Thankfulness

Well, I'm feeling the desire to post something other than some random pictures of one of my many projects that have a tendency to take over my life. I want to list some of the things I am thankful for in this past year, and maybe you who read this would want to do the same . . .

I am thankful for my family. It's almost surreal at times. Yesterday as I was getting the girls all bundled up the thought crossed my mind "I can't believe this is my life". I am blessed with a wonderful husband who is so thoughtful, kind, understanding and enourmously patient with me. I am eternally grateful for my two beautiful daughters. They make me smile and laugh every day.

I am grateful for the wonderful and meaningful time I had to spend with my grandma this past winter before she passed away. I am so grateful that I had stopped working and was able to spend a lot of time with her. It was a difficult time, and still very difficult to think about, but during that time I learned so much about love and service while watching my mom take care of her. I am so grateful that I have so many fun memories of time spent with Her.

I am grateful to be a stay at home mom. It was a difficult transition at first. I had been working steadily for 10 years when I quit, so it was quite a shock to be at home every day, but I don't want to go back to working at all. The other day Viv and I were playing and dancing and I thought how sad I would be to miss that, or worse, how sad for her if there were no one for her to dance and play with.

Lastly, I am grateful for the comforts I have. These may seem silly and superficial, but they really make me grateful. My bed is extremely comfortable, and I love my feather pillow. We now own two cars that I am not embarassed to be seen in . . .it seems that we have always had at least one that is "less than perfect", although the bumper on our van is currently attatched with duck tape thanks to a deer, I still don't mind it.

A day in the life . . .

This has been my life lately. Vivian loves these movies and wants to watch them over and over again! Sometimes we end up watching them more than once in the same day. It is so funny the things she picks up from each of them. For instance . . . .
*Last night we caught her trying to "brush" her hair with her dinner fork!
*She repeatedly tells me that if you make a wish, it will come true
*She sings "A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes" and gets a lot of the words right
*She thinks Maleficent is funny
*She told me to "Stop Dreaming Mommy!" (courtesy of Sebastian in the Little Mermaid")
*She runs around yelling "She fell down!" when Sleeping Beauty touched the spindle

Its so funny! She's been asking to watch Pocahontas (I'm surprised that she can actually say that!) because there's a preview for it on Cinderella. I'm trying to get her hooked on the Lion King, mostly because I'm starting to get tired of the same 3 movies every day, but it could be worse. She could be watching Doodle Bops or some other trash!

Sewing and Snowing

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! It snowed this week and it is so beautiful. I finally got the girl's stockings done and my new tablerunner finished. We had our Ward Christmas party tonight and there was lots of yummy food and a fantastic Nativity. My niece Heidi was the cutest angel in the bunch!

Whatchbeenupto?

Not a whole lot actually. I made a new pie, an Apple Cream Pie. It was good, but I'll have to "tweek" it a bit to get things just right. I had big plans to get out early on Black Friday and snag some deals at JoAnn's, but my plans were thwarted by a 2 point buck :( That's right, on the way home from my grandma's on Thanksgiving we hit a deer. It came out of nowhere and I'll spare you the details, but it didn't survive . . .and neither did our radiator. Good thing for us my sister was right behind us and took hubby, me and the kiddies home. It was 1 before we finally made it home (late night at Grandma's), so I didn't really feel up to venturing out in the cold- again. Instead, I stayed home, slept in and cleaned house. A good day all in all. I have put a few new things on my Etsy, and started decorating for Christmas. My trusty Celine Christmas CD has really got me in the mood, but I think tomorrow I'll bust out Kenny & Dolly! If you've not listened, it's quite possibly the greatest holiday music- EVER. Anyway, a few pics to enjoy!

Not a Whole Lot

Its been a while since I've posted anything . . .I haven't been up to a whole lot. I read the final Harry Potter book the other weekend- a most gratifying read. I have also been doing a lot of Sudoku, and very little crafting, although I did finally get a few things added to my Etsy shop. Sophie is getting SO BIG, and she smiles all the time, its so cute. Viv is adorable as always, although we are definitely in the terrible two's . . .

Isn't She Cute!!!

This is my baby . . .she's getting so big :-( Yesterday, she laughed for the first time, just one little giggle, and I missed it. Sad times. I am sure there will be many more laughs to come! She is so sweet and happy, just watching her sleep makes me feel good. Right now she's asleep on the floor, and I think when I'm done here I'm going to snuggle up next to her and cuddle!

Fun, Fun, Fun!

What a fun couple of days! I went shopping for fabric, amongst other things, the last two days. I picked up a piece on clearance at Hancocks that I was IN LOVE with, but couldn't decide what to do with. Long story short, I did this:


I got the instructions here. I love it because, the fabric is to die for! and it was fast and easy. It was done, start to finish while both of the girls napped. Very satisfying!

Also, I found the best new fabric store, Nancy J's in Wabash. It's a bit out of the way, but totally worth the drive . . .plus today was so beautiful a day to be out and enjoying the scenery. Here are some of the spoils:

Happy Halloween!!! Journey of a Pumpkin

So, here's my pumpkin, do you love it? I love glitter, and since I'm really kind of past the age where its appropriate for me to be wearing it, I try to find things to put it on. Did I mention I love glitter????

