Happy Birthday to Kimberly !

Today is our niece Kimberly's birthday ! And here are some fun pictures of her back in 1983 ! This is the first time we got to meet Kimberly ! Your cousins are admiring you ! And here Amy is getting to hold you !

And then Uncle Ken got his turn !

And here is Kimberly now... a fun picture of her at her sister's wedding with Dr. Brian her hubby having a good time ! I hope you have a wonderful day Kimberly and do something fun for yourself ! Celebrate !!!!

Anyone for a Picnic?

Well my long thought about picnic quilt is done ! This quilt has evolved in collecting over the years and I finally decided these bits and pieces of fabric have GOT TO GO ! Ellen gave me a few pieces for it in a sack she was discarding, then Esther gave me tons, plus the entire back which was a whole bolt of a beige twill with red stripe. Then I had a few little pieces I had collected over the years. We all worked together and of course collected bits of the same stuff ! So thanks to Ellen and Esther for the fabrics, this very UGLY quilt has been thrown together. I wanted it light weight enough to be able to throw in the washer easily so being a twill on the top and bottom I opted for flannel for the batting. So again I went digging and found several very "UGLY" choices hiding hither and yon, so those got pieced together to use for the batting.

Here it is on the machine to quilt and you can see the ugly(batting) flannel pieces on the left !

And of course being made of alot of "cast offs" I sure am not going to care when the red koolaid spills or the muddy shoes of little boys go running across it. So the UGLY quilt is done but will serve it's purpose of living in my car "at the ready" ! It's quilted in threads of several reds and blues and beiges, getting rid of certain threads, so all in all it had no money spent on it to get it here !

I even took some of the fabric from the back and made a bag for it to live in, that way it'll be easy to grab when your hands are full. So yea for a done project, it's off to live in my car so once it's not 115 we can have a picnic again ! Anyone want to come? I'll bring the oreos and cheeto's, and the quilt !

Lucky me !

I got to go enjoy pizza for lunch with Garrett and Ethan today to celebrate Garrett's birthday. Ethan got to show me his wonderful walking skills and new found music rhythem

After our early lunch and fun little umbrella surprise we went over to their local public pool for a swim, great way to cool off today since they are predicting 115. One more month of heat and we'll be on the down slide of summer ! Lucky me to get to see my little guys for a bit today !

Happy Birthday to GARRETT !

Garrett is 3 years old today ! Happy Birthday Buddy !

This is one of my all time favorite photo's of Garrett ! What a cutie he is ! When this little guy smiles it knocks your socks off ! He may only be 3 today but watch out girls cuz he's a comin !

Good Luck to Jeremy and Aiden !

What a big day for for Jeremy and for Aiden today !
Aiden starts his first day of kindergarten, here he is at 1 year, boy where did that time go ! I talked to him last night to wish him luck and he said he was "a little nervous" . Aiden I hope you have a wonderful day and have fun and make some fun little friends and have fun with your new lunch bag. I bet you are going to love your teacher !It's a big day for you ! And it's a big day for Jeremy, here is our pilot at 3 ready to go !

Jeremy has his first flight as an instructor today. He's flying the other jet in a formation flight while another instructor and student finish a training formation flight. But it's the beginning. I guess a new class of students starts in another week so it'll be great to get in on the beginning of a new class of pilots in training ! Good luck Jeremy, another step in that career ! You've trained long and hard for this step too and I"m sure you'll be such a great mentor to all these young pilots coming on.

Hard to believe you were just doing that 5 years ago ! Here's Jeremy at the end of his Pilot Training and now you've got alot of people to help get to this point in their careers too !

Prescott Weekend

Just got back from a marvelous weekend in Prescott, Ken and I got to catch up and while he is learning how to update his new IPhone I'll blog some pictures and then it's out to the pool to work off some of the marvelous food we were all fed !

Linda and Denise and I headed up to Prescott first thing friday morning in eager anticipation of a fun weekend at a wonderful friends house who wanted us to come for a girls weekend and to teach her, her sister and her daughter from Tahoe, plus a few friends a couple classes. We had very avid learners and they all did great. We were busy on friday teaching a method of applique that we all love called P3 and they all realized great success too. Here is everyone busy figuring it out around Marlene's dining room table.

All the avid students with their finished projects ! Yea for loving applique done this way !

So we had to celebrate ! when we arrived we were greeted with margarita's and a wonderful brunch even before we started our little class.

This is the view out Marlene's great room looking out over the mountains and watching the storms rolling in was wonderful. Her home is beautiful and she's the perfect hostess.

We desert rats had to eat almost every meal outside on her beautiful patio.

Marlene showed us this quilt top that her Mom had done, it's all hand pieced and was just beautiful, she's hoping to have it hand quilted by the ladies at the Gilbert Museum.

Of course the gathering place everyone ends up always is the kitchen ! And with all the wonderful homemade meals she prepared for us we were always in anticipation !

Breakfast on Saturday was yummy ! Then it was on to our next little class.

Here are the wonderful hostesses. (L-R) Sandy, Marlene whose house we were at and her daughter Janet from Tahoe.

So friday was full of applique and Saturday I taught them all how to make a favorite wallet and they enjoyed that after our wonderful breakfast. Then we all went to downtown Prescott to stroll a bit and have lunch at a cute little cafe called Sweet Tarts. The next class of a notepad cover for your purse was in the afternoon followed by a wonderful meal at Sandy's house. We stayed and played a fun new card game called "golf" and got back to Marlenes and crawled into bed after such a fun evening of laughs and wine and great food ! Thankyou so much Sandy for inviting us to your home !

