2011 comes to an End ;)

Last week was Christmas and what a beautiful day it was! Our family had the best day together celebrating the holiday. It was great to spend the whole day together enjoying each other’s company, watching movies and eating the wonderful dinner my daughter prepared for us. We are having very mild temperatures here in Chicagoland and had NO snow for Christmas!

Santa and presents; the only two thing my grandson worried about that day! He had a fabulous time and since he was on the good list he got just what he asked for and spent the whole day playing away on his Nintendo DS :)

My brother came over and brought his daughter Abby for a visit, here she is opening a present



STITCHING
I have been organizing my stitching for 2012! I have joined a few different challenges to help keep me motivated and stitching in the upcoming year

The first one I joined is the Facebook CrosstitchCrazy2012 where we picked out 15 projects that we wanted to stitch in the upcoming year. They could be new starts, UFOs or WIPs…didn’t matter as long as it was stitching.

The next one I signed up for is the 2012 Crazy 12 Challenge over at Stitching_Sisters Yahoo group. For that one we only needed 12 new starts which worked out great for me as I had 12 NEW starts on my list! I also had 2 WIPs and 1 UFO to round out the 12 so I added them to the UFO challenge in the same Yahoo group.

The last one I joined (waiting for approval) in is the 2012 WIPocalypse at Measi’s Musings. There are no requirements as to the number of things that you HAVE to stitch for this challenge…but you do need to make a list of things you want to stitch in 2012 and list them on your site. Then you need to update the pictures of everything you stitched EVERY month before the full moon!

SOOOO now it looks like I MAY actually get some stitching in AND UPDATE my blog regularly! A double bonus for me! Yippee

Here is a list of my Stitchy plans for 2012.

1. Anna Waite Designs ~ Easter Eggs
2. Broderie ~ Nativity Scene
3. Cross-Stitch-Art ~ Full Bloom
4. Design Connection ~ Rose of Sharon
5. Janlynn ~ Bathtime Rules
6. Joyful Expressions ~ His Name is Jesus
7. Lizzie*Kate ~ ABCs of Aging Artfully
8. Lizzie*Kate ~ ABCs of Parenting
9. Lizzie*Kate ~ It’s a Boy Thing; Boys will be Boys
10. Lizzie*Kate ~ It’s a Boy Thing; Dude
11. Lizzie*Kate ~ One Hundred Years
12. Sue Hillis ~ DysFUNctional
13. EMS ~ Flowers of the Month WIP
14. Dinosaurs! (chart bought on eBay) WIP
15. Janlynn ~ Sleepytime Friends UFO (My 6 year old grandson’s birth sampler)

I am getting pretty excited about it and soooo ready to get this stuff going!
I am hoping that this will keep me focused and that I will ACTUALLY get some stuff finished!! Here is what everything looks like now ~ Can’t wait to see what it looks like in one year :)

WEIGHT

Also 2012 is going to be the year about a healthier me!

I have joined Weight Watchers once again and I am praying that this year is the year that I will lose the weight and keep it off! My daughter (she joined online) is also going on this journey with me and I think that TOGETHER we will be able to accomplish this!

My starting weight when I joined on 12-15-11 was 172.2 and when I weighed in this past Thursday my weight was 169.8 for a loss of 2.4 pounds so far. My ULTIMATE GOAL is 100 but I would be happy with 130.

I would like to wish everyone a safe, happy and blessed 2012 filled with nothing but love, family, good times and good fortune...oh and lots of stitching time!

Hello there...

Well…I have been meaning to update this blog but it always seems as though something else always takes up my time and I tell myself that I will do it next week and then next week I say the same thing again! I am sure you guys know that story; there are NEVER enough hours in the day to do everything!

The weather here is CRAZY! We are having a mild winter so far (shhh…) But I am sure that the cold will be here before we know it. So far we have only had a small dusting of snow and that is MORE than fine with me. I can’t stand the snow and will pick the cold over the snow any day.

Though to get in the Christmas spirit we took Jacob and his list to see Santa. Here they are having a heart-to-heart about his list!

Also my daughter and I went to an ornament making class where we learned how to make a scrap fabric ornament. I love how it turned out and it was WAY EASIER to make than it looks.

And I received a fabulous package from my Christmas Sock Exchange partner, Mary Ann! :) I got lots of goodies ~ see…

Thank you Mary Ann!!

I am still stitching away on my EMS Flowers of the Month. I am currently working on May. Here is a picture of my progress

These are getting finished WAY slower than I planned!

I am also still working on the Rules of Life – getting close to the end! FINALLY! Just have to finish the border. I would love to have this finished by the end of the year and so I am working on it everyday trying to get done. Here is what it looks like now:

I have joined a Facebook group called CrossStitchCrazy2012 and in this group we selected 15 projects that we want to stitch in 2012. They could be new projects or WIPs or UFOs. So I entered 12 new projects and 2 WIPs and 1 UFO. The ones I PLAN on stitching are in the slideshow on the left side of your screen if you would like to take a peek. Don’t think I will get them ALL finished in 2012 – but a couple of them have a chance!

That coincided very nicely with the Yahoo group I am a member of Stitching_Sisters as we are also having a 2012 Stitching Challenge! This group challenge for new projects is to start 12 new projects in the first 12 days of 2012 and to see how many we can complete but the end of the year. There is also a UFO challenge for the Stitching_Sisters group which I entered three projects

So I got to use the same projects for each group. These groups are simply meant for motivation but I think on the Yahoo group there may be a drawing between the ones who finish for a small prize of some kind in both categories! Feel free to come and check out the Yahoo group…we would love to have some new members join us in these challenges,

I CAN’T WAIT TO START MY 2012 STITCHING!