Thimbleanna – My little online diary.

Gingerbread Houses 2025

January 4, 2026 January 4, 2026 / Gingerbread Houses

I think this might be the latest that I have documented our gingerbread house competition. I usually, at least, write about them in the same year they are made. Oh Well, … better late than never! This year we were missing CuteNiece2 and CuteNephew. Otherwise, we had a full house and lots of fun (not to mention candy ;-) .) We made houses and a big, fun mess on December 23rd this year. (Also, because I waited several days (hey – we were busy) to take pictures, the houses are looking a little “faded”.) So, here, in no particular order, are the teams and houses:

Team One: TheFirstChild and SweetiePie. We stole their girls for other teams and left them to their own devices. Due to a new-found love of golf, their theme was … golf. SweetiePie excelled at the decorative frosting and for the first time in several years, TheFirstChild actually built things for the house — he’s usually a “supervisor”. He built the little golfer at the tee, the green (which looks more black here LOL), and the little tiny golf balls. Great Job Golfers!

Team Two: TheSecondChild and CuteNewFriendfromFlorida. We had a new guest with us this year which was really fun. I think this was her first time making gingerbread houses and she did a great job. Their theme was Florida, where they both live. They decided to put the flags from their birth countries on the roof — America and Venezuela (or, as some prefer to call it, Jamaica LOL). They created a beach scene in front of their house with CuteNewFriend posing by the beach and TheSecondChild floating on a raft near an oil spill. Not sure where the oil spill came from, but I was very disappointed that they didn’t have an iguana anywhere. Really. Any self-respecting Florida house should have an iguana — or at the very least, an alligator! We all especially loved their palm trees — very clever use of the tip of an ice cream cone!

Team Three: TheManoftheHouse, Me, and FinallyAnotherGirl (now 7 years old). Somehow, we ended up with the same team we had last year — we thought we were being so careful to match the girls up with different teams this year. All three girls are playing competitive chess at school, so we decided to do a chess house. TheManoftheHouse did the structural work, FinallyAnotherGirl worked really hard on the chessboards on the roof, and I mixed a lot of icing. The King and Queen were Santa and Mrs. Claus, the bishops were elves, the knights were reindeer, the rooks were Santa’s sack of toys, and the pawns were little gumdrop presents. This was a fun house to build!

Team Four: CuteNiece1 and FinallyAGirl (now 9 years old). Both these girls love Christmas movies and the naughtier the better, so they chose Home Alone as their theme. Movie lines on the roof, black frosting for fire damage, bad guys escaping out the front door and window, and Keven hiding out in the bushes at the back of the house. Very clever and great work by the only all-girl team!

Team Five: MyDadLovesMeBestSister, CrazyBIL, and HurrayAThirdGirl (now 6 years old). At long last, we have a team who went with a traditional Christmas theme – The Nativity. HurrayAThirdGirl put fruit roll-ups on the roof, which, for some reason became known as the bacon house with lots of laughs. As the biased moderator, I confess, this was my favorite house. We always have the girls describe the house they worked on before we vote, and HurrayAThirdGirl was so cute describing their house. She’s just the happiest, most cheerful little girl anyway, and, as I told her father, you absolutely cannot be having a bad day if she’s around. I loved all the shredded wheat on the house and the ground — very authentic. HurrayAThirdGirl was very proud of the three wise men and all the animals too. Great Job Team 5!

As always, voting was really hard this year. Everyone was so creative and worked hard, so it’s difficult not to vote for all of them. But, vote we must, and the winners this year were TheSecondChild and CuteNewFriendfromFlorida — welcome to the party CuteNewFriendfromFlorida!

I can’t believe it’s already 4 days into January — the holiday season flew by. I do have a few projects that were completed at the end of the year — do you think I’ll make it back here to document them? We’ll See {Sigh.)
XOXO,
Anna

Happy New Year 2026!

January 3, 2026 January 4, 2026 / Chat, Holidays

Happy New Year!!! Forgive me Father, for I have not had a New Year’s post in 2 years. Or something like that. And very sadly, this will not be the traditional New Year’s post as we don’t have a kitty to pose for a party hat picture. We lost our darling PaulKitty a few days before Christmas and we miss him terribly. TheManoftheHouse is taking it especially hard — PaulKitty was his constant companion this last year when I was traveling more than I should have been. PaulKitty was the best little cat. He had a rough start in life — TheSecondChild got him as a tiny kitty when he was a senior in college. Living a year in a frat house is no life for a tender-hearted cat. When TheSecondChild came home after college, PaulKitty was afraid of his own shadow. It took him about a year to warm up to us, but he loved our much quieter home, and in spite of being occasionally terrorized by Scruffy he soon came out of his shell. Here’s a picture of a much younger PaulKitty with his buddy Scruffy in the background.