This is Viv picking out her pumpkin. We went out to Graber's, north of town, so she could get one.
She was so excited to scoop out the "punkin guts"!
Daddy helped a little.
Viv says the pumpkin was "Yummy!" We had a hard time keeping her away from it. She thinks its a big apple.
The finished product. As cute as the carver . . . .maybe.

New Additions

Here are some additions to my Etsy shop. Click HERE to see more:

Help Me Obi-Won . . . Did I spell that right?

So, here is Viv's Halloween costume. I was going to make a matching one for Sophie, but the last couple of weeks have been too much, so I didn't get it done. We went to the Trunk or Treat on Saturday and she was a big hit, we taught her to say "Help Me Obi-Won" . . .its TOO CUTE!

Busy, Busy!

Well, its been a busy week, here's the run-down:

Monday- I got my days mixed up and got up early to make green beans for a lunch carry-in. Turns out that said carry-in is on Wednesday, so while I was in town I did some grocery shopping. Then I came home and made some pork chops for supper . . .to eat with my green beans! Also, I finally got some things listed in my Etsy store













Tuesday- A sewing day! I got the curtains made for mom's new guest room. Pretty, don't you think? I took a full length pic, but it didn't turn out, so here it is in bits and pieces . . . We had an amazing sunset today.















Wednesday- Today I made brownies for the carry-in. They were from a box, but I've never made a brownie I like better than from a box. When I got back I made tableskirts for mom's tables in the family room, and I also put up some fall flowers for her. It was kind of a chilly day, so we had Cheesy Potato soup. Yum!













Thursday- A play day! I took the girls out for a play date. We had a good time and then followed it up with a little shopping. I picked up some new fabric and some sparkly shoes for Vivian.



Friday- Baking and Making! I made rolls this morning to take to a church dinner this evening. We're having a "Trunk or Treat", which means I also have to finish Vivian and Sophie's costumes . . .pictures will follow!

Singing the Praises of Grapefruit

My entire life, (well my life since age 8, when I started doing dishes twice weekly) I have HATED doing the dishes. Its one of those things you think you'll grow out of and someday enjoy or at least tolerate. Let me provide you with a list of some things I used to dislike, but now enjoy, or at least tolerate:

Broccoli

Talk Radio

The Evening News

The Weather Channel (oddly, my brother seems to have always loved TWC. When we moved into town and had cable, Ben wanted to watch TWC . . .not MTV!)

Cleaning the toilet

Cabbage

As of today, I must make a conditional addition of doing dishes. You see, about 3 years ago my sister sent me some Grapefruit dish soap from Williams Sonoma. Its nerdy, and alludes to my cheapness, but I have been saving it. I actually had it in our storage unit because I wasn't ready to use it, but about 2 weeks ago I got it out. I still am only using it occasionally, because I want it to last, but today as I was standing at a sink full of dishes, I got out the grapefruit soap and went to work. There were A LOT of dishes. Brent had made some bread, I made apple dumplings, fried some bacon and other things and then made lunch . . .plus the dishes from yesterday that I didn't want to do. Anyway, as I was standing there, my hands getting all pruny, all I could think about was how good it smelled! It smelled so good in fact, that I didn't even care that I was doing dishes! So, tomorrow when I do my dishes with my cheap Lemon-Scented Joy, I will hate doing them, but today I tolerated it . . .and maybe even enjoyed myself a little bit.

Just a Little Something to make you smile!

OOPS! I forgot I said there were 3

Here is the onesie I made today; this is my first stab at applique. I just did it kind of free form and worked with it. This will be for a friend whose baby shower I am going to in a week or so and I'm making a matching headband. I think I'm going to add some ruffles to the "bum" on it in the pink and brown fabric. If I do, I'll post that too.

Ah, isn't it SO LIBERATING to finish a project. In the past week I have finished 3!!! Here they are, in no particular order:

This is the quilt I made for Stacey's new baby, Michael. I finished the top before I had Sophie. It went together really quickly and I LOVE the way it turned out. I probably should have taken a better picture from a different angle, but oh well! I had planned on quilting this, but my batting was a little too thick for that, so I tied it with red yarn, which looks really cute on the back, which is navy blue. I sent it out in the mail today, so hopefully cute little Mikey will be wrapped up in it by the weekend!

This is Sophie's quilt. Again, I had the top made before she was born, but I just finished binding the edges this week. I did this one without a pattern . . .just worked as I went along. It is probably my favorite quilt I have made so far. Nice thin batting, and I quilted it on the machine. Nothing fancy, just "stitch in the ditch". Can you tell, I love pinwheels???

Posies

So, here are my flowers. The top one is a bunch of them- I'm up to about 25 and the bottom one is my favorite! So much cuter than in the picture, plus I don't think you can see the glitter on it, which I am in love with!

So . . .I wanted to post a picture

Pictures are down :( I'm working on some new things. I'm making flower pins, and also doing some baby headbands and applique on some onesies to sell on etsy. Gotta get some more done! I'll post pics when they're back up. Oh, and I finished my quilt for Stacey's new baby boy.

BORING!

Ugh, this blog is so boring to look at. I was just looking at Jocelyn's and I'll have to figure out something to do with mine! On the bright side, look at these cuties!

Oops, forgot to add the picture!

Here it is :)

My Newest Project

This is my dresser. The top used to be white with green leaves stenciled on. It was okay when I first had it, but now those leaves gotta go! Behold, the new marble top :)