I was recently contacted by My Memories Suite and asked to review their software product called My Memories Suite 2.0.

  Woo Hoo! I was so excited that they wanted my little humble opinion! So I'm going to do my best to pass this good news along to YOU, my blogging and sewing friends. 

  If you've never played with digital scrapbooking, you need to go to their page, click HERE, or on the links above. Look around for a few minutes so this review will make sense to you.

  The possibilities are endless! You can make digital scrapbooks, cards, videos, calendars, and just whatever good ideas you have! 

  You can print your projects yourself, or save them to a disk and have them printed elsewhere. 

 They have kits, templates, borders, frames, packs, quick pages, all holidays, all occasions, - are you hearing me? They have something for everybody!

  The first page I'm posting I created with what is on the software itself (and there are lots of choices).   If I can do this, believe me, anyone can!

 I love the little frames you can place around your pictures, and you can change them to any color.

  Now let me tell you one of the best features of their website is the Free Kits! I'm so glad they do this because this gives you a chance to play with their kits and packs so that you will have a better idea of what you like before you decide to spend extra money. However, none of the kits for purchase are expensive at all! Go look and see!

 I did get hung up on downloading the kits  to where I could find them on my computer. This is why it's good to watch the video tutorial offered through their BLOG and You Tube. 

 This is a Halloween card I put together today with one of their free kits. Very simple, but very cute!

  LOL! I'm having fun going back and digging through old photos of my grands!

  I have never been "into" scrapbooking mainly because of the cost. Since I sew, I already have lots of clutter sewing supplies that I have try to keep organized. 

 If you scrapbook, then you already know how expensive it can be. That is a great advantage to this software. Everything you need is right there on your computer! 

  I have two more pages to share with you before I tell you how you can win your own software program. 

 The first one is a quick page. I love how Shelby's big ole' eyes show up on this!

 The last one was done with the overlays. I really love working with these. 

 Now My Memories has given me a free copy of this software to review, and also a free copy to give away to one lucky winner. This is a $39.97 value which is well worth the cost!

 If you don't want to wait to see if you win, you can purchase you own copy  with this $10 off coupon generously supplied by My Memories Suite. After you purchase the software, you can get an additional $10 worth of products from their store. Use this code when you check out: 

STMMMS28173

 Here are the rules to enter:

1. Leave a comment here on my blog after you visit their store, and tell me which kit or layout that you like the best and why. (If you don't have a blog, leave your email address. Also be sure that I can contact you if you are listed as a no-reply blogger.)

 For extra entries:

2. Follow My Memories Blog. Come back here and leave a comment.

3. LIKE My Memories on Facebook. Come back here and leave a comment.

4. Follow My Memories Suite on Twitter. Come back here and leave a comment.

  That's it! You have to do Step No. 1 or the other 3 don't count! 

 Thanks for reading all of this, and good luck to the winner.

 Giveaway will end on October 11, 2011.....