Happy New Year!!! Catching up from December

Ok, after a month of not blogging, I had so much to say that I kept putting off making a post till I had lots of time to devote to it, but then I had more to say and so needed an even larger chunk of time and then it just grew more an more... Well, I am done putting off posting. I might not get through everything, I might have to post a couple of times this week and next (gasp!), but hopefully, in a week or two I might get this blog caught up.

I will start with what I did in December. As I had already stated, I was planning to make quite a few of the Christmas gifts I was giving out. I subscribe to the You Can Make This newsletter and they said they were selecting 50 people to participate in a contest to try and make as many of your Christmas gifts for less than $50 as possible. If you were selected, you got a bunch of their e-patterns for free and a chance to win some other cool prizes. It sounded fun so I applied and was selected; yea! They asked that I post to a blog about my experiences BUT since I didn't want some of my regular readers who were going to be recipients of my gifts to see what they were getting... I made a new SECRET blog. It is one reason why I didn't post during December, because I was already posting on the secret blog, but it is no longer secret so you can check it out if you want to. BLOG

I didn't even sort of finish all the projects I wanted to get done (that second post on the secret blog is laughable), but everything worked out anyway. I think eveyone was happy with their gifts and that's what counts right?

Meanwhile, we had our last preschool class/ Christmas party for 2008. I had so much fun teaching these kids last year, I'm sad to see it end, but I look forward to our new 2009 preschool which I know will be great too. Here are some pictures of the kids in their chef hats and aprons (my Christmas gift to them) as we got ready to make sugar cookies that day.







My grandmother was diagnosed with cancer the first week of Decmeber and went in for surgery the second week in December. While they were able to remove all the cancer, my grandmother had a bunch of complications with the surgery and is still in the hospital. Monday, they did another surgery to fix some of the problems she was having and we all hope and pray that she will be able to start getting better now and be able to leave the hospital soon. My mom has been staying with her at the hospital almost every night since she went in. Normally my grandmother and mom are big parst of our Chirstmas eve celebration, so this year it was a little sad not to have them there, but we still had a good time.

I got a subcompact digital camera for Christmas, a Cannon Powershot SD1100 IS and I love it. It fits in my purse and now I am never without my camera. It also has a bunch of cool picture option that I'm still figuring out and I can take short movie clips, something eles I'm working on learning to use. It is an awsome gift and all the following pictures were taken using it.

Christmas Morning: