die Steppdecken des quilter

Birthdays and quilts

2009-09-30T09:25:00.006-05:00

First off, today is Timothy's 10th Birthday! :o) To celebrate his special day he wanted to play putt-putt golf which we did that on Sunday. Good thing since it has been raining ever since!

And finally, I have finished Sarah's quilt!! Thanks to the beautiful help of my friend Sharon!

Tap, tap....Is this thing still on?

2009-09-24T09:59:00.002-05:00

Hello Blogger land, In my crazy life i have forgotten all about you! :o( I am so sorry!! I wonder if anyone is still around. I even forgot my blogger password and had to have it re-set. I am going to try to revive my blog.....try being the key word! lol

I've been sewing.

2009-07-14T08:44:00.002-05:00

This is the quilt that i made for my nephew as a graduation gift. I love this big block pattern. It is one of my favorites! I have used it quite a bit.

I am not sure why this turned upside down....anyway...they are police badges because my nephew is planning on attending the police academy.I had to take a pic of my perfect corners! lol That hardly ever happens. lol I was SO proud of myself. :o)

Finally Ballet pictures! :o)

2009-06-30T09:49:00.002-05:00

This was Sarah's first year of ballet. She loved every minute if it too! At the end of the year they had a dance showcase, not to be confused with recital! lol The only difference was that they did not have expensive costumes or professional pictures. Which was ok since i have my own photographer. lol

There were three girls in the class from L to R are Sarah, Katie and NavayThe girls did such a great job for being 1st year students! They all seemed comfortable on stage and had such grace and beauty.
They dance so well together. I hope to get her in the class with the same girls next year! :)

Another season of flag football comes to an end...

2009-06-11T16:19:00.004-05:00

I bet you didn't even know it started!

It seemed to be a short season this time around. Just about the time the boys got into the groove the season was over.

Timothy is #8, this was the coin flip.

Timothy's team (Iz on) was in the championship game again. Both teams played a good game and it came down to a field goal (or something) in the last 15 seconds of the game. With the other team getting the point. Oh the adrenaline....

Timothy in action. The other team had 6 extra players, so our team played all boys the entire game! The other team could switch out 3 at a time giving their boys a rest.

This is the funniest sign i have ever seen in real life!!! I am not an English major, but i know this is not correct.....What do you think?

They celebrate BIG in Texas!!!

2009-06-01T14:53:00.015-05:00

My trip to Texas was great!! I had a wonderful time and really enjoyed myself. It was a lot of laughing, eating and chocolate! Each day we vowed to never eat again! Of course each day we broke that vow. It was just too hard to pass up the delicious food. lol
I heard when i was gone there was NO fighting at home. lol I guess they saved it up for my return. lol

ipod vending machine at the airport! lol My kids wished i would have checked prices.
View from my hotel room. The big buildings are the Texas Motor Speedway.

Cows came out for breakfast...
Thursday night after our dinner party by the pool (sorry no pictures) we all helped assemble party favors for the wedding. We giggled till we hours of the night....or morning.
More favor assembling.
Barb the Matriarch supervising. lol
Barb and i had an easy job and finished before everyone else. Friday was lunch at Carinos ( i think was the place) this was the guy table leading into the women's table.

Barb and Cheryl hiding the green haze around their mouths from eating bread dipped in oil and roasted garlic.
The teenagers table that lead into the kid table.
This was the kids table. One twirly girl! :o)One cutie pie!!!
another cutie pie!lol and another....some how i only had pictures of these three boys.
Friday night was dinner at Los something...all i know is it took an hour to get there....Laura invited us Mathie moms to the rehearsal dinner. The party was in the restaurant garden, there was a grassy area with a trellis and white lights draped around. It was really nice and the food was yummy!!
This is Saturday right after the wedding. The kids looked so adorable. I am sure they were up to something though....just look at them...lol
Us ladies....

Ahh...the reception. Laura the amazing wedding planner/bride sat the bride and groom at the table with their parents. Us mathie moms though it was very special.

Here are the happy parents of the groom! Julee looked stunning!
Here are some gorgeous girls you may recognize!! :o) They are great girls, It was very nice to spend so much time with them this weekend they are very lovely!!!
Sunday morning we gathered in the Honeymoon suite for a Church service led by Pr Brynestad and assisted by Pr Sipe. No!!! the honeymooners were NOT in the room!!! For some reason they choose to NOT stay in the hotel where all the out of town guests were staying even though they got a free room....wonder why?? I am sure some brothers would have had a blast! lol
Sunday we all "finally" got to eat at Pappasitios! Finally!! Everything Julee has said about it is true!! It was delicious! So this was the ladies section...Ahh... another cutie pie!! He was adorable! He was eating chips and salsa. Chip in one hand dipping salsa with the other hand. He really enjoyed it until he found a pepper! :o(
This was the teen age end of the table.

Kids were in the middle...
Dads were at other end.
Then we all parted and went on our way. Barb, Carol, Rachel and I all headed to the airport. Angie and gang followed Diane and gang North and Cheryl and Ellen were smart and stayed another day with Julee. :o)

Now i am home and the weather is rainy and chilly....pretty depressing compared to the warm sun that greeted us each day in TX. :o)
Dh's first words to me when i walked in the door was "Well, I am ready to move to TX!" lol I told him i had connections! ;o)

Where has the time gone???

2009-05-11T12:04:00.005-05:00

I cant believe it has been so long since i posted to my blog. It has been neglected like many other things in my life. Another being my sewing machine and as always.... laundry.....
I wanted to post a picture of my garden....but it seems that my rechargeable battery for my camera passed quietly in it's sleep one night. I found a picture online that looks exactly like my garden!!!
Yes, that is right! One little lonely tomato plant. lol I hope to care for it and coax it to grow lovely delicious tomato's for me. :o)
About my life....I have been working many hours. I cant seem to bring it to myself to say "no" I am still paying off medical bills from last year. I am, however down to 2. I started at 19. I am very happy with that but of course so many other people want my hard earned money that it just doesn't go as far as I would like it too.
We are finishing up school for the year and looking forward to summer!!! Myself as much as the kids. lol

Look out world!

2009-04-10T08:34:00.002-05:00

Here comes Sarah on her new bike!!!
Oh good, she didn't fall!!!

Joshua wanted me to take his picture with a banana in his ear.....not sure why.
And here are some of my Monster cookies! Yum!
I have a funny story behind Monster cookies....
They sell them at the snack bar at work. At the end of the night the unsold cookies are set out for samples. The cookies are made fresh each day, and discarded each night. Normally i will take one or two if there are enough and take one home for hubby. :) But this one night there were 2 huge plates of cookies. WAY more than the number of employees left in the store. So i asked the kid if he would mind if i took a some home for my kids. He made some sort of comment and I honestly thought he was joking with me....but instead he was really pissed at me! oops. I offered to put the cookies back on the plate... He still was mad, NOTHING would make this better. So i took the cookies. Really, they throw them away if no one takes them! Ever since this happened he has given me the look of death! lol Hopefully soon someone else will piss him off and he will forget about me. I hear this is the way he rolls....lol
I came across a recipe and make a batch of my own Monster cookies! Wanna know what makes Monster cookies so yummy?? You take a pouch of Chocolate Chunk cookie mix, a pouch of Peanut butter cookie mix and some oats I forgot the oats Mix the mixes together and make as directed. When mixed, add in M&M's and bake as directed. Yum! :)

Bithday Girl!!!

2009-03-30T10:14:00.003-05:00

Today Sarah turns the BIG 7!! She is terribly excited to be 7. :) Saturday she had 2 friends over for a birthday Tea party. She said it was the best birthday ever!! Imagine me pulling off the Tea party of the year! lol
She got a new bike for her bday! She went from riding a 12" bike to a 20" lol She really needed a new bike! She also received a Only Hearts club doll, My little pony set, Princess coloring pad, monopoly game and a *real* Target gift card! so she can by her work out clothes, cause all 7yo's need work out clothes! lol!

Quilt show and random stuff...

2009-03-16T08:27:00.007-05:00

Sorry i haven't been around lately. It seems like days are going by so quickly that i just don't seem to have the time to do much of anything. Or perhaps i should should use my time more wisely! lol
Anyway...I went to a quilt show recently. One of these days i would like to enter one of my quilts into a show...One day. lol I saw some beautiful quilts. Here are some of my favorites.
I loved the color and detail of this one. You (I) don't see the heart border at first, my eyes keep getting drawn to the center star. you have to make yourself look at the borders. That is what makes this quilt so great!

I loved the snowman quilt! I was thinking of you Vickie! :)
I love this Christmas tree wall hanging! I am going to try to find the pattern and add it to my (long) list of quilts to make.
This wall hanging was so pretty! It was listed for sale for $50! I am sure the first person in the door purchased it.
Ahh...what can i say.....
This one was so pretty with all the colors and flowers. I don't think i would have the patience to make this quilt. lol
This was one of my absolute favorites! From a distance is is so pretty with all the flowers. but wait...

Look at all that hand stitching. Ahh....It was even prettier up close.
After looking at all the great quilts and seeing all the elaborate quilting, i have decided i need to buy a quilting machine! lol Um, yeah....(holds breath...)

Ok, now for something more my speed....A friend of Sarah's was having a bday so i whipped up this little bag for her as a gift. It was so easy to make and so cute! It was a free pattern from Lazy Girl Designs called the Noriko bag. Unfortunately i cant seem to find the link right now.
Ahh...Man's best friend....this poor pup is home all day with 6 people, when dh comes home from work the dog acts like he has been home alone all day! lol

Here is Timothy with a tool box that he made in cub scouts. He is very proud of his box he made. We also learned a lesson that we will NEVER stain wood in the house again!!! Poor kid will never be the same, is all i can say.....Don't you just love a boy doing chores with a joyful heart? I know i do!
I have also found some books that i enjoy reading besides HP or Twilight.....lol One day dh and i were at the library for a class on getting organized. There was 2 inches of snow out and the teacher canceled the class....sigh...doenst she know i need to be organized snow or not!? Well anyway, i started browsing the isles looking for a good book to jump out at me. And one did! It was called "The Temptation of the Night Jasmine" by Lauren Willig. The thing that caught my attention was a review that said "Pride and Prejudice" lives on....Well, I loved the movie and tried reading the book, but it was just too hard of a read for me to get into it. so i decided to try this book and i really enjoyed it! I just started another one of her books called "The Secret History of the Pink Carnation" and I have a big stack of her other books in waiting. lol I requested them all from the library thinking they would trickle in one at a time instead of all at once! lol
So when i went to return the first book and not a single Lauren Willig book was on the shelf i went in search of a new book to jump off the shelf, and to my surprise i found another. (who knew the library was full of good books to read!) The book i found was called "The Constant Princess" by Philippa Gregory This is a story about the early life of Katherine of Aragon, and how she became to be Katherine Queen of England. Historic fiction at it's best. I also have a big stack of Philippa's books waiting to be read....lol Who knew i would love to read historic fiction?

My Birthday Party pt 2

2009-03-07T11:07:00.004-05:00

I forgot to mention in the first post that the reason for the party was my 40th bday....It was a very special day for me. My family surprised me and did this for me.

Emily took the pictures and dh got the printed off and purchased the frames. It was quite a surprise because i have been asking for a long time for new pictures for the wall.

This gift was from the EG family. I thought it was a pretty pen when i opened it. A little EG told me that her dad made the pen! I am not sure the pictures shows the actual beauty of the pen. You should stop by and see it in person! :)

I received several gift cards to some of my favorite places. I used a Joann one last week and got some great books and a wall hanging quilt kit. (I love pre cut kits!) lol Ok, so last but not least....the picture all (two) of you have been waiting for....The little black box..... :)

My Birthday Party pt 1

2009-03-04T15:31:00.003-05:00

I have been promising pictures from my birthday party that was a few weeks ago. I just haven't gotten around to getting them posted. Here is a quick run down....
Here is my cake.

The party room....

DS with two of his many girls that are friends....
Dh embarrassing me.....I don't like being the center of attention.
Opening my gifts. You will have to wait until the next post to see what was in the pretty black velvet box! :o)There was a big room off of our room that was empty. The kids were all automatically drawn to that room! The ages ranged from 1-14. They had a blast playing with a balloon. I don't remember hearing any crying or fighting!
Sorry this is so brief. I have 30 minutes to make dinner, eat and get ready for work! lol Think i will make it??

Snowboarding Circuit here we come....

2009-02-27T08:07:00.002-05:00

For two years now my older kids have taken snowboarding. Jacob seemed to be a natural from the beginning. He quickly advanced through the lessons last year. Again this year he did the same. This year he also received the highest (coveted) lesson sticker..... "THE BLACK DIAMOND" He was so excited!! The black diamond allows you to snowboard on any hill in the resort. From there you learn techniques and earn black pins. He tried on the last lesson to earn one of the pins, but the instructor was not qualified to teach those lessons. Instead Jacob and his friend helped the instructor teach the class.
We wont get to go snowboarding today because it is raining and are expecting thunderstorms....

My Valentine's Suprise!

2009-02-19T11:44:00.005-05:00

My sweetie gave me these roses for Valentine's Day! :)

We really didn't do much, I had to work. as usual But even so, we don't enjoy going out and waiting *forever* to get a table at a restaurant. We normally do something simple at home. This year was no different. We got the kids each a candy heart with chocolates and the girls and Josh got a stuffed animal. I didn't see anything the older boys would be interested in so they got a gift card for that *thing* they have been saving for. now what was that *thing? Anyway they were thrilled to get the gift card! We were going to have a special lunch, but i forgot to buy special food...lol I did find a Valentine cake that we had after lunch, since i had to go to work.

I received another Valentine surprise in the mail that day! My friend Vickie and her girls sent me a package. This is what is left of it....Josh took off with the candy hearts and the Valentine card. He said it was his! lol I have been protecting the remaining items so Sarah doenst take off with my doll and hearts. :) lol Thank you Vickie and girls!!! :o)

Time Flies....

2009-02-14T12:40:00.004-05:00

My oldest child turned 17 yesterday! I can hardly believe it has been that long already. She had grown to be such a lovely young woman. snif, snif...grabs tissue

We started the day off at snowboarding. The weather/snow was good even though we have had several extremely warm days and then rain. After a long day of snowboarding, we had a short wait at home for dad to get home from work. then we headed off to CC. She invited three friends to come to her party, Which was nice she doesn't get to do stuff with friends too much. It was fun to see her laughing and being goofy with other teens. We stayed at CC as long as dad could stand. lol There were a LOT of kids there last night! Shouldnt kids be HOME onFriday the 13th?? It is a scary night!! lol
Eddie, Robyn, Emily S and Emily C

They did some goofy stuff, unfortunalty i dont think anyone got photos of the real good stuff! lol

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMILY!!!

Valentine giveaway

2009-02-14T08:09:00.003-05:00

Annie Is having a Valentine giveaway! She also has an awesome website!!
I have tried her Wickedly Easy quilt and it really was wickedly easy!! :)
Jump over and check out her blog and website! :)

Spring is in the Air

2009-02-11T15:40:00.002-05:00

Just last week we had 18 inches of snow. I took these pictures yesterday...
There is actually less snow today because it rained all night. The temps today got up into the mid 60's! I hear that some cities have had problems with flooding. Crazy!!

Another catch up post....

2009-02-04T09:05:00.007-05:00

Whirl into Winter Giveaway!