Saying good bye today, we 3 had a wonderful weekend and enjoyed meeting and renewing friendships and sharing the things we love to do ! Thankyou to Marlene for inviting us to your home and sharing your friends and family and guest rooms !

Then of course we had to stop here at the Rock Springs Cafe on the way home down the 17. Lunch at this quaint little famous cafe and a pie to bring home to Ken. A berry crumb pie ! mmmm ! Off to work some of those delicious calories off, it was so worth it and now tomorrow it's back to work and dry lettuce with chicken ! I'll be dreaming of the food from the weekend !

Useless information.....just in case you want to know!

Very little goes out in the trash from my sewing room, it's really quite interesting since I save every little bit ! If it's not going in a project being at least 1 inch or above or the next stage....being "rug worthy" then it hits this little ongoing bag of snips and slivers. I come up with one of these about once a month ( depending on quilt trimmings as batting snips take up more room) Also pieces of batting become swiffer dusters that I dust with and sweep my floor with or thread catchers by my machine !

And where does this little bag go???? It goes to the group that stuffs beds for the animal shelters. Thus nothing goes to waste ! Just a little Terry Tidbit of useless information! :-)

The Olive Mill

I spent a fun couple hours today with my friend Esther going to the Queen Creek Olive Mill. I've been a couple times, Amy took me out there the first time for Mothers day a few years back and I've run out there a couple other times looking for gifts and thus the trip today. I needed hostess gifts to take to Prescott this weekend. I've been invited for a sewing/teaching weekend with Denise and Linda. We are going to be staying at a gals house and working on a few projects but mostly teaching the P3 method of applique and a couple other little things I teach at work. I expect it will be mostly alot of socializing with some fun gals and we are going up to teach but I needed something to take since we are staying in their home and they are feeding us too! They sent us the "schedule" and the only thing on the schedule was where we were eating b-fast, lunch and dinner each day! I guess we'll be eating and eating ! So thus the trip out to the Olive Mill. It's a fun place to go and they do tours of how they process the olives and oil so there are alot of tourists that go there. It's about 20 minutes southeast of my house so Esther met me and we went out together since it was her first time. She was a great navigator as I never remember where I"m going in Queen Creek since I don't go often and every time I go it's built up and changed. We looked at all the fun things and there are all kinds of test tries. Every kind of olive you can imagine ( locally grown right there) Olive oils, vinegars, tempanades, and dipping sauces to name a few of the fun things. We then had lunch at their little cafe.



This is Esther and I ( I've blogged about her before as we worked quite a few years ago together, so now you can put a face with the name) And I miss her at work, every time I have to sharpen the pencils I think of Esther ! She always kept them sharp ! And every time we clean out the back rooms when the boss is gone I think of Esther, she always made me laugh as she'd say "get rid of this sh_ _ !" She's also the one who taught Ellen and I how to make authentic tamales !

So we shared a lunch, yummy tasty homemade soup with wonderful bread and of course you see olives are served everywhere !

And this wonderful vegetarian sandwich, and more olives, ohhhh the flavor !

So after test tries and lunch we left there stuffed, but what a fun couple hours !

Here is what I came home with to take, it's Garlic Parmesan Crema, perfect for spreading on panini's or a dipping sauce! It's wonderful !

Big day, Big evening, Big steps for #1 Grandson !

I left work early at 5 today and headed down to the Silvertooth house to play while Amy and Chris took Aiden to his kindergarten open house night ! Here they are ready to walk to school ! Papa showed up too so he and Garrett had some fun one on one play time !

It sure was fun to hear the stories of where all they saw Aiden's name in his classroom and of course Ethan had to have giggle kisses from Daddy !

Aiden got an official school shirt too, and Amy said you buy the lunch tickets, milk money etc. all on line now ! wow how easy is that ! They even have color coded car tags for pick up in the afternoon, how organized ! So one little boy all ready to start school come monday morning !

And I'm off to plop in a chair , the body has wilted and I hear Andy Griffith on, time to go sit with hubby and watch a no brainer !

2 Fish !

Well here it is July and we've been having everyday over 110 to 115 and we wake up today to thunderstorms ! Odd for mornings to have a moonsoon. So when the boys came over it was actually nice enough for a little bit to play outside and ride bikes !

So fun was had by all and then we were so hot we had to go jump in the pool ! And...Garrett has officially turned into a "fish". He kept saying no "I"m a boy" ! But that is this Grammy's way of saying you are now having so much fun in the water without being held on to. He does a big superman dive off the side (and boy you better stand about 6 feet from the edge or it'll be on top of you !)and then I can send him kicking hard back to the wall from quite a few feet away and as of today he can climb out on his own! YEA for Garrett. It's always a good feeling to get little bitties to this point so they just have fun in the water ! Yep, we've got 2 fish now who come swimming in this pool ! Ethan, you are next !

Garrett's birthday party

Today we went to our little Garrett's 3rd Birthday Party ! It was a pirate party ! and lots of fun !

Chris and MB all ready for the pirates !

My Mom and MB enjoying a visit.

My Dad helping Garrett with his fingers for "3".

Got it !!!! Thanks Great Grandpa !

After our yummy hot dog supper we had Cold Stone Creamery cupcakes, ohhhh what a treat !

Garrett you are such a special little boy, I hope you love being 3 !

Christmas Stockings for Marcy

Back in 2002 over that year I made my sister new Christmas stockings for each little gift giving occasion . Here is the picture from back then with that years worth of original stockings. Each year that there was a wedding we added another one.

For Marcy and Vince's anniversary this year I made one for Cailyn, their first little grandbaby, and my Great niece ! Now she'll have a stocking to hang at her Grandma's house too ! Hers has a little red bird on it.
This is Cailyn , she's so much cuter than her stocking !