What I've been doing lately

Mostly, I've been running around to this dance competition, that school performance, blah, blah, blah. I have had a little time in between my running around to watch my girls, tho. In that little bit of time, I've done a little sewing. Here are a couple of projects that I've finished.

This first little quilt is from the fabulously talented Lori Smith Patterns....From My Heart to Your Hands Fat quarter quilt pattern #1514 - Exploring Batiks. I love Batiks, but I rarely use them. I don't know why. Just one of life's mysteries, I guess. :) Anyway, I bought this pattern ages ago on the advice of Happy Zombie (who is also fabulously talented). When I bought the pattern, I also bought the fat quarters, and they went directly into my stash box. I felt like sewing last week and didn't really have a project to do, so I dug into my box and decided it was time to do this little wallhanging. I'm happy with how it turned out. Don't know where it will go, but I'll figure out something.






This handy dandy little pockety bag is from that same Happy Zombie I just mentioned. :) She had a pattern (actually, has had a few) published in the Fall 2008 issue of Quilts and More. I did an Egg Bag with this pattern here, but made the Egg version bigger than the pattern called for. This time, I did exactly like HZ told me to and I love it. It's so cute. I'm gonna make another one very soon. I now have 3 other projects in the works, a baby quilt, a little pockety bag and the Bunny Tails BOM (Jan. block is ALMOST done, then I will do the Feb block). So, after I get done sewing, I'll be doing more posting!

I hope you all have a specialicious day! :)

State Qualifiers!

The Dance Team competed in the Regional competition on Saturday. They performed their Pom routine and their Jazz routine. We didn't expect them to move on to State since they were really good last year and didn't qualify, BUT THEY DID!!! They placed 3rd in Jazz, so we head to LaCrosse, WI this coming Saturday to compete in the State competition. In 3 weeks, they head to Nationals in Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN. We're excited, but tired just thinking about all the traveling. LaCrosse is about 4.5 hours away. Minn/St. Paul is about 5.5 hours. The bonus of M/SP is IKEA and Trader Joes. :) Anyway, here is the team and my two beautiful chicks with their State Qualifier Plaque. We're pretty proud of the team! :)

Foxy Loxy

We have a new pet. Well, not "technically" our "PET", but we can enjoy him/her. This is our little fox visitor. Isn't it ADORABLE?? We enjoyed watching him/her eating peanuts and sweet potatoes (leftovers from dinner). Our little friend sat there for a long time letting us admire him/her. I love it's markings. Hopefully if we keep food out there, it won't eat our bunnies. yikes.

10 year old mom

Yep, I was 10 when I gave birth! hahahaha ok, not really, but I can't believe my baby is 18!!!! Her birthday was yesterday. We were busy all day, so I had to wait til today to post pics. Isn't she beautiful??!! We're so proud of our girl. She's turned out to be such a wonderful person. Yeah, she has her quirks that drive me up the wall, but don't we all. :) Here are some pics of the birthday girl.

One of the perks to living in a small town, is they will put personal messages on signs. Take this one, for example. :) It's wierd having an "adult" child. Even tho she'll always be my baby. :)

-27?

-27 was our coldest wind chill reading today. Of course, now it's warmed up to 2 degrees air temp and -13 wind chill. School was cancelled today because of the temps. That's what happens here. They don't really call "snow days", they call "extreme cold days". Did you know bare skin can get frostbite in about 10 minutes in temps that cold? Yeah, you learn new things all the time! :) If you live in a house with windows and doors that don't have excellent seals you might have frozen doors like we do. I had to use a hair dryer to melt the ice to open the door to feed the birds and squirrels.









Speaking of squirrels, I haven't posted on our obese squirrels lately. They have their winter blubber and fur, luckily. I still worry about them even tho they are like little balls of fat and fur. Most of the day, they must stay in their cubbies, holes or wherever they live since they don't come around too much when it's THIS cold.







I thought it would be fun to see how my hair would freeze in 2 minutes. Here are the results. :) Ah, boredom makes you do silly things. :)

Birthday girls

Well, I've been home now for 8 days, but I went to California for 4.5 days to celebrate my Grandma Lopez's 80th birthday. My mom, 2 aunts and cousin put this big surprise party together for her. I told everyone I couldn't come since we have all kinds of stuff coming up to spend money on...the move, Anisa's college, a trip in August to CA for my mom's birthday... Travis and I were talking about the party a couple of weeks before and he asked if I was going to go, I could just use airline miles. So, for giggles, I called the special 800 number and it turned out we had plenty of miles and so I booked my tickets, without telling anyone. :) I got an email from my cousin about her not going (she lives in NY), so I had to tell her I was going. She borrowed some money and got a ticket, too.

