Christmas crafts..........some day we'll have kids of our own to spoil.

For some bizarre reason, I have a need to torture myself and to subject myself to stress-induced herpes outbreak (just the fever blister, people.) However, with my amazing foresight and a little extra planning - I finished this year's round of home-made gifts for the little girls just after Thanksgiving.

A little extra information: Since my neice was born, I felt the need to give a hand-made gift each year in hopes that she has a little something to remember her auntie and uncle if something, God Forbid, ever happened. To make it even more complicated, I discovered that you should always include all the children in my gift creation, because it will save you from having to re-create it again later.

The first year it was de-coupaged photo frames, last year it was the ballerina inspired tu-tu.....but slowly, the projects have gotten more advanced. This year, since I received my sewing machine as a gift this year from the hubby, I wanted to flex my sewing chops. So, I ventured to the fabric store, coupons in hand, and found a child's apron in the SEWING FOR DUMMIES section. Easy enough right? It took an hour trying to find the perfect coordinating fabric that would suit each of the girls personalities....................

I should back-up and say that we fully intend the girls to use these aprons and not merely store them in the closet. Since I un-knowingly started a Godsey family tradition by decorating sugar cookies for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, this will be a perfect occasion for the girls to be them to use!

This one belongs little Honey. The blue fabric is adorned with small pink chicken-like birds. In all of the girls aprons, I made a few adjustments to the pattern to make them a little more girly...I took some inspiration from the apron Ben bought for me last Christmas. The best thing about these little guys is that there is plenty of room to grow, since I added length to the waist tie.

Kait's is to reflect her more "flamboyent" personality. The whole fabric pattern has sparkles in it. Her pattern was further modified by the addition of a ruffled layer. There are small sparkly buttons and cute cartoon kitties all over her print.

Finally, miss Honey's was a turqouise based pattern with small bugs. Her's is my favorite color combination because of my particular affection for anything turqouise.

As is the usual fashion, I didn't have my camera on during Christmas this year. Hopefully Mom will supply me with some photos of the girls to share with everyone. In the meantime, Ben will be glad I didn't show you the photos with his upper leg as the apron model!

I'll let you know once my sewing machine and I relieve ourselves of our "seperation." It was a much needed break - but I did find lots of cute adult patterns that I'm willng to make people if they buy the fabric and give me a little time!

Cheers!

The man of the house........

We are excited to show a sneak peak of the newest addition to our family - our nephew, Owen.

We can't wait to get to Indiana to meet him!

The Christmas tree is UP!

Since we first purchased our "artificial" Christmas tree, it has been a point of contention. The location it will be placed in the house, the date we put it up, the decorations we put on in, and the list goes on and on.

But the one thing Ben absolutely gets no say in.........no matter how much he expresses his displeasure.......................is what goes underneath the tree. To say the least, I go a little overboard. I LOVE LOVE LOVE giving gifts. Its something I do well (in my opinion).

My favorite part of giving gifts (even though it really makes no absolute difference) is handing the person a beautifully wrapped gift with a perfectly well-thought out bow and the cutest matching name tag. Vain, I know......but give me this one, okay?


About the tree, we have a few notable additions this year including candy canes (thanks to the Williams' for this tradition), presents in the tree (thanks to Mom for that tradition), candy apple-green squiggles, copper colored mesh garland, and a new topper (its the 4th new topper in two years - I can't find the right one). The tree didn't go up until after Thanksgiving this year, which was about 30 later than last year....but with the tree being stored across the property and weighing about 100 lbs., I needed Ben's help to get it to the house.

In two short days, we'll be loading up all of these gifts and heading down the road to visit both families, plus the newest addition little baby Owen.

From my family to yours -

Have a merry Christmas and safe travels!

One Hunger Planet....Have You Thanked Farmers/Ranchers Lately?

Dreams are becoming reality.

After you get over the fact that we still have green grass on November 11th - I hope you see how excited we are about having fence put up for the critters come next spring.

You may have to scroll back and forth between this post and the previous to get a feel of where everything is - but this entrance to the pastures. To the immediate left (outside the frame of the photo) is the small dollhouse and the barn. The right is the shop.


The fence is a 5-wire high-tinsel fence. We used fiberglass posts rather than the steel posts throughout. All of the corners were secured with the h-framed wood posts. There are 4 - 12 or 14 ft. (I think 12 ft., but don't quote me) gates so that we can get a pickup and trailer to each of the sections.

The wire is attached by clips (you can see it better in a couple of pictures down). This section of fence was all wooden so the kids took the old barb-wire and wood sections down. I believe there are 6 possible individual pastures that can be used at any given time in Phase #1. Ben has the plans for which stock goes where - so you'll have to ask him.

The photo below is the catch pen. It has a gate to go into every section, as well as access into the pastures directly behind the barn (or infront of the pole-barn, whichever you like). Along the right side, you can see that we need to put hog-panels/fence in to reinforce this area so they won't "blow-through" the wire.

Like I mentioned earlier, the wire is attached with clips, making in just as easy as an insulator to remove and replace. I can't remember for certain - but a couple of the strands will be electrified and the ground wire will be dug underneath with the charger left in the barn.

Our next project, along with Phase #2 is to run a water line back to the pole barn so that we have the option to lamb out there and put stationary water tanks in the back. Its obviously probably too late to this yet this fall - but that would save a lot of time.

As you can see, we're pretty excited ....we're one step closer to getting this funny farm going.

Look at the progress we've made....The Williams' funny farm may actually happen!

We started out with this drawing a few months back. Be gentle - I've never taken a drafting class but we did the best we could to give the Judging Club kids an idea of what we were looking for.

I should mention - we would not have been able to get this project off the ground without the help of the NDSU Judging Club kids who graciously accepted our offer of building our fence in return for a monetary donation to help their travel budget.

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

We were able to complete Phase #1 this fall, and hopefully - next spring we will complete the second phase of the project! Pictures to come in the next post!

Beginning my Christmas List.

Hopefully my husband takes a look at this.....................(please send him hints). I tried really hard to be rational in my choices this year.....so I left the astro-start off.

There are also a couple of Crystal Young's prints that I would like to have for my office. (I'll email her so she knows which ones - when my husband calls to ask....hint hint, call to ask.)






More to come. It's only November mind you.