CHRISTMAS COSTUMES

         Last night, I was working on a satin cape that was given to be used as a costume in our Children's Christmas program. I am opening the arm slits up to the shoulders. Our angel that has a solo will be wearing a pair of large wings that have straps to go over the arms to hold it on. I'm trying to figure out how to use both. If I can't I will put the cape back together the way it was.

Cape and Wings

       So last night, I was taking out the seams and watching or, better to say, listening to Christmas shows on the TV. Something made me think of Saturday, which made me think 12/13/14. Then I remembered Kev's mom telling me they brought Kev home from the adoption agency on December 13th. She said they took him in the house and put him under the tree, (just for a minute, I think for a picture). She said he was the only thing under the tree. That was all they could afford that year for Christmas but they didn't need anything else. I told Kev or reminded him this morning, His mom and dad may be in heaven with Jesus but the memories, we will have forever.

      I still need to try the cape and wings on the angel. Then I will stitch the raw edges and that costume will be marked off the list.

                           I'm making a list and checking it twice..... or 3, 4, 5.... times.

I also made index cards for each costume. After the costume is finished I tape the index card to the corner of a trash bag, cut a hole in the top and put the bag over the costume's hanger.

Index cards

Trash bags with index cards over the costumes

        Wiseman 1 was made as a monk costume. Kev had a wedding this past summer that had a medieval theme. He was told he could wear one of his regular robes. I didn't think that would look very good in the wedding pictures so I made him an outfit. 

Take one medieval outfit and  add some beautiful ribbon from another wedding years ago and PRESTO CHANGE-O you have a Wiseman. I also made a crown. There are 3 crown designs with the pattern. I cut two of them out then cut them out of cardboard. The third crown I drew a sketch from an animated skit Kev was watching the other day. I was looking over his shoulder and there it was. I thought I'd try it. It is going to be made out of a cardboard ice cream container covered with fabric. It looks cool in my head. I hope it turns out that good.

Medieval outfit for wedding

Wiseman 1

 

Crown

       The crown is just cardboard, cut out, sprayed gold and the same ribbon as used on the outfit was hot glued to the bottom of the crown. Kev and I talked about trying to find some plastic jewels to glue to the top circles, but that's if we can find some before Sunday.  I will probably use hair pins to put it together. If I staple it or glue it the size is set. I may need to spray the hair pins gold so they don't show up to bad.

       Tomorrow I will finish the other Wisemen and pack everything up. Dress rehearsal is tomorrow night. Everyone will put on their costumes and we will use masking tape to hem the bottom and the sleeves. After we finish practicing the play, we will put the costumes back in the bags and put them in the room we are going to use to change in on Sunday. 

      It sounds like a good plan, and I believe tomorrow night will be awesome!!!! Can't wait! I love Christmas and nothing says Christmas better to me than children telling about Jesus' birth!

Have a Blessed Day,

Mama D

Luke 2:1-5 (NIRV) In those days, Caesar Augustus made a law. It required that a list be made of everyone in the whole Roman world. It was the first time a list was made of the people while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be listed.

       So Joseph went also. He went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea. That is where Bethlehem, the town of David, was. Joseph went there because he belonged to the family line of David. He went there with Mary to be listed. Mary was engaged to him. She was expecting a baby.

       

OVERWHELMED

The other day we had our windows changed out for new and improved ones. We have been looking forward to this for awhile and the day came. It was a little wet outside. Not pouring rain but not a sun shinny day.

I had run around picking up some clothes, cleaning here and there before they got here. My husband and daughter pick on me about being CDO but my house is not immaculate. It is pretty organized but we live in it so it's not perfect.

We had to pull my desk away from the window. Papers fell on the floor. Papers are my least favorite thing at home. My husband used to pick on me because my office at work was organized, and you could see the top of my desk most of the time. Some projects needed the top of my desk but  when the mail came in I took care of each piece as it came in.
At home, I hate papers and junk mail. Sometimes something important will get accidentally lost in the stack of junk. Of course today it was a bill. It fell on the floor as we were moving the desk. And of course it was due yesterday.

Then I noticed they were putting in a window on the front of the house that the grid didn't match the others. I told my husband and he spoke with the person putting them in. Okay here is where I went downstairs.

Have you ever had one of those days!

I decided to do the laundry. I cried a little and folded the laundry that was in the dryer. I moved the wet clothes to the dryer and put a new load in the washer. All this time,  a voice in my head, I like to blame Satan, likes to remind me I need to check my email for possible job opportunities, write my blog, work on my book and make costumes for the children's play that will be in just a couple of weeks.