Friday evening, I arrived in Orange County, go to get my "economy car" and got a Mustang with a V8 instead! :) I truly love my van, but I really, really liked that V8. Anyway, I drove over the Ortega mountains to my mom's house. I called Sara and was talking to her as I rang the doorbell. Mom answered the door and screamed!! She was so surprised. We visited for a while, then I told her I needed brown pumps for the party, so off to the mall we went. I found some shoes and it was time to head over to my aunt Jennifer's for the last minute planning. When we got there, of course, everyone was shocked. Jennifer and Uncle Marty cried, they were so happy.

My niece, Justine's birthday is the same day as Grandma's and traditionally they go to Denny's in their jammies really, super early in the a.m. for breakfast. We got up at 5:30 a.m. and headed to Denny's. My mom, Danny (little bro) and I got there first - we were going to go somewhere else, but the other place was closed. Steenie Bean walked in and I was slouched down in the booth. She saw my mom, then my leg and asked who that was...I stood up and she was so surprised. Then my little sis, Sandra and her honey Jean and their new baby bug Chloe came in and got shocked. :)

After breakfast, we all headed home to shower and get ready for the day. I wasn't totally satisfied with the shoes I had found the night before, so I headed to the outlet mall and mom headed to the restraunt to set up (didn't find any other shoes, but the shoes I found turned out to be very comfy). We met at home, got all pretty and went to meet and greet guests. I saw cousins I hadn't seen in years, and MET cousins I only knew about. I hadn't seen my cousin April (from NY) in about 10 years! This is us, proof that I got dressed up in big people clothes with HEELS. :)

Grandma came in with Aunt Jennifer after her hair appt. She was so surprised to see everyone. There were 52 guests! We ate, visited, laughed, ate some more and when it was time to leave the restraunt, we headed to Grandma's house to party some more. Here are the 2 birthday girls. Aren't they cute? Grandma is 80 and Steenie is 17. Holy smokes! Shortly after the party started, I went outside to call my sis, Wendy (who was running late because of stinky work), and they just happened to pull in and see me. I could hear Wendy scream from inside the truck. That was pretty funny.

Here are my sisters, Wendy and Sandra and brother Danny and me.













Here I am with my mom.













Here is Grandma with her 3 babies...my mom, Aunt Joanne and Aunt Jennifer.












Sunday was Mom's day. We went to her church, then to lunch, shopping with Sandra, Steen and Chloe then headed to Mom's house for a BBQ with Danny, Wendy's family and Aunts Joanne and Jennifer, Uncle Marty and the cousins. Mom and I stayed up late talking and watching tv. It was fun to just visit.

Monday I headed to my Dad's house. I told him I was coming since I was asking wierd questions the day before about Peg (my stepmom) and work. I got to the house and I called Peg at work and surprised her. We went to lunch with her, then hung out visiting til she got home. We got to go to Vince's for spaghetti. I grew up on Vince's Spaghetti and every time I go to CA I have to go there. :) It was DEEElicious.

Tuesday I went to Grandma and Grampa H's house. I knocked on the door, but they didn't hear it so I called and Grandma said she was just waiting for my dad to come over after his haircut. That was the lie my dad told her the day before so they wouldn't make plans and they'd be home when I got there. I told her we lied and to come to the door. She was very surprised! We went to Ikea for lunch of swedish meatballs, then just wandered through the store. After visiting for a while and a trip to the mall we went to In N Out for burgers for dinner. Oh, Yum! :)

Wednesday was the day I came back home. It was a whirlwind trip, but very fun. It was even a little chilly while I was there. I packed shorts to wear in SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, and it was in the 50s and low 60s. I wore shorts anyway. :) I got home to snow and temps in the teens. Oh well. I missed my honey and my girlies so I didn't mind the weather.

Sunny Side Up and Dogs. :)

I found this Sunny Side Up fabric when I was at Fabric Depot last summer. I bought a yard of it and figured I'd make a quilt someday. When I got home, I realized I hadn't bought enough of this egg cuteness. So, I ordered more and finally got it out and made this quilt. I call it "sunny side up". :) The "egg" blocks are Greek Cross or Churn Dash blocks. I like making them since they're pretty easy. I quilted the egg blocks in a random little scrambled stitching. I quilted little suns on the big blocks.


































