363 days until Christmas!!!

My DH reminded me of that this morning! He is really Santa at heart. This Christmas was not one of the best. Unfortunately, family squabbles on hubby's side of the family disrupted the holidays. But my little family enjoyed a quiet day with one of DH's brothers and his family. We also got to see my brothers and their families on the 23rd. Here is a picture of some of the nieces and nephews. The triplets will be 13 in February. The littlest one is actually my great niece, Avianna, who just turned 3. The little blonde in pink is my little god daughter, Bridie.




My son got home on Dec. 24th about 3 pm from Vermont. Luckily, his Christmas present arrived by UPS about 20 minutes earlier. I was sweating that one out! He wanted snowshoes which were ordered from LL Bean on the 12th! I'm not sure how I can mail FQs to England and have them arrive in 5 days yet something coming only 4 states away takes 2 weeks! But he was really happy with them. I got lots of quilty things from my hubby including a lightbox which I had hinted at and he actually found! He had to call a quilting friend to figure out what it was first! LOL. I got Hubby a digital frame for his desk at work. He loved it. I spent a good part of the day on Monday loading photos for him, including this picture of Alex when he was about three



and this one of my DH from college during his DJ stint at the college station.



Yesterday, I did all of the returns and exchanges, just a couple really and DH and I hit the Hallmark stores for our special ornaments at 50% off!! It's always a gamble that there will be any left but we were lucky this year and found all the ones we wanted.

I am on a much needed vacation this week. The last few months at work have been difficult. I think my boss knew when I asked for the week off that this was very necessary. I am enjoying some time with my son and puttering around in the sewing room. I've got two of my "Pay it Forward" gifts ready for the mail. We had lots of rain last night which turned to ice so I am waiting until tomorrow to hit the post office. I hope to get a quilt on my frame and quilted in the next couple of days. I am also mulling over some quilting New Year's resolutions which I will share after the weekend.

Hope that everyone had a Christmas that was homey, happy and bright!