I participated in the Fall into Fall giveaway, but just didn't have the time to be creative for the Whirl into Winter giveaway. I entered a few of the contest, but didn't have the time to enter them all. I was so excited when Julie from View from the Windshield
emailed me and told me i had won her giveaway!! c: You see i love baskets, I have a small collection of miniature baskets and I have always wanted to own a Longaberger basket. I just cant justify the cost with a family of 7. It is just not practical. So now i am the (very) happy owner of a Longaberger basket!!! :oD She also sent me a wall decal (is that what you call them?) from her Uppercase Living business. I need to ask a crafty friend over to help me find the perfect place for it!! :o)
You should check out Julie's blog! She is celebrating her 50th post with a giveaway! She is giving away a $10 gift certificate from her Uppercase Living business. Winner will be announced Feb 9th, so hurry over and enter! :o)

My basket collection

So while I am at it i decided to share my miniature basket collection with you...
A few summers ago, a friend and i took a day trip to Dresden (home of Longaberger) and toured the factory and looked around all the wonderful shops in the village. I got a basket from from Dresden, but had to understand that even though the basket was from Dresden it was NOT a Longaberger basket. It must be a legal issue that they have to comply to.

Here are some that are in my kitchen, also on that shelf is a salt/pepper shaker that i found at a church rummage sale. I paid .25 for it! I really love it!

These are on a shelf in my dining room. The basket on the right is the one i got in Dresden, that is NOT a longaberger. lol
This shelf is also in my dining room. It has an apple basket that I got years ago at an apple orchard. I think i originally got it for a teacher gift (school days) but decided i couldn't part with it. lol
This is my smallest basket. You can see it is about the size of a key. c:
And this is one of my first baskets. I got it years ago when we lived in Va. I was at a craft show and this woman was selling her handmade baskets. It remember it was kinda expensive, but I know a lot of work went into making it. One day i will have to post pictures of the baskets *i* made. The local park used to hold monthly class. I took several of them, but that got expensive...The teacher is now famous and has moved on to a bigger venue.

Life....

It seems that we have been very busy again...I actually enjoyed sitting home last night and reading. Of course that was after taking Sarah to dance and stopping for milk. Emily got me reading "The Host" by Stephanie Meyer. (Twilight) It is more of a slow read for me (currently) I hear it gets better. But right now it is difficult to follow who is talking. And the description is even more strange than a human falling in love with a vampire. This book is about alien *souls* that are implanted into humans and are taking over. The main characters are a human girl that was implanted with a much looked up to soul or Host. Normally the Host takes over the human body and the human soul no longer exists. This human is different and still exists in her body along with the Host. I told you it was strange....

Our own version of LOL cats

I happened to walk into the kitchen and thought it was funny seeing Tippy (kitty) watching Emily doing the dishes. lol (Really, she was wanting dinner)
Then Emily discovered i was taking pictures and did the old bunny ears trick on the cat. lol
Tippy is NOT amused!!! (Emily you better sleep with one eye open!) lol

Flowers....

This is the latest installment of Liturgical flowers for church. A friend and i had this great idea of redoing the altar flowers. The flowers we had were probably 30+ years old. In our planning we decided to make arrangements using the colors of the church year. This is the "green" arrangement. We recently got flowers for Purple and white. We made the Red back in August.

Being sick

Here is Timothy attempting to do school while sick. The poor kid didn't think he could take a sick day i guess...lol he later ended up going to bed because school work was too exhausting!

I am happy to say that we are all feeling better now! Some of us have a lingering cough, but that's it.

Snow!!!

These pictures are for Lyn :o)

she is in Australia and currently suffering from excessive heat. I told her i would be happy to send her our snow!! :o) I think we broke the record for snowfall in the month of Jan. It all fell during the same week.
Last night the news was saying we would get 2" overnight. When shoveling my path to the bird feeder i measured 7" of fresh snow! (just a little off) with a total i our yard of 18".
I wonder how expensive it would be to heat a driveway?? lol wouldn't that be the best thing? lol

Rascal enjoyed playing in the snow this morning. He loves snow. When i was shoveling my path he would come and attack my shovel so i would throw snow on him. Thanks for reading!! I will try to post more often than i have been. :o)

Pine Wood Derby Champ take 2

2009-02-01T20:36:00.004-05:00

For the second year in a row Timothy won 1st place for his den and 3rd place in the pack. He was super excited even though he doesn't look it. I think he was worried about missing the Superbowl.
Here are the top 3 winners...This is an awesome shot! Timothy's car is in the far lane under the #1

I am so proud of Timothy and his dad for the work they put into the car "together" Timothy designed the car and dad helped with the cutting, but it was up to Timothy to do the rest. We have discovered in Pine Wood Derby events, that you can tell which cars the dads made and a which cars the boys made. Even though Timothy's car doesn't look like a professional wood worker built the car, it still was fast enough to blow past the other cars.
Now i need to get him a shelf to store all his trophies. :o)

I had to go look at the pics from last year. I was surprised to see how much Timothy has changed, and surprised to see the same boys and dads in the pics. lol The boy that won last year won again this year. We think he used the same car too. lol We had joked about using the same car next year. lol

Another Birthday Boy!!!

2009-02-01T16:53:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was dh's birthday! We did a low key family thing here at home. We ordered pizza and played Wii. (i have pics from playing Wii on New Years Eve but dd stole them) Speaking of dd...she has some really nice birthday photos on (one of) her blogs. At the end of the day the birthday boy was exhausted. It either means he had a fun day or he is getting old....lol!

What happened to me?

2009-01-26T17:06:00.002-05:00

No, I did not fall off the face of the planet....I am still hanging on.
We are on our 2nd week of being sick. I am on to cold variation #2 on top of having a decent work schedule. Too bad i wasn't sick when hours were cut back...I have a tough time calling off so since i am not being admitted to the hospital (last time i called off) I work....Dh is the only one that has not joined us in our sick fest. Emily joined us this week. Odds are NOT in his favor...6 to 1.

How can it be.......

2009-01-05T10:48:00.002-05:00

Yesterday dh and I celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary. Several times during the day one of us would comment on how amazing it was that 18 years have past since our wedding day. It just doesn't seem possible....
After church (and church christmas cleanup) We dropped the kids off at home and we went out for lunch. After that we went door shopping. I know too much excitement! LOL We shopped a Target or two and purchased a much needed and well deserved gift for someone else. We also stopped at Coldstone for icecream (we can only afford it w/ a coupon) lol Perhaps one of these years we will get our act together and finally take that honeymoon trip that we never got to take in the past 18 years....

Dh wrote a very nice blog post if youwould like to read it. :o)
And dd did a very nice tribute if youwould like to see it. :o)

A month in pictures....

2008-12-29T21:06:00.009-05:00

It has been a crazy month here....between school, work and Christmas sneaking up on me I lost track of time. I have tons of pictures i have been meaning to blog about, but never had a chance or was too tired to think. So in no particular order....

We attended a Cub scout Christmas party...Here is our cub scout enjoying the party. We sat with a nice guy and his scout son that is in Timothy's group. This man thoroughly enjoyed talking with Timothy. His son was off running around being crazy and Timothy was sitting quietly. They talked about all sorts of interesting things. This dad works for NASA and he will be doing science, hands on type thing with the scouts in the spring. It sounds like it will be really fun for the boys.
Here is Joshua...lol One of the dads was playing the bagpipes, Joshua didn't like it from the looks of his reaction.
and here is Sarah, we HAD to buy this Christmas headband for this party!! OMG! gg and she looks stunning in it! she was also enjoying cookies too...
The older two decided to NOT attend the party this year! lol I guess being teenagers and all....

At the party they had about 6 of these blow up animals. Sarah's goal for the night was to have her picture taken with each one!!! sigh....I wont bore you with each one. This one was the cutest. It was tough getting good pictures with 50 kids running around the place. lol
Here is Joshua getting his gift from that guy that wouldnt let him sit on his lap. lol The other kids ran off to quickly so they missed the picture. And yes, Joshua does have his shirt on backwards....Some things are not worth fighting about.....lol He also likes to wear his undies backwards.....and his pants....lol
We also had a birthday, Jacob turned 14 He invited his friend over and they played video games all afternoon. They came up to eat and open presents. Josh for some reason decided to tackle Jacob...you never know what to expect from Josh...
Jacob and Emily were invited to a bday party at a horse barn. They got to groom and ride horses. Jacob being Jacob didn't know it was at a barn and i forgot to remind him to take his allergy medicine....Jacob is extremely allergic to horses....He really likes horses and still had a good time even though he was miserable. Here is Jacob with his horse and partner.
Here is Emily with her horse and partner. Emily has taken lessons in the past, she was disappointed she wasn't able to ride by herself...but she got over it! lol I think it was the smell of horses that helped. lol
Look how strong my ds is!!! lol He must have been a very good boy this year to receive such enormous presents.....lol
They are actually empty boxes. lol Someone had a Christmas party at our church and these were some decorations that were left behind.
We also made cookies...We used a LOT of flour this day....Here is Timothy serious about making cookies.....
Josh being a spaz about making cookies....
Look at all that flour....sigh....
Sarah trying to be as careful as she can. These were special cookies for Santa. Although i think she knows that daddy really eats them.
Ohhh...flour in the eye.....I really didn't feel sorry for him. Not after tossing flour everywhere....I did make him suffer while i got a good picture. LOL
I wanted to share some special ornaments on our tree. I don't have any from when i was a kid, but i have some special ones from recent. I received this one from my friend Diane in NE. Each year the email list we are on has an ornament exchange. I haven't had a chance to ask, but i am positive this was hand carved. It is very pretty, Thank you Diane! :o)
This is the PIF gift i received from LisaV. I couldn't wait to put it on my tree. I looks beautiful! When the tree comes down i will have to find a special place for it in my sewing area so i can admire it all year long.

Here are some favorite ornaments of mine. They are clear with sparkly snowflakes. I have several different shapes and sizes of them.

This was a gift to dh and i this year. I had never seen a Luther's Rose ornament before. We like it a lot.

And my last ornament was also a gift this year. Isn't she adorable? :o) I collect Cherished Teddies...well used to. Don't have the $$ or space too much any more. lol But i do love them. :o)

So other than that I was running WAY behind Christmas Eve I was baking and wrapping gifts all day. We didn't even eat lunch that day. We nibbled on cookies though....and we ended up getting Mc D's for dinner on the way to church. lol
Christmas was good. We have this tradition of having Cinnamon rolls for breakfast on Christmas day. So while the Cinnamon rolls were baking the kids opened their gifts. They seemed very pleased with what they got even though it wasn't much. I did happen to find a Wii Fit a few days before Christmas and was thrilled about that. They kids were even more thrilled when they opened it! :oD They have been exercising each day....mom on the other hand hasn't.... :o/ Of course mom had to work over the weekend and hasn't recovered yet. lol Always an excuse, i know....

For several weeks a friend and i have been trying to get together. We had a Hobby Lobby/Pannera day planned. I had never been in a Hobby Lobby before and one recently opened near her house. Today finally was a good day for both of us, so we went shopping and our kids visited at her house while we went out. We hit the stamping dept first so we were sure to have all our energy for that dept. lol We were there for several hours and never got to see everything in the store! I guess we will have to plan Pt 2. lol
I got a really cute (clear) stamp set. It is my first clear set, SU never promoted clear stamps so while selling SU i never even bothered with them. Now i can do as I please. lol I also got some Christmas verse stamps, now i don't have to print them off the computer! I got some really cute paper and some supplies that I had run out of. I suppose now that means i have to clean my stamp area so i can make some cute cards.....
Always something....I wish Christmas break was longer.....

One last thing before i end this extremely long post! A friend of mine from work told me that she had talked to a mgr about seasonal employees. As far as i know her and i are 2 of 10 that are going to be kept on! :o) I haven't heard it "officially" but I am on the next schedule and other seasonal employees are not. I am sad for them, but happy for me. I know it had to be a very difficult decision! There were so many good workers hired for the season. I am not sure how many but there was a LOT! I am happy because I have been making good progress on paying medical bills! Hours for January are sparse, but they should pick up in a few weeks.
Thanks for reading! I know this was long. I hope you all have a safe and Happy New Year! :o)

Seeing Santa

2008-12-24T11:42:00.006-05:00

Earlier in the month we went to a cub scout Christmas party. Santa made an appearance and gave the kids each a gift. since there were so many kids, Santa didn't get a chance to talk to each child or let the kids sit on his lap. We have never really pushed the Santa issue and I didn't even know that Joshua knew who Santa was....After he was handed his gift and Santa was ready for the next family, Joshua started to cry. When we got back to our table i asked him was was wrong. He said "I didn't get to sit in that guys lap!" Now he didn't know what the guys name was, but he knew that you were suppose to sit on his lap! LOL
I decided to take him to the mall to sit on Santa's lap. Sarah decided she wanted to go to, so the three of us went. We went early in the morning, I was surprised to find no one in line. Santa greeted the kids even before we were in line and the kids were able to go right up and sit on his lap. They must have sat and talked for 10 minutes before other kids got in line. I am not sure what all they talked about, i am sure it was good! lol Joshua refused to look at Santa's face, but he did talk to him a bit. Now he is happy he got to sit on that guys lap and that guy gave him a sucker so now he can sleep at night. lol
See the green and red bowl looking thing next to Sarah? that was the sucker holder! It was full of pretty colored suckers. Hundreds of them! After we couldn't resist the scent of Auntie Anne's any longer....and i happened to have a coupon for a free pretzel. :o) Mmmm...I *love* Auntie Anne's.......

The city offers a program where you take a wrapped gift to city hall and on a designated day Santa will come on a fire truck and give your child the present. Since we never pushed the Santa issue, we never did it. This year a child a few houses down from us was on Santa's route. I took Joshua out on the porch to see Santa and the fire truck. Since Santa didn't bring Joshua a present Joshua said "That guy hates me!" and he cried. lol Dad came to the rescue and told him those kids wont be home when Santa comes so they get their presents early. He will get his presents on Christmas day. lol He accepted that and went about his business of destruction. lol

Thanks for reading! I wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

Another Twilight spoof...

2008-12-11T09:25:00.003-05:00

OMG!!! This is the funniest thing ever!!! Even if you don't like Twilight, you should watch this. Please tell me you will....

And thanks to my dd, for NOT sharing this with me first....shes just jealous cause i put the first one on my blog before her! :oP Oh, yeah! I got this one to load on my blog and you didn't! :oP LOL Pretty bad when your mom can do it and you cant! :o) love you!

The Birthday Boy!!!

2008-12-08T15:01:00.003-05:00

Yesterday was Jacobs 14th birthday!!! I just cant believe he is 14.... It seems like just yesterday he was a little boy, and now we stand eye to eye. A day he has been eagerly awaiting.
It was a quiet day, but enjoyable. (I hope for him also) He had a friend over and they played video games for hours. Occasionally he would come up from the basement and make an appearance.
His birthday cake request was a delicious choice. I had made this dessert for Thanksgiving and he enjoyed it so much he requested it for his birthday cake. I doubled the recipe and made a crust of crushed Oreo cookies and made it in a 9X13 pan. You can find the recipe here...
It has been such a joy to watch him grow and mature into a young man. I cant wait to see what the future holds for him. I love you Jacob! :o)

You can see his dads post about his bday here

Catching up...

2008-12-02T19:27:00.005-05:00

I have gotten behind on life again...lol so blogging (and reading blogs) have suffered. Tonight when i should be doing something else i though i would take the time to post a few pictures of things have been up to.
A while back i made some PJ pants for the older boys. I have been meaning to post pictures, but I always think about taking a picture when they are already dressed for the day. Finally one morning i remembered. lol Aren't they perfect angels??

