Giveaway Day

Sew Mama Sew blog is hosting a giveaway day on December 2nd. I am so thrilled to be a part of this. I enjoy their sight so much and have found so much great inspiration through the blog and the links they share there all of the time.

So for this giveaway day i am going to be giving away a Moda layer cake, Wonderland by Momo.

Come comment on my post by December 6th and you will be entered to be part of my random giveaway. Become a follower and you will get and additional entry. If you are already a follower be sure to let me know in your comment so that i can count you in for two from the start.

I am willing to ship internationally. Please be sure to leave me a way to contact you, ie e-mail address or blog address, in your comment so that i can notify the winner right away. Please remember that if i can not contact you i can not let you know you won!!!!!

Now it just so happens that this post coincides with my 500th post. Yeah me!! I can not believe that this much time has gone by and that i have posted this much! Who knew i had so much to say and share. I have recently met lots of new people in blogland and have gained many new followers. I am so glad to know that there are people out there interested. It is what makes blogging fun for me...the comments, sharing ideas, being inspired. I can not wait to "meet" more of you through giveaway day!!!

**by the way, family not included. cause i know you guys would do nothing with it!!!**

As Promised

***this has been one crazy busy week...fun but busy. We have had lots of friends and family here visiting for thanksgiving. It has been a wonderful time. Yet, somehow in the middle of everything i managed to get something made. Can you believe it!! SO, i don't have a new post for today but i wanted to link back to another post i had from this week to share with everyone what i made. So, here is my addition to Sew and tell this week!! Go on over to check out lots of great finishes and some really yummy recipes.***


I feel like i finally have gotten a little quilting motivation back. It seems to come and go around here. I wanted to make something for one of our little neighbors and since i know that her mom does not read the blog i am safe to share.

I had a small stash of Heather Bailey's Mendocino line. I was never sure of what i wanted to do with it. I really love it...the little mermaids are so sweet. I wanted to feature the patterns as best i could so i cut them to varying sizes and pieced it as a simple strips quilt. When i was done piecing and trimming i made a little improv block baby doll quilt to match with the scraps.

There has also been some crafting of a different kind going on. My sister came for Thanksgiving and brought all of her wool felting supplies. Her 9 year old wanted to teach us to make gnomes. I was on board as soon as they said gnome. I love them, they are adorable. We all got busy making them...my Mom, sister, little and big kids, me and even my sweet husband. I love family craft nights!!! The mushroom was made by my sis...and the old man with the fuzzy whiskers was made by the hubs. The rest i did. Cute right?

Just Me and My Little Man

Today Mitch and I spent the day together....just me and him. I don't think that has ever happened. I guess that is a result of being the second child. Big sister is usually around. Today she was with my sister having a outing of her own.
I did not want to just stay home and do something boring like watch tv so we packed up, put on out comfy shoes and warm clothes and headed for the local zoo. this little turtle was one of my favorites. He was only about the size of a saucer.
Mitch seemed to know more about snakes than i knew he knew. He got the name of every one right, and i know he was not cheating and reading the signs because he can't read!

In some pictures i caught him off guard and in others he was absolutely posing. Love this kid. He has such a large sense of humor. SO large sometimes it can fill a whole room.

We had such a nice time together. It was a real treat to have one on one time....we missed Avery though.

**stay tuned i have a crafty post coming up. i promise!**

Picnic Nature Study

We had a chance to go to the river yesterday with our friends. We brought along a picnic and had a fun time exploring things.
The kids were very intent on a little sticky, egg case or seed pod...something. It looked pretty gross to me but the kids thought it was very cool. Mitchell sketched it and Avery wrote down as many facts as she could about it. While O got up close and personal with the magnifying lens to see if she could figure it out.

The river was beautiful....i love the clouds, all gray and dark!!!

i think J was loving the cracker. She had it all over her face as proof.

Is this face cute or what? E was telling me all about the boat that we were watching on the river. And he meant every word of it.

Total Enjoyment

We have been totally blessed and thankful to have my wonderful BFF(for lack of a better term :o) !!) and her children visiting with us through Thanksgiving. We have been having such a great time just being together and soaking up every moment(thanks for that reminder other Dee).

Today she began work on her very first quilt. i am so so proud. She loved my wee play quilt so much that she wanted to make one just like it. So we could have twin quilts. See it there behind her. She was using it as a guide for her own. This was her first row completed!!! Hooray! I have begun rubbing off on my friends.

