Y3W - Bring on Fireworks

I am so excited for the 4th of July weekend!! There are so many firework shows going on around us that we will be seeing fireworks all weekend long. It is such a different experience when you have a child to watch them with. He gets so excited for them to start and can hardly keep his body still. Once they start he likes to tell us what each one looks like. This is one of my favorite holidays because there is no gift giving involved, you are just spending time with your family with good food and FIREWORKS!!

I hope everyone has a very safe and fun 4th of July!!

Check out Jenni's blog!

Y3W - Baby on Hold

So last night the hubby and I made the decision that we will be putting another baby on hold. For the last couple years we have not been "really" trying but there has been no goalie in our net so to speak. I have always thought I would have more than one child and while I was part of this decision, it is still a very hard pill to swallow. We are finally able to see the light at the end of the horrible financial tunnel we have been in for almost 3 years now and adding another person (a very expensive person at that) to our house right now is just not in the cards. I am only 34 right now and I am still holding out hope that we will be in a much better place to maybe have another child. If not, we have a beautiful, wonderful son that we get to spoil and make sure he has all he needs and most of what he wants. This has been weighing on my mind for a while and my girlfriend just had her first baby last night and it just got me thinking about all the things that come along with newborns. I have never regretted becoming a parent but I must say that I am so glad to be able to get 8 hours of sleep each night and glad I don’t to plan for three hours and pack a suitcase to take a trip to Target. There are also days I am not sure I want to take the trip down the road of 4 year-old again, Ethan tested my mental status during that time and I think I am on the road back from Crazy Town as we speak. This may be one reason I will continue to volunteer at Children’s Hospital – Denver, I can get a weekly baby fix and help out babies that really need some extra love in the process. Thank goodness I have friends that are in the baby making business and I can always volunteer to watch their babies too!

Have a Great Weekend!!

Love Conquers All

I recently went to a memorial service for a friend’s mother. I have known this friend and his mother since High School and she was a lot like a second mom during that time. While I was at the memorial service I found out that her and her husband has met in Middle School and had been together ever since. This seems to be an amazing feat to me in this day and age. I am sure they had good times as well as hard times in their marriage. They had two children, which can’t always be easy on the marriage. I was in awe of the devotion these two people obviously have to each other. Every person who got up to speak about her mentioned how much she loved her husband and how much they were still in love now, after all these years.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my husband very much and I am completely devoted to him and our marriage. There have been days, not a lot, that I thought, “there is no way we will make it to 10 years.” Learning about my friend’s parents has proved to me that love can conquer all. Marriage is not easy and any married person will agree with that fact. I have to work on my marriage every day. I see now that all this work is worth it. It is wonderful to have a partner in life and I intend to have my husband as my partner in life for the rest of my life. I hope everyone reading this has found the love of your life, if you have, be sure to work hard at keeping it and if you haven't have faith that you will find your love. Love conquers all! 

Friday Ramblings!

I can express how glad I am that today is Friday. This has been a very hard week and I am ready for the weekend. Tomorrow is “Weigh In” day and thank goodness it is before the Easter Bunny drops off any goodies at our house. We will be having a full family Easter dinner at my Uncle’s house this Sunday since that is the place my poor mother is being confined. It is always an interesting time when the whole family (barring the family living outside of the Denver Metro Area) attends a holiday function. I have been waiting for this time since I started Weight Watchers. This will be my first “Holiday” with my new eating habits.

On a high note, I had four people tell me yesterday that they could really tell I have lost weight. YA HOOO!!!! I might have to wear that outfit EVERY DAY!! I have been able to get rid of my “fat girl” jeans and most of my pants that are now in my closet are getting very lose on me. I will be making the trek to our storage garage this weekend to dig out my “skinny” box and pray that all the clothes in there are not so out of style that I have to give them all away.

My secret hope is that since I had a stomach bug this week and a lower appetite, I can pull a big number tomorrow on the scale. I would love to lose 3 pounds this week and be at a nice round 10 pounds lost. Fingers crossed everyone!!

