Happy New Year and Welcome Back

Hey there, long time no see!  

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and break from work! 

I was able to be off for a couple of weeks and it was glorious.  

I certainly recharged my batteries as I know I was feeling a little bit run down.  

Ah now to catch you up. 

 I gifted some things over the holidays that I was not able to talk about previously

 so will start with those.

My SIL, Ann, has asked me for a quilt for a LONG time.  

I kept asking her if she had a baby or got married but sadly, she did not.  

She did, however turn 50 in October. 

Eventually, I would like to make quilts for all of my husband's siblings.  

I have now finished 3 out of 6 (not counting us). 

 I am not rushing to do this it is just whenever it happens to work in my schedule 

and the timing is right.

So, Ann's favorite color is purple. 

 Her house is not decorated in purple but I decided to make her a violently purple quilt. 

I even used royal purple minky for the back of this quilt.  

Do you remember the shooting stars quilt I was working on?  

Well, that one was for Ann.

You can see the backing up close in this photo.

My husband's family gets together on Christmas eve so 

I brought it with me on Christmas eve to give to her.  I think her face says it all.

We had so much fun on Christmas Eve. 

 It is super fun when BIG families get together.

My family grew by one this year.  

Not pictured are my eldest daughter and husband.

First Christmas together

MANY Christmas seasons together, LOL

 We have many great nieces and nephews.  

Not all of them were present (and the 2 bigger girls are actually nieces)

This is *most* of our nieces and nephews and spouses.  

I have more to share about Christmas but so many photos with that one

that I will make a separate post so stay tuned!

Thank you to Mark and Jackie for hosting another wonderful Christmas eve for our family!

~XOP~

Happy 60th To My Dear Sweet Hubby

I don't talk about my hubby a lot on my blog but today I am going to celebrate him. 

 His 60th birthday was Wednesday.  

We have been married almost 35 years.  

I don't know how I would get along without him by my side.  

He is not only my husband but truly my best friend.  

I wanted to do something special for his big birthday, as I knew we would be away on his actual day.  I tired to plan a trip but he was NOT having that, haha.  

So I conspired with his uncle to plan a surprise birthday party!  

He is pretty quiet and keeps to himself except where his family is concerned.  

He loves to hang out with his family.  He is the oldest of 7 kids.  

I invited his entire, gigantic family.  

Almost everyone made the effort to show up too.  

I could NOT have done it without his sister, Mary's help.  

Also his aunt and uncle who offered up their house for the party.  

My sweet SIL, Jackie, also had her sister make the most amazing cake too.

So the plan was that everyone would be to the farm at a specific time.  

I flew our daughter in from NC so on Saturday morning I went to the airport to pick her up.  

He was at our church doing landscaping work with others for the day so I had the day to myself.  

My daughter and I went out for breakfast then I dropped her with the eldest daughter.  

I had gone shopping with the eldest on Friday to get fruit and veggies to make for the party.  Everything was in place.

Surprisingly everyone showed up on time!  

I was texting with my eldest the entire drive to the party (an hour away).  

We pulled up and got out and his uncle came over to greet us.  

He turned Chris away from the garage door and tried to put the door up.  

His son was trying to do the same thing from inside so the door kept going up and down in the space of about a foot for a bit.  

Hubby turned and asked what was going on with the door. 

 We could hear giggling inside, which he thought was his uncle's grand kids.  

Then...the door went up and everyone yelled SURPRISE!!!  

Hubby just stood there like, "wait...what?"  

He was so confused and had no idea what was happening. 

 HAHA it could not have been more PERFECT!

We went inside and it was an amazing party.  

I had BBQ catered in and my SIL Mary made potato salad and coleslaw (I still need that recipe).  

I also had the BBQ place bring mac and cheese, OMG you guys, it was so good!

This is the cake.  It was an old man of the sea theme.  

My SIL got him a top hat that had "60" on it.  That is my younger daughter next to him.

Around the table, me, hubby, middle daughter, eldest daughter and BIL.

 Hubby with his middle brother, Mark.

Hubby and me

His uncle gave him this walker.  HILARIOUS.

Blowing out the candles

Family!

Chris's uncle explaining how to work the walker.  Notice the fishing pole, LOL.

 My daughter and me.

My daughter and us.

I could NOT have done this without the help of so many other people.  

It was so nice to be able to celebrate such a special day with our entire family (almost).  

Thank you to everyone that made this such a special day.  

As we were falling asleep that night, he turned to me and said, "Thank you for today". 

 I know it meant so much to him.

~XOP~

Celebrating

My great niece turned one this past weekend.  

All of my husband's siblings and many of their kids and their kids kids were in attendance. 

 It was a very nice celebration and everyone had such a fun time just being together and celebrating.

This is a photo of my husband (all the way on the left) and his brothers and sisters.  

I just noticed that they are in age order.  My husband being the oldest of the 7.

Then we managed to get some of the nieces and nephews (the ones that were there) in a photo.  Although the smallest one in pink is actually a great niece.  

You can see my son in the middle with the hat on.

Ny nephew and my son.  These two, omgosh!  

I just LOVE Kate's expression in this photo.
(She is the one cracking up)

These are some of my great nieces.  

The first two on the left are siblings, 

the next two are siblings and the last one is so far the first in her family.

Clearly, the birthday girl is the one in the Happy Birthday bib!

It was so nice that everyone took the time to get together and celebrate. 

It is always fun being with this group!

How was your weekend?

~XOP~