Making Christmas, Part 3

By the time this posts, my family will have finished (or is probably still be in the middle of!) opening Christmas presents! Now I can show the rest of our creations!

David & Elizabeth got in on the act this year & helped make ornaments for MawMaw & Grandma! These are Elizabeth's drawings:

And these are David's - a blue Christmas tree for Grandma and a purple Christmas tree for MawMaw:


Food gifts were also given this year. You've already seen many of them, but here are the drink mixes I made:

Included are English Breakfast Tea, Hot Cocoa (regular and sugar free), and several flavors of coffee: Bavarian Mint, Swiss Mocha, and French Vanilla (decaff).

More aprons were created for my family, but with some special meaning, too. My Grandmama had scads of clothing. We gave away tons of stuff after she died, but I kept several items with the intent to make something that might last a bit longer. This year, I came up with an idea. The floral fabric used for this apron I made for my sister was one of Grandmama's house coats. (click photo for a larger picture) The denim and embroidered design on the pocket was from one of Grandmama's many denim shirts.

Getting the fabric from a house coat into an apron was a little more challenging than I expected, so for my sister-in-law's apron, I used one of Grandmama's broomstick skirts for the dark fabric and the pink accents came from one of her shirts.


I think they'll like them. I wish I could have made them full aprons, but the fabric I was using was limiting. This was an emotional project for me. I've washed the clothing numerous times & it still smelled like Grandmama. I hope I was able to create something that she'd have been proud of.

Our Hearth

This is a photo of the old house down at Auburn. If you click on the photo you can see it larger. Looking out of the upstairs window is my dad (aka Grandpa) and his cousin, Darla. I also included Grandmama's handwriting from the back of the photo. At some point my Grandaddy's parents lived in this house (maybe 1946-1956), but they did not build it.


The remains of the house are beginning to form a pile on land that my dad still owns.


David & Elizabeth's Dad had a great idea to reclaim some family history, so we've been collecting the chimney bricks and will use them to build the hearth for our wood stove.

As the house has fallen down and laid on the ground for years & years, some of the bricks had become buried in the grass & dirt. Some had fallen through the floor boards.

Dad said if it had been any warmer, he wouldn't have stuck his hands under this house!

We also collected brick from an old house at the North Place. Nobody in our family ever lived there, but my Grandaddy bought the land about 1951.

Some of the bricks fron the kitchen chimney at the Auburn house had stars imprinted on them, while the fireplace bricks were plain. The bricks from the North Place fireplace were Ferris bricks, but the kitchen chimney was plain bricks.

Dad calculated that we'd need 230 bricks for the hearth. Extras will be used around the landscaping.

500!!! and the Tea

This is my 500th post!

I need to have some type of hooplah to celebrate, but I couldn't think of anything. Too much cookies & Tea going on this week, I guess. But the best thing of all, my best friend is coming to visit tomorrow!!! And boy do I need some time with my best friend! That will be my hooplah! Watch for pictures to be posted on Monday or Tuesday.

Want to take a little trip down memory lane to see just where this blog started? Click here to see our very first blogged pictures of David and the Christmas season two years ago! Just look how little he was!

Now on to today! It was the Ladies Christmas Tea at Grandma's church. Here I am with my Momma (aka Grandma), and my Sister-in-Law. Don't we look festive?! Look how shiny Lynne is!!!

Ladies getting together at a Baptist church = good food! Check out that cheesecake! Mmmm... it was wonderful! The food courses were served on clear plastic plates, sat upon our pretty place settings at each table. Here, you can see Grandmama's beautiful china showing behind the cheesecake. Click on yesterday's picture to see the entire table setting.

The fellowship hall was filled to capacity. I think I heard there were around 200 ladies there from the community, relatives (sisters, daughters, mothers, aunts, etc) , and a few ladies who'd moved off came back for the Tea to visit old friends. Marci Hatfield was the speaker.

Here I am with Dad's side of the family. I will list them in relation to Elizabeth, starting on the bottom row: Great Grandma Grana, Great Aunt Marlene, Future Cousin Suzanne, MawMaw. And on the back row: Me, Elizabeth, Cousin Rachel, and Great Aunt Jan. I think Rachel & Suzanne will be 2nd cousins to Elizabeth. Did I get that right? So from Grana to Elizabeth, that's 4 generations! Suzanne, Jan & I are married in.

We even had one more set of family there that I failed to get a picture of: Marie, Joyce & Emily. I think it was a very enjoyable day for everyone there. David really had fun in the nursery, too!

"The Cutest Baby..."

Dad says that I (Mom) look like my Grandmama... a.k.a. Great to my kids. Elizabeth looks just like my baby pictures at the same age. I wonder if that means Elizabeth looks like her Great Grandmother did when she was a baby?

My Grandaddy used to tell a tale about when he was a teenager. He remembered seeing a baby on a pallet at church and thinking to himself, "That is the cutest baby I've ever seen." That baby was Grandmama... Grandaddy was 13 years older than her... and he waited until she was old enough to marry!