PaulKitty had a good life. He was only a few month shy of 18 years old, so we were lucky to have him as long as we did. RIP Sweet PaulKitty.

Aside from our PaulKitty loss, 2025 was a good year here in ThimbleannaLand. Lots of travel, some knitting and quilting, and a scant amount of documentation. At least I have a few pictures, so, in blog tradition, here’s the grid for the record:

There was a fair amount of knitting and sewing. Knitting, almost exclusively for the girls and my new little great-niece. In sewing, we had a fun sewing camp with my CuteNiece1 and FinallyAGirl in the summer and they both learned how to sew easy drawstring pants. There were a few fun projects (little reading pouches for bookmarks and a cosmetic bag come to mind) that failed to pose for photos. In quilting, I finished piecing my tiny 9-patch quilt and finished hand quilting my long-time Trip Around the World Quilt. That felt like a big accomplishment — I’m a very slow hand quilter — plus, that quilt was made entirely by hand (except for attaching the binding). I also quilted a stashed baby quilt for a friend and helped FinallyAGirl tie a quilt at school. (Fun fact: Long time readers might remember that I started the little quilt project at the school when TheFirstChild was a little boy 33 (eep!) years ago – they kept it as a major class project for about 25 years, but about 8 years ago they changed it to an after-school voluntary activity. I was sad to see it demoted, but at least they have kept it going!)

And then there was travel — I was so lucky to have a super fun, busy travel year: Utah with TheFirstChild and family in January for skiing (not me LOL); a Route 66 trip in April with TheManofTheHouse; Utah in June with Ms. Cutting Cloth; Utah with TheFirstChild and family and TheManoftheHouse for some hiking and summer fun; a fabulous Munich-to-Venice bike ride trip with my cousin in September (easily in my top 5 lifetime trips!); a quick and too-short trip to Scotland with TheWorld’sGreatestAunt, also in September; my nephew’s wedding in Maui in October; and a recovery trip with TheManoftheHouse back to Utah at the end of October.

So, that might help explain the lack of blogging. Maybe? As I look back over the blog, posting seemed to slow down when our world was rocked by the loss of BigDaddy – almost 10 years ago. And then, it pretty much came to a standstill with the loss of MeMum two years ago. I think that really threw me for a loop – I just didn’t have it in me anymore. Life just isn’t the same with out them. Plus, I AM getting older and slower LOL. I do miss the historical aspect of the blog though, so, hopefully, I’ll manage a post now and then. I think for at least awhile, I’m going to keep comments turned off here though and save online interactions for Instagram.

On to a New Year! It’s a little scary! What will the new year bring? Just like last year, I’m hoping for time. Time to just slow down and enjoy the good things in life. And, of course, lots of sewing and knitting time. (Oh wait – good health for all too!) I hope you will find all of the best things in life too — HAPPY HAPPY NEW YEAR!
XOXO,
Anna

Merry Christmas 2025!

December 24, 2025 December 24, 2025 / Holidays

Oh man, it seems I’m destined to only show up here once a year! So sad. Posting has been a little rough after a year’s break – I’ve forgotten so much! But, I’ve loved my little blog over the years , mostly as a reference for things we have done, so I persevered. Just last night, during our sometimes-annual gingerbread house competition, CuteNiece1 was going back through old gingerbread posts to see who was here each year and what houses they created. We had a few good laughs at some of those old houses and who was naughty. The good news is that we did have the competition last night, so I’ll have to return to the blog to document the festivities. A few years down the road, none of us will remember what happened unless we have a record to tell us LOL.

In the meantime, here is a picture of my annual Christmas Eve breakfast – and a record of the goodies I made this year:

We’re a full house this year, so I was able to make a few more things than in the “off” years. Four cookies and two candies this year. Sugar cookies, always a must (the Jenny cookies recipe from her book), Angel Slices, Grandma Hill’s Browned Butter Cookies, and Christmas Shortbread. For candy, I made my two favorites – salted caramels and peanut brittle from a Southern Living cookbook recipe (that I keep saying I’m going to add to the blog – but never manage to get around to it {sigh}). I know it’s boring — I make the same family basics give or take one or two every year – but it’s tradition!

So, another year has whizzed by! If anyone is even out there anymore, I hope you have a Very Merry Christmas, full of all of your heart’s desires!

XOXO,
Anna

P.S. I’ve decided to turn off comments for awhile, as the blog is mostly dormant. ;-)

Merry Christmas 2024!

