Prom 2007

Well, we did it. Survived Prom!~ Anisa got the dress, the 4.5" red heels, the little red purse and of course, the jewels. :)

Here she is getting her hair done by Amy, her friend's sis who is going to cosmetology school. She was busy doing a few of the girls' hair. Curling, straightening, pinning, spraying..... I think Anisa had about 500 bazillion pins in her hair! And I don't know how many pounds of hairspray!

Anyway, she went to Prom with her friend, Kevin. A really nice guy. This is his last prom, since he's a senior this year. They went out to dinner at one of the local pubs that's actually more like a restraunt, than a "pub". Then went to the prom until midnight. They came home to change, then back out to the Post Prom Party at the local bowling alley. She said they had a blast, but her arm was sore the next day from the bowling.

After bowling, she spent the night with the chicks at another friend's house. A fun time was had by everyone.

Clarification

I was at a Stampin' Up workshop last night and it came up that I hate Dork Ounty. Well, I just want to clear things up. I don't HATE it, I don't even mind it here. Really, I don't. It's just not HOME. I'm enjoying seeing a different part of the great country that I get to live in. I am looking forward to seeing MORE of it this summer and whenever else I get the chance. I am so thankful for the new friends that I've made and the experiences my family has had.

With that being said, I'm a West Coast Girl. Always have been, always will be. You can lead a girl to the middle of the country, but you can't make her love it. I miss my ocean, I miss my volcanoes, I miss the lush green forests. I know there are plenty of people who think I'm nuts for loving OR/WA. It rains there ALL THE TIME! :) The slugs are huge, Portland and Seattle are very liberal, the sky is grey a lot.....but hey, that's ok with me! I like slugs. I can live with people even tho they're wrong! tee hee Don't email me! :) And the sun is overrated.

I can't wait to get back out West, but for now, I'm happy to live here in Wisconsin. I just can't wait to get back out West....oh, wait, I already said that. :)

I've finally gotten some more quilts done.
I have had the WSU Cougar fabric since, um, forever ago. Sara thinks that where she'd like to go to college, so we're going with that. :) I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I wish I had had more fabric, but I was limited to what I had bought. I did a split 9-patch and I like it. :) I also quilted the WSU Cougar in the center of the quilt. Sara is very happy with it and slept with it last night.

This purple quilt is a long over-due birthday present for my sweet niece Kelsey. I made a pink one for my niece Justine a couple of years ago, and had always planned on making one for Kels too, but didn't get to it (so many other fabrics and projects kept me from it...bad projects!) Anyway, I just dug out all my purples and bought a few more and Voila! Here is what happened. I hope it goes with her room! :)

Time Flies When You're Having Fun!

Well, this is a couple of days late, but Travis and I celebrated our 21st Anniversary on Friday the 13th! :)

Here we are 21 years ago! Wow, it seems like just yesterday. Oh, of course, somedays it seems like FOREVER ago, but that's only when Travis isn't doing what I tell him to do! :) We were just kids then, didn't know what the heck we were doing, just that we wanted to be together. I know there were many people who thought we were way too young to be getting married, but I guess we were meant to be. :)

We've lived in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California and Wisconsin. We've survived life in the Coast Guard. We've put up with long absences and weird schedules. I have been bossy and Travis lets me think he's listening. We've both gained some weight, gotten smile lines, and some gray hairs. One of us has even gotten bifocals! :)

But, two beautiful daughters and tons of adventures later, here we are today. We plan on lots more adventures and look forward to many different stages in our lives together.

Some craftiness

I'm working on lots of things, but here are a couple of things I have finished. They are going to friends, as soon as I can get my act together and deliver them! :)

More chicken potholders....

And a little friendship wallhanging. I am working on a couple of quilts...Sara's WSU quilt just needs binding that was ordered from FABRIC DEPOT.... and a purple quilt for my niece. I'm having fun, fun, fun!!! :)

So this is Spring in WI

Well, yesterday we woke up to THIS.....