Of course we had to get through this.....

and this.....before we get the perfect brothers pose.

My two teenagers are planning on attending a Lutheran youth conference in the spring with some other teens from our Church. The kids started doing some fundraising to help pay their way. This past week they had a bake sale after Church during a pot luck luncheon. I tried to take pictures of all the goodies the kids were selling, but for some reason my batteries never charged for my camera and i couldn't take any pictures. :o/ There were some yummy things, the kids are off to a good start with fundraising.
I have tons of stamping stuff from my Stampin Up days...so i pulled some of that stuff out and made some ornaments to sell at the bake sale. I suppose that makes it a Bake sale and Ornament sale.....
These are really fun and easy to make. We sold quite a few of them. I also made some of these....Not as easy as the previous ones...but they were a bigger hit. I think we sold most of these. Sorry, I couldn't get a good picture, the glass ball was impossible!

And then there are the domino ornaments. These were fun to make. Emily, Sarah and I sat down one evening and worked on them. After they dried, I spent a day doing the gold leafing on the edges, another day i did I put on the ribbon and another day i tied bows. It was a long process since we did so many. They seemed to be a hit too. We have a lot of them left over, I am not sure what i am going to do with the left overs. lol Our Church has a pot luck each month, so i hope to sell some more next month.
Of course if anyone is interested in purchasing any of them I could send you some for a donation to our youth group. :o)

Over the weekend we had a (blogger) tea party. Jane and most of her family were traveling through the area and stopped to visit. Barb K was the hostess that came up with the Tea Party idea. Friday night she hosted a family gathering. My family attended, but i had to work. But i heard about many interesting things that happened that night! lol
I almost missed the Tea party because i didn't pay attention to the time. I guess i assumed it was at night and i had to work. Luckily i thought to ask the time and it was in the afternoon. Barb had some delicious things at her Tea Party, like pumpkin scones, little chicken sandwiches, cherry scones and fruit. I cant remember what else, but it was good. And it was fun!

So here are all the moms from left to right is Barb M , me , Jane , Marie , and Barb K.

Since my camera was acting up that day i didn't get any pictures of the girls. Perhaps one day Barb K will blog about her Tea party and post them! :o)

Dimlight-funny spoof off Twilight

2008-11-25T15:32:00.005-05:00

I'm Back! Did ya miss me??
The past few weeks I've been obsessed with Twilight. lol My 16yo dd got me hooked! In about a 3 week period i read all four books. The last one being over 700 pages. It is so addicting and i didn't have any self control (as dh put it) and every possible minute i had to read. (or be with Edward, dh again) I didn't take it to church...didn't think that was a good idea. lol But i took it everywhere else that i may have a few minutes to read.
It all started when a fellow home school mom sent out a warnning about the Twilight books! I knew Emily had been reading them, so I asked her what they were about. She tried to explain but it really didn't make any sense. I stopped her and told her that was good enough, no harm.
During Sarah's ballet class i would normally go out walking. Sometimes i would walk around the square 5 times, and still be back to the studio before she was finished with class. Sometimes I would wander out into the neighborhood and still be back in time.
The weather started to get cold and rainy so on the way out the door one day I asked Emily for a good book to read during class. She giggled and handed me Twilight. Sarah was off to class and I started to read. The next thing i knew Sarah was back. I thought perhaps she needed to use the restroom, but she said "no". I asked her if she got in trouble and was sent out of class....but she said "No!" :o/ She was finished with class! The time went by so quickly I was totally amazed! lol From there it was all down hill. I just couldn't put the book down, so I figured as soon as I finish them the sooner i can get back to my life. lol So now I am finished. :o)
Yesterday dd and i went to see the movie. It was really good but like any other book turned movie they had to leave stuff out.
Emily found this spoof off Twilight and we thought it was SO funny! I hope you think this is as funny as we did! :o)
Now that I am finished with all the books and have seen the movie, I should be back to blogging and reading blogs soon! :o)

My job again

2008-11-14T08:54:00.002-05:00

I discovered two things that i don't like about my job....

1) Once the schedule is posted, they can go back and change it. They don't take days away...but they can add days to your schedule without even telling you!

2)Working in soft lines! It never fails, i go through the dept trying to make it look perfect and a customer comes over and messes up everything up!

Ahh the joys of working retail! :o)
deb

A thing of beauty....

2008-11-11T13:23:00.015-05:00

Thanks to the guys at

Broadview Heating

for a job well done!

We got our new furnace/heat pump installed yesterday! Our old furnace was 50 some years old! With the temps dropping we were glad to hear they were coming early. It has been pretty cold in the house. We didn't want to turn on the old furnace this year so we bundled up.
This heat pump stuff is new to me, I only know that in the winter it will keep us warm and in the summer it will keep us cool! :o) Plus it will save us tons of money. lol Up until now we have only had window AC and an old, noisy tired furnace....
The guys arrived close to the time they said they would be here and quickly got to work. We were very please with the customer service that we received. I was surprised when i heard them sweeping up their mess in the basement. lol They left our house in the same condition that they found it. The one guy even offered to wash and paint our wall for us! lol Not really, but we tried! But if anyone really does want to come wash walls and paint common over!!! :o)
I think in the spring we are going to put a little fence around it. The guy warned us to not let the dog lift his leg on it. The dog is pretty good at not doing that, but you never know....but a cute fence with some flowers would be nice. :o) lol too bad i come up with all this stuff in my head, but cant seem to get it out. lol
Enjoying being warm today.....

My new job

2008-11-06T08:33:00.003-05:00

I started my new job this week at Target. Monday i trained on the registers. It was scary at first, but i quickly got the hang of it. Did you know that lip balm is a chemical and should NOT be placed in a bag with food! It should go with non food items instead......

Tuesday i trained on the sales floor in electronics/toys/housewares/sporting goods. (BIG dept) I arrived at 5 and was taken to meet my trainer. He just happened to be going to lunch at 5, so another guy gave me a scanner and gave me a quick rundown of how to use it. Then he gave me a shopping cart full of stuff to re-shop. Then he disappeared and i never saw him again until much later. When my trainer got back from lunch i showed him the things i couldn't find. We just kept working on carts until everything was put away. Then we had to zone (clean) our dept. Not too bad but it will be crazy at Christmas time!
One really freaky thing i learned in the toy dept is about these cute little baby dolls...
The shelves are full of these cute baby dolls. When you walk buy them they all start wiggling and cooing at you. Every little girl would want to have one of these dolls they are so adorable! But eventually a phrase comes out that totally blows you away!! One of the phrases they are programed to say is "Islam is the light" I am not kidding!!! It is really freaky! FP denies the fact that the dolls say anything like that! They insist it is baby gurgle. You can watch this youtube clip if you wanna....the dolls voice has not been enhanced. It really says it clear as day! Next time you are in the toy dept you should check it out for yourself. You WILL be freaked out! lol

Last night i trained in soft lines. Another big dept! Woman's, men's, infants, boys, girls, shoes, bras, handbags and jewelry.....whew! Mostly i stayed in infants and women's. All night we just kept refolding, rehanging and putting stuff away. It was harder since in the toys the scanner would tell me the exact location of the item. In clothing, as far as i know, the scanner does not. It was frustrating trying to find where some of the stuff went. When actually it really didn't have a place so....I didn't mind working in infants, but woman's wasn't as much fun....I suppose once i learn the dept i would like it better...The ladies in soft lines really liked me and requested that they keep me! lol They said that i am really productive! :o) The store mgr said i did a very good job in infants!

Over all it is not too bad. Working here is so much nicer than at Joanns. Target is so laid back and nice about everything. (unlike Joanns) For instance, there was a problem with my schedule. I was scheduled on a day that i requested off. I talked to the scheduling lady and showed her where it said in my file that i needed the day off for my stamp class. I told her i could change my class to the next week if she could give me that day off instead. She was very nice about it and even apologized. Then she suggested that i turn in a request off slip instead, that way it is in the computer and she will see it each month. At Joanns requesting off was worse than getting a tooth pulled! lol And breaks! They allow you take your breaks! At joanns breaks were considered a privilege! (law or no law)
Also during your break you are allowed to shop if you want. (sounds dangerous!) lol I asked about that because at Joanns, only the mgr could ring you out and you had to have your bag stapled and kept at customer service. When your shift was over your bags and purse had to be inspected.
At target, anyone can ring you out and you can keep your packages to your locker. When you leave for the evening they smile and say "Thank you!" with a smile. Funny how being nice to your employees makes friendly employees.....
I am just hoping my back holds up! I have noticed after about 4.5-5 hours my back really starts to hurt! (last spring i had sciatica and found out i also have arthritis in my back) I hope it I can last through the season. I may have to request shorter shifts if it gets too bad.

With my training this week and being tired during the day for school, I have been very crabby! lol I haven't had much time to read blogs lately. I have the next two days off so i hope to catch up then. :o)

2008-11-05T10:13:00.003-05:00

Ohhh...my apples were tasty! My six apples sure went along way! I ended up not only making a pie....

I made a pie like thing in a 9 X13 pan. It has a pie crust on bottom, crumb topping with caramel. This one seems to be the favorite.
But i still had left over apples....so i was going to make apple crisp, but found out too late that i didn't have any oats. I was going to use instant oatmeal, but we didn't have any of that either. So it's basically apple with crumb topping.
And to let you in on a little secret.....I don't like pie! I like to make it for my family, but i never eat it! In fact i wont eat any of these.

We also got fresh potatoes at the pumpkin farm. Fresh from the ground! :o) They made delicious mashed potatoes! :o) But i had to run off to work so i didn't get a pic or to enjoy them. :o(Sunday while they guys were watching football, i took the girls to the mall! It was a special treat because we NEVER go to the mall. We just cant afford it. We had 1 rule and that was No rushing! lol I had to remind Sarah a few times of that rule when Emily was looking at stuff.
And this is what happens (again) when CP gets ahold of my camera. At least they weren't rushing me! They each got headbands at hot topic. (lol) $3 on the clearance rack. While i was trying on coats they took pixs of themselves with their new headbands.
It was heart warming to see them getting along so well and having fun together. There is 10 years between them.
Well someplace i have a picture of fabric spread out all over the floor. A woman at my church asked me about making some baby quilts for charity. A ladies group she is in is collecting them. It felt it was something i could do and i knew i had tons of fabric to do it with. So I got out what i call **"my ugly" fabric and started matching it up. We separated it in groups of 3 fabrics that matched. I originally was going to do a super nine patch, but my ugly fabric is in various sizes and with the nine patch it asks for 1 yard pieces. I tried to adjust the pattern but it got too confusing working with 38 sets. I knew i would never remember what was missing or what was a different size. So i changed to cutting it all into 5 " squares. I really like how that looks! It looks so much nicer than the nine patch. The nine patch is great with pretty fabric, but not with ugly fabric. lol
So i have been spending some time cutting 5 " squares. So far i estimate i have 1, 000 squares cut. And I am only half way through my box! It doesn't look like that many, but it is.

**My ugly fabric isn't really ugly...Well some if it is, but that is another story. I call it ugly because it is not the bright pretty new stuff that they sell now. All together in a box i think it looks ugly. when we separated it and matched it up it is not so ugly.

Here is Sarah getting her award for Cheer leading. She decided on the last day to open up and be talkative. lol
It is not a real good picture... this is the card I made for Coach Dean to thank him for a terrific season. I just love this stamp set. :o)
And one last picture....Here are some of the kids on Halloween. Timothy went as a flag football player. Joshua wore a handmedown dragon costume and Sarah went as "queen devil" lol She changed her mind so many times....Emily didn't dress up this year, but she walked with us for a while until Rascal got too freaked out. Jacob didn't dress up at all, he's 13 ya know! lol

Champions Crowned!

2008-11-03T13:31:00.000-05:00

Champions Crowned!

The World Champions of the Viking Division, i9 of Summit County Football league were crowned on Saturday. Not surprisingly, the All Star Assassins continued their dominating ways and took the trophy in a 28-13 route of the Buckeyes. After last week's 7-6 near-loss to the Buckeyes, the All Star Assassins had a tough week of practices and workouts to prepare for the championship game. None of the players were seen together during the week, so the rigorous regimen must have been a closely guarded secret at a secret training facility.

The hard work paid off though, as the Assassins came ready to play, and to win. Coach Dean put the boys through their paces in a pre-game workout stressing a new multi-purpose offensive formation which he called extensively during the game.

All the weapons of the Assassins were used in a Buckeye-cracking display of shock and awe. Wide receivers Dale and Billy made several catch-and-runs for big yardage. Tight end Timmy made a crucial third down catch across the middle of the field. Running back Zac "The Truck" pounded the Buckeyes line into meal with some good old fashioned smashmouth football. Deano and Justin alternated quarterback duties, with Deano being the more mobile and Justin in for the long-bomb plays, and Dashawn was the Assassins' center, ready for the quick outlet in case of blitz.

Zac, "The Truck" makes tacklers miss on his way to the end-zone.

Timmy, Cornerback for the Assassins, instructs a Buckeye receiver about respect at the end of a screen pass.

After their victory, the Assassins were rewarded with pizza and each boy received a trophy. While every team got pizzas, only the champs got trophies.

The Assassins are looking at a long off-season of weight rooms and wind sprints. Spring season starts in April.

And once again swipped from dh's blog..... :o)

Blog Giveaway andRamdom silliness....Part 2

2008-11-03T08:40:00.008-05:00

Mary Anne over at Moonbeams had a Halloween giveaway and i won! :o) The package arrived in time for Halloween but i have been so busy i haven't had a chance to thank her!!!
There were so many fun things in the package. THANK YOU Mary Anne!

Sarah decided her favorite thing was the witch head on a stick.
Joshua decided his favorite thing was the Pez dispenser...... I haven't seen it since! lol

While at the pumpkin farm i spotted this pumpkin. (or it could be a gourd, not sure) but i knew i just had to have it! Since it was so late in the season i got a good deal on it! $1! Dh said it was ugly, but i think it is cool! Of course the I choose the half green pumpkin too. lol
This is what happens when the cursed photographer gets a hold of my camera...

On the way home from the Pumpkin farm, i saw a sign for an apple orchard/market. Luckily there was no one behind me and i slammed on the breaks and headed off to the apple orchard. Since everyone was cold and exhausted, Timothy and i went into the market to buy some apples. I cant for the life of me remember the kind of apples we got...but they are huge! This was the superstar apple of the bunch!

I really wish i had a scale to weigh this bad boy! It stands 4 1/4" and the circumference is 15"
Here he is with my pumpkins....and keeping warm....
The yellow apple is a golden delicious apple purchased at the grocery store and was one of the biggest in the bin. My orchard apples are about twice the size

.

OK...i wont bore you any longer with my apple pictures....at least not until i turn those bad boys into a pie! :o)

While at the apple place, i found this Christmas recipe book. It had some yummy recipes so I had to get it. There were several others, but i had to use self discipline and only choose one. lol

My favorite ice cream....Yum!
and my favorite PBS show....

Ramdom silliness....

2008-10-31T09:40:00.014-05:00

Kids and Pets

This is an average day at our house....I don't normally post pics of the older kids...(sorry older kids!) the younger ones are normally doing something silly or cute....

Well, here is Emily...She was doing her school work until I disturbed her. She is smiling so i guess i wasn't bugging her too much!

Here is Jacob, as usual he is goofing off instead of doing school! LOL

Timothy decided the space heater was his best friend. He chose the best spot in the house on a cold day! :o)Here is Sarah, she is participating in an online class. She signs into the school website and attends class. For her age they are fun classes. During book club the teacher reads the kids a book and then they talk about it. Normally each student gets a chance to talk on the mic.

