I have a love/hate relationship with the internet. I love keeping up with all of you, reading great craft blogs for new ideas, shopping in my skivvies, posting my journal/blog, finding info on things, yadda yadda yadda. I hate that my precious time drains away like water down a sink and is irretrievable. Precious time that could be spent sleeping, reading, or creating (notice I didn't mention cleaning as that is another waste of my precious time:) I have come to find that although I would love to stay up all night sewing, sleep has it's place among the precious time. I feel a nanometer less tired when I go to bed before midnight. I know that once the computer is on, it is like a magnet pulling me to it and I am powerless against it. So what I'm trying to get at is my blogging absence means that I am employing my time elsewhere than on the computer.

I have been contemplating the talk by Dallin H. Oaks about doing things that are good, better, or best. Is there something better that I could be doing than surfing the net? Sewing seems better. But what is better than that? Should I be spending all my free time engaged in service projects like sewing quilts for the homeless? Or reading the BOM, the Enzign, or other church books like that? Is it selfish to sew things to sell them instead of giving them away to a charity? These are questions that puzzle me exceedingly. I'm still trying to work this out.

Enough with the tangent. I have been doing a lot of reading and sewing lately. My friend Catherine is have a party and invited me to come try to sell some of my things, so I have been making crayon rolls, stuffed animals, and pillow cases and using up a good deal of my stash, which Jason is happy about:)

Of course for Christmas I made most everything that I gave. I want to post pics of more stuff, but the lighting in my apartment is dismal. Maybe later. My favorite by far are these primitive Raggedy Ann dolls. I have wanted to make some for a long time. Last year didn't work out, but I finally mustered up the courage this year.

I found pictures online and showed some faces to the girls and they picked the ones they liked. Regan was adamant that her doll have blue hair. I was worried how it would look, but I think it's adorable. I'm bursting my buttons over here. I LOOOOOOOVE them sooooooo much.

They were pretty easy to do, just took A LOT of time, but I'm sure glad I did it.




The girls love them too.
Anderson Family Christmas Party: Regan was the only kid who hugged Santa. So sweet.
She found my glasses. What a cheeser!
Sophie loves putting on shows, which involve her dancing....



Regan loves my makeup...
Sophie loves to be naked....
I love that they love eachother.
The girls wanted me to make sock puppets and Sophie thought it would be funny to put them on her feet, which it was pretty funny.
The girls and Kandra's new baby Brett. What a cutie he is. They were so sweet with him. Sophie held him so nice and wanted to all day. Regan would sing him Twinkle Twinkle Little Star while she was holding him. They will be good big sisters......someday.
The girls are trying to get used to not calling Gavin, "baby Gavin". We are trying big boy Gavin and baby Brett.......but Gavin just might be baby Gavin forever.
During the holidays we went with my parents to St. Johns to see my Aunt Colleen who is in her 80's. I guess Regan had been watching Kandra feed the baby too much because she went right up to my aunt and said very animatedly, "Did you know that babies drink milk from their mama's boobies?!?" Finger's pointing at her chest.
Colleen: "What?"
Regan: (even louder) "Did you know that babies drink milk from their mama's boobies?!?"
Colleen: "Uhhh yeah"
Oh my goodness, I laughed so hard. Just as good as a 15 minute ab workout.

See any resemblance?

Jason and I were looking at pictures on my mom's screen saver last night and these two pictures popped up and we got a good laugh. Actually these first two pictures were taken in the same spot on my mom's back patio, just 26 years apart:)



Guess we know where she got that crazy hair...
She loves to try on glasses wherever we go and makes me take pictures of all of them. Here's just a few of them:)






Love that crazy girl.

Bloggers Give Back

Hey lovely people in blog land. I am participating in this by donating one of my photo mattes. There are some superific things to bid on. You don't want to miss it!! It starts tomorrow!~Kristal CLICK HERE

Alan and Donna Gubler are both school teachers who were hoping to retire soon. On the weekend of November 28 an electrical fire started in the attic of their home. While away for Thanksgiving their furnace stopped working. Alan purchased some space heaters to get them through the weekend until someone could come fix the furnace. On Sunday afternoon while Donna was blow drying her hair a breaker was tripped. After spending some time trying to figure out which outlet was the problem, Alan gave up and decided to try again on Monday. Around 5 that evening Donna was in her bedroom hanging clothes and Alan was in the kitchen making some dinner. Donna could hear popping and crackling and called Alan in to see if he could hear it too. He could not and they both went back to what they were doing. A short time after that some neighbors came to the door and told them to immediately get out of the house because they believed it was on fire. Donna ran and put on her slippers and they left. Smoke was billowing out of the entire roof. They left the house with only the clothes on their backs.

