Trick or Treat Girls

My Girls

S's Black and Red Fairy

Her Wings

M as a Southern Belle

The Witch is In

This is what you see when you walk in my front door.

What a couple of weeks. What we thought was a cold/virus for DD#1 was, but it was also the beginning of appendicitus. Late Tuesday afternoon DD's dr sent us to Children Mercy Hospital, the downtown one, to run a couple more tests. We arrived at 4:30 by 8:30 she was in the OR having her appendix removed. The Dr. said it had been inflammed for a week or more and had adhered to her colon. She now has 3 little holes in her tummy. Less than 24 hours after her surgery we were home. Children really do recover faster than adults. When I had mine out 2 years ago, I was in the hospital for 3 days an 2 nights.

I did manage a Happy Dance this week. M's afghan, and here she is enjoying it.



I hope that you all have an enjoyable Halloween, Eat some candy for me. :o)

A few pictures

The last few weeks have been a blur, not because we have been really busy but because my allergies have been so bad I don't remember much. Here are are few pictures of the DD's having fun and the Halloween Project I finally finished.

Their favorite ride at the renisance festival, the human powered swing


Eating lunch and listening to the music



S in her puppy mood. :o)


The haunted Castle sent to the girls by my dear friend and M's birthday twin


My finished San-Man Halloween ornies set, It only took me a year.

Happy Birthday my Darling

This week was all about getting ready for and celebrating M's birthday. She turned 6 on Thursday. We celebrated by going to build-a-bear and shopping for a new outfit for her snow lepard.

Then we met DH at Rain Forest Cafe for dinner.
Then home for presents.

On Saturday we had a few friends over for lunch and to eat cupcakes with us. It was a great time and M was thrilled to have so many friends around at one time.


Today has been spent doing nothing. The blitz cleaning I did on Friday and Saturday tired me out. So I took today off and will start again tomorrow.

Happy Birthday Baby Bear. I love you so much !!!

Three Weeks Since my last post

And what a three weeks.

S joined not only band, she plays flute, and meets during school hours but also twice a week after school at the high school. I have been shuttling her and three of her friends to rehearsal. Thankfully this is the last week for that.
She also joined Choir, which has rehearsal two mornings a week. She really seems to be enjoying both of these very much, for which I am eternally grateful.

M is really enjoying school, her favorites are bus, lunch and recess. She says her teacher is more strict (her word is meaner) than her preschool teacher, but she still likes her. We have been counting the days until her birthday, which is this coming Thursday, when she turns six.

Last week was DH and mine 20th wedding anniversary. He let me purchase this antique desk a couple of weeks ago as my present, can’t you just envision it stuffed full of little stitched items, buttons and fibers and and…

We didn’t do much on the day because he had band practice and the girls both had gymnastics. On Thursday my Mom and her boyfriend stopped by on their way back to Iowa and took us all out to dinner at the Blue Moose. Very nice, good food, a little noisy but even the girls liked it.

It started raining on Wednesday and finished only yesterday, I believe the total amount of rain was over 4 ½ inches. This was very important because DH and I planned a road trip on Saturday in honor of our anniversary. I asked our old babysitter to come home from college and stay over night with the girls 3 months ago. Who would have thought we would have October weather in September. So instead of riding the motorcycle, we drove the van, not as much fun but definitely drier. :o) DH planned all of it and wouldn’t tell me where we were going. It started out with us going to a bar and watching the Iowa State/ Iowa football game with a lot of other alumns. They lost, but we are used to that. Then we headed east, and ended up at a little B&B in Lexington, MO.

There were roses and Chocolates in the room for me when we got there.

Did you know that they roll the streets up in that town at 5:00 on Saturday? LOL We had a really nice time, with dinner, a movie and DH taught me how to play Gin Rummy, I lost. No TV no girls, just quiet. Very very nice !!

