Just a little excited that tomorrow is Christmas Eve!  Today is a nice relax-at-home family day and tonight hubby and I are getting Chinese food and renting the new Pirates of the Carribean movie, which we'll watch while wrapping gifts!  Tomorrow will be a joyful but busy day so I'm trying to keep today more low-key (oh yeah like that's gonna happen with 3 boys house-bound on a rainy day right before Christmas!!!).

Anywho...   I ended up making a 2nd soup-in-a-jar gift for my MIL.  Dang angel piece STILL isn't done.  Not even close.  By the time I finally finish her I think I'll be too attached to part with her!  It really will be beautiful.  Part of what's making it take so long is that it has lots of fine detail.  Her scarf/sash has like 4 or 5 shades of blue in it!  There are little metalic gold threads all around the edges.  Very pretty piece and I'll be sure to post a pic of it when I finally get it done.  And unlike the previous piece I made, this WILL be a hanging!

I have a "Mrs." Cardinal poking around in the leaves outside my window right now.  Mr. must be somewhere.  I see them fairly often throughout the year so they must be permanent residents.  I just put my feeders back up for the winter so I'm getting more birds come around these days.  Had a huge flock of Juncos out front the other day.  And of course there are always Chickadees!  Those and the Bluejays.  No lack of either.  I'm convinced that God made the Bluejay as beautifully colored as it is because it is otherwise a fairly obnoxious bird to deal with!!  They actually manage to hang off my suet feeders and peck away at them.  In the real heart of winter I'll have Juncos, Titmice, Chickadees, jays, Cardinals, Downy- and Hairy-woodpeckers, and Red- and White-breasted Nuthatches.  I've also had Towhees, Brown Creepers and last year had a delightful little Carolina Wren hang around for a few weeks!  I love that bird (thus my screen name!).  When my dad lived in NC we would always hear the wrens singing in the little patches of woods in the neighborhood.  It has a very loud song for such a little bird!  But very pretty.  I'm hoping he/she is back this year again.

***  MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL! ***