I had some fabric left over and I didn't want it to go to waste, so I decided to dig out my BH&G Quilts and More to find Monica's (yeah, I'm name-dropping. She's a famous magazine contributor) pattern for a super easy pockety bag. Here is my version of her wonderful bag. I'll be using it and making everyone jealous. :) I might have to get more of this darling fabric and make a few more. Hey, Monica, I LOVE this pattern. I made my bag bigger just to use up all the egg fabric. :)










My friend Lacey asked if I would make a quilt to raffle off for the Boxer Dog club. I said yes. I've known about it for a long time, but she just reminded me the other day that she needed it on the 1st of Jan. I work better under pressure. I started this Thursday, finished it Friday, sent it Saturday and it arrived at her house yesterday (Monday). :) Whew! Now I have to find something else to work on. I have a few ideas. Keep watching! :)

I'm still alive

I haven't posted in a while. I can't believe Christmas is tomorrow. I have to go out today (in the snow) and get my Christmas dinner stuff~ nothing like the last minute. :)

Winter has hit us in a big way. Here is our backyard full of fluffy, beautiful snow. I love the snow. Still not tired of it. I know we've only been here for 3 winters (and this is our last), but I don't think I'd ever get really sick of snow in the winter. Travis gets mad because it's here for so long, but he's had fun with the snowblower lately. I am usually the one to shovel the driveway because I like to do it. I get done with ours, then hit the neighbor's driveway, then I do trails in the backyards (mine and the neighbors) for the squirrels and Ami. Ami lives next door and goes to visit Lou (behind me) often. They're both older ladies and I don't want Ami to fall in the snow. We might never find her in some places....It's so deep! :)

Here are the girlies dressing our little Christmas tree. I love the little trees nobody else wants. This tree happens to be quite tall, but it's kind of crooked and it doesn't have many branches. It's pretty soft, tho. The needles don't poke you and make you bleed. The girls dug down and got all their own ornaments and went to town decorating. It looks beautiful. :) The only problem with it is that it doesn't have a scent. Last year we had a very fragrant tree, but we like this one anyway. We had to tie the angel to the top since I didn't want to cut any off. Good old fishing line! :)









If you remember from last year, I love taking pictures of snowflakes. I catch the little beauties on black paper and then you can see the details of each one. Some are broken, but most are pretty little decorations. Here are a couple of pics of some that I took recently with my new camera. Travis got me a new camera for my birthday and I figured this was a good thing to play with. Little, tiny decorations from the sky! :)





I'll leave you all with this video of the little hamster, Sugar Ham, we're babysitting. She's a little Robo Hamster and she's hilarious to watch. If you watch the entire video, you will probably be laughing out loud by the end. Non-stop entertainment~ :) By the way, this is real time, not fast motion. Her legs actually DO go that fast.

TSO ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Last night we went to see Trans Siberian Orchestra . All I can really say is THEY TOTALLY ROCKED! The lights, the music, the hair! tee hee We went with a couple of other families. We did dinner and a show. It was very fun. In honor of the band, I'm posting a Youtube video of this guy's house who did a light show to TSO's Wizards in Winter. It's very cool. Watch, listen and enjoy! :)

Christmas House

checkin' in

Hi all. Just a quickie note to let you all know, we're under a Winter Storm Warning effective until Wed. a.m.!! They're predicting 9-12 inches here. I'm TOTALLY EXCITED!!! The girls are hoping for a snow day, but the SB schools don't call snow days for just any snow storm. It has to be SUPER COLD before they cancel school. I'm predicting there will be a late start, tho. Since they have to clear the roads for the buses and parents/kids to drive in. I hope my squirrels are tucked in warm and cozy...it's gonna be a long, cold night.

SNOW!

Well, the weatherman was right. We woke up to this yesterday a.m. :) I am happy, but the rest of the family is not too thrilled. Winter is here until April. I can handle it. :) The squirrels are getting so fuzzy and fat. Tonight is HOUSE night. Wahoo. Hope you all are having a splendid day!