At the time of the fire they did not have insurance on their home. Family and friends in Ely have rallied together to get them the necessities they need right now so that they could return to work. They will have to start from scratch with what savings they have. They have such a deep hole in their hearts right now and are entirely devastated. Their burden is not light and will likely last for quite some time as they try to rebuild what they have lost. We know this holiday season will be a very trying one for them and hope that this site and the donations raised, will ease their burden, even by a little.

Thank you for your interest, concern & donations!
CLICK HERE

Christmas Cards

It is that time of year again. Pull out the Christmas decorations, put up the tree, make goodies for your neighbors, and send out Christmas cards. This card below is the one I'm sending out this year. I made it and I can make one for you too! I put a preview of some that you can choose from or if these don't suit your fancy, send me the picture(s) that you want on it and I can whip up a cute little ditty that is all your own!

I made this one for Kandra last year and I liked it so much I used it for mine this year, just tweaking the background color a bit. Do you like one of these but want a different color? Just name it! I can do any size you want.

My mom and dad's Christmas card. Aren't they a handsome couple? Love them.

I whipped this one up yesterday and added Kandra's family pictures to get a feel for it with pics. Kandra, you know how to get a hold of me if you want it;)

One design is $6 for a digital JPEG file (picture) that you can then take to the printer of your choice. Easy peasy. Email me joykristal@gmail.com and let me know what design you would like, the greeting you want on it, colors, size, ect. Hope you are enjoying this time of season!

Ducky Shenanigans

It started out as a peaceful Sunday morning. Then Sophie came in with her finger up inside this porcelain duck's you know what and said she couldn't get it out. I tried some soap and vaseline, but just about ripped her finger off. So Jason was called in and he brought out the big guns....some pliers.

Here she is flippin' the bird...hahahaha

This is Regan's duck and she was in the background crying her eyes out for her poor, mutilated duck. She said she wanted us to cut Sophie's finger off so she could get her duck back. She cried for about a half hour over this. Ahhh...my little animal rights activist.

At last we can see the finger. Jason even cut himself on his thumb with this highly dangerous fowl. I was seriously thinking we were going to have to take her to the hospital, but all's well that ends well.

Just before Halloween, Regan's class was having a party. They don't celebrate any holidays to be sensitive to all the cultures in the class blah blah blah, so they had a "wild thing" party. She had to dress up like any wild thing and she picked an elephant. She was so excited about it and I didn't want to disappoint her so I pulled out some gray fleece and made this little number one night and surprised her with it the morning of the party. She was so excited. Sophie liked sporting it as well.

Fun stuff.

Halloween Costumes and Crap

Wow, has it really been 5+ weeks since my last post? How time flies when your doing the same things over and over and over again.

Regan's first day of school

I think her hair is starting to grow a little. She had a hard time going to preschool the first few days, but is now getting used to the routine and is getting to know the teachers, so she is doing better. Sophie is loving her preschool.

I made the girls crayon costumes for Halloween. I used some felt I had on hand. They weren't happy at first, because Regan wanted blue and Sophie wanted pink. I almost caved, however my cheapness won out. The whole thing cost $0.35 for embroidery floss, which my mom paid for. Sweeeeeet! They like their costumes now. We had a party in our court with all the moms and little kids. My neighbor is a photographer and she took all the kids pictures. These are a couple of the better shots.

Awww...so cute you could almost draw with them.

Sophie started posing for the camera.

I love home made Halloween costumes. I think they are so much cuter, more thought out, and a lot less commercialized. It just takes me back to my childhood when my mom would make our costumes out of things on hand. I loved that you could trust your neighbors. You knew that the popcorn balls from the Williams' house were going to be safe and not laced with drugs. My parents could let us go out alone door to door, instead of this stupid trunk-or-treat crap. Yes I said CRAP!! I hate it!

I hate buying into the commercialism for a holiday that isn't really about anything important except for how much candy you can score. What kind of holiday is that? Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against Halloween, I just don't like all these people who like to make loads of money off a holiday because we are too brain-dead to use our own ingenuity. So I don't want to pay $20 a costume so my girls can go to the back of someones car and learn how to beg for candy for one night. I WON'T DO IT! So here's a finger to all those companies wanting my money for some silly holiday. Booya! (I really didn't mean to get on my soap box, but it is what it is. And mom, I'm sorry if you thought the finger part was offensive:)