7 Comments / December 24, 2024 December 24, 2024 / Chat, Holidays

Dear little blog — oh how I miss you! I just can’t seem to get my act together to post on a regular basis. Except for traditions — which occur at Christmastime. {Sigh}

I saw a funny sign on Instagram the other day:

I feel like that’s been me for several years now. Ok … more than several … probably since children arrived on the scene. But, it’s better than being bored, I suppose. It has been a crazy-busy fall this year — we didn’t even manage to all get together for gingerbread houses this year — the horror!

Anyway, time for the traditional Christmas Eve post. I love to look back and see what cookies I made (and ate for Christmas Eve breakfast LOL) each year — it reminds me what kind of Christmas we had. Here are this year’s cookies:

It’s our off year this year, which means TheFirstChild and the girls are with the in-laws this year, and MyDadLovesMeBestSister and her family have gone south for the holidays, so it will just be TheManoftheHouse, TheSecondChild and Me this year. So, only 2 cookies – sugar cookies are a must (the Jenny cookies recipe from her book) and because I missed them so much last year, my number one cookie, Angel Slices. Don’t worry, I didn’t eat them all myself — I gave some away. For candy, I made my favorite salted caramels and peanut brittle from a Southern Living cookbook recipe.

One of the gifts I usually give the FinallyGirls in their advent calendar is a certificate to make sugar cookies with grammy. But we’ve been gone for most of the month and we just couldn’t fit it in. I did manage to get our smallest cherub one morning while the older two girls were in school, so we decorated the cookies together. She’s five now and we had a great time. I love having the girls one at a time — they’re so cute and funny and yes I AM a biased Grammy LOL.

I can’t believe the year is almost over — I guess, by now, I should expect the years to fly by. Merry, Merry Christmas — I hope Santa brings you everything you’ve dreamed of!

XOXO,
Anna

Mummy

17 Comments / April 3, 2024 April 3, 2024 / Family

Oh dear. After my New Year’s post I had such great intentions of picking things back up on the blog. I’d planned to spend the month of January doing catch up posts to re-cap fun projects and events fun and not-so-fun from 2023. And then January disappeared. As did February and March. Most days I’m just baffled as to where the time goes.

It’s been very busy here this winter and we’ve been working a lot on the house. As soon as the holidays were over, we dove right in – moving furniture, painting rooms, cleaning closets, changing flooring and cleaning out a storage unit. Most of the hard work is done, but there are still closets and bins of papers and things to go through. There was a little knitting and sewing, but in general, working on the house has been better to keep me occupied. Just like these sentences that I keep typing, I didn’t want to get to the point.

Which is this. In November, we lost our darling Mummy.

I’ve hardly been able to even say it. I love this cute picture of her — I’m not sure the rest of the family likes it as much, but I think it’s just so … her. Sweet, pretty and funny. I don’t even know where to start. Her absence has left such a hole in our hearts. She (along with BigDaddy) was the center of our little extended family. They were the glue that held us all together. We were SO lucky – we had many years of fun – birthdays, trips, holidays and just happy everyday memories.

Wasn’t she a cute little girl? This is one of the only pictures we have of her when she was young. She had asthma when she was a little girl, so, it’s not surprising that she didn’t speak fondly of her childhood. But, luckily for us, she met Dad when she was young, and she grew up to be the happy, fun mother that we remember.

And she, along with BigDaddy, gave MyDadLovesMeBestSister and I the happiest of childhoods. The two of them together were a great team. I never remember them arguing when I was a child — that seems impossible, but it was true. She was the most even tempered person I’ve ever met. I never remember her yelling. Family was everything to Mummy and it showed in everything she did for us.

She adored her grandchildren, and more recently, her three little great-granddaughters. I loved watching her face light up when they came to visit. And even though there were a lot of day-to-day things she couldn’t remember, she never forgot how to be fun. Oh, how she would tease those little girls — and they didn’t always like it LOL.

I always thought Dad was the funny one of the two of them, but she definitely held her own. After she passed away, a friend of the boys’ told us a story from just a few years ago: “My favorite memory was when we were at her house and she was telling me that the only difference between her and Jessica Simpson was her face. She said her face showed age, but her body was just as good as Jessica Simpson’s. She proceeded to go into the kitchen, grab a grocery bag, cut eye holes in it, write “Jessica Simpson’ on the bag, put it over her head, and walked back into the room. She said ‘See … same thing!'” Classic Mummy!

I feel like these pictures just don’t do her justice. They definitely don’t reflect how I remember her.

And, I haven’t even discussed everything else about her — she was so smart (more than one of her friends told me she was the smartest person they knew), she was an amazing cook, a loyal friend, and her quilting skills deserve a post of their own.

When BigDaddy left us, I posted this picture of the two of them. I took it on their 60th anniversary. There were serious, more beautiful pictures taken on that day, but this one is, by far, my favorite. It’s. Just. Them.

Oh, how I wish they were still here.

We’ll miss and love them forever.

XOXO,
Anna