ta-da!

after some malfunctions with the garland hanging of the garland, it finally is secured and up.  it still needs some finishing "fluffing" but our entry way is mostly completed.  (i added a little bit more hot glue to the C on our wreath.  you can never have too much hot glue when it comes to crafts!)

getting in the spirit

i thought the blog could use a little holly and jolly.  and i thought the picture was a delightful blast from the past.  (that is from the first Christmas we lived in NC.)  barley was only 10 months old!  enjoy!

planning the perfect picture.

you can very rarely get the perfect picture for your Christmas card without planning it.  i mean, really, how often does that happen?  i have a picture in mind for this year's card but i am planning to try to stage one as well.  and then i know i'll at least have a back up.  we have been sending out photo cards since we got married and especially since we moved.  i love the personalization of photo cards.  i love getting photo cards, too.  i love watching families grow and change year after year.

shutterfly has some great choices for holiday cards this year.  i really love all the Christmas card choices and i am having a hard time choosing what sort of card i want this year.  

we could do something fun and cute...

...or something a little more formal...

...or even something a bit more classic, with room for more than one perfectly planned picture.

there are so many options!  there are plenty to match everyone's personal style.  they even have great ideas for gifts, too, like these wall calendars.  

i don't know about you, but i plan to hop back over to shutterfly and start trying to decide on what our Christmas cards will be this year.  if you are a blogger too, check out how you can win 50 free cards this season.  http://bit.ly/sfly2010  they have "holiday" cards and cards to wish joy to those in the new year.  so if Christmas isn't quite your thing, follow the holiday card link above to see if there's something out there to fit your needs.  i can almost guarantee there is.  happy shopping!

breaking my own rule.

i hate when people decorate for Christmas before Thanksgiving.  usually.  growing up, we would decorate Thanksgiving night or the days after but never before.  i have tried to do the same... i even complained earlier this month when i was driving home and passed a house with full lights and decor out.  it was the 3rd.  houses were still decorated for halloween.  seriously?

but this year my work schedule prevents me from having much time available for decorating this weekend.  we're taking a one day trip to knoxville for Thanksgiving and then i work the entire weekend.  i would rather be decorating.  or napping.  or, you know, not working!

so i started a little early this year.  just a day, really.  i made a new wreath today as last year's cute yarn wreath fell apart after the wind from one of our blizzards shook it all to pieces.  i knew there was no way to get it back together so i decided to start fresh.  i have also started getting the mantle decorated and even hung the stockings.  but there's still a lot of work to be done.

i did get this year's (and hopefully more to come) wreath idea from another blog.  you can see their picture here.
but here is what i came up with.  i even made the bow- i did not get any bow-making skills from my mother.  (it's most unfortunate.)

showering Maggie.

part of our most recent visit to franklin involved me helping to host a baby shower for my best friend, rachel.  rachel is the "original" best friend, though, i like to call 3 of my closest friends my bests.  i met rachel the summer before kindergarten.  26 years later, here we are, waiting to welcome her first baby, maggie, into this world.

we had a lovely turn out for maggie's shower and it also happened to be a beautiful, sunny fall day.  my cousin, angel, helped us again by providing us with pictures from our afternoon.  we enjoyed meeting sweet baby vince (who is also in another post from recent with his knitted hats on).  we enjoyed good food, fun games, good friends, and great gifts for maggie, rachel, and mark, to help make her arrival a little bit easier and a little bit sweeter.

diaper cake made by becca (rachel's sister, another best, and hannah grace's mama)

sweet petit fours

all the hostesses with the honorees

fun guessing games- how big is the belly? and how many qtips fit in the jar?

sweet gifts- i knitted the blanket in the above picture for sweet maggie

one sweet family

maggie danielle stooksbury is due november 28th.  she's seems to be happy where she is for now but i know everyone is ready for her arrival.  i'll be sure to let you know when this little bundle of joy makes her entrance into the world.  

you are my sunshine.

these fur babies love them some sunshine.  barley and dave, especially, have been so glad the seasons have changed because it means the sunlight filters in the windows again.  most afternoons you can find them soaking up the rays.  every now and then cotton will join in, but she mostly keeps herself to the shady parts of the room.  here, you can see for yourselves...

can you see dave's head by cotton's back foot?

enjoying some non-sunny relaxation.

dave loves his sunny corner of the living room.

barley will start here by the door and end up in the middle of the room as the sun moves today.

oh, this blog is about knitting...

so who knew life would get in the way of my knitting?  i have been knitting a lot this summer but i must say that i forget to take pictures of what i make.  so now when i give gifts i make sure that they send/post pictures of them in use.

