Miscellany Monday

Happy Monday my friends.  I am pumping myself up to get my bloggy rhythm back!  A Monday of miscellany is the perfect place to start.  I'm so happy several of you were excited about those roasted vegetables - we had it again last night, and have placed it permanently on our menu.  Along with a delicious dessert of frozen grapes - yum!

(Picture from the super-cute Weelicious website)

1.  Speaking of menu....let's chat again about the Whole 9 thing.  Kevin is on day 16, with wholehearted commitment, even through a 3 day trip to Chicago!!  Though he's more than thankful this will be over before Thanksgiving.  I made it through 6 days....ish.  My eyes have definitely been opened to how unintentional I've been with what I've put in my mouth for over a year, (about the time when I started my first teaching job!), so now I'm definitely exhibiting much more restraint.  However, I went out of town for 3 days and this time of year is just not the best time to try something so crazy (for me!).  And this cup of pure joy from Starbucks did nothing to help the cause:

Joyful Gingerbread Latte with Soy!!!  Worth every sip!!!

2.  Yesterday we celebrated my nephew Jax's birthday.  So fun.  His mom created the cutest cookie monster party, and he was the sweetest 2 yr. old cookie monster!!  Cute, cute, cute.  I'm also quite enthused about the fact that he seems to have a fondness for me at this point in his life.  :)  Love him!  (I'll have to see if I can get a few of my sister-in-law's creative cookie monster pics!)

Our present to him was the "teacher-approved" board book, Chicka-Chicka Boom Boom.  I loved doing activities with this book when I student taught kindergarten, to get the children familiar with the alphabet.  Yes, I was going to attempt to sew him a sock monkey, but I ran out of time.  There is always Christmas! :)

3.  I need your advice.  I really want to purchase a sewing book with some fun projects to try, but I'm having a difficult time deciding.  These are the ones I think I've narrowed it down to.  Any thoughts on these or some other wonderful thing I don't know about??

Sew and Stow by Betty Oppenheimer

Sew Liberated by Meg McElwee

One-Yard Wonders by Rebecca Yaker and Patricia Hoskins

The Bag Making Bible by Lisa Lam

Amy Butler's In-Stitches

4.  I am loving holiday gift guides!  There are so many great ideas out there right now on many sweet blogs for Christmas gifts!  Many great tutorials as well!  I am especially loving "12 Days of Handmade Christmas" by Life in Grace!

5.  I had the most fabulous "friends and family" weekend!!!  I enjoyed a much needed 3 day trip to Indiana over the weekend.  I drove up to Fort Wayne on Thursday night to surprise my mom at a church where she was speaking for a ladies' event.  It was awesome.  She was quite shocked, and definitely worth it.  It was awesome to hear her share her heart and encourage women to love and live for Jesus, like I have so many times before.  She is working on a book and I am so excited to read her heart through writing some day!  My sweet friend Staci, who was at the event with her family, invited me to come a few weeks ago.  It was great to see her and her family that night as well!

After spending the night at my home in Wabash, (where I so love to be), I enjoyed lunch with my dad, then traveled back up to Fort Wayne to see Staci's new house and her absolutely adorable boys!  So much fun to spend time with them.  My next stop was Indy, where I enjoyed a delicious and special dinner with my mom, who happened to be there for a seminar.

On Saturday I spent a delightful afternoon in Zionsville with my friends Francie and Stacy, and they let me love on their crazy beautiful new baby girls!!!  I told them I think it would be fun to have twins, (I know moms, laugh your heads off), so they thought I should practice.  Very funny.  I will be honest and say the baby fever is coming on strong! :)  (Yes, that is my mom and mother-in-law you hear rejoicing!)

Kinley on the left, and Meredith on the right!  Love them!

Saturday night I was able to love on my sweet little niece and nephew, Kaydance and Chase, in Noblesville.  Poor little Kaydance slipped and fell, hitting the inside of her lip on the fireplace.  Very scary.  She had surgery on Friday and is such a trooper!  She was giggling like usual, enjoying her popsicles.  She also showed us her awesome new reading skills and we had fun dressing up her baby dolls.  We are praising God that she wasn't hurt worse, and praying for a fast recovery!  Little Chase also entertained us with his amazing memory skills and his cute songs.  A very sweet time, for sure!

I wrapped up my weekend by staying the night with my Grandma in Franklin, (which I always love to do!), then returning to Louisville in time for church Sunday!  Whew!  What a fun and refreshing time visiting so many places that are home to me.  Thank you Kevin, for sharing me for the weekend!! :)

Quite obviously I'm squeezing the most out of Miscellany Monday!  I'll see you tomorrow with a much shorter post and a couple new creations!