You might be able to tell in the pics, that it was snowing when I took the pictures. It snowed for most of the day, but it was wet, and HEAVY to shovel! My back is a little sore today. We got around 7ish inches. Today it's warmer and sunny and will probably melt a lot of it. The birds and animals are probably thankful for that. I don't mind the snow, but Travis is really sick of it. He's ready for summer.....Ah, that muggy,disgusting heat, mowing the yard, getting eaten by bugs....gotta love that...not! :)

Organization

Don't you just love to be organized??!! Last time I went to Joann's I picked up more embroidery floss, since I can't get any good colors in SB. Today I spent a couple of hours putting my new colors on and labeling the little plastic doohickeys and it looks so pretty! Now when I have a stitchery project, I will go and look at my flosses all color organized and grab the exact color I need and the project will be more fun. :) Now if I could only get my basement organized....


that's another day! :)

Chicago

The girls had spring break last week. Anisa, went to WA (LUCKY), and Sara and I were not going to sit at home like we always do. Spring Break in WA was usually spent camping at Ft. Stevens, so this year we had to think of something new to do.

"Hey, let's go to Chicago! There's an IKEA down there." So, I got on the internet and found all the things we HAD TO do while we were down south.

On our way down the freeway, we spotted a Trader Joes!!! I about had a heart attack. We didn't expect to find a TJs!!! We went to the next exit, got off the freeway and came back to shop! We bought shampoos, conditioners, soaps, and red potatoes. But the most important thing was the Mochi ice cream. The girls LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this stuff. I think they could probably live on it. On the way back up north, we made a quick stop in TJs again and bought 6 boxes of the stuff. Packed it in ice and it made it home just fine.

Our next stop was Gurnee Mills mall. It's in Gurnee, IL. Ok, first let me say, we thought the roads in WI were bad, but OH MY!! The roads in IL are horrible. I need to check the suspension in my van from hitting so many holes in the road! Ok, back to the shopping. The mall was cool. We scored at the Hollister store. And we found Ruby Tuesday, but we weren't hungry yet. So, we headed south some more to IKEA!! It was fun, but I like the set up of the Seattle Ikea better. I'll find out about the Portland Ikea soon. This one was 3 stories and BIG, but the way it was set up, I felt like I missed stuff. It's hard to explain, just that I wasn't that thrilled with the way the store was. BUT, it's IKEA, and I did find some treasures. I found some cute seat cushions, vases for Sara's room, a cheese grater, a special bowl for Sara, an ice cream scoop and some raspberry cookies.

By the time we finished in Ikea, we were hungry. We found a Chevy's and were thrilled, so we had mexican food (haven't had Chevy's since July). YUMMY!! We brought some salsa and chips home for Travis.

We found a hotel, went to bed and got up early and headed into Chicago. We didn't really have a goal, and didn't know where to go, so we drove through and looked at what we found. This is the top of the public library downtown. It was very cool. We had to drive under some buildings which was also fun.

We parked and walked around a little section. I found a bank, got some money and we found a 7-11 and got Coke Slurpees. YUMMY!!! We were done shopping and walking, so we headed back up north. On the way, we stopped and got Ruby Tuesdays for lunch (a little disappointment, I was hoping for a jalapano chili burger, but they don't have that one here in the midwest!). With full tummies and treasures filling up the van, we drove happily back home. :)

Old Mailbox Love

I was browsing through my pics and found this that I forgot to post. We have some wonderful friends in Vancouver who are our links to everything wonderfully Japanese. Anyway, a few weeks ago, I got a box on my front step. "Hmm, who is this from", I thought. Oh, the H family!!!! I opened it to find tons of Japanese Yummies!!! By now, alot of it is gone, and it's been wonderful tasting some of the things we'd never had before. Thanks friends! We love you and miss you like crazy!

