I blame Facebook

Really I do. Since all of my family is now on Facebook, I have neglected my blog. Sorry. We are getting ready for Halloween here. DD#1 has her first Halloween party tomorrow night. So I broke my rule of no new costumes this year and we went to Walmart to pick one up. I don't want her wearing the Fairy Godmother costume before the play on the 19th. DD#2 has her choice of four costumes 3 old ones and the Fairy Princess one I made her for her. I will try and remember to post pictures later. If not let me know if you are on Facebook and you will see them there.

Gotta run and put DD#2 on the bus.

Catching up.

Last Monday Missa started school. She was very excited and continues to be each morning. Sarah's interest has wained only because she doesn't like getting up so early :o)


I spent last week catching up on the things I like to do, going to lunch, getting my yearly massage, a hair cut and napping LOL This past weekend, Rick and I cleaned and repainted the deck. Hopefully that will hold it for a couple of years. Next spring the fence.

I haven't stitched much but plan on doing so this up coming weekend. I need to get started on the models for the November and Decembers TGOS designs.

a finish and a new start

Last weekend most of Rick's family came down to visit, of course we were too busy talking and laughing for me to get many pictures. However here is one of the kids waiting for lunch at Fritz's train.


I finished Graedyn's afghan just in time for Grandma Char to take it back to him. He doesn't travel well yet so he and his family stayed in Cedar Rapids. Here it is, the colors are Wheat and Barley, which made Rick smile.


Sarah left this morning for her first day of 6th grade. :o( This is the start of Middle School for her. She and her friends were so excited !!. I did have to laugh though, looking at the faces already on the bus, 6:50 seemed to come way to early for most of the kids. :o) School starts for Melissa on Monday.


And finally an update on Rosemarkie. Thanks to a crafting date with Kerry and Nancy I managed to get back to working on this a little every day.

Melissa got dressed up

tonight and wanted me take her picture. So here she is.

Sarah's sewing success & our visitor

This past week Sarah has been taking her first sewing class. She made a reversible slouchy bag and a small apron. Didn't she do a great job ?


We have had a visitor at our house very regularly for the past month. Here she is looking in the small window at the bottom of our front door.

As you can imagine it drives the dogs NUTS to see Sophie (the neighbors cat)looking in the front window. LOL

This week will be cleaning house for family that will be here for a visit over the coming weekend and getting the girls and Myself ready for School to start on the 17th. Wish me luck :o)

Girl Crafts & Tomatoes

The girls and I made string bowls with the neighbors last week. They were good messy fun.


Here are the first tomatoes of the year. I hope Rick's Hungry !

Mom's new Puppy

May I introduce Bella, Mom's new Puppy. S and I found her one "Sale" at our local pet store. after may calls back and forth we brought her home and then took her up to Mom on Tuesday. Don't they look happy together. :o)

For Char :o)

Because you asked so nicely, here are some pictures of the girls.

Rosemarkie Update

Here is the latest pictures of Rosemarkie. I haven't stitched on it alot lately, between keeping the girls busy over the summer, Trying to clean out our basement and still searching for the perfect Stitching position (one that won't give me a headache after 15 minutes) I haven't had much time.

I can't believe !!

I got this picture !!!

I was taking pics of the clouds and lucked out with the bird in flight.

Happy Father's Day !!

Happy Father's Day Rick. The Girls and I agree "Your the best Dad Ever !"

Last Week, Next Week

Last week was busy. R's birthday was on Sunday and S's birthday was on Friday. Between them I had to get the house ready for S's sleep over and recover from being gone a week. Also M had Saftey City every day for 2 1/2 hours. Other than that the week went by in a blur of allergies and rain.

I sent everything off yesterday for the next two months of TGOS. I really want to Thank Kerry for all of her help with the cards. She helped me turn four small pieces of stitching into 4 beautiful cards. Thank you Thank you Thank you !!! Here's a sneak peek

Back on Mom's porch

I'm back !! Sitting on Mom's back porch that is. I love this room !! After two days of watching children, my sister and I drove to Ames to pick up her eldest daughter at the university, She was taking a week worth of Agriculture related classes for FFA students. We went early enough that we could stop and have the world's best pizza. http://www.greatplainspizza.com/main.html I crave this stuff. So it's probably a really good thing that I live 4 hours away. Mom valiantly stayed with all five of the kids while we were gone. She achieved "Best Grammy In the WORLD !!!" status by purchasing Eldest DD her birthday present early. An apple green IPOD shuffle. Guess I need to go back to the drawing board on what I am going to get her. DD is really really excited about it, now to keep her from buying music we already have. LOL That is all that has happened so far. I will talk at you more later. L

I was told

by my friend Kerry that I am boring, or at least my blog has been boring for the past month or so.

So here I am sitting on my mother's back porch working from my lap top to up load new pictures, DH gave me a new lens for my birthday a 55-210mm I am still getting used to how far away from my subject I need to be to get the pictures I want. I am lucky that he purchases the one with an internal stabilizer because with all the allergy meds I am taking now I am way shaky. I just realized that I don't have a photo editing software on this computer. OPPS. I tried to add pictures to this entry but Blogger seems to get stuck everytime and the picture is not added.

I will try to do better, over the next few weeks. Summer is going to be very busy in streaks. Also I will add the pictures that should go with this entry as soon as I can crop them down to a manageable size.

Current list of Activities

M is sick and home today with a random fever
S still has a stuffy nose but it well enough to go to school today
DH came home last night excited for the first time about playing in his new band Yippee!
I throughly enjoyed Charleston and can not WAIT to go back.
Hopefully the camera place will be able recover my pictures from Charleston, stupid slippery fingers, stupid tiny buttons.
I haven't stitched anything on RM since going on vacation, I will try to do so this week. I am also WAY behind on my monthly ornaments.

