The holidays have passed.  Boy was it busy, but it was a great year. The Sunday between Christmas and New Years last year, 2012, we received a call from our older son.  He was very upset, his wife had just told him she thought she was pregnant.  They had talked about names and the prospect of having a baby, and he had gotten in the shower.  When he got out of the shower, she was showing signs of miscarriage.  He called and said that he hadn't wanted to tell us this way, but they thought they were expecting and now might be having a miscarriage.  We decided a trip to the urgent care was in order.  We needed to see what was going on.  Urgent care sent them to the ER, we met them there.  After hours of waiting and testing, the diagnosis was that not only was there a heartbeat, there were two heartbeats.  Our daughter-in-law was carrying twins.  We were all elated.

In August, two healthy bouncing baby boys arrived, she carried them 38 weeks, they weighed 7 pounds 9 ounces, and 7 pounds 12 ounces; and they are gorgeous:)  We cannot express how thankful we are to God to have them here and what a blessing they are to us.

So Christmas this year was very special, we had little blessings to enjoy.  Forty years and one week before Christmas 2013, my mom delivered twin boys, Eric and Derrick; one was still born and the other died a few minutes after delivery.  I was very young at the time, so I didn't understand, and I still don't know if there was any explanation as to what happened to them.  This year, for Christmas, my family had 5 month old twin boys in our home. It has been an emotional roller coaster for my mother.  The delivery was frightening for her, and the first time she held them, she felt like she had waited 40 years to hold those precious boys.
God does truly work in mysterious ways, but we must try to trust in His plan and His purpose.

I did do some projects for Christmas; different night lights for my great nieces and nephews, and a special Elvis one for my friend, who is an Elvis fan.  The ones with the clear lights are a lot easier to read in the photos than the red lights, but in real life they are equally easy to read.  The "frosted" ones, I made a template out of vinyl and placed the template on the glass block, then I ran the glass blocks through a bead blaster to get the heavy frosted look.  The trick is to not lose any vinyl letters in the blaster, which I did on one block, it is missing a letter. There are a few at the bottom that still have the vinyl on them, for those of you who, like me, are creatively challenged and need to see it to grasp it.

 Psalm 139:14 "I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made"

"Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed; Save me and I shall be saved, for You are my praise."  Jeremiah 17:14.  This little girl struggles with brittle bone disease, she has had 16 broken bones in her three years of life, so this was a  very special verse just for her.

"Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go." Joshua 1:9b

"I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength." Philippians 4:13

 "Whatever I will become will be what God has chosen for me"  This is a quote by Elvis at some time in his life.  I did a search for his signature, took the signature image into the Silhouette software and did a trace on it, then edited the points until it looked like the original image, and cut the signature out of Vinyl.  For this block I also added a re recordable, push button, sound chip that I purchased here and recorded a 90 second clip of "Kentucky Rain", my friend's favorite Elvis song.  That was really fun to add the sound clip to it, I attached the device to the side of the block and tied piece of black tulle around the outside of the block to cover the device.  Turned out pretty good, the picture is before the black tulle was added.

"God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." 2 Timothy 1:7  (This is the one missing a letter, an "o")

This is the block with the vinyl template attached, before it was put in the bead blaster.

These are the results after it has been blasted and the vinyl removed and the lights added.



"His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace"  Isaiah 9:6b






 Well that is about if or now, I have been making tag cards of late and will try to get a post up with pictures of those soon.