It's Beginning to Look a Little Like Christmas...

Jessica came home from school around 10am on Thursday. She has had a cold and woke up that morning saying her throat hurt, but I thought maybe it was because she was breathing with her mouth open and it was dry. She didn't have a fever and wanted to try go to class. Apparently the throat was still hurting (or hurting again) and she went to the school nurse, who had her gargle with salt water. It seemed to help. But 10 minutes later, Jessica apparently had a little upset tummy (from the salt water, I think) and she threw up a little. By then her temp started to climb. So I dropped what I was doing and went to pick her up.

She's had a low grade fever ever since, but the throat and tummy are feeling much better. She's been eating and drinking fine so I suspect it's just a doozy of a cold, poor thing. Maybe a little sinus issue. Behaviorally, she is acting fine today. I hope she can go to school tomorrow as they are scheduled to have their mid-year assessment and she'll only be there for an hour and a half. That is, if the snow we've been getting all day doesn't create a snow day.

Wave one of the snow has come, but they are talking about another storm due to come in sometime tonight, I think. Time will tell.

So, I've lost two school days of work time for me in terms of holiday gifts. This coming week I'll lose two more, with the assessment day tomorrow and a day off scheduled for Friday. Sigh...hopefully I can get what I want to done! Time will tell.

In the meantime I have a couple of things to show that I have been able to work on.

*Ü*

I started changing out the decorations for the winter season. Here's one of my new snowmen that I got at the thrift store for $1! Isn't he just adorable?? I love his feet! I filled the basket with some cinnamon scented pinecones and a few cinnamon sticks. The pine stuff is a cut up garland I got at the dollar store.

And I've filled the pots on the porch, too.

I found the greenery at the dollar store (I still can't believe it) and the rest are from Joann's, 50% off!

Here's what I did in the hanging pots. I have three of these snowmen and they all have a different looking scarf/earmuffs. You can see I cut up another dollar store garland to wrap around the base. The garland was 15 feet long and pretty full. I'm pleased at how it looks.

And, since I'm not really able to work on Jessica or Amy's gifts with Jessica being home, I decided to try my hand at crocheting some ornament covers. It took a few attempts, changing the hook size to make the cover bigger since it wouldn't fit the ornaments I picked up at the thrift store. When I checked the pattern again, I realized the ornaments I was using were too large. (**slaps self on the forehead**) Another trip to the thrift store resulted in finding the correct size (for $1) among other things (like another snowman, an OshKosh coat for Jess, a dress for Amy, a couple of books, the placement on my table on the porch and a few other things almost all at 50% off the ticketed price!)

Once I got the correct size ornament, I was successful in creating a couple of covers and thought you might like to see them.

The dark gold one is for Jessica and the red one is for Amy.

Front view close up

Side view

Front view

Side view

I'm not sure I would make a ton of these, but these few attempts were fun (once I got the correct ornament size, that is). The girls are excited to have some new "special" ornaments.

Thanks for stopping by! I sure appreciate the visit.

Hope your week is a good one!