Oh What A Night

Wow. Imagine strobe lights, jets and rocks being thrown at your window at 2 a.m. That's what we had. Another storm blew in here in the middle of the night. Some hail. LOTS of lighting and thunder and a lot of rain.

It was a lot like the storm that blew in a few days ago. This one was slightly different, tho. During the evening we watched the news so we could watch the TORNADO WATCH! Yep, we were under Tornado watch from about 5ish until midnight. Some counties in central Wisconsin actually were in Tornado WARNING, which means TAKE COVER!!! Give me Earthquakes, tsunamis, and high wind storms, but please, no tornadoes! Yikes.

Turns out we didn't get a tornado, just a very cool storm in the middle of the night. Sara actually came into our room and hopped into bed with us for a while. When the storm was over, she headed back into her own room. I couldn't handle being sandwiched between two bed hogs anymore, and my back is pretty sore this morning, but I'll live. It looks like it's going to be a sunny and very warm day. As I type, at 7:55 a.m. it's 58 degrees with 90% humidity outside. I went to put the trash out and IT IS WARM!! :) I like it this temp. As long as it doesn't get too much hotter, I'll be having a great day. :)

Sunday's thinking

You know what I love?? Fresh muffins in the

mornings. Mmmm. I love the taste. I love the smell, I love the warmth. I just love them. I had some bananas going brown, and made these yummy goodies. Just wanted to share. :)

I hope each and every one of you has a wonderful day today! :) kisses and hugs.

A Lot Of Thoughts

Well, my first thought is the storms here ROCK! Too bad they're at 2:00 a.m. We woke up this morning to hail, rain, lightning and thunder. The lightning looked like a strobe light going off outside there was SO MUCH! I love it. Of course, I wish it was at 7:00 p.m. so I could really enjoy it, but oh well.

Yesterday Travis called me in the morning and told me one of the Lakers was pulling out of the canal also called The Ditch. It is the Wilfred Sykes. She is 678 feet and was the first new American-built Great Lakes vessel constructed after World War II. I love watching these beasts glide through the canal. It's very peaceful out there and the birds fly around and you can hear the water lapping the rocks. No salty smell, but I guess it's alright. :)

On Monday evening Travis and I went for a walk. When we got home there was a sweet dog running around. She came to visit, get a couple of pats then took off. As I was petting her, a car drove by. She took off, and the car backed up. She was THEIR dog! I found out her name and told them to come by later if they didn't find her~ if she came back we'd grab her. Well, we took the telescope out since it was a beautiful, clear night. Kota came back and we grabbed her. Then we waited and waited for her owners to come back by. Anisa and I even drove around the neighborhoods to see if we could find their car. Nothin'. So, we had an overnight guest. We made a little nest for her on the floor in our room, but she whined a lot. We finally let her stay on the bed (after many attempts on her part and us pushing her off). She finally fell asleep. By the way, she's a very well kept pup and smelled like she had just had a bath. Anyway, the next morning, I called the vets in the area and the humane society. It turns out that her owner called the humane society too, so she got picked up in the afternoon. It was fun to have a dog overnight, but I don't want the responsibility of having my own.

My last item of the day is my latest craftiness. BoogaJ's Pincushion Challenge has challenged me to make another pincushion. Well, actually 2. My original idea was to make the taco. Then a friend of mine was making s'more pins for her Brownie troop and she gave me the rest of her felt, and I decided to make a S'more. I really like how they turned out. I love the S'more. :) Now, I must go eat, because this post is making me hungry. tee hee :)

A coupla things

Ok, first. Friends. I mention Monica a lot around here. That's cuz I know her in real life and she's just so cool. But I've made several friends in blogland that I haven't met YET. I will get to meet Wende this summer. I can't wait!! I enjoy looking at her life through her words and pictures and I feel like I already know her. Pam, is another chick I feel like I know...since she's Monica's twin! :) If you look at my blogroll, you can see my "friends". I wish I could hug each and every one of them, AND go out for lunch and shopping! Thank you my friends for keeping me entertained. :) And all my lurking friends who aren't listed on my blogroll, I love you too! :)

Second thing is the weather here. All I have to say is.....WHAT THE.. Two days ago, I had a t-shirt and capris on. I was warm. It was 62 degrees out! Today, it's snowing! Wow. Just had to mention how strange it is. :)

Mailbox Love

Yep, that's what I got when I ran out to the mailbox today. It was the only thing in my mailbox. And who was it from you ask?! None other than the Mailbox Love Queen, Monica.