We found tired but happy, girls when we arrived home. With painted finger and toenails, new movies watched and a new puppy friend (Ashley’s) that they played with. So today we begin the count down to Birthday Palooza, M is not happy that I keep reining in her plans for another HUGE b-day party. But those only happen every 5 years in our house. So we are going out to dinner on her birthday and will have friends over on Saturday for hot dogs and cake.

I have finished a couple small Halloween ornaments and the pictures are in my Webshots album. http://good-times.webshots.com/album/566671740DBdXCD

Until next time, Thank you for stopping by and please take care of yourselves !

Back to School !!!

I know I promised you stories about family reunion and I will provide them.... Later. :o) Last week was so busy getting ready for school, that I hardly sat at the computer at all.

School Started today. M is in Kindergarden and S is a 5th grader. It felt really funny in the house without them around. Here are a couple of pics.

DH and the girls before school

M and her friend getting off the bus

M at her Desk

S in her Safty Patrol hat guarding the hallway.

We're packing again.

Good Morning everyone,

I'm doing laundry and packing again for a week and 1/2 trip to Mom's. This will be the last trip of the summer since school starts for both girls 3 weeks from today. I have been busy with the smalls again.






I also finished the stitching for my TGOS Christmas ornament (Hint: buttons) and started the January project. (hint: Yellow on Dark blue)

Now I have a favor to ask. I am running out of ideas for next years designs. If you have anything you would like to see. Let me know, PLEASE OH PLEASE. :o)

I need to get back to the packing and laundry. Next time I will have family pics to share.

Webshots - again

Lets try this again.
http://community.webshots.com/album/562372533dIDtuT?vhost=community
Webshots seems to be playing fast and loose with my albums. They lost the name of my 2008 Cross stitch album and locked a couple of others. Let me know if this works please.

Sleep, a rare commodity...

I think there was a contract between my dogs and my youngest daughter last night to keep me awake. Between the three of them I was up 5 times last night. GGGRRRR....

On the stitching front I have finished I finished Sarah's Quaker Dolphin. On Dark Blue 22 Count with Anchor Varigated floss 1346.


As far as weight watchers goes, I've decided to not try and go to any meetings this summer, everytime I plan to go life interfers. So I will start up again as soon as school starts. My scales show me I haven't gained as much and I feared, which is really good.

Gotta run, they are fighting again, the count down to school has begun. :)

Its a good thing I like Children

Because there have been alot of them around this past week & 1/2. For 3+ days last week Sarah had a friend stay with us. We had a really good time but at one point I counted 8 children 10 or under running around the house.


We spent the 4th with our friends who live behind us. Lots of food and letting the girls run wild between the houses.

On Saturday I packed up the girls and we headed to Arkansas with my Friend Tracy for a quick visit with her famil. We had a great time, the girls really enjoyed swimming at the lake. And playing with the boys.



I updated my webshots folder with my Christmas ornaments and a couple of smalls that I have finished the last couple of days. The girls have ordered more of the Quaker animals. They think they are funny. : ) http://community.webshots.com/user/gwenalynne?vhost=community

Thank you for your comments, I really appreciate them.

A Busy couple of weeks

What a couple of weeks we have had. The week before last was our vacation in Pennsyvania with Mom/Grammy. We spent 3 days in Hershey PA, and two full days in Philladelphia. With three travel days built in. It was such a great time. The girls LOVED Chocolate PA and Mom and I really enjoyed Philly. I was unsure of DH until we got home and he said it had been a great vacation. He likes the fact that I have eveything planned and all he has to do is drive, carry luggage and enjoy himself. I am still sorting through the pictures, so those will come later.

Just as soon as we got home, it was VBS time. I was a guide for M's group, 15 4&5 year olds and two early teenagers. It was a good week too but I am glad it is over and I am back to just my two, or for this week three. S is having a friend over for the first four days of this week while her parents are out of town. So we have something planned for every day this week, including them cooking supper tomorrow. LOL

On the stitching front I did finish my SAL with Goldie and I also finished 14 Seka Stained glass ornaments. These will be the niece and nephew ornaments for this year. I started a quaker seahorse from this wonderful blog http://aurytm.com/blog/. Right now I don't have the mental abilities to change colors, so these small quaker designs are right up my alley.