Here is Josh. Lately he has chosen to stay in his jammies all day! :o) This day he has decided to play with trucks in the kitchen.
This is Rascal our dog. He is so sweet and innocent isn't he!? If you notice in the lower right corner...that is a cat. lol He isn't as innocent as he looks! He loves to play leap cat (instead of leap frog)
This is our cat Oreo. He is a big ball of fluff! he likes to sleep in my fabric stash. He doesn't like Rascal, so he is good at finding hiding spots. When he does decide to come out of hiding, he is cuddly and mushy. When he was a kitten he didn't know how to purr. Eventually he learned but when he gets going he drools. lol

Our last pet is Tippy. She is a strange cat. She *hates* to be held. If you pick her up she will growl and puts on her angry face! But when i go to bed at night she is the first to cuddle up with me! Occasionally she will leave me and go to dh instead. She will even sleep under the covers with us. She is sweet unless you pick her up!
Now onto the Farm!
Yesterday we went on a field trip with some other homeschoolers to a Pumpkin/potato farm. yesterday was also the first day of snow for NE Ohio! (brr...) Regardless of the temps, we had a good time!
Joshua *loved* this part of the trip! It is a duck race game. You place your duck on the starting line and pump the water to make your duck swim to the finish line. He was soaked and cold but he didn't care. He was having too much fun!

Emily wanted to take this little guy home! I think we need a dairy cow instead. lol He sure was cute. He loved to have his chin scratched.
Here are Sarah and Emily inside a pumpkin....
I wanted to snuggle up to this guy! He looked so warm in his wool sweater.
Choo choo.....A train isn't safe with Josh around!

Here is Emily doing a kiddie hay maze. I guess she shouldn't be to tall.
Jacob had a good time burying his brother in the corn wagon
Aww...and Sarah and Josh snuggling up to a scarecrow.

Poor thing got his gloves wet so he had to go without. Remember it was COLD!!! His poor little hands. :o(

Princess Sarah in her pumpkin coach! Timothy wast happy being a mouse....lol
I made him do it for his sister.

This was fun! A John Deer hay tractor!
And the last pic is of all 5 kids together. Just so you didn't think I was taking random pictures of strangers kids. Yes, they are all mine! :o)
Come back tomorrow to see more!

Championship Football in NE Ohio

2008-10-28T08:21:00.001-05:00

I love this post my dh wrote on Timothy's championship game. I hope he doesn't mind that i swiped it from his blog! :o)

Championship Football in NE Ohio

Yes, we have a championship team here in North East Ohio. The champs will be crowned Saturday at Sagamore Hills Township Park. The top-seeded All Star Assassins(12-0) will be playing the victor of the championship semi-final between the Lightning Bolts (3-7) and the Buckeyes (2-8).

Assassins' tight-end and sometimes-quarterback Timmy says to get ready for the game he's stretching, playing catch, and running. Defensive tripple-threat cornerback Timmy says he's been practicing pulling flags from his opponents.

"The lightning bolts are very easy," said Timmy, "but the Buckeyes are harder. They have two big kids almost Jacob's size. We have to be ready for crazy trick plays like this!" he said as he struck the classic "Statue of Liberty" pose.

The semi-final round is Saturday, November 1st at 10:00AM, followed at 11:00AM by the Championship. Games will be held at Sagamore Hills Township Park on Valley View road in northwestern Summit county. Come on down and cheer on the champs!

Not much new...

2008-10-25T16:56:00.004-05:00

Not much new has been happening. Same old stuff. Each day the kids ask if we are doing anything...I always say "YES! School!" What else would we do? I am not sure why we have to go over this each day, but we do!
Over the past few months we have been doing some major de-cluttering. We got rid of a lot of stuff and moved some furniture around to make more space in our living room. It is nice having all the extra space. We have done work in the basement also, but i always forget to take pictures, so its not the same. lol We still have a lot yet to do!
Since school started we haven't been doing as much in the basement. We started doing some work in the kitchen, I need to go through and get rid of the dishes and things we never use. Less things = more space....and we could use more space! :)

I also did some work outside, moving plants and stuff. Only to find that i will have to move them again..sigh...but it's for a good reason...
I keep admiring this bush we have in front of our house. Of all the years we have lived here, I never remember is being so pretty! Of course it may have to do with us taking out an big ugly bush that was growing on top of it. (you can still see the stump, we haven't gotten that out yet)I was working on that flower bed a while back. I quit when i happened upon a bees nest. That wasn't fun...I have been tossing black eyed Susan and Daisy seeds in that bed. I have a bunch of them growing in the back. Since i don't know what to do with the bed and i have those seeds available I figured, why not!

Here is one of the embroidery projects I was working on. These napkins were a birthday gift for mil. I thought they were still a little plain, so i added a corner flower on the opposite corner. It didn't look as great as i thought it would......of course i forgot to take a picture of that. I also forgot to take pictures of the embroidery projects i sent out for my PIF gifts....I am starting to think i need something to help my brain function properly. Any ideas? lol

I saw this sign at the grocery store and thought it was funny. The other day when i was there with my son, he talked me into getting it. lol

I guess i do have some new news to share! I got a job. I decided to get a part-time job to help pay off some medical bills. I applied at Target last Sat and they called me on Monday for an interview. I had that on Tuesday and go for training this Tuesday. It is a seasonal job, so after the holidays i should be done. They said sometimes they keep people on, so we'll see how it goes. I am fine with it either way .... :o)

PIF and other gifts...

2008-10-21T14:37:00.002-05:00

A while back i blogged about a PIF challenge. I only had one person sign up to receive a PIF gift from me, and i needed a total of six. I decided to send out the remaining five gifts to random people...It helped that i had their addresses. I mailed out 5 packages today. If for some reason i do have your address, you should watch your mail box! :o)
If i did send you a gift and you did not sign up for may PIF, you are under NO obligation to participate. My gift to you!
Angie, if you need the guidlines for your PIF challenge, you can see that here....

2008-10-16T07:04:00.003-05:00

This info was posted on the original Fall into Fall blog post, I am posting it here in case you missed it below. :)

Thanks to everyone that entered my Fall into Fall giveaway! I have a winner! :o) Are you ready?

The winner of my giveaway is Carin

Congratulations!!! Please contact me with your mailing address and i will get you bag out to you soon! :o)

If anyone is interested I have a few more of these bags that i am selling for $20 includes shipping in the US. Out of the US please contact me for shipping rates. :o) You can see them here...
Thanks!

PIF and other ramblings...

2008-10-14T12:08:00.005-05:00

This is a PIF gift that i received from Lisa V I have to copy what she said about it because i do not know cross stitch language. lol

"It is a mini biscornu that I turned into a fob and added a little flower embellishment to the top. It was a freebie design online and I used a variegated dmc floss and a small pink button for the middle"

Anyway, it is very lovely! Thank you Lisa!!!
(I used her picture too, my camera isn't taking good pictures these days...)

My Pumpkin Basket

I wanted to share my pumpkin basket with you. I actually made this basket in a class! I love it, it is my favorite basket. I took a class several years ago. The woman that taught the classes got all famous and stuff and went on to bigger and better things.

Do you know what tomorrow is!?

Tomorrow is the day of the drawing for the Fall Into Fall giveaways! Did you enter? If not it is not to late to do so! Go here for the list

Also if anyone is interested, I have a few more Quilted Tote Bags that i am selling after my giveaway drawing tomorrow. You can see them here. Contact me for details! :)

Sewing has come to a halt...

My sewing machine is not happy today. Yesterday i was working on a special project, I got half way through and decided i better stop. Dh says it smells like it is the belt. I hope that is all it is!

I hope my viking guy can fix it without needing to send it in for repairs! I will post pictures next week of my special project! :o)

Alien Abduction?

That is what the radio DJ thinks happened to the Browns last night!!! Aliens came and took away our Browns and left this winning team in its place. What else could it be? How embarrassing for the Giants! We're talking the Browns here! What did they have for dinner last night? Hmm...or perhaps the Giants were bribed? lol Whatever it was, I have one happy 9yo football fan in the house today! lol

Explaining it all...

2008-10-10T06:28:00.003-05:00

I am sorry i confused some of you with the store closing part of my post. I had been blogging on and off since January about the shopping center. But here is the short version. lol
The shopping center was built on an old trash dump. It is obvious that they didn't wait long enough or take the proper steps in planning. There have been problems from the beginning.
I worked at Joann's for 18 months until they closed this past April. They were the first store to pull out. We had problems with methane and in the spring when the ground began to thaw, the alarm was going off several times a week. The ground settled and causes structural problems as well.
It appears that slowly other stores are pulling out as well! Now when a WalMart closes you know something has to be up! Have you ever seen a Walmart close!? lol
The EPA has filed lawsuits against the city for with how they are dealing with the Methane issues. (or not dealing) Which the mayor is letting the tax payers cover his butt.
Across the freeway was going to be another shopping center, but they cant move forward until the legal issues the CV are taken care of! It is a big mess!
You are more than welcome to go back and read the old posts if you really want to! lol
I tried to go back and label them all CV.

Long photo post! :o)

2008-10-08T14:58:00.009-05:00

After a very blustery day, I found my scarecrow in "time out"! lol I thought it was rather funny and giggled each time i saw her.

I decided to let her out of time out and added our pumpkins to her set up. That funny green stuff growing is corn. On top of that green pole is a bird feeder. The corn started growing late summer, ds decided to let it grow. So now i don't need to buy corn stalks this fall! lol

for some reason i cant seem to locate my "fall" decorations...I'm sure last year i put them someplace safe where i would remember...
When i was at Joann's last week i spotted these cute fabric pumpkins, I had to have them! at $1.49 ea. I think i did well! Also considering i got out of Joann's spending less than $8. lol Which dh is always happy to hear! lol
So I got out my Fall Cherished Teddies and that will have to do....I will probably find my Fall stuff in the spring.....
Here is a pic of our new couch! Not really....it is still our old "garage sale" couch. With 5 kids and 3 pets, it was really getting disgusting! lol I decided to purchase a cover, since we cant afford a new couch right now. I knew Bed, Bath and Beyond had them for $60 (which is the cheapest one) plus i had a 20% off coupon. I originally was going to get the blue one (matched better) then I found this olive one on the clearance rack for $30!! I couldn't pass up that deal! I asked an employee why it was on clearance, he said because someone took it out of the package and they couldn't get it back in to look perfect, So it goes on the clearance rack! It matches pretty well...It is still better looking than what is underneath! lol On Tuesdays when Sarah is at Ballet, I normally go walking. This week the weather was nice, so i decided to take Joshua with me. (and his scooter) We were walking (scootering) around the town square. He was being so cute, plus he had my attention 100% which is hard to come by with 4 siblings. lol I started talking his picture and he started to ham it up. I took tons of pictures, he kept finding things he wanted his picture taken with!
I took tons of these pictures. He had to have is picture taken with each pumpkin, and there must have been 20!
I am really enjoying this stage. He no longer is a "Terrible two" (with a capital T) He is mostly pleasant and enjoyable to be around. Less tantrums and screaming! More fun and he comes up with the craziest stuff! His imagination really is something!

Also on Tuesday, i had the pleasure to take Timothy to cub scouts. (it would have been more enjoyable if the other boys behaved like Timothy!) They were making go-carts! Timothy was so excited! Too bad the other kids were acting like wild maniacs! Timothy is a quiet kid and normally just sits quietly un noticed while the other boys run wild. It got dark so they weren't able to race them (they made 2) They are suppose to race after church Sunday, but we go to another church....so Timothy may not get to go. :o/

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST!!Yesterday the "store closing" sign went up at PetSmart! What were these people thinking!?!? So while i was in the shopping center, which i don't go too often, i decided to take some photos...

This was/is the Dollar Tree. It is connected to PetSmart.
All building in the shopping center came to a halt last fall. Sometime in the spring they took the store sign down and put up the board across the opening.

Here is what used to be WalMart....They are still packing stuff up and taking to other stores. It was a huge store!
Here is what has become of Joann's old space....lol
This is the partial shell of a building that is across the parking lot from the old Joann. I cant remember if it was going to be a restaurant or another store...
This empty space was where Home Depot was going to go...HD was the only Co. that sent their own people in to test the land. They pulled out before building!
These are funny! The mounds of dirt have high levels of Methane in them. They originally had the generators in the sewer drains on the sidewalks. they have since replaced the solid manhole covers with grated ones on the sidewalks. So now they can take the generators and place them in the dirt to exhaust the methane.....?
Here are a few smaller stores that have closed. Mattress matters and next door was some kind of Urban clothing store....
Across the freeway is where Bridgeview shopping center was going to go. That used to be a housing development. They paid off all the residents and leveled their homes. JCPenny, Target,Restaurants, hotels, Aldi, i think Lowe's and other stores were going to be built there. With all the legal issues with CV, building at BV has been tied up. Building there stopped last fall too.
Here is the bridge that BV overlooks.
And here is the city that CV sometimes overlooks. It was pretty rainy yesterday, as you can probably tell....lol
Did you notice my Wordle? It is a fun thing, it takes popular words off your blog and makes a Wordle. I predicted that LOL would be on that list! and it is, in BIG letters! Also making my Wordle was 2sistersandme and Melzie! lol

Fun Stuff

2008-10-03T14:59:00.005-05:00

I was pleasantly surprised by a packaged delivered to my door the other day! I had won a fleece blanket that Melzie was giving away! I was surprised to find all sorts of goodies in the box! she sent several Halloween fabrics (I need suggestions for a cute Halloween project!!!) Two patterns, cute blocks that spell LOVE and the fleece blanket with Teddy Bears! I LOVE Teddy Bears!!! :o) The blanket came in real handy Saturday at ds's football game! It was SO cold! I was glad i grabbed the blanket as i ran out the door! THANK YOU MELZIE!!!!

As I was downloading the pictures of my package from Melzie, I found several other pictures that i don't remember taking! I guess one of the kids got a hold of my camera and had some fun! lol I have two guilty suspects in mind! lol
I decided to share them because they are kinda fun! lol I haven't been sewing lately, i guess i am at a low point with sewing. I *want* to sew...Just don't have anything I *want* to sew.
So here is an interesting picture of our dining room light.
A toy that came out of the cereal box....don't ask me who it is cause i don't know....
Here are some of the deer we had in our yard the other day. There were 6 all together.
Here are some marshmallow monsters that Sarah and I made. (mostly me!) She quickly discovered why i was trying to give these away! They are not easy for 6 yo! she got discouraged and i ended up finishing them.
Not once all summer did my rose bloom! Fall arrives and it finally bloomed. It only lasted a few days since it was so cold this past week. Now it is brown and ugly....

Ahh...my sweet angel! Isn't he adorable! lol
I assume my football crazed ds took this picture....

and then my new ballerina probably took this. This was her ballet homework assignment. lol
Cookies are baking in the oven, thanks 2sistersandme for giving me the great idea to make cookies!!! :)

Cursed Photography?

2008-10-03T07:06:00.002-05:00

My 16 yo dd has a blog called "Through the eyes of a (cursed) Photographer". She has some awesome pictures posted. I particularity like this one!
she is doing pictures of things in alphabetical order. The pic above was for "D" for dork! LOL! I think it should have been "S" for silly! lol But she isn't to "S" yet....

Fall in to Fall Quilters Blog Giveaway

2008-09-30T13:22:00.005-05:00

Thanks to everyone that entered my Fall into Fall giveaway! I have a winner! :o) Are you ready?