my friend mandy recently had her 3rd baby boy.  i thought she might want a blanket, but she said she has more than enough blankets.  so she requested cute/crazy baby hats instead.  i made sweet baby vince 3 hats.  one is still too big for him (which was the plan since winter is on its way) but the other 2 fit.  i stole pictures from her facebook (with her permission, of course) so you could see super cute vince in his hats i made for him.

the baby jester hat

sweet little pumpkin

not loving the pumpkin patch.  i ♥ this picture!

fall beauty and land cruisers

yesterday was the annual Blue Ridge Parkway Cruise.  members of the upstate cruisers meet at mt. pisgah at the pisgah inn and then we drive/cruise from mt. pisgah to mt. mitchell on the brp and enjoy all of the fall colors.  saturday was a beautiful day and i am so glad i didn't sleep the day away (which still would have been fantastic) and joined jay and the others up on the parkway for the lovely day and drive.  the dogs came along, too, and we made it a "family" affair.  we couldn't have asked for better fall weather.  in fact, all we could have asked for were less people and traffic up on the parkway.  (we blame the local news channel for telling everyone to go to the parkway on saturday.  because they listened.)  anyway, here are some pictures, a little something for everyone- views and trucks- from our day.)

at Pisgah (pre-crowds)

 all the trucks together in one pic

 the view from mt. mitchell

 the view of mt. mitchell

 see the white dot in the center in the sky?  it's the moon.

sweet babies.  both looking at the camera, thanks to jay and a bribe.

sweet sleep!

I’ve shared with you before about Sweet Sleep, a nonprofit ministry based in Nashville which provides beds, bedding and Bibles to orphaned and abandoned children around the world (www.sweetsleep.org) . Thanks to you, Sweet Sleep has done amazing work in northern Uganda. And, with your support RIGHT NOW, we can do it again.

Here’s the situation:

Sweet Sleep and their partner, American Refugee Committee (ARC), is working with hundreds of thousands of children living in child-headed households in the IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camps in northern Uganda. 20 years ago, the government of Uganda placed every person in every tribe into these camps to protect them from rebels which were attacking the North over two decades. A few years ago this area finally began to experience peace, however today, more than a million people are still living in these camps. An estimated 750,000 of these people are children who are orphans with no place to go. ARC is working to trace each child by their family name back to their home tribe. They then work with village leaders to determine what land their family owned and reclaim it for them. As part of the process, each resettled child receives a new hut from ARC.

Being resettled gives a child hope and a chance for a new life. There’s just one problem: the children have been afraid to leave. Until now.

Even though the Ugandan Government has closed these camps, it is very difficult to get all of the children to leave. The children in these child-headed households were born in these camps – it’s simply all they’ve ever known.

In January of this year, as Sweet Sleep’s partnerships began in northern Uganda, ARC hoped to resettle 600 children. This was more than the number of children they resettled in 2009, but they were hoping the children would have a good response to the opportunity of being provided with a bed, net and Bible.

By the end of this June, Sweet Sleep had already provided ARC with the full amount of beds, nets and Bibles they’d requested for the entire year! Much to the amazement of ARC leadership, the children are now lining up to leave the camps to be resettled into their home villages. The children are sharing with ARC and Sweet Sleep that they never imagined they could have such a thing as a bed, mosquito net or a Bible of their own. Many other organizations in northern Uganda have come to ARC to ask how they’ve been able to get so many children to resettle. Who would have known something as simple as a bed, mosquito net and Bible could be so completely profound on a child’s life? Amazing. Simply amazing!

So, my friends, here’s where you come in. ARC recently asked Sweet Sleep to provide 700 more beds to the additional children they’ll be able to resettle this November -- in just 25 days! But we can’t resettle these children without you. A resettlement kit with a straw mat, new mattress, blanket, mosquito net and Bible is just $50! 
$50 to help a child find hope, peace and comfort in their new home. And thanks to some wonderful friends of Sweet Sleep’s, any gifts given to help resettle these children in October will be matched 100%! We need just 350 friends to give $50 or 175 people to give $100 – we can do this, right? So take a moment and think – how many beds can I provide? I know you’ll sleep sweeter knowing a child has come home and will sleep sweetly because of your gift. Just go to www.sweetsleep.org to donate any amount and be sure to write “Gulu” in the comment box. 

One more thing….read this letter from a child Sweet Sleep resettled in June. Let’s work together to help more sweet orphans like David finally come home.

Dear Sweet Sleep,

My name is David. I am 14 years old and am in primary four. I would like to thank you, Sweet Sleep for giving me the mattresses and mostly the Bible.