The kids are having so much fun together. E even sat with us during afternoon school lessons. He did magic rock painting. See the concentration all over that face...that cute cute kissable face.
Avery is honing her tiny mommy skills with baby J... giving her bottles, holding her, playing and even feeding her lunch, you will see in a further down picture.

See how fast that girl can jump!!! She was thrilled with whatever we were doing to get her to smile for the camera.

How cute are these two....just sitting together on the kitchen floor soaking up the afternoon sun. We are loving every moment. I forgot how fun it is to have a baby around to play with. It is nice to see how my big kids interact with smaller children. They are doing so well, i am so proud.

Sew and Tell Friday!!!!

Hooray, this week i have something to share. Finally. I did this so early in the week that i actually almost forgot i had a finish to share. Poor Avery i had to put her in the stairwell to take this picture because it was the only place i could get her high enough to see the length of my shower curtain.

From a vintage sheet and some other vintage fabrics i had in the house, from my mom, i made this shower curtain. I had some help from this blog tutorial. I would never have known what measurements to use if it had not been for the tutorial.

I am especially proud to have done these ruffles! i don't think i will ever do ruffles again. it was hard and frustrating but the end result is so fun and i guess, worth all the headache

All i need to do is get it hung in time for my company that will be here in the morning. Grommets is my plan but i may have to settle for the quick fix of curtain clips.

Head on over to Amylouwho's and see all the wonderful things everyone has accomplished this week.

yup, I'm here!

Here i am ... still out here in blogland....i confess I have been having a little dry spell. Things are busy around here and i am getting very caught up in projects around the house. i have been taking pictures and i hope to share with you all again at some point, but for now i am just trying to keep my house afloat and not looking as though it has been hit by a tornado, trying to keep up with school, prepare for house guests(that i am very excited about by the way)!!! So for now i will say i miss you all but life is real people and sometimes a girl just can not keep up.

thanks everyone for the nice words and concern about the iron attack! My arm is much better. We are keeping our contact to a minimum right now. And a little heads up...i am so flattered by all the new followers i have gained recently and blog friends i have made. I am thrilled that you like what you are reading. In honor of this and of my 500th post, that is coming up really, really soon...i am going to have a giveaway!!!! How fun is that? So keep an eye out...hope you will like it!

Meet my Nemesis

My Black and Decker and i have had a terrible day....ladies, a warning! Hang onto that iron tight....because just when you least expect it, it is going to try to make a break for it. I was getting ready to iron a backing for a very old project today when it got away form me and burned me good!!!I had no idea how big it was until later in the day when only the burn was red, not my entire inner forearm. See that perfect rectangular mark...that is the edge of the iron. My track record with burns is not that great...i think this is the third one in about 2 months. That seems a little much, right? Perhaps i should consider no longer handling hot objects. As if this was not enough, it fell off the ironing board and left a huge dent in my wood floor.

Look What He Did!

Mitchell was so proud of himself this morning. When he first got legos from aunt colleen he was frustrated because he did not think he could make anything. But as a little time has gone by he has really gotten the hang of it. He made this bat car this morning, he called it, and wanted me to take a picture and put it on the blog to show all of you out there what he had done.

These are just a few extra pictures we got over the weekend. These two are too cute. I am so lucky to have them....Avery is turning into such a beautiful little girl. And Mitchell keeps us laughing every single day. Love them.

Halloween Fun

Here are my kiddo's in all their halloween glory. Bad picture since we had to do them inside. It was pretty rainy. Mitchell was Ham from the recent movie, Space Chimps and Avery was a 50's girl...is their a name for this? She saw this outfit at the store and loved it. She looked so adorable.

Since it was a rainy and cold morning saturday I thought, why not start the fun with a batch of my mom's pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. Warm things up a little. I had never made them before...but i will again. They were so yummy.

Chris helped the kids make a plan and then walked them through the steps to carve their own pumpkins this year. Cause i don't know about anyone else but we always ended up doing it. This time the kids did a great job...daddy did help but not too much. Look how hard Mitch is concentrating. He has the thinking tongue out. :o)

Avery was working really hard scraping out the junk on the inside. SHe thought it was "totally" gross and wanted to have no part of it. Mitch on the other hand thought that was the coolest and grossest part of the whole thing. He revelled in every second of squishing it through his fingers. You can see by Avery's face what she tought of it all.