Christmas Thank you

Martha sent me these incredible holly leaves as part of my Christmas gift this year and I was inspired to use them to start making a few thank you cards. I love how they turned out! Thanks Martha! As you can see I also love vintage trims and buttons and they were perfect on these cards. The mica chips came from some pieces of mica that Alan gave me--he picked them up in North Dakota--or was that South Dakota--seriously, just off the side of the road, on a business trip a few years ago. I've had fun shredding it a little but wonder how it's done professionally. I keep getting it my eyes and it's not comfortable!

We start church at 9:00 tomorrow morning. We've gotten used to afternoon church and quite frankly no one has been out of bed before 9:30 in over a week--ok, maybe Truman and Noah have been up playing the wii but no one else knows anything about that. It will be a trick getting there on time!

I had to make cards today so I could hand a few out at church tomorrow--we have some generous and wonderful friends in our ward and I want to let them know how much their gifts and friendship mean to me.

Let me just tell you about one. Her name is Dot. She sits on the front row and has for the nine years we've been here. She never forgets a thing--not a thing about anyone in the ward. If a child is in the paper she has the article for you on Sunday. If you collect coupons she has a bag of them waiting for you to take home from church. She knows I like Sunset magazine so she saves her copies for me. I usually get them while they are still on the newstand. She started using a walker a year or two ago and I don't know how she got by without it, she has bags on it full of all the things she needs to deliver to people at church. About 6 months ago I told her we had decided that we wanted to see a show of some sort as a family. Blue Man Group, Cirque de Soleil, Wicked, something fun we haven't done as a family before. But we don't have $600 or more for that kind of thing so we started saving our pennies and other change. We recycle cans and bottles and our fund is growing. Every month or so Dot hands one of my kids a film canister full of pennies for our fund. Guess what she gave us for Christmas? The coolest bank ever, it's a jar that when you put the coins in it counts the money and keeps track of what is there. How can I not love this thoughtful, wonderful friend?! The bank is so fun the kids have saved more money since Christmas than they have in the last few months. It might take another year or so before we have the money to go but we love watching our fund grow and I love knowing there is one other person out there who cares about whether or not we ever get to go.

I am so blessed by wonderful friends both near and far. I'm not good at letting people know how much I think of them and love them, but I'm trying to do better because I know how much it matters to me!

Have a blessed Sabbath--even if it starts too early for you this year!