The winner of my giveaway is Carin

Congratulations!!! Please contact me with your mailing address and i will get you bag out to you soon! :o)

If anyone is interested I have a few more of these bags that i am selling for $20 includes shipping in the US. Out of the US please contact me for shipping rates. :o) Thanks!

Wednesday, October 1, will be the first day of the Fall into Fall Quilters Blog Giveaway. I will be giving away a denim/rose quilted tote bag.

To enter my giveaway, leave me a comment starting on October 1, (not before) about "what you love about fall". Any comments that do not include this requirement will not be counted.

A list of all participants in the Fall into Fall Quilters Blog Giveaway are listed at the link. Make sure to visit them all and enter all of the drawings. It is not too late to join us, leave me a comment at the link to be added to the list.

I will draw a winner on October 15th! Good luck to everyone.

Sleeping Angel

2008-09-30T09:12:00.011-05:00

5minutes for Mom is having a contest and is giving away a bedroom set in their "Sleeping Angel" photo contest. The "sleeping angel" must be under the age of 12. You can get the rest of the detail here.

This is Joshua, he is 3. He *loves* his leapster and falls asleep playing it. Notice he still has the stylus in hand. lol I like that the leapster has an auto shut off! Now that was good thinking! lol Joshua is very much an angel when he sleeps! Not usually when he is awake! lol

Please keep your fingers crossed that we win! :o) As much as Sarah wants the Lily Rose bedroom set. Her brother need the Summer breeze bedroom set more! (just don't tell her!) :o)

Birthday Boy!!!

2008-09-30T07:49:00.005-05:00

Today is Timothy's 9th birthday! He is my middle child, and he plays that middle child card all the time. lol It was funny because we couldn't remember how old he was going to be! We had to actually do the math to figure it out. Mom couldn't grasp the thought of him being 9! lol
He has recently become a HUGE football fan. He has grown an extra body part and 95% of the time he has a football in hand. The good boy that he is, he faithfully cheers for the home team....(no further comments! lol)
He loves causing fights with his siblings and always plays innocent! I have a tough time deciding who to discipline since he is always the one left crying. And yes, he is very sensitive. He is also very funny, once you get past the bashful guy. He loves to make us laugh, and those dimples are irresistible! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TIMOTHY!!!

Kids in action

2008-09-24T10:54:00.005-05:00

On Saturday mornings Timothy plays flag football and Sarah has cheerleading. This is the first year for both of them to be participating in sports.
Timothy lives and breaths football! He faithfully cheers on the Cleveland Browns and takes it rather well when they continue to loose....the only time they ever seem to win is when Tim and dad play football on Wii. lol
Each week at football the coach gives one boy an award for the best performance. Timothy was thrilled beyond words to receive an award at his first game! His award was for "The Most Intense Player"
And here is "the most intense player" after he got home....
Sarah was nervous at first about joining cheerleading. She was afraid she wouldn't like it! I told her that it will be girls, pom poms and fun! Whats not to like!? She decided to give it a try and she LOVES it!
This is her leading the girls in a cheer...
Looks like she is having fun..huh?

I'm so lucky!!!

2008-09-23T12:47:00.004-05:00

I while back I joined a bag swap that Linda was having. My bag arrived the other day! I was so excited to finally receive my package. My package came from May Britt in Norway. I absolutely love it! I really didn't give her much to go on...because i like so many colors, i just couldn't choose. I am very happy with what she sent! THANK YOU May Britt!! :o)

Fall in to Fall Quilters Blog Giveaway

2008-09-19T07:06:00.005-05:00

I am happy to announce that i am participating in the "Fall into Fall Quilters Blog Giveaway"!
For all you quilters, take a look and please consider joining in the fun by signing up too! I will be posting about the item i am giving away soon....

Goofing around and some other things...

2008-09-17T07:12:00.006-05:00

This past Sunday i met some friends at Panera for lunch and stamping. We had so much fun! lol Plus the food was yummy! We sat in a smaller room off to the side. No one dared to sit in that room that afternoon. I think we sniffed one to many stamp pads, all the giggling going on. You would think we were school girls giggling over boys. Instead we were giggling over cute cards. lol

Each person created a card and brought all supplies needed for everyone else to make the card. the theme was Fall. Here are the cards we made;
These pumpkins were so cute! Each one was different. Here are 2 random ones....

We have a ballerina in the house!

Sarah began taking ballet classes this week! She is very excited! I was not able to be in the classroom to take her picture, so I took one at home instead...There are 2 other girls in the class. Which is kinda nice because the teacher will be able to give more individual attention that way. She is counting down the days until her next class! School is underway!

It is that time of year again (or is it week) where i tend to get overwhelmed. Trying to juggle a 3yo, 1st grader and 3rd grader is tough. Plus trying to keep tabs on an 8th grader, making sure he is really doing school and not goofing off online.
Since we signed up for online schooling, we are not technically "homeschooling" anymore. Now we "school at home". Some nice things about schooling at home are that the "school" provides your lesson plans and curriculum. I still do most of the lessons with the 1st and 3rd grader. The 8th and 11th grader are suppose to be responsible for their own work. At the end of the week i look over the finished lessons and log hours. In addition, the school provides the children money toward extra activities. That is how we are paying for Ballet classes and soon the boys will be doing snowboarding. Any extra money can go toward anything educational. (ex. books, museums, games...)
The tough part about online schooling is that most communication is done via email. I like face to face when it comes to what *I* need to do. I think it sticks (in my brain) better that way....Or lists, i need a list. Sometimes flipping through 4 different emails i miss one or five. So trying to keep up with what child is doing what on which days tends to get confusing....I am trying to keep lots of lists. I have lists going up everywhere!
Ok, so school was suppose to start an hour ago and i am still in my jammies...better go get dressed for school. :o)

Local Wal Mart Closed!!!

2008-09-15T12:57:00.003-05:00

Just when you thought you had heard the last about City View....
CV is the shopping center that was built on an old landfill. It was the location of the Joann store where i worked up until April. Joann closed that location due to various reasons, one being the methane problems. WalMart announce this morning that the CV location "IS CLOSED!" No warning, it's CLOSED! I guess they have had enough too!
I don't go to CV often because of the dangers, but recently i was there and surprised (not really) to see huge generators with hoses going down into the sewers to exhaust the fumes. I guess the stores are fine (yeah right) but the parking lot has high levels of methane in the sewers. Across the parking lot is a huge mountain of dirt that also contains high levels of methane. Right at the edge of that mountain of dirt is a gas station! (hmm....good thinking!) I had also noticed that on the sidewalks they had replaced the standard manhole covers with grated covers instead.
Still in question is the standing cloudy water that can be found in the parking lot during a drought! A crack in the parking lot that goes from one end to the other.
The EPA is giving the city a hard time (lawsuits mentioned) over problems with the shopping center. It looks almost like a ghost town, since building came to a halt late last year. It is sad to see the shells of the new stores just standing waiting to be finished. They finally took down the sign announcing that the Dollar Tree will be opening soon!
With all the problems with CV, the shopping center across the freeway has been on hold until the problems with CV have been settled....I think the mayor really messed up!! This was his "baby" and would stop at nothing to see this to the end.....I think the end is approaching....but not the ending he wanted!! But don't worry! The tax payers will take care of it......

A day to remember.....

2008-09-11T13:18:00.003-05:00

I know none of us will forget the day of the 9-11 attack on the US. It hardly seems like it was 7 years ago. This morning my 13yo was remembering where we were that morning. He and his older sister were at the Nature Center at a class. I remember my dh calling me and telling me to go get them right NOW and stay put until he gets home! I went to the Nature Center, the class was almost finished. They requested that we NOT take our children out of the class. They were afraid it would upset the other kids. Since the class was almost over I let them stay. At the time we had no idea how serious this was, They obviously didn't either or I am sure they would have let the class out early. Jacob said he remembers wanting to stay awhile and play, but I wouldn't let him. He said he could tell I was upset, so he left quietly.
I remember the weeks following, how quiet it was. We live semi close to an major airport and often the flight pattens go over our house. I had never realize how much noise they make we just don't pay attention to it. How I longed to hear that sound again. Cause if I did, it would mean that things were back to normal. A few times we did hear planes. When we did, we would all run out to see them. They were always military aircraft. I don't remember how long after 9-11 it took for planes to fly again. At the time it seemed like an eternity!

To celebrate our freedom, I decided to share with you some happy things from my week. I won a blog giveaway from Mid-Ohio Knitter here are the goodies I received from her! I need to start looking for a fun quilt pattern to make using these squares! Thank you Vickie!!

Next is my lovely assistant Sarah, she is modeling a bag I make for a swap. I have some goodies that I need to finish before I mail it out. I kinda like how it turned out. :o)This next picture is my new sewing cabinet. It used to belong to ds who is 3. We had his clothes in it. He thought it was tons of fun to pull all his clothes off the shelves and throw on the floor. lol Now, its mine!!! hahaha!
And again....my quilt class quilt.....notice the difference after my 3 hour class!? No, you say!? Oh, you notice the 2 blue borders....lol (see Miss Tip, loves the quilt!) Well, I spent my 3 hour class taking apart those pesky diamonds that weren't right and fixing them! My teacher told me I HAD to fix them!!! lol I am thinking that once this border is on and perhaps the next triangle border, I am DONE!!!! It will make a lovely wall hanging...Cat bed or something....
This last picture is a happy one for me!!! You see 14 years ago when we moved into this house the traverse curtain rod did not work. The string was broken and so we had to pull on the curtains to get them to close. After 14 years of doing that and 5 kids, a dog and (at the time) 3 cats....The curtains and rod took a beating and the curtains/rod were falling off the wall. So finally i got a new rod! And for the first time I can pull a cord and my curtains will open AND close!!!
Did you know that traverse curtain rods are "out of style"? I learned that this week after searching for weeks to find one. I guess i am just out of style then....Not to mention it was cheaper to buy the $28 traverse rod than new (in style) curtains AND rod!

Give your family an extra hug and kiss today! :o)

I've been tagged!

2008-09-10T09:33:00.004-05:00

I have been tagged by Vickie at 2sistersandme
The rules are that you have to tell 7 things about yourself even something weird and then you have to tag 7 more people and post them and then go to their blog and let them know! So here goes!

1) Like Vickie, I LOVE (diet) Dr Pepper! After my kidney stone ordeal, dh got me drinking Caffeine free. I normally have 2 a day, one with lunch and one with dinner.

2) I like ice-cream. My all time favorite is Chocolate Peanut butter. Second fav is Moose tracks. I prefer Pierre’s, but will settle for Ruggles. Lol

3) I am a mother to 5 kids, which I school at home. Of which the 3 yo is currently sitting in time out….again….

4) My favorite TV shows are Super Nanny, Survivor, Amazing Race and sometimes Wife Swap….since I am no longer working, my family also got me hooked on Hell’s Kitchen.

5) I am a pretty quiet person. I get nervous when I am in a large group or with someone I don’t know. I practically send myself into a panic trying to think of something to say…the more I try the less I can think.

6) I am not a very good decorator. I admire people who can make their home attractive. Mine is not…lol

7) Not many of our neighbors like us! Lol! Not only do I have 5 kids that are home ALL day, we also have a dog, that of all things… Barks!!! Lol Yes, most of our neighbors are retirees. They don’t like noisy kids or dogs.

My 7 people to tag are:

does the shoe fit

diehardequestrian

Melzie

Moretrublethanimworth

Schreibenvonschreiber

horse crazy animal loving girl

Uvulapie's girl

Begining sports

2008-09-08T13:26:00.005-05:00

My 9yo ds decided that he LOVES football! He asks his dad every day to play catch with him. Some days he is disappointed with the answer! lol Dh and I had been talking about signing him up for football and happened to get a postcard in the mail about a flag football league. We decided to sign him up! That was about 5 weeks ago. Saturday was the first practice day and he was SO excited. The torture he went through to finally get to this day. lol Too bad it rained all morning! We packed everyone up and headed off to the park anyway. Finally after waiting for everyone to get organized they were called to their teams. They had a short practice before starting a practice game. Timothy was thrilled he got to be #1! Luckily the rain stopped about half way through.
Everyday since he has been wearing his jersey and flag belt! lol Now he is counting the days until Saturday! Timothy is the one in the black jersey with long pants.
The same people that run the flag football also do Cheerleading, that was right up 6yo dd's alley! She was scared at first because she has never participated in sports activities before. Once i explained it would include girls, jumping and pom-poms she was in! lol Soaked and all she had a blast! They practiced some general moves and started learning 2 cheers. Hopefully they will get their uniforms next week along with a folder of positions. She too cant wait until Saturday!! That is Sarah in the purple.

I wasnt going to...but here it is!

2008-09-02T13:37:00.003-05:00

I wasn't going to show you my homework from my quilt class, but here it is....

When working on this quilt i was so aggravated!! I have NEVER taken a quilt apart so many times in my life! This quilt was a thorn in my side. I hated it! I hated my class and i regretted signing up. I was angry with myself because i wanted to quit the class! I had signed up for the class even though we didn't really have the money for me to do so...
After I finished the required work I put it away! I thought it looked horrible and I wasn't gonna show anyone! I didn't even offer to show it to dh. After a few days of not thinking about it, I decided to show dh after all. I had warned him about how awful it was and how disappointed I was with my work. I took it out and it was like a little mouse had come in the night and fixed it for me! lol After taking a break from it, I had time to calm down and refresh my mind. So in reality, it wasn't as horrible as i had thought. In fact only one point of the star was messed up. It is the bottom left point, and since the last triangle is the same color as the diamond you cant even really tell. It has a wrinkle that i will probably need to straighten, but i can live with that! (it is better than taking the entire point apart)
I was thinking i would stop with the star and make it a wall hanging and be done with it. After looking at the pattern, the star is probably the hardest part! So i have decided to give the class another chance. (and i will try hard to not be mad at the classmate that choose the pattern!)
If anyone is interested in this pattern when i am done please let me know! I will never use this pattern again! lol I must warn you, this pattern is not easy to follow. You must have an add on set of directions and templates. (additional $$) So you must look at this add on pattern to learn how to make the star, then refer back to original pattern. I happen to have a copy of both patterns along with the templates.

Over the weekend I happened to be in my local craft store while they were having a having a bead roadshow (or something like that) They were having a drawing for beading stuff so I entered, Even though I don't do any beading...I did make a bracelet at the store, Oh, my was that stressful! lol All those pretty beads to choose from! lol Any way while I was finishing up my bracelet I heard them page someone with a similar name to mine. After I was finished I went to ask who they had paged. She had pronounced my last name wrong, it was me! I didn't win the grand prize beading bundle, but i won a book! Since I was so frazzled from this simple bracelet, I thanked her and tucked the book in my arm and went home. Later that evening I remembered about the book and decided to take a look at it. It is a very interesting book and has lots of neat ideas. The book is on making cards and jewelry items using altered creations. This book is too far out of the box for me! So I decided to offer it to my blog readers. If you would be interested in this book leave a comment and at the end of the week i will choose a winner!

