Merry Christmas from our family to yours!May you experience the hope, peace and joy that only comes from knowing our great Savior.
Have a blessed holiday.
But God,
being rich in mercy,
because of the great love with which he loved us,
even when we were dead in our trespasses,
made us alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved -
and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
so that in the coming ages he might show
the immeasurable riches of his grace
in kindness toward us in
Christ Jesus.
Ephesians 2:4-7
*Our family picture was taken by Dan's talented brother, Michael. Visit his website at zempelphotography.com
Oh well, she seems pleased with the Santa I made her. Hopefully she won't look for mistakes on him, either. (Somehow I forgot to get a picture of that project.)
cut and pieced to form a nice little, log cabin square . . .
and then stitched together to form a row. 
Many, many rows later, this is what you get:
This was my first ambitious project, since my other two quilts were pretty basic. I got to try my hand at free-motion quilting, mitering corners, and stitching "in the ditch" which I hate. There are plenty of mistakes, but I won't point them out to you! Overall, this was a fun project and I am very happy with the results. And this was going to be the only handmade present I would make this year. Yeah right, then I had to go crazy . . .
I finished it last week by sewing on a patch so that all posterity can learn from my quilting errors, while blaming me by name.
This football was inspired by my friend Sarah, who has one for her little guy. Thanks goes to Debbie, for letting me use her machine to embroider it. Truth be told, I stood by and chatted while she did all the work!
These are wristlet wallets/purses that I made for my two teen aged nieces and my lovely great aunt, who is a seamstress and quilter extraordinaire. 
These pajama pants were relatively easy, and I find that I am becoming more comfortable with garment construction, although it is still not my calling in life. My plan was to make a pair for all of us (to take advantage of matching pj's before the kids get too old to object!) but at $10 a yard, this snowflake flannel was too expensive for adult-sized pants. Maybe next year I'll catch it on sale.
This doll quilt will go with a cradle for Alli's dolls. I used the leftover fabric from her quilt, which is back in my posession, but won't be finished until after I am done with all the Christmas projects! This small quilt took no time at all and I love that it will match hers!
Alli chose a heart pendant to paint, and we all had the choice of 6 different paint colors to use. She opted for pink . . . that's all, just pink. So I suggested a little yellow, and this is what she ended up with.
Elijah chose a gift to give his dad, a mug with golf clubs on it. Dan doesn't golf, but the "I love my Dad" painted on the side made it special. Elijah really enjoyed painting it and was even more excited to show it to his daddy.
I chose to paint a plate, since I've always wanted a special celebration plate. It's rough - I'm no artist, but I'm happy with it and excited to use it!
