Home, Christmas and a Finish

Well, I am back home. I arrived home on Thursday. My sister is doing okay. It will be a rough go for her for some time. My mother is leaving Tuesday and staying with her until October 30th. I will be returning to Texas on November 1st for two weeks. We are doing our best to give her as much family support as we can. Jim is making slow progress but we are all hopeful.

Now to stitching news. The wreath is finished. I took the wreath from a Dimensions chart called "Circle of Love", changed the saying inside the wreath and added the names of the 6 grandchildren and 3 great grandchildren my parents have. Bob and Adam are my children, and Drew, Jackson and Hunter are my grandchildren. I had hoped to have it finished and framed by this weekend but that did not happen under the circumstances. I sat up late Saturday night and sewed beads on until it was finished. I gave it to my mom yesterday and then took it back to wash and press.

We had a wonderful Christmas/Thanksgiving with our family yesterday. I watched my children and grandchildren opening gifts and at the dinner table and counted all my blessings. After the tragedy that has befallen my sister, I think it makes us all realize how quickly our lives can change and not always for the better. I hope all my Canadian friends had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

I will take a moment to thank all my blogging friends for their kind words and support. I count you amongst my blessings.

On to another topic. I am starting a SAL on Paradigm Lost starting November 1st. The participants so far are myself, Dani, Christin, Beatrice, Wendy and now Rob has decided to join us.

We have three other participants but they will be doing Cirque des Cercles. They are Barb (from Thursday stitchers) Ann and Lynn.

Anyone else who is interested we would love to have you join us. Please contact me if you wish to join.

Update

Good morning everyone. Time for an update. Jim is doing well in the rehabilitation hospital. He receives 3 1/2 hours of therapy each day - physical, occupational and speech. His progress is slow but we are beginning to see some signs of improvement. He can say yes, no, aha, awright. He comprehends almost everything you ask him. He shakes his head most emphatically if he does not like something and he gets a silly grin when he finds something very funny. He rolls his eyes at my sister who is quite the chatterer. He fell out of his wheelchair yesterday. Did not hurt himself but needed to learn he was not ready to be on his own yet. My sister is holding up well and the children have settled down. We have tried to keep their routine as normal as possible. Today is their son's 13th birthday so the whole family is taking dinner, birthday cake and presents and we will have supper with Jim.
I have settled to some stitching. The wreath itself is finished and it matched perfectly when the two ends came together. It is all backstitched and I am working on the lettering in the middle. I am changing the center wording so it takes some work. Will post a photo when I get home.
I am flying home on Thursday to be with my family for Thanksgiving/Christmas. My mom will be arriving on the 9th to help Sherry until we return here on Nov 1st or 2nd to help out. We celebrate Christmas at Thanksgiving every second year since we don't go home for the holidays. We put up the tree, cook the turkey and pass out presents. I am looking forward to watching the grandkids as they rip through the paper. Well, folks back to life.
Sherry and I thank everyone for their kind words and prayers!!

Progress report

Hello everyone. Just a brief update from Sherry and I. Jim has survived his stroke but it is severe. We will not know for an extended period of time how severe the damage is. Sherry and I wish to thank you all for your kind words and prayers. I will be staying with her children for several days while Sherry finishes up in Houston. They will be moving Jim to a rehabilitation hospital closer to home in the next couple of days and then the hard work will begin.
Will update further when I can.

Just a brief note. My BIL in South Texas has had a stroke and it is not looking real good. I am on my way there tomorrow. I do not know when I will be able to blog or visit your blogs. It may be a while. Keep stitching everyone and I will be thinking of you.
Kathy

This and that

Hunter's birthday was a success. Here is what he looked like after enjoying his birthday cake. 3 hours to decorate and 2 minutes to destroy. The party was a lot of fun but a little noisy - 10 children 2 1/2 and under and 20 adults.

Dani, her mom and I made a trip to old Montreal on Sunday. We browsed the old port and had a lovely lunch in an outdoor cafe. We went to a needlework show in the afternoon. We saw some very beautiful work. We saw a couple of pieces we would like to do but there were no designer names with the finished work. One piece was an armchair piece with a needlebook, a pin cushion and a pocket for your scissors. The second was a whitework peacock.

I did some needlework on the weekend. I finished the fortune teller for Mikaela. By the way, when I photographed it open I spelt niece wrong. Nobody caught it. My sister did though. I finished a couple of other small pieces but cannot show photos until sent and received by their owners. I did a small amount of work on the wreath. I will be picking it back up now and hopefully finishing it within the next two weeks. I will do my best to blog this week but it may be limited. We have brought our 2 1/2 year old grandson Jackson home with us for the week. After he went to bed last night I sat for a good hour like a zombie. He is a lot of fun but man, am I tired, when he finally sleeps.

Fortune Teller and a Cake

I may not be blogging too much these days

but my fingers have been busy. I have

finished stitching the fortune teller for my

neice who is just a year younger than my

granddaughter. I will fold it into it's shape

over the next day or so. I am working on a

mystery piece at the moment so cannot

share photos of it. The cake I made yester-

day and decorated today for my grandson

Hunter's first birthday. I made and decorated this same cake for his dad 32 years ago and his brother Jackson 2 years ago. I used to decorate a lot of cakes but now do them strictly for family. I find them harder to decorate now - my hands get stiff. Oh well, I am sure he will love it. It will be delivered to him tomorrow.

Babies, babies and more babies

We went to visit with some family this weekend. Our niece is visiting from Victoria. We took a couple of family shots. Here are the recipients of 5 of the 10 baby samplers I have done in the last 3 years.
May I introduce our niece, Nicole with her son Ben, our niece Michelle with her daughter and son, Maya and Kody and our DIL Cindy with our grandsons Jackson and Hunter. It was great fun to see them all together but noisy!!!
I have done some work on my fortuneteller. I am about 1/3 done. I am also working on a gift so cannot photo it yet. Hope everyone had a good weekend. The wreath is taking a short rest.