Back to School :o)

2008-08-26T09:47:00.003-05:00

This week the kids are suppose to start school. Since they are home for school it isn't a big deal. To celebrate we went out for ice cream last night. Anyone ever wonder what it would cost a family of 7 to go to Dairy Queen? Since it was a special day, we let them order what they wanted and they didnt have to share.... (Scott you hush!) ;o)
The worst part about the first day of school was with the online schools we are using this year. Both had their big launch Monday morning. Both failed! Emily is getting into classes today, but not sure yet how much is getting accomplished.
The other three are in a different online school and we have not been able to get into classes yet. Most of the *school* stuff doesn't start till Sept anyway. So we have time to wait for them to work out the kinks before we panic.
When talking to Josh my 3yo about the kids starting school (at home) he said "It's not fair!" lol For the past 10 years we have done school at home, so I am not sure what his problem is...other than being a 3 yo boy. lol
I also decided to take a class. My original quilt teacher invited me to attend a class she was teaching. I signed up for the class with not ever seeing the pattern we were making! She was so excited about it and was enthusiastic in describing the pattern that i just signed up. Now that i have the pattern in hand, i do regret it. I dont exactly like the pattern. So i didnt want to put money into it. Plus the day i went to pick out fabric was one of the few times Joanns didnt have it on sale! I decided to use ugly fabric from my stash and be done with it.
My first class was Sunday, all the other ladies had bright pretty fabric and i had my old ugly fabric. One woman was kind enough to compliment me on my fabric. That caused me to laugh. lol Why do i feel like i am back in grade school? lol (everyone else had new clothes and i had my old ugly clothes) lol The teacher told me that once i get some blocks together it will look good. I am hesitant to belevie her. lol
This is the pattern....The teachers sample center block looked much better without all those vines and yo-yo's on it! I am sure i am going to leave that part off my quilt. I will have to do something differant with those white blocks on the border to make up for the lack of yo-yo's.
I am not far enough along to post pictures, but i will soon. :o)

Wickedly Easy Quilts

2008-08-20T09:04:00.004-05:00

Something amazing happened last week! It was Thursday morning, my oldest dd went to babysit and took her baby brother with her. Ds 13 had a friend over to play and his other 2 siblings were all involved in playing with them as well. (can you say new Wii?) Poor mom had nothing to do! :o(
I decided i wanted to do some sewing! I wanted to do something that i could just jump right into with our too much planning. I started flipping through my pattern and decided on A Wickedly Easy Quilt from Byannie. I just happened to have a box of fat quarters from Joann's liquidation, which just happened to have the exact amount of fat quarters the pattern called for! I jumped right in and started cutting and sewing. The quilt went together so quickly and the directions were easy to follow. In one afternoon i was able to get all 20 of the quilt blocks together before i needed to stop for the day. Saturday i was able to get all the blocks sewn together to make this amazing quilt top!

I don't normally go for these colors..normally i like bright colors. But together I love it!
I am not sure what i am going to do with it....Dd's eyes lit up when i showed it to her! Although she already has one i am finishing up for her. I just need to finish the quilting on it.

PIF

2008-08-19T08:24:00.002-05:00

I am still accepting participants in my PIF event. Click here to see the rules.
If i do not get 6 people to join, i will choose people that inspire me and send them a gift.

Angie could you please contact me at debbiels1@gmail.com :o)

My baby turns 3!

2008-08-18T14:47:00.003-05:00

Sunday was Joshua's 3rd birthday. We had family over for cake and ice cream, it was a beautiful day. He was on a birthday boy high. lol He got a new bike, so he wont have to ride his sisters pink bike, some trains and matchbox cars.
His grandparents got him a leapster. He has been asking for one for a long time. He played with his sisters until it broke. Here he is at about 10 last night playing leapster in bed. he just couldnt put it down! lol

Last Friday we had a back to school picnic at Clays Park. Here is a pic of Sarah, Josh and Mrs Jensen playing connect 4.
Here is Josh playing on the baby water slide. He had so much fun on it this year! Last year he wasnt so sure...
This year he is a pro!
This is the cutest puppy i have ever seen!!! (I want one!!!!) Josh had fun playing with her. She was so cute. When he would put his hand out to pet her she would stand up on two paws. She was the sweetest thing!!!Too bad my photographer didn't get a picture of her 13 yo brother who was off "just talking" to a girl. lol. They spent most of the afternoon together. Of course they have been friends for years. good thing they both had sisters to interfere! LOL! :o)

Want to help...

2008-08-13T07:35:00.001-05:00

...name a quilt? Hop over here to submit your suggestion.

Did you notice my award? And PIF

2008-08-08T19:52:00.003-05:00

BazsAna gave me that award. I was thrilled to receive my very first blog award. :o) I am suppose to choose people to give the award to, but I am horrible about making decisions ... I suppose i will be generic about it and give it to everyone! You ALL inspire me! :o)

Several months ago when my life was in total chaos, I was chosen for BTEG PIF challenge. With the past several months being a whirlwind, i kinda forgot about it until Sunday when she gave me her PIF gift. A very nice knitted (or crocheted?sorry i don't know the difference) dishcloth. I have always admired them but have never learned to knit or crochet. Now i have one of my own. Thank you!
Recently i came across another PIF challenge on LisaV's Lounge and i was chosen for hers also. So to make this easy, I am going to do both at the same time. I need 6 people to participate in my PIF challenge. In turn you must agree to post your PIF challenge on your blog and send hand made gifts to *3* people (remember i am doing 2) You have 365 days to make and send your gift. If more than 6 people sign up i will do a drawing for the 6 participants. If you do not think you can make and send 3 gifts within a years time please don't sign up. Please leave a comment if you would like to participate. I will accept comments until Aug 15th.

A Cloudy day, a Sneak peek and Steak n' Shake

2008-08-07T18:55:00.005-05:00

We were out driving today and saw some beautiful puffy clouds. I was not driving and happened to have my camera handy so i snapped some photos. They were so pretty! The pictures don't show all of the details of their beauty.... then they were gone....

I joined a bag/bucket swap. It has been stressful trying to figure out the perfect bag to make. I finally decide after agonizing over it. I was afraid i would make something stupid and my secret partner wouldn't like it. It is still a secret, so i can only show a sneak peek of the beginning of my creation. :o)
Today we celebrated dh's new job. The kids wanted to go out for a special dinner to celebrate. The choices were The Outback, Hoggy's, Applebee's Ruby Tuesday's or Steak n' Shake. Since there are 7 of us, we decided on Steak n' Shake. Dh promised me a dinner date to one of the other resturants, just him and I. :o)

Before i forget.....

2008-08-01T12:10:00.002-05:00

I didn't really forget!!!

The lucky winner of my giveaway is Norma from Random Stitches!
Congratulations Norma!!!!
Please email me with your address at debbie@schreibnet.com

Just my life...

2008-07-31T06:37:00.006-05:00

I had to set aside sewing for the week. I had to catch up on other things like cleaning and laundry. With 7 people in the house, laundry is a never ending task. Also with 7 people in the house, cleaning is a never ending task. (just ask my kids) ;o) I keep trying to explain to the kids that having fewer items = less cleaning. I still have a hard time with that myself, but little by little we are getting there. I decided to clean off our computer desk and a book shelf that was calling to me each day for help. Unfortunately i forgot to get 'before' pictures to compare to the 'after' pictures...so you will just have to trust me that they were a BIG mess before!

Before the desk was piled with mail and dh's work stuff. (and NOTHING of mine of course!) ;o) We would have to move stuff out of the way just to type on the keyboard. One quick move could cause an avalanche! I threw away one bag of trash, have a box for the mail (still need to sort) and a small box of dh's work stuff.
Now we have a nice clean work area. Hopefully we can keep it that way. The desk is a big "hot spot" for us.

Our bookshelf is at the end of our very small hallway. It was originally suppose to hold the children's school books, I am sure over the past several years it has, but currently it doesn't really. Mostly it is a place to stuff junk when one doesn't know what else to do with it. lol I threw away one bag of trash, one bag of books to be give away and one pile of half used workbooks that the kids wanted to finish for fun..... (Uh huh...I'll believe it when i see it!) ;o)The top of the bookshelf is stuff that i want to keep out of Joshua's hands. Phonics tiles and tangrams that he loves to throw everywhere. Shelves from the top down are my cookbooks and a 3-drawer unit for pens, pencils and crayons. Also high enough to keep from Joshua. Packages of paper and Usborne books. (yes, they are special enough to get their own shelf!) :o) The other three are for books in general. We have a ton more in the basement I am sure it will be filled in no time!

I also had some mom time this week. A friend and i decided to update our churches altar flowers. The old flowers have been used forever and were starting to show their age. Our original plan was to go to the craft store look at the displays for ideas. We were going to look around, take pictures and then show my cousin the pictures to see if she could help us make them. We had such a good time choosing the flowers and when we were finished our bouquets looked like they should in the vase. We had this great idea that *WE* could do this ourselves! We went home and one step at a time we did it!!
On the way home from my friends house i stopped by a quilt shop. I guess it has been there for a long time, i just didn't know it. It was much smaller than i expected. It was *okay* for a quilt store, they sold fabric and stuff....I was searching for a book called "Gifts" for the life of me i cant find the woman's blog! I can picture her face, i just cant think of her name or blog name...(if anyone knows who I'm talking about, PLEASE let me know her name, blog or anything! I really want her book) :o) Well, anyway they didn't have it. :o( I was also looking for a Lazy Girl pattern....Which they only had *1*and i literally mean 1! It wasn't the one i was looking for...sigh...I was just about to leave when i spotted a quilt on display that jumped out at me! I went to take a closer look and decided i *had* to have the pattern! I also spotted these cute little things made with the yo-yo makers. I have a few of these and never used them. Of course to make these cuties, you have to have all of the sizes! Clover was really thinking on this one! $$ Good thing they are pretty inexpensive. lol Or you could always get them at Joann's with a 40% coupon. The clerk said the pattern was inside one of the packages. It was not in any of the sizes i had. :o/ I have also been getting the final items together for my giveaway. Today is the last day to enter! I am currently up to 183 comments!! I will draw the name of the winner tomorrow!! :o)
Good Luck!!! :o)
I also wanted to thank everyone that entered! I have been trying to stop by all of your blogs. What an amazing group of crafters. Thank you!!

It is giveaway season in blogger land. I have come across so many great giveaways over the past several weeks! Here is another that i came across.

Lindi is having a winter themed giveaway. Stop by her blog to enter! :o)

A must see movie! :o)

2008-07-28T07:26:00.004-05:00

Penelope!
I normally leave the movie reviews to Emily
But this movie was one of the best we have seen! Plus it has James McAvoy in it. He is quickly becoming one of my favorite actors. (like i have so many!) lol

In this modern day romantic tale, Penelope is about a young girl's inspiring journey, a mysterious family secret and the power of love. With all odds against her, in order for Penelope to break the family curse, she must find true love with "one of her own kind" and realize the most important life lesson, "I like myself the way I am." Penelope Wilhern, born to wealthy socialites, is afflicted by the Wilhern spell that can only be broken when she finds love. Hidden away in her family's estate, the lonely girl meets a string of suitors in her parent's futile attempt to break the curse. Each eligible bachelor is enamored with Penelope and her sizable dowry; until her curse is revealed. Lemon, a mischievous and eager tabloid reporter wants a photograph of the mysterious Penelope and hires Max to pose as a prospective suitor to get the shot. The handsome down-on-his luck gambler finds himself falling for Penelope, but not wanting to disappoint her or to expose his surreptitious ways, he decides to disappear. Fed up by his latest betrayal and determined to live life on her own terms, Penelope breaks free from her family and ventures into the world alone. She finds adventure and Annie, her first friend and becomes the person she was meant to be. Written by Summit Entertainment

No sewing today!

2008-07-23T11:14:00.003-05:00

Instead I spent the day organizing 115 contest entries! Wow! Thanks to everyone that entered!! The response has been almost overwhelming. lol I will continue to accept entries through the end of the month. :O) Good Luck!!!!

There are other contests going on out in blogger land. Here are a few of them....
Check out Vickie's crafting blog.
Bluebird quilts
and Ohio Quilters Journey

More finished projects

2008-07-22T13:49:00.004-05:00

I am just moving right along this week on sewing projects! I am surprised at how much sewing i can get done when i schedule it into my day. No, I am not an organized person. I just pretend to be one sometimes. lol Deadlines help too! Tomorrow is my moms birthday, So i needed to finish her present. She likes Pepsi a lot! So when i saw this fleece i knew i had to get it. It is just one of those quick fleese blankets, but i didnt want to tie it. Instead I sewed a 2' seam and cut the fringe. I kinda like the look better than the ties. I think in a few months when the tempertures, drop she will appreciat it more. :)
The family that lives next door is moving in a few weeks. This is the first summer that the kids next door have been allowed out of their yard. So they have been over playing almost every day. They are good kids, and we have come to really like them. I decided to make them a little something to remember us by. So I made them each a pillowcase and a photo album with their names on it. I am going to put our address on the inside of the album so they can keep in touch. We have been taking pictures for the past several days. I plan on printing some off to place inside their albums. Isaiah is at camp this week so I will give it to them next week.

So yesterday while i was at Joann's getting fabric....Yes, i needed to buy more. What i had didnt work for what i needed. I had extra coupons from their coupon commotion sale since i couldnt really find anything i *had* to have. Funny how you dont *need* things at 40% off when you have gotten things at 90% off. It makes you think twice about spending your money. I didnt know at the time that patterns were .99 though. Guess it helps to look at the sale flyer.... While i was standing in line i was flipping though some magizines. I decided to splurge and get 2 magizines that i couldnt live without! I have been admiring the Quilts and More magizine for weeks! I almost purchased it several times but always ended up putting it back. I decided I better buy it before the new issue came out. Then on the bottom shelf way in the back was Quilters World. Hmm...looked interesteing. When i saw that the quilt on the front cover had chickadees on it, I *had* to have it! And hey! I still had a 40% off coupon!
Here is a picture of projects. It has a wall hanging, a table runner and coasters. This is going to be on my list of projects once Sarah's quilt is finished! and Jacobs....lol
Thanks for stopping by! :o)

Wow! I am amazed!

2008-07-21T06:39:00.006-05:00

The weekend brought about 22 comments on my giveaway post. This is a record amount of comments ever, and they are still coming in as i type. LOL Thank you all for stopping by!

Over the weekend i got quite a bit of sewing done. I added the borders to Sarah's quilt. She said she loves it! Although she now hates shopping for fabric! lol You cant really see on the picture, but the light pink has sparkles. Which is part of the reason she choose it. The other reason was it's *PINK* I started quilting Emily's quilt that has been waiting around for way too long. So long that she is no longer sure she likes it.... :o/ It no longer matches her room....
There is still time to enter my Giveaway! See below. :o)

Finally my Giveaway!!

2008-07-18T13:01:00.004-05:00

Thanks to all that entered!!! The giveaway has ended and prize awarded.

I have been good at one thing this summer....procrastinating! I don't know why. I really don't like to do it, but it is easier than doing stuff. lol Here are the items i am offering in my giveaway, but are not limited to these items. A clover mini iron, Omnigrid easy heart templates, keepsake craft scissors, Omnigird 2 1/2 X 2 1/2 quilteing ruler, (it's so cute!) Dritz storage boxes, Oragami paper, Clover thread cutter pendant and a note pad set. I probably will throw in some fabric too. I have yards and yards of fabric! You can see some of it here and here.
So here is the deal, leave a comment if you would like to enter. If you post this on your blog and let me know about it i will give you a second entry. I will draw the lucky winners name on August 1st. Good Luck! :o)

Giveaway has ended, Thank you!

Tag from ME

2008-07-15T14:42:00.003-05:00

I normally forget to do these things....I think i still have one from Emily that i forgot to do. But while i am thinking about it here is the ten years ago meme from ME. :)

*What was I doing ten years ago?

Ten years ago I was a mom of TWO children. We fit perfectly in our new little house, and we thought it was big! I don't remember much other than that. I've lost too many brain cells after 5 kids.

*What are 5 things on my to-do list for tomorrow?

