Thanksgiving Weekend

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving weekend.  Mine was action packed.  It began with DD2 calling me on Tuesday night to let us know that she had been accepted into the Study Abroad program in the Galapagos Islands!!  Thanks for your prayers!  She was the first one accepted into the program and his very first interview.  We are thrilled (now we just need to figure out how to pay for it!)

Both girls came home on Wednesday to help me clean and do some cooking.  We went to my nephew's for the actual dinner on Thursday.  I asked him what he was planning on serving for appetizers and he said, "I thought since there aren't many people coming that I would put out a bowl of nuts".  Really??  NO!  My girls would cry if they didn't get the regular things I make at home.  So DD1 helped me on Thursday morning make all the dips and I made the pumpkin pies on Wed night.  We all ended up at my nephew's house along with my dad and sister.  We had a great time.  Have you ever played Catch Phrase?  What a riot!!  I have never seen my DH laugh so much!  In addition, I gave my sister her quilt.  I know, I know, *finally* right?  She cried!  Perfect reaction!!

DD2 and I were geared up for shopping on Friday and the boys were going to go deer hunting, again, perfect!  We went out and got our bargains and we had a blast.  It isn't the beginning of the season without stalking someone for their parking space!!  Friday we cleaned and got ready for getting all the Christmas decoration out on Saturday.

Saturday was a beautiful sunny day.  Actually not too cold either.  DD2 (and reluctantly DD1) helped me get all the decorations up, the tree up and the lights on it and the outside decorations done too.  We hang cedar roping up with white lights and red bows.  It is so pretty.  I usually have to do it by myself but this year I had lots of help!  I did the whole thing wearing a sweatshirt and even could have stripped to a t-shirt, I think it must have been in the 50's.  Bonus!  When Dh and DS came home (no deer) weren't they in for a surprise?

I had bought some polar bear fabric and some companion fabrics to make a something for my neighbor that is like a second mom to my DD1.  This neighbor loves polar bears.  I was unsure of what to try to make with it and DD1 thought a table runner or tree skirt was not the right thing, so, "hey mom, I bet she would like a quilt".  Really, you think so do you?  Cuz I had nothing better to do than to design a quilt and get it to the quilter before Christmas, right?  That's exactly what I did.  I used the 5 yard pattern that I used to make the MSU quilt for the raffle and including making and eating my dinner had the quilt top and back finished in about 9 hours (cutting and all).  I think I did a couple other things in between like let the dog out and do the laundry.  Of course I handed it off to LTW this am and so have no photos for you!  It turned out really good though, lol.  LTW promised to get it back to me soon so I hope to have some pictures for you before too long.

I hope you all had a good weekend too.  I am certainly thankful for my beautiful, helpful daughters!  I have never had my Christmas decorations up this early before so I feel pretty good about that.