Opps i'm being summonded, Until next time stay well. Please I don't need any more sick people. :o)

The Girls

Happy Easter everyone.
Here are the girls in their Easter Dresses.

A snowy end to the weekend

On Thursday we went to Iowa again, this time for my niece/Goddaughters confirmation.
Isn't she beautiful !!!

I was also able to help my sister move enough of their stuff into the new house that they were able to sleep there for the first time. All weekend long they were talking about the 5-12 inches of snow that we might get on Sunday. So on Saturday I informed DH that we would head for home on Monday. It was a good decision. I can't remember the last time I saw snow blown sideways.

I did manage to get a little work in on RM.


Until next time.. Hurry up spring !!

While on a roll...

I thought I would start the next Long Dog Sampler that I want to hang with Paradigm Lost. So here is Rosemarkie.



I am stitching it with DMC 115 Varigated red and black silk on, of all things, the blackwork pieces.

I"M DONE !!!

La la la la
Dance Dance Dance
I'm DONE with Paradigm Lost
La La La La
Dance Dance Dance
I'm DONE with Paradigm Lost
La La La La



Ohhh what to do next. :o)

Spring Break in Pictures

For the first 4 days we went to my sisters, to play with cousins and see the progress on her house.

Went to Jen's funeral on Monday and played outside as much as possible while it was nice.

M playing crocuet her own way.

Helping Daddy pull down the old garden to make room for the new.

On Wednesday we went to the Topeka Zoo with Tracy and her boys. It is a small zoo but we could get much closer to the animals that way.

We also painted S's room. It started out like this

After a gallon of Kilz's it looked like this..

And Now it looks like this. We are still putting things on the walls to make it "Just the way I want it".

I also finished a page of PL. Hopefully you will be dancing with me after this week when I finally finish it.

Concert

DD#1 had a band concert last night. It was a combined school concert with over 300 children from 5,6 & 7th grade bands and the high school concert band. It was a lot of fun to listen to and watch. DD#1 however has choosen not to continue next year since the school will not allow sixth graders to be in both band and Choir. I am hoping to find away around that. If it weren't for band in college I would have never have meet DH. On a Choir note, DD#1 was choose with 9 others from her 5th grade choir to participate in a special concert for the retiring Music head of the Blue Valley school district in May. She is really excited.

Good Bye Jennifer

My friend Jennifer passed away on Saturday evening. She tried hard to live long enough to make it to her son's birthday next month but it was just not to be. Because my girls were sick I was unable to take the needlepoint stuff to her for us to work on.

I know that she is with Our Lord and no longer in pain and that it is now for us to continue on. Please keep her family, especially Charles and their children in you prayers. Goodbye Jen, we will miss you greatly.

Silly Sock Day

Today is silly sock day for the kindergarden. M wore her Cat and Dead fish socks and her kitty cat ears. Pink of course. :o) Please notice that she lost another tooth yesterday, that makes 3 in less than a week. It is becoming hard to chew, poor Kitty.

I HAVE MY CAMERA BACK !!!

And I am soooo excited. So without further adue. Here are some pics from my last week.

Here is my littest monster throwing snow at me during the snow storm over the weekend.


The coasters the Girls and I made. We used Cookie Cutters for patterns.


PL taken yesteday morning before I finished the last big motif.


I finished this motif last night. I didn't like it very much, the pattern was hard to lock into.


I scored these two books at the library's bookstore yesterday for a total of $3.00. Yeah Me.

Discriptive words

Five words about me from my friend Melanie. I commented on her post and she gave me 5 subjects/things she associated with me. So now I need to elaborate on the subjects given in my blog.

Designing ~ I began designing blackwork patterns when I needed a special gift for a friend who had sent a care package to my cousin and his men while they were in Iraq. Once I started I couldn’t stop. Now I design a monthly Blackwork pattern for The Gift of Stitching, an on line magazine. I started this when I sent in a pattern to Kirsten, the editor, as part of her Subscriber designs series. One thing lead to another and I am still sending patterns in monthly.


Pumpkins ~ I LOVE pumpkins !. Which might seem strange since I don’t particularly like the color orange. But I have a largish collection of pumpkins that I gleefully add to each fall. Big Pumpkins, Little pumpkins, soft ones, beaded ones. I like all kinds.


Dragons and RenFaire kinda go together. Since my very FAVORITE dragons come from www.clayimages.com. They have a great booth at the Kansas City Ren Faire. Every year, that I have made the faire, for the past 15 years or so I have picked up a dragon (or two or three) and brought them home to happily live in my house. I just love their happy little faces and silly poses.


RenFaire ~ I love going to the faire, to see the hand crafted wares, to watch the people and the listen to the music. It is a totally different experience now with Children, than it was when I started, Far fewer “Shows” and far more spinning rides. LOL


Friendship ~ I don’t easily make deep friendships, but the few I have I cherish with all my heart. I am currently trying to teach my children about how to be a friend, how to recognize levels of friendship and how to enjoy everyone as the individuals they really are versus trying to change to fit in. While I may not get to see some of my friends on a daily or even yearly basis, I love them all for the individuals they are and the ways they enhance my life. I wish I had a picture of all of my friends together but I don't :o( Maybe that is something I need to work on.

A few pictures

DD#2 is home today. She has been running a low grade fever since Sunday and has a cough. I took her to the Dr. on Monday but no strep so we are just waiting through this.

I made 5 of these clothes this week.

I only stitch this small design on PL. But it was something.

And the best part of the past weekend, was a short visit from Goldie, Anthony and the kids. It was soo good to see them and we are already talking about an extended visit over the summer.