Busy Week Before Christmas

I can't seem to manipulate the photos in this blog so I will just explain the images as I go along. Above is the sketch of the Indian Headband for my book. I was very excited to begin sketching again. I had to work quickly because the arthritis in my hands didn't allow me to work very long. Still it felt so good to draw again.

This next photo is of the 1/2 batch of Christmas Bread that we made together. It was very good.

This is a sketch of the cowboy hat worn in Australia.
This is the cone hat worn in the castle in England.
This is a sketch of the fictional character named Bestemor in my book.

This is the back door of the house that is depicted in the book.

This next sketch is of the attic in which Hans and Meemaw and their 7 great grandchildren meet where magical experiences occur.


This baseball cap is from the chapter on pride.
This is the lace trimmed bonnet worn in Sweden.
This is the white hat worn in Holland.
This is the garden hat worn in Germany and is my favorite of all the sketches. It was drawn first before my hands began to hurt.

As is everyone we are busy preparing for Christmas 2008. There was so much we wanted to accomplish. Neal worked on designing the cover and found the binding machine on line with all of the supplies (and more) that we needed. These were the first 3 of the 11 books that we printed.

Lori had been contacted by her friend Stormy who asked if we could embroider the name of their second child the same as we had done for their little Sofia. It was difficult and if it could go wrong it did. We ended up driving in the snow to get to JoAnn's Fabric store to get more of the thread we needed. Happily, the stocking was ready for them to pick up on their way to the airport. But sadly, when I went to use the embroidery machine... yeah, it was broken.

Above is a photo of this year's Christmas letter. I got all of them out on time this year! Neal took my pen and ink drawing of our Family Geneaolgy Ship to Kinkos and had it copied to disk. Then using Don's printer he was able to duplicate it for Don and Gaylynne, Lori and Matthew, and Teresa and the kids.

As if he didn't have enough to do between tithing settlement interviews at church, running the business, the Meemaw book, and snow, Neal created a board game to go along with the Meemaw's Attic book. We played it and laughed at how silly and cool it was.

Had I been able to move these photos around I would have placed this one with the finished bread.
In the beginning this is what the van looked like. Oh, if it had only stayed like this.








In the next blog I'll show you what it finally looked like on Christmas day.
This next photo you will all recognize as the beginning of the Christmas Bread. When my kids were little I would stir this butter, sugar, milk mixture until the yellow butter could not be seen. True to Sesame Street's "Alla peanut butter sandwiches" I would make "magic" by stopping the stirring and voila the mixture turned back to yellow as the butter made its way to the top of the milk. The kids liked that even when they figured it out.

I made little bags like this one to hold the game pieces for the game board that Neal made.