I love the little mailbox she put on the package, and I'm sure all the postal workers who got to see it had smiles on their faces. :)

What was in the package? Fabric, of course. And a calendar with chickens (and other birdies). January has my favorite chicken....a Silkie! :)

Also in the package was a little chicken tape measure. I'll keep that in my purse.

I don't know what I'll do with the fabric yet, but they are yummy. :) I need to wash them, iron them, and play with them.

This one is for Happy Zombie

Hey, I just realized, even tho I think (my personal opinion, only, well, and my family) Sturgeon Bay is dumb cuz it's not in the PNW...tee hee...they at least pick good colors to paint their water tower thingies. At least, that's what I think they are. Anyway, they're Monicaqualicious! :) Wow, that's kind of hard to say. :)

By the way, we're having a heat wave! It was 62 degrees at the high school this afternoon. :) The feet of snow is melting into streams, and it's dirty and icky, but the air temp was very pleasant. I just wish it would stay in the 60s all the time! :)

No Worries

Today I'm loving being where I am. It is a sunny Sunday morning. The birds are singing so many beautiful songs and the combination is like a little birdie symphony out in my own backyard for my very own enjoyment. Earlier the church bells were chiming (well, actually it's a recording, but, whatever) their songs. It's warm enough so we can have the window open to hear the wonderful sounds outside. When I say warm, it's about 37 degrees. That's warm for me now!!! tee hee

Sara has swimming today. We spent yesterday at the pool, but she only had one event in the meet. Today she only has 2, but that's ok. She's swimming in the 50 yd breaststroke and the 50 yd freestyle. Yesterday was her backstroke. She improved her time by almost 2 seconds. :) Next season she's going to start 100s. This was her first season, and she's a little nervous about going on those longer swims, but I think she'll do fine as she practices more. :)

Here's Sara with her pal, Annie before they swam. Aren't their tshirts cool??!! :)

This is a picture of warm-ups. The swimmers look so cool when they're going back and forth. There are so many people swimming back and forth and the splashes and movement of water are just so neat looking.

Inspiration

My organized friend Monica inspired me to clean out my fabric stash. I went in and ironed and folded, then ironed some more and folded some more! It didn't really take all that long, and I like the results. I think this is a trend now. I can just imagine all the ironing and folding going on right now in happy quilters' homes.

This is, of course, my drawer before. I chose to do the pink fabrics first, just cuz I like pink. :)




And here is the drawer after. And just a note **The top pink fabric with the flowers, is 5 yards, so this technique works with large pieces of fabric, in case any of you are wondering if you can do it with BIG amounts of fabric. The answer is YEP! :)

Now to go work on my greens, yellows, whites/blacks, purples........

May I Quote You?

Once upon a time, there was a Pacific Northwest girl named Cindy living in Wisconsin. She spent days longing to be home so she could go to Fabric Depot and Center Diamond Quilt shop.

Lucky for her, she has a good friend in Oregon who is a very talented fabricaholic. One day, her friend, Monica was on a shop hop, just minding her own business and THIS FABRIC stash jumped off the shelves into her arms. She thought, "hey, I know someone who would enjoy this, but it has ducks on it, not chickens. Oh well," she thought, "Ducks are just chickens wearing flip-flops."

So, she went home and got her postal goodness all ready to send to her dear friend. She rushed to the Post Office, in her Crocs and very cool mommy car. The entire time thinking of how much her friend would LOVE the fabric.

