Christmas Merriment~

Merry Christmas to All!

I hope you all had a wonderful day spending time with those you love. I just wanted to share a few pictures from our Family Christmas Eve Celebration and because I had soooo many pictures I decided to make a slide show. ENJOY!

Have a wonderful and restful time during the rest of your holiday vacation.

Hugs to All!

Kim

It's Our Birthdays Today!!

Happy Happy Birthday to US!

Natalie was the BEST birthday present a Mom could ever ask for. Thanks Natalie for sharing this day with me!

We had a great lunch at Magelby's Restaurant. The Gourmet Shrimp were really really delicious! We topped off a great lunch with yummy chocolate cake with raspberries and vanilla ice cream!

Last night at midnight my DH gave me my birthday present. He was really excited about giving it to me. He surprised my with the next step up in cameras. My husband purchased a Nikon D80 SLR camera for my birthday. We've been buying Canon Cameras for years but he decided to switch over to Nikon after asking a lot of questions and doing a lot of research which my husband loves to do.

It was an especially GREAT day today!

The JOY in GIVING!!!

It's been a VERY successful fundraiser for Parker. In fact, it's been so successful it's kind of blown us all away. We want to thank everyone who contributed to the success of this special event. Parker's life will be so blessed by your generosity. On behalf of his family I want to THANK each one of YOU!!!

Here are just a few pictures from yesterday and today as we picked the winners and took down the quilt and the gingerbread kids.

After school my daughter, Kenna and I took down the gingerbread kids with the help of Candice from the office and a some other kids in the hallway. We then tried to take the tape off and organize them a little better than the pile you see in the pictures.

There had to be over 1,000 of them. Last count over two weeks ago we were at 687 so I'm calculating approximately double that. As we sat and took off the tape and unstuck them from each other we enjoyed seeing all the messages and decorations. It was a lot of fun!


Some of the gingerbread men didn't quite survive the process of taking them down. We tried to repair what we could but some had to be tossed. Sorry! I just didn't want to send body parts, if you know what I mean. LOL!

Here's our donation bottle.
Donations can still be made here at anytime.

A shout-out goes to the owner's of Oobees for donating this wonderful gift basket of all of their fun products. You can go here to have a look. They do mail across the country and you can go to this website and buy them too.


A big thank you goes to Broadbent's in Lehi for donating this fun horse collection.

Broadbent's in Lehi

The three other blankets were donated by Lisa, an aid at school and a parent that just dropped a quilt off in the office and didn't tell them who she was (so I can't thank her personally).

Here's a view of most of the prizes.

One last prize was donated to a drawing for the teachers and staff. One of our student's dad works for Provo Craft and donated a Cricut Expression. That was a really cool prize and it generated a slew of donations. Of course, I didn't win but I knew the teacher that did win and she was very very EXCITED!! So I was happy that she loved it and more importantly, she will use it!!! That's what I wanted.

Provo Craft's Cricut Expression

Well, it's been a SWEET SUCCESS and such a MIRACLE to see the hearts of the children open up to help another child in need. We had so much fun with this fundraiser and I feel it opened up the level of compassion in our children. I often heard the kids talk about helping Parker and they'd show me their money. It's been a REAL BLESSING for me at this special time of year when we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. I acknowledge HIS hand in my life and I know that HE LIVES and loves me too! That he gave HIS LIFE for me that I could return to LIVE with HIM again!

At this Christmas time let us reflect upon HIS life and the love HE has for everyone! May we always share that LOVE with those around us that we may have PEACE and JOY in serving those around us.

MERRY CHRISTMAS to ALL!!

More Pieces of Love for Parker

Welcome Quilter's!

A big thank you goes out to Jodi from Simply This That & the Other for featuring my blog.

I hope you enjoy your visit and that you have a chance to join us in helping Parker by donating to the Quilt Giveaway. For every $5.00 donation your name will go into the drawing for this Gingerbread quilt. The drawing for the quilt and a few other gifts will be done on Wednesday, December 17th right after school. You will be contacted shortly after the drawing if you win.

All proceeds will go to "The Parker Reed Hodson Medical Fund" and donations can be made by clicking here to take you to his website and then clicking on the gold donation button. Please leave me an email if you've made a donation so I can put your name in the Gingerbread Jar.

