Fall-ing into Christmas Spirit

This post is long overdue.  As you may have guessed, we have been quite busy here with projects, gifts, and gearing up for the holidays.  I've sat down to write this many times, but with family losses and fall projects, I've struggled to finish it until now.

A dear friend, who loves to garden, had a birthday in October so we created a glass dish flower for her to put in her garden.  I think it turned out really neat and was a relatively simple project once we found dishes we liked the aesthetic of.  

All the pieces

Put together and ready to ship

Love it with her flowers!

A precious boy joined our lives in October (remember the football blanket and puzzle) and we have been greatly enjoying loving on him and his folks over the last couple of months.  After he was born I got to take over dinner and snuggle him.  I also took over a onsie for him to grow into.

We had another craigslist score this fall as well.  A bathtub (free!!)for the dogs to swim in instead of their plastic kiddie pool.  It's much easier to drain and clean and we are excited to build it into our landscape design next spring.

New tub for the girls

Aria loves her tub!

Cassie 

We enjoyed some wonderful fall walks and I had a great birthday celebrated with family and dear friends.  

Beautiful fall walk

My folks also finished their walkway through the yard.  

I think it turned out great!

Halloween came with mild weather and lots of trick-or-treaters.  The dogs wore their Halloween scarves and greeted all the kids when they came to the door.    

They're so sweet!

We completed a few minor finishing touches in the laundry room which I love and improve the ease of function in the room.  

Holder for partner-less socks and other laundry accesories

Hanger for clothes while folding

Folds flat against the wall when not in use

And a new rug

My mom and I went on several beautiful fall drives around the lake and saw some beautiful places and lots of turkeys!

Cool barn shop by the lake

Lots of turkeys

Lovely fall colors

Fall here was mild and quite sunny punctuated by bitter cold and final farewells.

Cold end of fall

Aria even wore her coat

As did Cassie

And Aria discovered she loves laying in front of the fire!

We stayed in town for Thanksgiving with some of our family and celebrated pre-Thanksgiving with dear friends at a 1950's themed Thanksgiving Eve party, what a blast!  I whipped up some quick hostess gifts as a small thanks for having us; pumpkin spice soap.  I think they turned out great.  You can find the recipe here.

Soap in the molds

Finished soap

In the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving we lost a few of our elders.  During the Thanksgiving season, we found ourselves acutely aware and profoundly grateful for the impact they had on us and the love they brought to our lives.  Through the years they had laughed and cried with us, hoped and dreamed with us, grieved and celebrated with us.  They taught us of love, courage, compassion, strength, and faith.  And the greatest lesson we cherished, the importance and simple beauty of listening.  Listening outside oneself and all the hustle and bustle of the everyday.  Listening deep, being fully present, even when it hurt.  Such a wealth of wisdom our elders have to share when we listen.  They gave us countless gifts, the most cherished of these their time and their beloved memories.
The day after Thanksgiving, we loaded up the dogs and headed south for memorial services.  Our journey began with beautiful sunsets, followed by pouring rain.  But right before we arrived at our destination we were treated to the most beautiful double rainbow over the river.  And I couldn't help but think what a perfect metaphor this was for our grief.  That those we had loved and lost were smiling down from heaven on our journey and were now at peace.  And what a beautiful honor for us to carry their stories on in our hearts.  

Roadtrip Sunrise

Rainbow over the Columbia

Stunning

Cold, windy drive home

Whitecaps

Early Moonrise

When we returned home, my husband requested our own Thanksgiving dinner just the two of us.  So we created one while we started the Christmas decorating process.  It was delicious and pretty much everything turned out great, especially as it was our first time making everything from scratch (and gluten free).  The next day was a Christmas tree cutting adventure and we found this year's tree just as the sun was setting.  

Thanksgiving Round 2

Sunset tree search

Cassie is loving it!

Growing dark

Found the tree just in time

The Christmas season kicked off with a cookie exchange at a dear friend's church (and multiple times through The Gift CD of course).  So, us ladies got together for a day of baking, talking, and laughing.  I can't think of a better way to get in the Christmas spirit than to spend a day with dear friends and their amazing kiddos.  I made gingerbread cookies from an old family recipe book and they turned out wonderfully.  We also worked to get the house all decorated up so we could celebrate early with some of our family.  And we were greeted with the return of mild weather for most of the month.

Gingerbread Cookies

Finished Gingerbread man

Finished cookies

The pups helping with outside decorations

Puppy snuggles

Front decorations (these are new this year)

The whole frontscape

Lights up

New Mini Tree that was Nana's.  

This year's tree

Up Next: Homemade Christmas Lands Again

Fall and Football Themed Projects

Fall has arrived mildly here which has been wonderful and has given us the opportunity to continue work on projects outside.  

The grass next to the path has been completed.  My folks helped us cut the sod, level up to the path, and replace the sod so now it's all level with the new path. I'm sure this will make a big difference this winter so the snow won't all melt towards the house anymore.   

The Before by the edge of the path

In progress.  

And the after.  Makes a huge difference.

We made it all the way down the deck with getting it leveled.

We didn't have enough sod at our house to finish, but luckily my folks were putting in a path in their back yard to the shop so we got to use the sod they took out.  Here's the progress on their new path so far.  

Grass cut for their path

Bricks in, path mostly done

Also at our house, my mom worked on laying bricks under the edge of the fence to keep the weeds and such from our neighbor's from coming over.  She almost made it the whole way!  I'm sure we'll get this project finished in the next week or so.  And the best part of both of these projects, they were completely free!  We used the bricks my parents had from taking out their fireplace which worked great, and got them out of the way at their house.

Bricks under the fence

We also started putting blocks in for the flower bed in the dog run.  Hopefully we'll get the brick phase of this project completed before snow arrives.

Start of wall for flower bed

I have also been keeping busy with more gift projects.  Another of my dear friends is due to have a baby boy in just a few weeks.  She loves football so I whipped up some themed gifts for her shower.

To start of course, a blanket.  I found a neat tutorial here which helped me with this and added some of my own flair with my mom's help.  My mom just got a new sewing machine which made a huge difference for a beginning sewer!  It has an adjustable speed and a guide (this was a lifesaver for me, I highly recommend it).  I'm excited for more sewing projects now as I think this one turned out really cute.

The top cut out, in progress

Top piece

Bottom in progress

Completed top view

Completed bottom view

And of course a tag. 

I had been wanting to make a wooden kids puzzle for awhile and thought this was a great opportunity.  So, with a little trial and error it worked out great.  As I am much more familiar with working with wood, this project went significantly faster than my sewing project.  I really enjoyed both of these and am so excited to meet this little guy in a few weeks!  

Staining the pieces after I cut them out

The completed puzzle

We're enjoying settling into fall, have the house all decorated, have had some wonderful fall sunsets, and are looking forward to the projects we have on deck to finish up.