Now days I know more about God than I did before because I read my Bible and after I go for a sleep on my soft mattress. Am very happy this days because I start sleep right when I got on to my bed till morning without feeling any pain. 

So I again thank God for that special gift which I was not even expecting in my life and not forgetting to pray for you and also the organization called Sweet Sleep.

Thank you so much from David.

God Bless You.

sweetness. sweet-niece.

my niece, courtney, is getting so big.  i must say that one of the things i dislike about living in asheville is not getting to see my niece grow up except mostly through pictures.  here are a few of her doing what she loves- swimming.

end of the rainbow.

alternately titled:  i do.

alternately titled:  happy 4th anniversary.

where to start?  4 years ago today jay and i walked down the aisle in front of family, friends, and God and became husband and wife.  what better way to spend an anniversary than on vacation?  it wasn't intentionally planned that way, but we lucked out for sure.  (last year, i believe, we both worked.)  so today's been a good day.  low-key.  relaxed.  who can complain?  not us for sure.  or the dogs for that matter.  the video below is from this evening.

i am usually on top of things when it comes to hallmark and having a card for all occasions.  well, maybe not all occasions.  but birthdays and anniversaries of those close to me, for sure.  but i did not get one to bring along.  so i made one.

i finished making my "card" and sat down to relax in my chair.  we'd probably been on the beach about 15 minutes.  and then the rain started.  and the sun was still shining brightly.  and then it started raining harder.  well, there was a beach house that had a large deck and had been unoccupied all week, so we ventured underneath the deck to wait it out.  i'm so glad we did.  i have never seen the end of a rainbow until today.  and now you can, too.

it ended right in the middle of the ocean.  beautiful.

and just for a little nostalgia and looking at jay and i in our fancy clothes (as my little second cousin calls them), here are some of my faves from our wedding day.

seeing each other for the first time that day.

officially married!

relieved and ready for the reception.

yep.  he did that.

unleashed.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

so we cheated and let the dogs off leash this evening so they could freely romp and run through the waves.  as you can see, they loved every second of every minute.  

highs and lows.

Q:  what leaves as soon as it comes in?     A:  the tide

and that's no joke here.  when it's high, there is no beach left to walk on.  and when it's low, there is almost an entire football field's length of room to choose your spot.  now that the long holiday weekend is over, there aren't many people on the beach.  i am not complaining either.  :)  i'll let you see for yourself.

high tide + sunset

mid-afternoon low tide, looking in the same (hazy) direction

looking straight down to the water (yes, that's jay)

same vantage point for all three pictures.  just different days.  ebb and flow.

dogs meet the ocean.

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

the girls weren't sure the first day when we took them to the beach but quickly decided they did, in fact, like the ocean.  after all, it's water and labs love them some water.  but the second morning (when we filmed this snippet) we took them back, and they knew that putting on their collars meant we were going back to that "place" we took them the day before.  they were so excited.

they have rules down here, though.  they aren't supposed to be off their leashes at all and can only be on the beach before 10am and after 6pm.  makes sense, really, as it is still quite hot during the day and the beach is usually crowded during the summer months.  (the time limits are only from may 1- sept. 30.  the rest of the year they can be on the beach all day long, but still have to be on-leash.)

now that the long weekend has passed, it isn't really that crowded down here.  one of these remaining mornings we plan to cheat and let them run off leash.  just for a few minutes, anyway.  :)  we'll try to get some more pictures, but honestly, it's not easy staying dry and keeping their leashes untangled while trying to take pictures.  hopefully this video will keep you satisfied for now.   enjoy!  they did.

(mom, you may not want to enlarge it.  it may make you a little dizzy!)

(and i'll get around to uploading pics and video of the first outing to the beach.  it's on a different camera and has a little bit more of barley in it.  this video is courtesy of jay's iPhone 4.)

morris island lighthouse.

we took a short walk after dinner tonight to the edge of folly island to see the morris island lighthouse.  it happened to also be high tide, and when i say high tide, i'm not kidding.  there literally is about 3-5 feet of walking space on the beach during high tide, where as during low tide there is about 50-60 yards.  big difference.  we've been enjoying the sun and sand and the dogs have too.  they enjoyed it a little too much on monday so they had a rest day today.  we do have video, which i'll get on here one day.  when i figure out how.  anyway, here's a few pics from our evening walk.

picturesque, yes?  (i also love iPhoto and i think i would absolutely go crazy if i had photoshop.)  anyway, it was beautiful, as you can see in the pictures.  

finally...

Ready to spend my days here.  All week.  Will post better pictures later.  And a video of the dogs.  :)