Here is the only picture I have ready to be seen. My SAL with Goldie.


Until next time my prayer for you is to be safe, healthy and happy.

SAL and more photos

This week I started a SAL with my friend Goldie. We are stitching Willie's Quaker Square #7 from TGOS. I have used an entire skein of Waterlilies Pine Forest.

I also played with my camera some more this week. Here is a picture of DH reading to the girls and one of S.

Weekly update

Not much stitching I can show you this week. I finished 3 smalls for the magazine and then stopped. I have my by-yearly sinus infection that is sapping my strength. I went to the Dr. yesterday so I should be back to normal soon. Saturday was my birthday and DH took me out to buy an new camera, since my last one had cough syrup poured on it. We picked out a Cannon Eos Rebel. DH like the idea of being able to change the lens. I am still getting used to it. It is much more touchy than my little aim and shoot. And with all of the allergy meds I'm on I shake some, which causes a lot of blury pics. I really want a Good to great camera for our vacation with Mom is a few weeks. Here are a couple of the photos I took, trying to get used to it.

Weekly Update

I hope everyone in the US had a great Memorial Day weekend, those of you in Canada, I hope your weekend was good too.

I spent the weekend playing with the girls, grilling (even in the rain) and stitching. Yesterday I tried to remember how many of my family have served, or are serving, in the arm forces and I came up with 10. Dad, all 5 uncles, my FIL, one cousin, his wife and one nephew. Plus a handful of friends. THANK YOU!!!! Each and every one of you.

I finished the stitching on one of my teaching pieces for the magazine, two more teaching and two ornaments to go. : ) I also worked on PL. Here are the updated pictures.



Until next week, stay safe and Healthy !

Weekly Update

This weekend S and I went to the KC Literary festival on the Plaza to watch Stephanie talk about her book. A Curse Dark as Gold. It was really good to see her and her husband. If we can find a date that works for both of us she promised to help me with my Reinisance Festival garb.

Here are a couple of pictures. Her reading from the book.


And as she explained the nature of her costume she removed a layer until she was in her undergarments. Fully clothed she still said she felt naked. : )


I worked on Paradigm lost again this week. I went down instead of across because I wanted to see the bottom of the piece. Here is a picture of the whole and the work I did this week.



Until next week. I hope you are all healthy and happy.

Weekend Update

I hope that you all had a wonderful Mother's Day. Mine was very calming. DH and S fixed breakfast for me. After church I fixed some of my favorite foods and DH grilled a couple of great steaks. The afternoon was very quiet, I was able to stitch on the back porch while the girls played.
I Finished paged 7 of PL last night about 10:30,


it would have been done sooner exept I made a three block mistake and had to frog out most of the design in the bottom right.


Here is a picture of DD#1 warming up with DH Volley ball team.

It has been a month

but I finally made it back to WW today and I have actually continued to loose weight. I lost another 3lbs to make a total of 28.8 lbs since October. I tried on some of my summer clothes this week and the one skort I bought for Vacation last year literally fell off my hips, without unbuttoning it. Yippee!!!! I will need to go shopping for new summer clothes soon, or I won't have anything to pack for Vacation in June.

Paradigm Lost Update

It must be spring, I've put away the crochet hooks and gotten out my needles. Here is an undate picture of Paradigm Lost by Long Dog Sampler. I worked on it all last week when there was sunshine.

Tulips in Bloom

M is sick at home the last couple of days. Cold and Eye infection.

It must be spring, I've finally gotten my needles out again and am working on Paradigm Lost. I'll post a picture after the weekend.

The tulips are in bloom and here are some pictures.