Until Monday, wishing everyone a very Happy Easter!!

Thankful Thursday

My Boys are the Best

As I sit here at home this week on spring break with my son, I remember all the things I am thankful for. I am thankful for the freedom I am afforded by living in this great country. I am thankful to have a safe place to live and food on my table each night. I am thankful to have a wonderful husband that loves me (even if I am 90 pounds overweight) and a happy, healthy child. I am thankful to have a great loving family (aunts, uncles, cousins, and all my in-laws). I am thankful for my faith in god and all he sees me through. These are the things I am thankful for each day of my life, but since I am counting points for WW, most of all today I am thankful for enough points to have a yummy snack tonight!!

Happy Thursday!

Christmas Presence...and presents

Here it is, the night before Christmas Eve, and I don't remember a more relaxing holiday. This year we really focused on slowing down. Less shopping, more money, more time, less stress.

Last week we had soup and cookie night, one of my favorite holiday traditions. We feasted on homemade chili, applesauce and cornbread, and after dinner it was cookie time. Last year we used lots of sprinkles. This year, we took a bag of Nutter Butter cookies, dipped them in chocolate, and decorated them like reindeer with M&Ms and pretzels.

What I didn't anticipate was that they would stick like cement on a nonstick cookie sheet! 

So we started over, with waxed paper. Aaaah. Much better.

And while the kids got ready for bed, their Mom and Dad did a little relaxing.

The next day, Mark and I left for Pismo Beach, on the central coast of California, where it Rained.The.Whole.Time.

While the rest of the country was buried in snow, we were still looking at green grass!

But we were warm and cozy in our room, with treats from our friends, George and Cheri

and an afghan I brought along for snuggling.

Today, Maggie and I went to Starbucks and worked on our hexies.

(A totally staged picture taken when I got home--because I forgot to bring my camera...)

Spending time with people you love is such a gift.

Speaking of gifts, along with Christmas presence, there have also been Christmas presents!
Jessie made me this luscious green stocking hat:

This pattern unexpectedly showed up in my email mailbox this morning. Thanks, Becky!

And Terri sent these goodies in the mail--a little notebook, calendar, tape measure, and needle case--out of my favorite Henna Garden fabric

And this cute ornament.

Thank you to all my family and friends who have such a special presence in my life.

Merry Christmas.

Dear Martha...

Wow, you outdid yourself in the current issue, with lots of easy and affordable projects.

Charlotte and Levi made snow globes. It was pretty easy collecting all the "ingredients." You clearly state in the  instructions to get glycerin from the pharmacy. My pharmacist seemed a little puzzled when I asked for glycerin. "You mean glycerin suppositories?" Uh, no. He then pulled out a bottle of liquid glycerin from behind the counter after I for some reason felt it necessary to explain the making of snow globes. Too bad he gave me the last bottle, because I'm pretty sure he was feeling the desire to quit work early to go home and make his own Martha snowglobe.

This turned out to be the perfect project for little ones with short attention spans. Glue fun little Christmas objects in the lid. Let them dry. Add distilled water, a few drops of glycerin, glitter for snow (Charlotte and Levi clearly felt that the more snow, the better), glue the lid on securely with silicone glue, then shake, shake, shake.

And this Christmas tree made of white lights? Genius. Sorry, Martha, I couldn't get a better picture. It's in the walk-through laundry room and it was hard to get a good angle.

I hope you don't send out spies to make sure we are following your directions to the letter, but in case you do, I'll just confess now. I didn't have the patience to fuse pieces of white felt together and then cut out the stars. So I just printed them on white card stock. Eek. I hope I don't lose too many points for that.

Not inspired by Martha, but inspiring just the same, we have had music from this Santa who just keeps walking up and down the ladder while the music-box Christmas carols keep playing (as the sound technician adjusts the volume):

And dancing, from this little snowflake tap dancer in her first performance.

The holidays are shaping up quite nicely...

