Funky Fabrics & Numberless Nativities

This morning we woke up and it was so cold.  I wrapped up in this blanket to keep warm, and Autumn is such a sponge and is soaking up everything I do and wanted to wrap up in something too, so she went and found a towel and came and stood next to me all wrapped up.  I love having her as my little shadow.

Nate came home from work and was wearing this mask thing that helps him keep warm while he’s outside.  He wanted me to wear it, so he put it on my head.  I’m thinking this is probably not my best look.

While I was wrapped up in this blanket (that my Great Grandma Hatch made), I was looking at the cool old fabrics.  This one was particularly interesting to me.  What on Earth would you use green paperclip fabric for (this quilt was made all from scraps)?  The only thing I could come up w/ is if you were a paperclip salesmen and wanted to have a vest made out of paperclip fabric???

While we were sitting and talking, Lexie called to say she had just called over to Grandma & Grandpa Johnson’s house to see if she could talk to Grandma and whoever answered said Grandma had just passed away a few minutes ago!  I feel so bad that Dad didn’t get to say good bye to her before she died, b/c he was in the air flying to Utah.  However, from what little I’ve heard it was peaceful and she wasn’t hurting or in pain.  I have regrets that I wasn’t better about calling and talking to her at least once a month.  She was such a wonderful woman and my life has been so richly blessed by having her as a Grandmother.

After getting the news about Grandma, Autumn & I left to come home and get some things done (Grandma wouldn’t want us to be idle and waste the day).  I cleaned up the house, which hadn’t been done in a while.  Autumn was being too quiet and I wondered what she was up to.  This is what I found…she was sitting on the living room floor flipping through The Friend magazine.  I went and did some dishes and came back to find her laying down reading it w/ her legs crossed up on her knee.  She’s such a cutie pie.

After getting the house cleaned up and putting some Christmas lights up, we packed up some bags of stuff and took them over to the Community Outreach building (it’s like Goodwill).  After that we stopped at Arby’s to get some lunch (5 sandwiches for $5) and took it over to Mom & Dad’s to eat it w/ the boys.  Autumn & I both had our hair done up in a “princess ball” as she likes to call it, so we got a picture.

After spending the afternoon watching football and hanging out, it was time to head over to the church to put away all the nativities.  I had Curt & Mary watch Autumn for me so that I could actually help and get stuff done.  They had me drop her off to them at Target b/c they were over there doing some shopping.  She was so happy to see Curt and waved bye to me and took off w/ him w/out a second thought.  There were about 8 people helping and it only took us an hour and a half to get it all packed up and loaded in the cars.  We got home and got them all taken in the house and put away.  Nick’s shirt says it all… “I Survived [the 2009 Crèche].”

Here’s Mom & Maggie w/ their “we’re-tired-and-glad-it’s-over-for-another-year” faces.  It really wasn’t too bad putting the over 100 nativities away this year b/c they gave Mom her own section and we were able to close off the partition and work effectively.

Once we got all the boxes of nativities away, I went over to pick up Autumn.  Curt & Mary had bought her some Dora PJ’s and she absolutely adored them.  She was dancing and spinning around to show off her new jammies.  Mary said that Autumn fit right in and had a great time shopping w/ them and if anyone was looking at them, they would think Autumn just belonged w/ their family.  Autumn is so lucky to have them in her life.