A few days later, Cindy went to her mailbox and much to her surprise, there was the wonderful package of Postal Goodness and some sluggy and fishy hugs packed in there.

"My Goodness", she thought. "What shall I make out of this wonderfully yummy fabric?" When she read the letter inside and saw what her pal wrote about Ducks and chickens and flip-flops, the possibilities floated inside her head.

Monica had already turned her on to these really great patterns by Lori Smith. And, BONUS, the local quilt shop, Barn Door Quilts carries them.

So, Cindy decided to use one of the patterns to create a wallhanging and quote the talented and imaginative Monica. And here it is!! :) The embroidered chickens are wearing little flip-flops and the flip-flops on top and bottom are appliqued on with bead straps.















Cindy can think of her friend every day she goes into her sewing/guest/chicken room.

Thanks friend, for being so creative, generous and coming up with fun quotes! :)

Bugs and Ice

Ok, so Sara had it early last week, Travis got it at the end of the week and now the bugs are infesting my lungs! I'm not going to get sick. I am a rebel. I am too bossy! I don't have time to be sick. THERE, that's settled. cough, cough, hack



Today was a sunny day. It was in the 20s which is pretty nice. It's funny how, depending on where you live, 20 degrees can be "warm". Compared to 0, 20 is HOT! This is one of the ice sculptures hanging off our roof. It is now melted because of the sun, but I think this looks pretty cool.







Here are more "sculptures" from last night.

Not snow :)

Ok, I know, I've been way more excited about the snow than I need to be, so I figured I'd show you what I've been doing while it's been snowing, well, other than shoveling it. :)

In the Jan/Feb. 2006 issue of Fons & Porter's For the Love of Quilting Magazine they featured the very talented Valori Wells and a quilt pattern of hers called Honeydew. She had used very nice pastely sherbety colors of her own fabrics. Well, I had this tropical, hibiscus fabric that I was looking for a pattern for and this was IT!! :) So, here's how mine turned out. I tweaked it a little from the original pattern. Valorie's quilt had 9 log cabins instead of 16. I also added a little border on top and bottom of little log cabins.

Just a little tidbit of info. Valori's Mom, the wonderful Jean Wells owns the Stitchin' Post in Sisters, Oregon. They sponsor the Sisters Quilt show on the second Saturday of July. It's so incredibly cool there. There are quilts hanging literally EVERYWHERE! On buildings, trees, fences, wires, inside and outside the shops. Wishin' I was there!! :)

More Snow...duh

Ok, some more, since I'm not getting sick of the snow, although my shoulders hurt now from shoveling....but it was play shoveling, not work shoveling. :)

It pretty much snowed all day yesterday and all night and all day today...it's still snowing! Totally, so far, I think we've gotten around 16-20 inches. The plow came by this morning after Travis and had snowblown the driveway. The huge pile in front was in front of the driveway too, so we had to go dig our way out.

Here's a picture of our neighbor's house. The drifts on some of the roofs are just hanging out so far it's incredible. We've had some fall off the far side of the house and luckily, they haven't fallen on anyone! This one will make a loud thud when it falls.

And, sorry Wende, but what would my blog be without a squirrel in the post?! :) This little guy was so deep in the snow it was so cute. He kept popping his head up then down, then up, then he ran.

Even More snow pictures

Ok, I hope you all are not getting tired of me talking about the weather here, but it's just so exciting to me to have real snow. :) All those years of living in Alaska, Washington, and Oregon, we never had THIS much snow all at once. I AM LOVING IT!!! Bring it on clouds!! :)

The weathermen predicted this big storm and I watched online last night as Green Bay, Milwaukee and Chicago (got most) hogged all the snow. I prayed for it to come up here. A few people said it probably wouldn't get up here. But we woke up this morning to wonderful white stuff.

When Travis opened the garage door to start clearing the driveway this is what we saw! The wind has been blowing along with the snow so it's pretty "drifty".