Thank You one and all for sharing in this Christmas Miracle for Parker and his family.

I made this stocking out of the leftover fabric from the Gingerbread Quilt. I thought it would be a nice reminder of this Christmas Miracle. All donations will be put in the stocking and presented to Parker and his Family just before Christmas.

For more information on Pieces of Love for Parker you can read this post about how it all happened.

Pieces of Love for Parker

I started a new job this year working at my daughters school. I'm a teacher's aide in 2nd grade and I work in one of the classrooms full-time. I love the teacher and all of the kids in our class, it's so much fun. All of the teachers and staff are wonderful and the Principal is pretty awesome! He's so kind and is always very positive with the kids (we have a great school). Well, I kept hearing about his son Parker and wanted to know more. I remember someone saying his mom had a website for him. So, I decided to go there and have a look. Parker's story touched my heart and I immediately wanted to do something special for him. So, this is what's been happening for Parker. . .

Well, I thought it's Christmas time and I have this Christmas quilt I made and I thought why not see if it can generate some money for Parker's Medical Expenses. So, I decided to talk it over with the two secretaries in the office before talking to the Principal about it and they thought it would be a great idea. Then, we thought let's see if we can get the school involved. So, I went and talked with the teacher's over the student council and got them involved, too.

Just get a few caring women involved and a MIRACLE is BORN! This Christmas season I'm reminded that it's more important to give than to receive. I think that the beauty of giving is the miracle's that happen along the way and thus we receive so much more in return for our willingness to give! Isn't it wonderful? I LOVE seeing Miracles Happen and feeling the Love of our Savior, Jesus Christ!

Here's a picture I took of the Gingerbread Quilt after we hung it in the office.

A closer look at the quilt.

IMPORTANT, Please Read:

If you're interested in making a donation of $5.00 or more you can go here and click on the gold "Make a Donation" button on the sidebar and follow the instructions. Parker's mom will make sure your name goes into the drawing and let her know I sent you too, thanks. Remember, If you're really interested in the quilt you'll want to HURRY on over to her website and make a donation. Also, If you make a donation just let me know too and I'll make sure your name goes into the drawing. Just leave me a comment or send me an email.

Thank You for your willingness to help. I would appreciate it too, if you can do a shout out on your blogs and spread the word. Any amount can help with the tremendous costs of Parker's medical care. He is QUICKLY approaching his lifetime insurance maximum and he's only just turned 4 years old!!! How scary is that? I can only imagine!

"Pieces of Love for Parker" started on November 17th and it run's through the 17th of December. For every $5.00 donation to Parker's Medical Expenses your name goes into the jar and a name will be pulled for the winner of the Gingerbread Quilt. Just so you know there are also 9 other prizes that have been donated by families at our school.

The Gingerbread kids are starting a "Chain of Love" around the school as a show of love and support for Parker and his family. Each Gingerbread boy/girl represents a donation of any kind from a penny to a dollar or more. We wanted each child in the school to be able to make a donation of some kind. It's been a lot of fun watching the gingerbread kids go up each day after lunch time. There are six days left!!! Last count there were over 600 and I'm sure we're over 700 now. I'll have to recount them after lunch tomorrow.

This is a poster we put up the day we announced to our school how we were going to help Parker and his family for Christmas. I made one poster and ended up with 5 more posters filled with birthday and get well wishes. The kids were all so excited to sign their names and leave a thought.

Let's Celebrate!!!

Freda
Nanette's Mother

My Friend, Nanette and her daughters over at Freda's Hive are celebrating their ONE year Blogiversary and they're having a BIG Giveaway. Let's head on over and help her celebrate!! Congrats, Nanette and all of your daughters on a wonderful year of Fun Posts, Inspirational Quilts, and Creative Projects. I've loved every minute of it!!

Quilt for Kiersten

My daughter, Natalie recently made this quilt for her friend Kiersten. It's a really soft and sweet churn dash block set on point. It will make a lovely lap quilt to cover up in these cooler months.

Keirsten was really happy and excited to open her quilt but, I made her wait a minute so I could take a picture of the two best friends.

Kiersten and Natalie

They are both aspiring writers and Kiersten recently acquired a literary agent. We are so excited and happy for her.

Here's a closer look at the quilt.