My Girls

I was taking pictures of some things I made and Sophie was prancing around and begged me to take pictures of her. I'm so glad I did. Just about 20 seconds worth, but I got some beautiful shots that I will treasure forever.

Sophie is the cutest thing ever

I love these pictures of Regan. She looks so beautiful. One of the rare times that she doesn't have a weird smile or something. Isn't her hair growing long? It is at a cute length now and not a boy cut:)

Regan has gone 15/19 nights without peeing the bed! Can I hear a WOOT WOOT! I employed a night time alarm system and it has worked wonders.

They can make me crazy, but I sure do love them.

Regan's Prayer

Regan is a funny girl. She just barely said family prayers before going to bed and I think I giggled through most of it.
"Please bless mama to not throw away anymore toys. And please bless grandpa Greer that he will stop drinking...(a little pause here and my eyebrows go way up) stop drinking pepsi and start drinking healthy drinks. And please bless grandpa Joy to do the same as grandpa Greer. And please bless grandma Greer and grandma Joy to do the same as grandpa Greer and grandpa Joy."

Really, I don't know where she came up with that. So there you have it dad. Out of the mouth of babes. And you too mom...we all know you love to chug the cola;)

We had fast and testimony meeting today because of stake conference next week, so I asked her if she wanted to bear her testimony and she immediately got up and and ran to the pulpit. I couldn't catch up with her. She grabbed the microphone on tip toes and didn't wait for someone to get her a stool to step on. "And did you know we are all connected when we die?!? It's like we are holding hands!" She really is amazing. She has such faith and believes readily the things taught to her. What a blessing.

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!