In the backyard there are spots so deep that they go up to our knees and spots where you can see the little heads of grass. In the frontyard, it is pretty deep all the way across. The plow came by earlier and pushed the snow into the end of the driveway...thanks dude!

Here's my honey starting to shovel the driveway. He says the snow is really heavy and wet underneath. I really (truly, I'm not lying) wish we had another shovel so I could get out there and dig too. I love shoveling snow. But he had to do that part on his own. I started shoveling in front of the trailer after this, but then my friend came over and I HAD TO talk to her. tee hee

Here's Travis AFTER he cleared the driveway. Wow, look at all the snow he cleared, he's a strong guy, you say....

Well, actually, HERE'S how he did it. :) He's a good boy, tho. Now I want to go drive around in our little Snow car, to see what that Baby can do.

Our weather

Well, today is sunny, cool and snowy. This morning I looked out and the sun was in full shine mode and it was snowing. It looked like glitter. It was so beautiful. Our little heat wave is over for a few days as a storm is supposed to be blowing in and dropping more snow. I'm happy about it, but nobody else is. Everyone wants winter to be over. WHY??!!! It's only the end of February. Spring isn't until later. Give me snow!! :) The girls want to go snowboarding, which is an all weekend adventure from here since you actually have to drive several hours to the "mountains". We need more snow for that alone. I love watching the fluffy stuff come down and settle. Maybe this comes from me not actually having to be in it if I don't want to be. My poor husband has to work outside often, and I think that's probably why he wants it to be warmer. But, the CG keeps them outfitted for their unique work places, so I think he'll survive. :) Plus, he has a nice wife at home who will serve him a warm dinner and get him socks for his cold feeties.

Ok, I'm off to sew on another quilt I want to finish, so I can start another long, awaited project compliments of Monica.....you'll see later. :) Keep watching....

More DONE stuff

One day I was bored (stay-at-home mom, home is clean, kids are at school, nothing else to do...I should SEW!). I have projects that I want to do, but wasn't in the mood to start any of them. I wanted to sew, tho. So, I dug through my stuff and found these little Moda fabrics that I had bought years ago. I just cut and sewed and this is what I got.

This little Star quilt is about the size of a placemat. It's scraps from the quilt a couple posts below that I made for my friend who just adopted a baby girl. I figured I should do SOMETHING with the scraps that I couldn't throw away. It's a little boring, but looks good on the table with a picture of my darling family and some glass coasters Anisa made in art class a few years ago. If I decide to move it to a wall, I might add some buttons or something to it to spice it up. :)

Heat Wave

Well, hello! It's almost 50 degrees here in WI in Feb! I have my t-shirt on, and I'm thinking of putting on some shorts. I might even venture into.......flip-flops! :) Monica would be so proud! :) The bad thing about the warm weather is the pretty snow is gone and leaves ugly, dormant grass and plants in it's wake. Also, the snow by the roads is all ugly and dirty by now.

The animals seem to be happy tho. The squirrels can find all their hidden peanuts and seeds. I saw a squirrel resting in the tree earlier, basking in the sun. He looked very happy.

It is nice to get the vehicles washed and have them stay clean for a little while, instead of icky covered with salt. We're hoping to get back to WA without too much rust! Well, I'm going to go sew, instead of basking in the UV rays. Hope you all are enjoying your weather! :)

It's here!!

Ok, my potholder(z) came today! I looked outside and the mail lady had already come, so I ran out to check and NOTHING! I was bummed, because I thought it would be here today. So I run my errands, pick up the kids and come home and there's a box at the door! Silly Me! It came FedEx! :) So, my new pal Michelle made this adorable little potholder and finger holders to match. PLUS, little coin purses and smelly erasers for us chicks. I will hang the pot/finger holders in my chicken room, because if you'll notice she embroidered chicks on the potholder. It will go nicely in my chicken/sewing/guest room :)