After a little cry, I felt better. I like to do something that takes me away from others. I believe God created crying as a type of relief valve. But I can't let it get the better of me or it will give me a headache. a little cry but mostly prayer helps me get myself together.

Kev told me the guy said the windows with the non matching grids can be switched out and he would take care of it. Wonderful!

 I decided to see what was the highest priority on my list of things to do and work on that. Children's play costumes won. I went upstairs. I took my list of children and my stack of fabrics and made a few piles. I wrote next to each child's name what they needed for their costumes. The children being animals are going to wear sweats or costumes that parents have bought or made for them.

 It's funny how when I start thinking about others, I forget about me. In this case I started thinking about the children at church. I love to sew. And making costumes is just fun!

I didn't always love to sew.  When I was young and mom was teaching us to sew, I'm sure I wasn't at her side begging to get to cut out, pin, sew or do the handwork. I'm glad now she took the time to teach us.

Several years ago, people from the church we were at were writing their own play. The play was great.  The problem (opportunity) was I was new at the church and didn't know there was no costume closet when I volunteered to be in charge of the costumes. 40 costumes were needed. Myself and another lady at church had the large task of coming up with those costumes.

 My daughter and another person had costumes we could use. My daughter's was her senior project from high school. She had made a medieval woman's costume. It was now going to be Pilate's wife.

That was in the day that Walmart had that wonderful fabric department. They always had $1.00 yd fabric. I took my husband to several different stores. I held the fabric up to him and asked him if that looked like something John would have worn or Pilate, etc. He said at the end, if he never saw another piece of fabric that would be okay.

I called my daughter, sisters and mom. We had the very first Humphrey Girl Sew-athon. We had a great time. We started Friday night after everyone got off work and got to my baby sister's house. She lived in Georgia, I came from Virginia, my daughter and older sister came from South Carolina and my younger sister, her daughter and our mom came from North Carolina.

Arielle and her cousin got us started by cutting out the patterns. We had a couple of us cutting out the pieces and a couple sewing, and we all found pieces for the belts, scarves, etc..

My baby sister taught us a new trick that night. Instead of taking the time to pin all those pieces together she used tuna cans from her kitchen.

For the project I'm doing now I'm using old ash trays from a set that was given to me years ago. I've never smoked but they were too pretty to get rid of so I used them as coasters.

Cutting out the costume

Knot in thread just above the hole in the needle

Who would think a person staying at home with no children could get so overwhelmed. I don't let myself sit and watch  TV all day.  I listen to Joyce Meyer while I do my exercise in the morning. At lunch, I will watch something I've taped or HGTV. After I eat my lunch, I either work on a second book I'm writing (notebook sits on the couch) or I do the handwork on the costumes. I only let myself sit for about an hour then it's back to work.

Joseph 

Last night at church, one of the mothers told me they almost didn't make it. She was just so overwhelmed trying to get everyone in the car. Then she asked me if I ever felt that way. I told her matter of fact I have. And I told her a little of my day. She said, "Sometimes we forget pastors and their wives are people too."

It's a new day and God is good all the time!


Have a Great One,
Mama D

Matthew 6:27-34 NIRV "Can you add even one hour to your life by worrying? "

"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the wild flowers grow. They don't work or make clothing. But here is what I tell you. Not even Solomon in all of his glory was dressed like one of those flowers."

" If that is how God dresses the wild grass, won't He dress you even better? After all, the grass is here only today. Tomorrow it is thrown into the fire. Your faith is so small!"

" So don't worry. Don't say. "What will we eat? Or What will we drink? Or, What will we wear? People who are ungodly run after all of those things. Your Father who is in heaven knows that you need them. "

"But put God's kingdom first. Do what He wants you to do. Then all of those things will also be given to you."

"So don't worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

The story of my Diamond

     Last January, I lost my job and the diamond out of my ring. I loved my job. The job could be stressful but what job isn't. I've used my time to clean and organize the storage room, (My husband says I'm not really OCD. I'm CDO because I need to have the letters in the correct order, but I don't think I'm that OCD. It may have just seemed that way as I was labeling boxes). I have also painted in the house, visited my daughter and her new husband and started writing the book I've wanted to write for a long time. It's a bible study for the tweenagers. This one's on the life of Joseph.  I also have one started that is based on a  Bible Challenge that I started when my daughter was in the 3rd or 4th grade. She wants to use it at her church. 