Pay more medical bills.
wash laundry
maybe go to Joann's
read blogs
procrastinate

*Snacks I enjoy:

choc chip cookies
peanut M&M's
Choc peanut butter ice cream
Chips/dip

*Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

Buy a bigger house!
Travel
Get a maid
hire someone to organize me!
I am sure i would be generous to other too...

*Places I have lived:

Stow, Ohio
Northfield, Oh
Walton Hills, OH
Columbus, OH
Brice, OH
Vallejo, CA
Hampton, VA
Newport News, VA
Maple Heights

*Jobs I have had:

Century products
Norandex
Pizza Hut
JC Penny
3rd shift @ Victoria Secret Catalogue (that was interesting!)
Western Sizzlin' (for 2 weeks?)
Marc's
Catered Elegance
Joann

Quilt give away from Old Red Barn Co.

2008-07-15T12:24:00.002-05:00

Old Red Barn Co is giving away an amazing quilt! If you want a chance to win this beauty, hop on over to her blog and enter! Even if you don't want to win this quilt, hop on over and enter! It would make an awesome gift to give ME! ;o)

See! I really DO quilt!

2008-07-14T07:17:00.003-05:00

lol! Last week, I worked away on Sarah's quilt top and finished it! When it is all together it does look better. Some of the fabrics i really don't like, In addition those same fabrics are really thin. They did strange things when sewing them. Like stretching in strange directions. I can tell i purchsed them before i started working at Joann's, because now i would never buy such thin fabric. It is one of those touch things. Perhaps you sewers/quilters understand. Crazy thing, i never purchased the borders for this quilt...Why!? I think i am going to have a tough time finding matching fabric. I know nothing in my stash works...sigh....
FYI...I was in Joann's 2 weeks ago. I was talking to the employee that happened to be my quilt teacher at Joann's. I was concerned becuase the quilting wall had really-REALLY big gaps in it. I mean liquidation flashback gaps! She told me that they are getting a new line of fabric in and needed to make room. This fabric base price starts out at $8.99!!! Ugh....Pretty soon we wont be able to afford fabric... :o(

Here is that long awaited picture of Emily's curtains.....drum roll please....

Here is Joshua modeling his new shirt....dont mind his messy clothes cabinet. He loves to pull all his stuff out.
Then there's Jacob with his tye dye undies. I think they turned out pretty cool! lol
We discovered that they also make camo tye dye kits. One day we are going to paint the boys room and they want to do a camo theme. We found camo wallpaper border, i just need to figure out what to do with the walls. I am open for suggestions since i am decorating challenged.

Lots to catch up on

2008-07-09T15:39:00.009-05:00

Here is my littlest guy with his new hair cut. He was way past due! He really doesn't like getting his hair cut, so i do it as little as possible. Isn't he a cutie!? Now if he would act as sweet as he looks...sigh.....

Here is the before shot. He had dumped an entire bag of cat treats on the floor. He made two furry bestfriends that day. lol Oh yeah, this stubborn boy is potty trained! As stubborn as he is, I have to say he was about the easiest and fastest to potty train. NO MORE DIAPERS!!!! Yippee! He likes to wear his underwear backwards so he can see Thomas on his front. What were these underware companies thinking putting the characters on the butts?Last week dh and ds13 were off to boy scout camp. The other four kids and i were on our own for the week. We started off going to a cub scout picnic at a local pool. The kids had a lot of fun playing in the water. Actually I only took two kids to that picnic. Joshua was being very naughty so he stayed home with big sis and took a nap. I was actually able to sit and relax for a few hours watching from my nice chair in the sun. That beautiful day ended quickly when a huge storm rolled in really quick!
Another day we went to a really nice park. We don't go to very often, so it was kinda fun. It was a beautiful day so it wasn't too bad. Josh loved these springy animal rides.

We found a dino for two which was twice as fun! Oh wait! a springy ride for three! (actually 4 but i only had 3 kids that day, that was really strange)

One of the best parts was getting to watch the dump trucks working next door. Boys and mom both enjoyed that. (mom has a secret dream of becoming a dump truck driver one day!) lol I was thrilled to see that 2 of the 3 dump truck drivers were women! :)Lets see....Our new mayor brought back the fireworks display, so we went to see them. We found a spot that had a good view and was not crowded. The boys near us were playing catch with a football, so once Timothy got over being shy he jumped right in. He really enjoyed that!

On the 4th we didnt have any plans since most of our family was out of town. We decided to attend the parade in the next town over. It was alot of fun as usual. They call it the "candy parade". The name says it all! This parade lasted 1.5 hours!!! We hadnt even realized it until we got home. That is how much fun it was. After that we grilled some burgers. I ended up making a few hocky pucks instead. I actually set off the smoke alarm inside the house by grilling out side. My family is very proud of me! (It is a joke around here because i set off the smoke alarm a lot! when my 2yo hears the alarm, he grabs a book to fan the alarm. you know i'm good!)
After we ate we did some tye dying. Emily wanted Elvis curtains, but since we couldnt find Elvis fabric she decided on tye dye. they came out really-really neat! Once i find those pictures i will have to post them. After the curtains were done we had fun with the extra dye. Emily dyed some sheets, socks and tights. The other kids each did a shirt. I thought it would be fun to dye a pair of Jacobs undies. Not sure how much he liked that! At least i used blue and yellow, which also created green. The neighbor kids each came over with a shirt too. It really was alot of fun.

Did i tell you dh got a new job!? He starts on Monday! Originally he sent his resume' for fun, because the job was right down the street from us. They ended up calling him, arranged an interview and hired him within a weeks time. He will no longer have a 60 minute comute. It will take him 4 minutes if he catches the red light! lol Can you imagine how much we will be saving on gas....dh is already dreaming. Me being the good wife, keeps showing him the medical bills...sigh....

I think that is all...When i get a little farther along on Sarah's quilt i will post some pictures of it. I also need to get that stuff together for my give away!!! Stay tuned! :o)

Give away

2008-07-08T14:09:00.002-05:00

Jodi at This That and The Other is having a fun give away. She is making a Grandma's Flower Garden quilt. All you have to do to be entered is to send her some fabric for her quilt. Jump on over to read the details. :) Oh yeah! This is what she is giving away....

Just my luck....

2008-07-07T16:07:00.002-05:00

Last year i started making a quilt for dd who is 6, I took her to help pick out fabric and started working on it. Then i got busy with things and I set it aside. Yesterday i got it out and started working on it. (dd was THRILLED!!) As i was working on it i was thinking to myself..."why in the world would i buy such ugly fabric!!" I feel horrible that some of the fabric is so ugly. lol Some of it is *really* cute. I tried not to disappoint her, but i did tell her that if when it is finished if she doesn't like it she can tell me so and i would make her a new one. lol I am hoping that when it is all together it will look great! (crosses fingers!)

While cleaning in my sewing area, i discovered that during liquidation i purchased double of some items. Hey, at 90% off who cares! lol I thought i would put some things together for a give-a-way. Stay tuned! :O)

Vacation pictures

2008-06-23T15:55:00.002-05:00

I have posted more of my vacation pictures here. :o)

A few simple things

2008-06-23T12:53:00.003-05:00

Since i had not been able to sew much in the past several months, my sewing table somehow got piled with junk. I discovered some of my sewing things had gotten knocked into the trash can. (Looks like i need to move that trash can!) lol I decided it was time to clean off my sewing table and get back to sewing! In addition i am trying to get my space better organized. My sewing area is in my bedroom, which i share with dh. lol Well, it is more like i let him sleep in there. My sewing stuff is taking up most of the room. I have most of my fabric in the basement... but dd#1 has taken over much of that space...sigh...and i cant hardly get to it. That is what happens when you have 7 people living in a shoebox. lol
I decided to start small and do a few quick projects. When i was done i realized they weren't so quick. lol I had picked up this Curious George fabric really cheep when Joann's was liquidating. I was going to make something fun for my 2yo. He loved playing with the fabric and using it for a blanket just as it was. I ended up getting more CG fabric during liquidation and made this quick blanket for him. He was confused at first because i took his *2* blankets and gave back *1*!
The time consuming part came when i decided to put his name along the edge. It turned out really cute though and he really likes it!!!
I had also purchased some baby fabric to make some baby blankets. I decided to start with this one. I just loved this fabric! To bad my baby dd is 6yo and a little old for baby fabric. Luckily i knew someone that just had a baby girl! So one day soon i will be sending this off to the littel sweetie! I hope she likes it as much as i do! :o)
I also put a little more time into this one and stitched her name with hearts. It really is adorable!
I am going to do more cleaning today and think about my next project! :o)

The sad part about our vacation...

2008-06-17T13:10:00.002-05:00

While we were on vacation one of our cats died. She had been sick, but was looking good when we left. I had planned on taking her to the vet again when we got home.

We had previously had one test done and it was almost $200. With me being sick and in a lot of pain i wasn't able to take her in for the next round of tests...I feel bad that she suffered, but happy she wont have to suffer any more.
I guess Rascal was pretty upset about it. She was the only cat that liked him. When bil came to check on them, Rascal was being pesky and wouldn't leave bil alone until he followed him. He took bil to where Chloe was. bil took her and buried her. :o(

We are back from our vacation!

2008-06-16T08:33:00.016-05:00

We had such a great time on our vacation. We went to Nags Head, NC. We stayed in a little cottage right on the beach. We spent a lot of the time playing on the beach. dh took the older two and played in the ocean while i played with the younger three in the sand.

On our trip we went to Jockey's Ridge State Park Unfortunately we had decided to go mid day and it was HOT! We decided it was not a good time to go so we went to the beach instead.

The next day we figured out that it is best to do an inside activity during the hottest part of the day. So we went to the Aquarium on Roanoke Island. It was a lot of fun. They had a touch pool where you could touch stingray and sharks. There was also a smaller area where you could touch seastar, crabs and sea urchins. Joshua thought the best part of the aquarium was watching the divers cleaning the shark tank. When the sharks were at the back of the tank the divers would wave to the kids. I decided i would NOT like the job as the shark tank cleaner.....So after that we went to the beach.....We also went to see the Wright Brothers National Memorial Museum.
It was really interesting! but it was also very HOT! so we.....
Went to the beach! :)
One night almost at sunset Timothy wanted to go back to Jockeys Ridge and fly kites. It was much more cooler that night and the wind was perfect for flying kites! Too bad mom was thinking ahead and purchased cheep kites at home...that didn't fly. They were so horrible that we threw them in the trash can! The best kites we had were 20+ yo plastic kites from when dh was a kid and they went to Nags Head....the kids had a great time playing on the dunes, and got covered in sand from head to toe.
We visited the three lighthouse of the Outer banks. The first one is Bodie Island lighthouse. By the time we got there it was closed for the day, so we only got to take a picture.
This is the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse you are able to climb this lighthouse. Joshua was too short to go in so dh stayed behind with one sad little boy. :o( I took the taller kids to the top. 257 steps to the top! My legs are still sore from that climb.

The last lighthouse is the Ocracoke Island lighthouse. This is the 2nd oldest working lighthouse. They never mentioned what the oldest working lighthouse was....
On the way back we decided to stop at the beach. This area of beach is not used much. I had heard from some ladies at the restaurant at lunch that this was the best place to look for seashells. We did find a few (lol) We could only take what could fit in our pockets.

Here is Sarah being a mermaid.

Emily had fun taking pictures and playing with the different features on her camera...and taking pictures of herself. lol
Jacob had a blast on his board.
Sarah and dad had fun playing in the sand.
And YES! Joshua did finally make friends with the ocean! :o)
The last part of our trip was to meet some friends we met on the internet! lol They are Lutheran home school moms/families, so it was safe. :o)
The kids had a blast playing with all the kids! the parents had a blast too! :o)
Exhausted and hungry we finally made it home. It was a great trip and we hope to do it again!

i forgot to tell you!

2008-06-08T13:37:00.003-05:00

We decided to take a las minute vacation!! We are actually in Nags Head as i type. Poor Josh hates the beach! :o( He has been so excited to be going to the beach all week, we get here and he hates it! The waves are crashing and the bugs are biting. The rest of the family is currently at the beach and i am in the nice cool room with a sleeping 2yo. (he thought a nap would be better than the beach) Btw, it is really HOT here! lol Before we came back to the room i got to enjoy watching some dolphins playing off shore. Josh didn't want to stick around to watch them though.

I had been meaning to post about a few things that happened last week, but we got so busy packing for this trip that i never got around to it, my dd did manage to post about the huge fire in out town and our turtle visitor. if you want to read about it check out her blog. plus it will save me from writing it. :)

Back to sewing and lots of other stuff

2008-06-02T07:35:00.023-05:00

So many things have been going on here lately. I am finally to the point where i can acutally sit with out being in terrible pain. :) PT is going well. I am scheduled for four more sessions. We decided that even though i made great progress, 4 more weeks would be kind of a wrap it up and lay a good foundation for healing my back. Last week at my appt i still was not able to bend forward. Today I can! :) Yesterday i actually put on my own socks for the first time in about 6 weeks. Unfortunately I have not passed any of the kidney stone other than 2-3 grains of sand...

This is Jacob after returning from a BS weekend camp at Wright Patterson Air force Base. This was the first overnight camp that he went on without dad. He called home every night, one night he called home 3-4 times. lol He really had a great time.
Here is Sarah after doing some school work....Kindergarten is so exhausting! I feel like that some days too! ;o) Yes, those are bruises on her leg...they are from a fight that she got into with her brother.
This is Timothy while working on a simple composition. Wish i could remember what he was writing about, since it caused him to cry. If you couldn't guess...he HATES writing!

Here are the girls with their new painted walls and bunk bed. As much as Emily hated getting a roommate, she was happy her walls are blue and no longer PINK! We are working on adding some color with curtains and perhaps some border.
With Sarah moving out of the boys room, Joshua got Sarah's old bed! With a simple change in sheets from Strawberry Shortcake to Looney toons we now have a boy bed! He is very happy in his new bed and his brother is happy he is no longer sharing a bed with him!
What chores do you give a 2 yo?? He loves to feed the dog and vacuum. He spent almost an hour one day vacuuming. It was noisy, but we knew where he was and knew what he was doing. (and the floor got cleaned!) Which is very important for us since this little guy finds trouble where ever he goes!
And yes, i said sewing! This is my new favorite skirt! No, i didn't make it...i found it at goodwill for $3. it was a little too big, but i really liked it so i took in the sides so that it did fit. Since i am short, it almost drags the ground but i am not worried about hemming it, i kinda like it that way. I just have to remember to lift it when going up stairs.
I finally got around to making Timothy his beanbags. He make his own game board out of a box and was using old baby socks as beanbags. Now he has his own colorful bags. Soon Sarah will have some girl bags.
Here is one happy girl! She finally got her Panda Bear! Lucky for us Build-a- bear came out with a new Panda just at the right time!! The one she originally wanted was "on-line only" for $25! This one was available in the stores and was $16! She sold enough pictures to cover the cost of the bear. "THANK YOU to everyone that purchased pictures! It was a good learning lesson for her.
Not only did she come up with an idea for earing money, she learned that earing money is hard work! She did think her hard work was worth it for finally getting the Panda. Although she was tempted several times to spend her money on something else! lol (and yes, she is wearing pink cowgirl boots...)So the whole build-a-bear experience is you choose your pet. They have this little thing about making a wish for your bear. You choose a heart for your bear and rub it on your tummy so he never goes hungry, place it on your heart so he is always loved, jump or turn in circles so he has lots of energy and some other silly things that kids think are great. After he is stuffed you take him to the bath and clean him up. (all pretend stuff) Then you SHOP!!! 2/3 of the store is clothes and accessories for your new pet. Panda which Sarah named Katie, tried on tons of clothes! She couldn't find just the right outfit...so many choices for a new Panda. After taking several breaks, Sarah and Katie decided upon a pink a new pink dress. Oh yeah and a new stuffed animal for her new stuffed animal....It is one of those, "Why didn't *I* think of that!?" things. $$$$
Last picture i wanted to share is of Sarah and her new shirt. She said she really *needed* this shirt because she likes wearing shirts that are real. lol plus it was only $4 but yeah, she is just naturally awesome! :)

fun give away :o)

2008-05-24T17:48:00.001-05:00

Jo Jo over at home sweet home is having a giveaway, or rather two giveaways , one is adorable and the other is a mystery !

more updates....