Winter is here. :)

It's winter here! Here is our 10 day forecast..... As you can see, it's not shorts weather anymore..darn it! The squirrels are getting fat and fluffy and storing their food in the yard. Wahoo! Winter...bring on the snow!!!! :)

10-Day Forecast

			High / Low (°F)	Precip. %
Tonight Nov 19		Partly Cloudy / Wind	27°	10 %
Thu Nov 20		Mostly Cloudy / Wind	29°/20°	10 %
Fri Nov 21		Partly Cloudy	26°/21°	10 %
Sat Nov 22		Partly Cloudy	30°/30°	10 %
Sun Nov 23		Few Snow Showers	35°/32°	30 %
Mon Nov 24		Snow Shower	32°/28°	40 %
Tue Nov 25		Few Snow Showers	31°/28°	30 %
Wed Nov 26		Few Snow Showers	30°/29°	30 %
Thu Nov 27		AM Clouds / PM Sun	34°/31°	10 %
Fri Nov 28		Partly Cloudy	32°/30°	10 %

Baby is 15

Yesterday was Halloween, but in our house it was something way more special. It was Baby's 15th birthday!! 15 years ago we went out just to "look at" vans to replace our little Ford Festiva. We had one precious little girl and another baby was on the way. We needed something bigger. I REALLY, REALLY wanted a Dodge Caravan. I had driven them, loved the way they drove, the way they looked and the room inside. Travis was reading the newspaper and saw that a Ford dealer in Portland had a few Aerostars on sale. I told him that I would "look and drive", but I wanted a Caravan. We drove down and took a test drive and went in to buy our new Baby. I LOVED the size, the color, how high up I felt when I was in her.......I WANTED THIS VAN! We drove away in our new van, leaving our little faithful Festiva for someone else to cherish.

Today Baby has 198,500 miles on her. She's been to CA, OR, WA, ID, MT, WY, MN, WI, IL, SD, and ND. She's helped moved friend's households. She's carted kids to soccer games, horse lessons, violin lessons, school, shopping. She is our faithful, old girl and I still love her. I will drive her til her wheels literally fall off. I know, I'm strange, but you all pretty much knew that already. :) tee hee

Ah, baby quilts

Here are the two quilts I have just finished and sent off.

This one is for Travis' stepsister's baby boy, Shiloh. He was born in April, and his procrastinating auntie took a while to finish and send him his snuggly quilt. The good thing is that he lives in Texas and now it's getting cooler so he'll need his quilt. The fabric is by Debbie Mumm and has little bunnies, lions, alligators, elephants, ponies and frogs. Don't know if she was going tropical jungle farm animals or what, but it's adorable. :)




This quilt is for my little sister's new baby girl, Chloe. She was just born in October (a couple of weeks ago). This is also Debbie Mumm fabric that has bugs and frogs on it. I LOVE the colors and how they look together. The block is a split nine patch, which is a block that I love doing and it can look so different depending on the color combo you use.






Here is a close-up of where I quilted "Chloe". It's kind of hard to see, but it also shows a close up of the adorable fabric. Both quilts are backed with flannel, the bestest fabric ever invented, in my opinion. :) I hope both of the babies enjoy snuggling in their auntie "hugs" for a long time. The stinky part is they both live far away, so I won't get to give them hugs with my arms. Soon, tho, hopefully.

Today is raining, but it's ok :)

I figured I'd highlight some things that have happened over the past couple of days and something that has happened over the past several months.

Over the last several months (since March, actually) I have been exercising regularly at the Y, started running with Travis and have been trying to eat less (and healthier). I have lost about 18 pounds and have gone from jeans size 10 to 4.






It's great and I'm very happy, but the problem was I had no jeans to wear and we were heading to the Powder Puff Football game at night and it's getting cold. I went shopping a couple of days ago and bought a pair of jeans. They fit ok, but when I got them home and sat down in them, I felt a little air coming in from behind. I was irritated since they were the only pair that fit out of several pairs I tried on at Wal-Mart, Younkers and Target (we're limited to shopping here). Well, I had to take Anisa to Wal-Mart later yesterday (the day of the game) and thought, "hm, I wonder if I could fit into large girl's jeans". Well, I tried on a pair of 16s and they fit! :) I just thought that was so funny. The best part of all was that they were on clearance for $7.00! I love a good bargain.








A couple of weeks ago, they opened the new bridge downtown. It was to replace the old but historic steel bridge. Of course, they had a parade for it (only in a small town!). The girls marched in the band. Anisa didn't play her flute, she held the American flag. She said it was really heavy and awkward with the wind blowing it. Sara played cymbals. The percussion section doesn't have to wear hats, they go gansta with bandanas. :) I love their uniforms. They look so nice.

You're probably wondering what the Powder Puff Football game was all about. Senior girls vs. Junior girls at the high school played each other. It was really fun, but really cold. Of course, the seniors won. :)










This weekend is Homecoming. We'll go to the football game tomorrow night and the girls will go to the dance on Saturday. Traditionally, the kids toilet paper the school. Here are the results of their work. The have to clean it up next week. hahahaa