    Then my daughter talked me into writing this BLOG. I must admit I'm enjoying it more than I thought I would.

Storage Room 1

Storage Room 2

                     (Note to self -   Stop chasing that rabbit and get back on track.)  

      Kev and I were packing up the Christmas decorations when I went to wash my hands and the dish towel got stuck to the setting on my ring. I looked down and started to bawl. Not just cry. I lost it.  I ran down the stairs to show Kev, he was coming to the stairs to see what was the matter when I ran into him. He couldn't understand a thing I said.  After he saw what I was crying about he helped me look. He took the drain off the sink and checked the trap. I vacuumed and checked the bag.  When I had stopped crying and got where I could actually see the screen, I texted my sisters and daughter to get them to pray. We both went to the attic and searched. It's amazing how much glitter is on the attic floor after putting away Christmas decorations.  

     I could tell from the look in his eyes as we searched that he thought it was gone. But he helped search anyway.  He said, "Do you know what the odds are of finding a loose 1/4 carat diamond? Not to mention we aren't even sure where you lost it. " But he kept looking until I stopped looking.

    He offered to replace it. He had suggested several times in the early years of our marriage to trade my diamond on a bigger one but I loved my original diamond. The one he picked out and bought when he was in college and was delivering news papers and working at the jewelry store to buy it. And to pay for the long distance calls to me. We dated years before cell phones were even thought about. Where I lived was long distance from his college. We would call and let the phone ring once and hang up. That meant, I love you. I just can't afford to talk today, and it saved money if we weren't home. There was a long distance charge if his room mate or one of my sisters picked up. If we wanted to talk, we would call back immediatly after we hung up from the one ring. If we weren't home the others knew not to pick that one up.

   After we had looked everywhere we could think to look Kev said, "You know it could be in the bag with the Christmas tree. It makes sense that it got knocked out when we were putting the tree in the bag." The bag was already in the attic and I guess I just wanted to hold onto that HOPE for a while.  

   

  

   During the summer of 1978, Kev and his room mate from Gardner Webb College were staying at the home of a former youth director from my church. Both of them were working as summer youth directors at neighboring churches.  My sisters and I saw our former youth director at Burger King. He invited us to a pool party, one of the guys was having at his house. I couldn't go but my sister went. When I got home from work they were there. We lived on the top floor of a house that used the main floor as a day care. 

    My sister said they were waiting on me to go get pizza. There were 6 of us that night. After that me, my sister, Kev and his room mate went out several times a week. One night Kev asked me if I wanted to go with him and his youth group to a Youth Evangelism Conference in Greensboro, NC. I did want to go with them. On the way home, I fell asleep with my hand on Kev's shoulder.  He somehow slipped the ring my parents gave me for graduation off my hand and replaced it with the diamond. We stopped at McDonald's for dinner. The kids knew the whole time and watched me. They didn't want to miss it when I noticed the change. I finally noticed it when we were getting on the church bus and I put my hand on the rail to get in. I screamed and they laughed and clapped. 

   I met Kev in June of 1978. We started dating the middle of July and he asked me to marry him in August. He asked me if I would marry him and at least 300 other people. (He knew he was going into ministry.)

   That's the diamond that got lost. 

    The Friday after Thanksgiving, Kev and I were bringing down all the Christmas decorations from the attic. He brought the red bag with the Christmas tree down and put in in the living room. I laid the tree skirt out upside-down. The underside is solid red. We opened the bag. I took out the first section and shook it, I took out the middle section and shook it. Kev had to help me with the bottom section of the tree. As it was coming out of the bag, I saw something shiny move in the bag. After we put that piece down I jumped down to the bag. Kev said,"It can't be!" I was excited and scared at the same time. My eyes were starting to fill with tears and my heart was pounding.  I handed it to Kev and said,"Is it glitter or is it my diamond?" He said,"It's the diamond!" I texted the attached picture to my sisters. Kev put the diamond in a small bottle. He put it on the shelf with our Kneeling Santa at the Manger. He said we would let Jesus watch over it for a little while.

 

My Diamond 

This was a truly blessed Thanksgiving! Not just because of my diamond, it was also the first Thanksgiving for our daughter and her husband.

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving and that you let yourself enjoy this Christmas season. Remember it is the season to celebrate Christ's birth. 

Have a Great Day,

Mama D

Psalms 9:1 (NIRV) Lord, I will praise you with all my heart. I will tell about all of the miracles you have done.