2008-05-22T15:16:00.002-05:00

I have been doing physical therapy for four weeks for my sciatica/arthritis. For the most part it has helped. The pain is no longer going all the way down my leg and it is no longer numb. The closer the pain to the back the better. the pain is mostly in my back, hip and sometimes behind my knee. I still have pain 90% of the time, but not as bad.
Part of the reason why i probably still have so much pain is because for week 2 & 3 my appt was with a different woman. She was focusing on hamstring exercises even though i told her they make my leg hurt worse. The second time i saw her she gave me a lecture about how she can tell me what exercises to do and how to do the properly, but it is up to me to do them! My 4th visit i saw the original woman. I told her how the hamstring exercises make my leg hurt even more. We talked about it a little bit and she felt my let while attempting to do some of the exercises. She told me to stop doing those exercises because the problem isn't my hamstring it is my back injury that is the causing the pain and preventing me from doing the exercises properly. I hope i don't have to see the other woman again! She wasn't very friendly anyway!

Ok, so my laser surgery....My Dr said that the laser surgery worked! I guess this stone was hard even for the laser. Yesterday i was pretty miserable with cramping. Dh was able to work from home so i was able to take my pain medication and not have to worry about the younger kiddos. The medication knocks me out! You cant imagine what i can sleep through when i take one of them. lol Now all i need to do is pass all the cement. I keep trying to drink water, but sometimes it is tough! I have a follow-up appt in 2 weeks. I hope to have stone pieces to take with me so they can be tested. I still have the 5mm stone. He didn't bother to mess with it because this problem stone. He said it is still pretty high and it may never cause a problem. I assume that i will continue to do follow-ups with him so hopefully we can catch it before it causes any problems. It is funny going into his office for my appts. All the other patients are old enough to be my parents/grandparents. lol I get funny looks when i walk in and sit down. lol

I guess that's it for now... :o)

Sigh....

2008-05-17T14:56:00.002-05:00

Last week i had an x-ray to see if my stone had broken up any since the surgery. I was not surprised to see that it was still sitting there. I expected that since i hadn't passed much of it. In fact the small amount that i did pass the Dr said wasn't even enough to run any tests on. He said we could try that same procedure again (ESWL which uses shock waves to break up the stone) but since the first time we got such little results he didn't think it would work no matter how many times we did it. He told me that the ESWL works 80% of the time. I just happen to be one of the (un) lucky 20%. He suggested doing laser surgery. As long as the stone doesn't move and he can touch it with the laser it should work. My surgery is scheduled bright and early Tuesday morning. Although i don't think it will really be bright at that hour...Wish me luck! :o)

For my blog readers...

2008-05-14T18:55:00.003-05:00

I have a special surprise! :o) As you know during liquidation i purchased a lot of fabric. I decided to share some with my readers. I have chosen one of my favorite fabrics! (ok, they were ALL my favorites, that is why i had to have them all!) ;o) This fabric is from the M'liss collection. I just love her fabric!
My gift to you is a fat quarter of (one of) my favorite fabrics. All you have to do is email me your address. Easy as that! :o) Thanks for reading! debbiels1@gmail.com

Happy Customers

2008-05-10T16:01:00.004-05:00

Sarah has had a few orders for pictures. She was very excited! I thought i would share them with you in case you want to order a picture too. She keeps telling everyone she is going to be famous! So you better order your picture now! lol
This first one was a request for a Mother's Day picture
She also had a request for a Birthday picture
The next request was for a picture of people eating watermelon at a park. This one makes me giggle.

This next one was a request from her daddy, this is the family at the beach. (btw that is me in the blue bikini!) lol
A 2nd Mother's Day picture.
This is my picture. I let her decide on what to draw. :)
And the last picture is of the Indians playing ball. Not sure who they are playing in the pink jerseys.....lol but she had to have something pink in the picture. :)

Sarah also gave me an early Mother's Day gift. All week she had been working on her gift. I was supposed to help her wrap the main box, but when i remembered i wasn't feeling up to wrapping boxes. :( She made all these little papers that said stuff about love me or i love you. She also had some presents wrapped inside the box. A red, orange and green crayon, a comb, penny, pen and a empty box of gum. I bet her brothers are happy to find where the comb went, and Dad wants to know what happened to his gum.....lol Oh, no! I forgot to put my pipe cleaner bracelet in the picture! It wasn't gold, but just as good! :)Here is what dh brought me home from Vegas...yum! :)

A word from our sponsors?

2008-05-07T15:27:00.003-05:00

Sarah is six years old. She loves to draw, and her favorite animal is the panda bear.

Build-A-Bear has a panda bear and she would really like to get it. So to earn the $25, she decided to sell her drawings to the general public. She is taking custom orders and will draw whatever you ask her to. Each picture is only $1.

So please help Sarah reach her goal of $25, so she can buy her favorite panda bear. J

For ordering, please email

with the number of pictures you would like, what you would like the pictures to be of, and your home address.

Do I have any readers left??

2008-05-05T14:01:00.005-05:00

It has been a long two weeks....Or has it been three? Dh was out of town last week. He went on his business trip to Vegas that I was suppose to go on. :( Good thing i didn't have an airline ticket....
My 7th grader had testing for school last week so we were out a lot that week. By the end of the week i was feeling pretty good. My back/leg didn't hurt too much. Then I had my surgery on Friday. That didn't go so well, the procedure was suppose to turn the stone into sand. Unfortunately the stone was too hard and it didn't work. I go next week for another x-ray and then to see my urologist. I suppose then i will find out what the next step is....after the surgery my kidney area was tender and my back/leg hurt a lot! Today my kidney area feels better, i had PT this morning so my leg is feeling well enough for me to sit at the computer for a short amount of time. Mostly it hurts to stand, sit or walk. Several times a day i need to lay in bed until the pain lets up. I use that time to do my PT stretches.

On one of our trips out last week i decided to swing by Joann's to see what had become of it. I kinda expected it would be empty, but it was still sad to see how big and empty it was. I heard if i had gone the day before i would have been able to see my boss. It still feels funny that i never got to say good-bye to my co-workers. I have some of their email addresses, so eventually i will be able to write them.
Mostly i really liked working at Joann's. I loved the fabric! I loved looking at it, and it always looked great after we had it all tucked and fluffed. Although all that tucking had taken a toll on my hands, they were always dry and they had aged a lot because of all the sizing in the fabric. My first year was good. We were a pretty close group. Most of that time i worked with Elaine, she is the woman that passed away last month. She was older, and i tried my best to do more than my share of the work. Even though she was tough and could handle it. I felt like she needed a break. After she retired, i kept up that work attitude. I tried to do as much work as i could. I would normally talk with the person i was working with and we would decide who was going to do which jobs. No one ever seemed to like cleaning behind the counter. Which included sweeping, trash and general cleaning. I didn't mind doing that so i mostly did that plus i could do it quickly. In addition i still did the other stuff too.
Last October i had my review. My boss was such an *evil* woman. She chewed my butt like you wouldn't believe! I cried for days after that. She said such hurtful things to me and accused me of not doing any work. She also said that no one liked working with me. I hardly ever worked with her so i was naive to her tactics. I just sat there and cried instead of sticking up for myself. It wouldn't have made much of a difference since she wouldn't believe anything i said anyway. In the end she gave me a raise, because of the few things i did do right....
I liked working there to much to quit. Besides, i hardly ever saw her. I just had to deal with the mind games. She only scheduled me with certain people, never with the ones i liked best. I started writing down everything i did during my shift. At the end of the night i would speak to my supervisor since i was scheduled with her a lot after that. If not her then a Mgr or a co-worker with more seniority. And Hey! they discovered that I really WAS doing work! Eventually I found out that no one said those horrible things about me. She didn't have anything on me so she took the things people did say about me and twisted them in her evil mind to what she wanted them to be. She had such power over everyone that she even told the other mgrs to NOT speak to me! Especially one certain mgr. who she tried to fire because of me. I was just an excuse, there was no reason. After a few months that mgr was rather stressed about her job and the flood gates opened and she spilled all kinds of info to me. It was all so stupid, again mind games of a controlling lunatic.
Once liquidation started that boss was transfered to another store. (sorry BTEG) Life as we knew it was over!!! The sun really did shine in that place. lol It was strange how much more relaxed everyone was. We still worked really hard, and in return we got praise and appreciation. I was shocked when a lot of the responsibilities of the fabric side was place on my shoulders. And at the end of the night i would hear "good job! and Thank you!" We *never* heard that before! We all seemed to grow closer during that time.
We all were worked to the max and for almost 3 months i saw my co-workers more than dh. :( We decided that i would continue to work as many hours as possible knowing there was an end in sight. Once that end was near, is when i started feeling poorly. I was really upset that I wasn't able to work my last day. A customer had a strange analogy. She told me that loosing her Joann store was like loosing a friend. In a strange sort of way it's true. I met so many nice people working there, both employees and customers. Most of them had planned on being there that last day. I would have been able to say good-bye to them all. But the Dr had other plans. lol I suppose it was easier that way. Saying good-bye is never easy. I hope to keep in touch with some of them, but as life happens, I don't expect i will.
Life does go on...and there are other Joann stores. But not at CityView..... Which is a good thing! CV is having so many crazy problems. Who's idea was it to build a shopping center on a landfill!? Even though we were told we were closing due to low sales, in the end it was because of the landfill/methane problems and shoplifting......I no longer have a reason to go there. That place just isn't safe. I wonder where another Penn Station is? :) That is the only place i will miss... lol

My last day at work!!

2008-04-22T18:04:00.002-05:00

.....and i called off sick. I really had a good excuse though. The Dr insisted on admitting me to the hospital for surgery on an infected kidney stone stuck between my kidney and my bladder....so much more fun! more when i feel better. :)

More fabric followed me home....

2008-04-16T10:30:00.005-05:00

At these prices, who could resist!? :) Fabric is 70% off, HD 80% only a few more days left. If you are in the area you should stop in and get some great deals! :)

and yes...colorizing fabric is an illness employees come down with....lol!

Remember these pictures??

This is what that section looks like now.... :o(

An interesting article...

2008-04-15T09:13:00.001-05:00

This article was released in yesterdays newspaper.....
Hmm....what do you think!? Interesting huh?
btw, this is the shopping center where i work.

Happy and depressing....

2008-04-15T07:13:00.009-05:00

I will start off with the depressing. lol More work pictures....
This is what is left of the Scrap booking dept. If you notice the white tile on the floor, that is the main racetrack that goes around the store. So the SB'ing wall has been moved to the main isle.

This is an empty space behind the cutting counter. We have been talking about all the fun things we can do in our new lounge. :) it is completely blocked off to customers. This is the half of our cutting counter that has been eaten up by the back wall. :(
So now we only have 3 cutting spaces...we are no longer cutting anything. Fabric is at 70% and at that discount you must take the entire bolt. so we are only measuring the fabric.

Can you see how much thread is left? lol Not much! A lot of it is now mine. lol
This is a pic of the main isle of the store. It is now a looooong hallway. if you wanted you could go back to some of the older posts to see the before pictures...this is a good one.

The past few months have been strange. In Jan we were told of the closure. Feb liquidation started. At times it seemed that time stood still, like when we were all in shock of the news. Liquidation started and so did the heavy work schedule. Working 9 or 7 days in a row, seemed to be forever! Now that the end is in sight looking back it all seemed to go by so quickly.
Wanna hear something funny!? Someone from corporate has been reading my blog....
Hmm..wonder why? :)

Sunday evening we had a farewell party at a local steak house. About 20-25 of us showed up. It was a lot of fun. We ended up closing the place down. There were lots of pictures taken...but not from my camera! :o/
The 2 people from the liquidators have been very nice to us. It was nice to work for nice people. She asked if any of us would want to go to Seattle with her to help close another store. I thought about it... lol but couldn't leave my family for that long. It probably wouldn't be fun for the kids to be locked up in a hotel room for 2 months either.
So it is all quickly coming to an end....I have 3 days left of work. The last day the store will be open is Saturday! I will be terminated on Sunday....My kids are excited! We plan to work on some painting and decluttering projects in preparation to move. Hopefully this year.

Now for the Happy! :)

This is Sister Sophia! She is my favorite Nun. :o) She is such a wonderful person. I will miss seeing her. She did say that if i ever decided to get another job to come to the mega nursing complex where she is a nun. When i asked if i could take her picture, she agreed but wanted to stand next to something colorful! :) She chose a very colorful wall...calico. lol
Here are Carol, Joe and Nicole. Carol and i started on the same day. I worked with Joe on my first day and many days after. Nicole is a seasonal hire so she has only been there for a short time, but she is very sweet.
Here are the first flowers to bloom in my garden. :)

And here is a happy boy playing outside! :0 )

What a boy wont do for attention!

2008-04-14T13:29:00.005-05:00

You know how boys are...always trying to get attention, even worst a 5th child! Saturday Joshua was running a high fever. He was also crying and yelling that his eyes hurt. It was tough to listen to him and not able to do anything to stop the pain. I had an 8 hr shift that day, dh was brave and was able to get through the day with Joshua crying and yelling. When i got home dh said we need to do something. He tried to get a hold of the nurse on call, and was on hold for 40 minutes and never talked to anyone. So we decided ER was the answer...When I got there josh was taken back right away. The nurse had 2 others come and help her because he was so sick and crying so much. Instead of waiting in the waiting room for an hour, they decided he was sick enough to be seen right away. The Dr came in, which Joshua didn't seem to like. They gave him motrin and Tylenol and he had X-rays taken. the Dr decided Joshua's tongue and throat appeared to be swollen. He said Josh should be admitted. Since we were in a hospital ER i assumed we would be going upstairs...but when 4 paramedics showed up i found out we were going downtown. So by ambulance they took us downtown. When they were putting josh on the stretcher he asked for Mimmy! (his brother Timmy) :o( We got downtown and were seen right away. By then the medicine had taken full effect and he was feeling much better. The Dr said she wished the ER would have called for a consult because the symptoms were of a virus going around and that would have saved us a lot of trouble. We stayed the night and they kept watch. We were up till 3am while Josh ate. Poor guy was so hungry by then. After that he got to sleep in his "tree house" bed (crib, with a top so he couldn't fall out) By morning he was feeling much better. The Dr said they gave him more Tylenol during the night for fever. She said he just had a virus, and that they are very painful. We were sent home to rest. He is feeling better today. He has not complained that his eyes hurt, but he is still not feeling well. I cant imagine what this is gonna cost us...

Click here to see Josh with his "shocks" :)

Two Week Toy Giveaway Event!!

2008-04-11T07:15:00.000-05:00

Something fun from 5 minutes for Mom

$25 FREE

2008-04-10T08:16:00.002-05:00

Tired of paying PP to transfer your money?? Try MoneyExchange and get $25 just for signing up! :)