I hope you all had a fabulous Christmas! Ours was simply perfect--we even had/have a
lot of the white stuff. My kids seemed tremendously pleased with their loot. They somehow
 must of ended up on the 'nice list' because they found these under the tree:
 


I was delighted and surprised to receive a new laptop from Santa. My old one would overheat within about 5 minutes which always ended up in a crash. I tried everything to prevent the heat. I would hold it up in the air with one hand and type with the other {this would buy me a few extra minutes}, I bought a computer fan tray, but, the computer made the tray so hot that it melted the fan component {!}. Then I tried wrapping frozen corn in a dishtowel and putting it under the laptop--you think I'm kidding....So, for the most part, I was using my daughters computer. But sharing a computer with a teenager is never ideal--ever. So, may I say 'You rocked it Mr Claus!!'  

We also got a SodaStream. Have you heard of these?!


 
We have had a really fun time wth this little invention. It makes fresh soda and carbonated water using your own tap water. You get to choose from 30 different flavors {pink grapefruit is my favorite so far}. We consume a lot of sodas. I'm not proud of this fact but, I feel better knowing that the Sodastream regular flavors contain no high fructose corn syrup and the diets are sweetened with Splenda, not aspartame. Each little flavor bottle makes the equivalent of 33 cans of soda!



  And the best part--we reuse the 1liter bottles that come in the kit so we no longer have all the soda
 cans and 2 liter bottles to deposit to the landfills! And, it consumes no energy! It carries the
 'Earth Friendly' seal as a result. My hubby found ours at Bed, Bath and Beyond but I think it's
available at lots of other places. {BB &B sold it for $100} 

Merry Christmas!!

We have been furiously finishing all of our Christmas presents this week. I made about a
half dozen pillows for some folks that work with my hubby, some great neighbors and friends. 







I think they turned out super cute. The tree is made of fused fabric edged with a
satin stitch and the names are painted.
~~~~~~~~~ 

 I have been wanting to paint a 'portrait' of a clients vacation home that I worked on.


 
I cut some extra wood pieces from this project. I thought this would be a fun place to paint the house.
So, with my Sharpie and a little watercolor they have a litle piece of North Carolina in Florida.

 

She got it in the mail last weekend and I got I call saying that she liked it a little :) 



~~~~~~~~~

And not to be one to be outdone, my daughter has been elfing her pants {hands} off, as well.
She learned to crochet and knit from her great grandmother and she is super good at it. She has
made tons of scarves over the years. This year she was inspired by a sweater I got Peter at Target.


{yes, I have a dog named Peter}

She felt it was very 'gap' ish and she wanted to duplicate it.
So, in a couple of hours last week she whipped this out:


My gap model, Buddy



Pretty good, right?

She decided to make headbands/earwarmers and scarves for all her peeps this year.
This is about 1/3 of the 'result':

    



Pretty darn cute. And the headband's not bad either. 
 


She was even kind enough to aid in the warming of these little hairless legs. 
That's his "I am so grateful, thank-you" look. 

Do you need a super fast, super easy centerpiece for your Christmas table?
 
  

You can find these glass canisters at Target, Wal-Mart or Big Lots. They came in several sizes
 and are less than $12. The little trees can be found in the 'Christmas village' area of above
mentioned stores for a couple of dollars {I've also bought them in the Dollar Store before}.
And throw in a couple of bags of red hots.