I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

Every month we have a meeting with the women of our church. (the Relief Society). We had planned a breakfast dinner and then various projects to get ready for Christmas. Before the projects we had to get our energy up with... Pancakes! We also had sausage, pumpkin muffins and other goodies. About 22 women showed up and we ate, laughed, did our projects, and generally had a fun time. These meetings are one of my main responsibilities, but I couldn't pull any of it off without the help of some pretty super people..fitting in the theme of being grateful, I'll say a big thanks to Stacy, Gayle, and Ginger for doing the projects... Joanne and Estelle for showing up early and flipping the flapjacks..and Jack for showing up to help where ever I asked him to! We even had our own little miracle that involved a 24 days of Christmas book that was to be handed out to those who had ordered one. We had some girls show up that wanted one, but hadn't ordered any. Stacy had put together just enough to give out to the pre-ordered people..only when it was all said and done, we had 6 left over to hand out to the ones who thought they were out of luck. Hmmm...
I tried my hand at making some bread pudding. I had a ton of hotdog buns left over from the Halloween party and I had them in my freezer. So I thawed them out and put them to good use. Turned out pretty good and I made a lemon sauce to top it off. One of the ladies made the comment that I must have stayed home from work today to get it all done..nope, I got home from work at 4:00. I'm just incredibly organized..what's that sound I hear?? Oh, it's just anyone who knows me laughing their head off at that comment!
If you're like me you have decorations that are not being used anymore. So I got the brilliant idea to have everyone bring in items they don't want and we put them out for anyone to take home. One man's junk is another man's treasure after all. Anything left was taken to Associated Charities. Many items were given a new home!
Even this "Charlie Brown" tree got snatched up for a child's bedroom so they could have their very own tree. Fluff up those limbs and put ornaments on it and it will dazzle..all for free!
One of our projects tonight was making a Christmas card. When I saw this idea back in the summer I told Stacy, our Pres., that it looked to complicated for me. Thankfully another member of our group (Ginger) took on the challenge and really did a great job of putting it all together. So even though this huge mess on the table looks overwhelming, it went from this to....
This: Sorry it's so blurred, but the cards were very pretty and could be used as cards or framed for a cute 5X7 Christmas picture. Everyone loved the results and I loved not having to teach this! This card is only partially done, I should have waited and taken a pic of the finished project.. Darn!
We've been collecting dish towels and dish rags for a project one of the women at church wanted to do for Associated Charities for Christmas. I wasn't sure what it was until I finally saw them being put together and then I got it. The dish towel "britches" are whip stitched to look like pants with another towel tucked inside..then they can be taken apart and used.Just a cute way to give a practical gift. We put together 70 of them.
After our dish towel "britches" were made we put them into Christmas bags and got them all ready to take to Associated Charities to be given to anyone they feel would like them.
A big thank you goes out to my hubby Jack...thanks babe for coming to our meeting, putting up with being the only male, helping serve the food, helping to clean up afterward,and, most important, making sure no bad guys break into the church to kidnap any of us (Ok, so I'm exaggerating just a bit)You're my hero!