Friday

I'm at Lakeview Cottages until tomorrow morning, working and hopefully sewing. Mark informed me that he is tired of looking at Britney Spears' underarms. Charlotte and Levi spent a couple of nights at our house the beginning of the week, so until I can show you some pictures of the blocks I'm working on, this will be a good alternative:

Scraps of This and That

Blogging quilters are so generous. Maybe it's just quilters in general. When I first started designing items with selvages, Ashley was one of the first people to donate to the cause. In turn I made her a pincushion.

(picture from Film in the Fridge)

In turn she offered FMF scraps in exchange for another pincushion. Considering how FMF scraps are like gold, that was an unbeatable offer. And now she is sending me one of these amazing potholders. Thank you, thank you!

Picture from Film in the Fridge

When I mentioned I was hooked on hexies, but not really wanting to finish Civil War repro fabric hexies I had started several years ago, another quilter emailed and said, how about a trade? Your hexies for some selvages. Another win-win. And speaking of hexies, I had a little helper this morning. Sometimes it takes a different set of hands to show you a new way of organizing something. It also requires an extreme degree of concentration.

This doesn't have anything to do with quilting,  but the other night we went to Todd Beamer Park, a really great new park in town that has lots of fun water features. What a cool way to spend some time on a hot summer night. Pretty much Grandpa's idea of a perfect evening...

Things don't get much better than this...

One in Every Color--The Wedding Edition

Do you remember this adorable couple--Jessie and Luke?

And the quilt a lot of us worked on? From the many special people in Jessie's life who made a block to the friends and family who spent a weekend sewing the top together? It had a place of honor in Moscow, Idaho, this past Saturday as the backdrop for Jessie and Luke's wedding. In the meeting room at the LaQuinta Hotel.

The original plans were to get married on the golf course. Then there was a change of venue to the arboretum closeby. But then weather threatened to interfere as the forecast was for nonstop rain all weekend. Indoors or outdoors? Jessie made the decision to not worry about the weather and just plan to have the wedding indoors instead.

The quilt binding still needed to be completed.  I worked on Friday morning and afternoon (it is a big quilt) and finished the last side after the wedding rehearsal Friday night.

Decorating started in earnest early Saturday morning. The tables were in a U-shape and there was a color progression of colored water in different interesting containers, crayons that Jessie had made earlier, wedding-related quotes matted on matching paper. I wish I had taken a good picture of the tables. You'll have to use your imagine. It was really frugal, creative and beautiful.

Lots of twinkly lights. And these hung from the ceiling:

Pictures of Jessie and Luke's life on the wall:

(my favorite...)

We got a lunch break and went to Moscow Bagels. It was threatening to rain and I never turn down a chance to wear my awesome raincoat--Anna Maria Horner laminated cotton--I highly recommend it. But I digress.

Yummy. (I didn't take a picture of my bagel either so you will have to imagine that too!)

The weather cooperated in the afternoon enough for pictures. If you call freezing cold and gale-force wind cooperating. Okay, maybe gale-force is a little exaggerated. But it was really windy. It was a beautiful setting (and we all had lots of hairspray).

And then it was back to the hotel for the ceremony. I didn't take pictures during the ceremony as I was busy being a surrogate mother of the bride, which was such a special honor. Thank you , Jessie.

Instead of a unity candle, Jessie and Luke had a celtic handfasting ceremony (this is where the term "tying the knot" originated). Close family and friends each had a ribbon that we tied around their wrists, binding them together. It was an amazing part of the ceremony and really beautiful.

Jessie had made all the flowers for the ceremony, along with help of friends/family along the way. They were unique and beautiful  (I seem to be using the word "beautiful" a lot). Beautiful colors and lots of embroidery detail and vintage buttons, inspired by Princess Lasertron.

Aren't they AMAZING? Jessie's bridal bouquet is the silver and white one. The others were bridesmaids' bouquets. The three surrogate mothers each had a wrist corsage and the guys had matching boutonnieres.

It was a wonderful weekend. Jessie's mother, Sue, would have loved it.

As you start your new life together, Jessie and Luke, remember all the love that surrounds you, not just from those at the ceremony but from all the other people in your life.