Pillow Cases

Jamie asked me to post a picture of my other little job. Making these pillow cases. I make them for a company called Blessing Pillows http://www.blessingpillow.com/store/Default.asp it's a group of local gals that started the company that makes personalized pillows with a poem for people. You can order anything you like and they'll fill it and send you a cute pillow and poem written just for you ! They got a contract with a local hospital for 4,000 of the travel size to go out to each of the newborns, so a couple years a go that is how I hooked up with them as they always came in to the quilt shop to look for fabric and they needed seamstresses. It's been a great run but I can see the contract ending with the hospital because of economy issues so we've been off again and on again all year. So until spring I'm still sewing 50 of them a month. So this is what they look like when they are done, most of the time they are in piles EVERYWHERE, from being cut to pinning to pressing and sewing, and eventually they become this pile of 50 ready to deliver. It's a neat company tho if you ever need a personalized gift for someone for a special occasion.

Happy Thanksgiving !

Hope everyone has had a wonderful Thanksgiving, full of family and friends and good food and phone calls ! We loved ours and enjoyed a bit of everything ! Ron and Carrie were here from California along with her Dad, Chris ( yep another Chris) They brought the pies and some cookies with them so that must have been fun, the three of them, the dog and the pies ! It was great to catch up with them, we have fond remembrances of their wedding on Martha's Vineyard ! Here are Ron and Chris.....like the old days of childhood....Ron shows up at mealtime !

Carrie's Dad jumped right in to carve the turkey ! And a great job he did too !

There was time for a little of this too after we ate and a few naps were had on the couch !

Go MB! And everyone did lots of this ! MB brought the best green beans and cranberries from Martha Stewart, they had dried apricots in them, yum were they good !
Here are Carrie and her Dad ( he's from Long Island and Carrie and Ron live in San Diego now)

My folks were here, my Mom was the potato queen bringing mashed and sweet potatoes with a wonderful topping !

So the turkey stock is cooking away, the dishwasher is running, time to relax and finish off the wine ! We too are thankful for each of you !!!!

Pancake Molds

Denise gave me these pancake molds for my birthday and we gave them a whirl this weekend when the boys came. They worked great ! As you can see an airplane and a truck. I sprayed them with cooking spray and then you preheat them with the griddle, you push them out when it's time to flip them. They have handles that turn up.

And it worked ! So if you see these neat little things, they really do work !

The Boys spent the weekend

We had 3 little visitors this weekend. I left the house at 5:30 AM on friday morning and the adventure began ! Here is Garrett while Ethan had his nap, Aiden was off to Kindergarten. Garrett came out from his quiet time with a very large sock...

He started to unpeel...

10 socks later, yep,when you are 3 you can put that many socks on one foot if you want to....I knew I was in for a fun weekend !

So I'll share a few snapshots of our adventure. Here is Ethan while he was waiting for breakfast, lucky charms and OJ...life is good !

Here is Ethan getting wound up...

Go Ethan Go ! Yep the pantry is #3 grandbaby favorite place to be !

Yep he's pulled down everything he could for the moment... on to bigger and better things.

You go Ethan !

Aiden had a great time with the new Ms. Pac Man game. I think boys just come knowing how to do these things, like making gun noises, it just comes with the territory !

Garrett helped me make pancakes! he was a pro at the chocolate chip part !

We helped Papa with a lot of fall clean up around the yard.

Everyone rode bikes.

#1

and #2

and #3

We had a couple trips to the park , McDonalds and Chick fila

Ethan has NO FEAR ! Hmmmmm he reminds me of someone at this age.....a certain Uncle who seems to have his feet off the ground alot !

We built Gingerbread houses, here is Aiden's creation

And Garretts...he was very meticulous about lining up alot of the candies and the mouth was always full !

Fun was had by all, Grammy and Papa are home recovering now readying for the busy week at work and Thanksgiving prep and this is how I really feel....pretend this is me instead of this cute little guy that fell asleep, a donut hole in one hand and a banana in the other and boy I had to pry them loose while he slept to wash him up, he was not letting go ! But you can tell how fun he had by how dirty he got ! ahhhhh Ethan I'm ready for bed too !

Houston Prizes.....I was sooooo LUCKY !

Well alot of you know I was very very lucky and won some wonderful prizes when I went to Houstons quilt Market this year. It was my first time to go to Market, I had been to festival before but Market is for the retailers and quite different. There was a little postcard we carried around to have punched at several dealers when you saw their product, well we did that, I signed my name and threw it in the box and low and behold a few weeks later I get a phone call ! I thought it was one of those things that, yep you won, but first you must spend $10,000 ! But nope I actually was a very lucky winner of a Arrow cutting table and mat( I had my pick of several tables) an Elna sewing machine, a Mighty Bright floor light and an Accuquilt die cutter. Absolutely amazing isn't it ! The vendors were all waiting on a photograph of me with the winnings so here is the one I sent to them. I guess it will be out on all their web sites and my boss wants it for the Zoe's web site. So can you believe how lucky I was !!!

Fall adventures at Quilt Camp !

Well I had a fun weekend with "the girls" up at Quilt Camp in the mountains. This is the place we love to go called Bear Cabin. Carol just treated us royally with her wonderful home made food and desserts and we had all the time we wanted for naps and sewing. It was f-r-e-e-z-i-n-g outside so we never stepped a foot out after we unloaded our cars on thursday morning to when it was time to reload on sunday ! It rained and was wonderful to watch from her 3 sided/elevated/windowed giant sewing area. Snow was predicted but didn't come but it was wonderful to sip hot tea and hear the rain ( we dessert rats love that ) while we sewed.

It was great to have some time to sew, I got alot done but unfortunatly I can't show you photo's as alot of the things are christmas presents ! But I did get this done. This is a cat placemat that I made for me but it's a sample to hang at the quilt shop, so it's going to work tomorrow. There is a set of "vegetable cats" patterns that we found at market and they are all so cute, caulipus, gordo, an eggplant one, and on and on, well I brought the "celery" one home to do and so this is "STALKER".

Here is Denise, she got so many neat things done, this is a great applique piece that she pieced and prepped for appliqueing. Denise you are an inspiration !

Here is Barb, she was quilting this pretty quilt ( it's one our quilt group started so somewhere my blocks like this live in a baggie !)

Here is a close up !hmmmmm come January I need to find that baggie !

Here is Sarah, she plopped this great piece on the design wall and was working on the applique border blocks, also see that sock hanging up in the corner, yep she knitted that, I tried to steal it but it didn't work !

Here is another one Sarah was working on... it just sparkled.

Here is Pam, she had this great scrappy quilt to quilt amongst a few others she finished up.

Aren't these little 1 inch pieces pretty in this one of Pam's too.

Here is Barb, she was the Bag queen !

Barb finished up this one too .

And lookee here, someone left this treat on my machine !!!!! How did that quilting fairy remember that.....yep and they are gone !

So thanks girls for the great weekend and all the laughs, we had alot of that going on !

Happy Birthday Marcy !

Today is my sister Marcy's birthday ! We got to celebrate last Wed., she had the day off work so I took half a day so we could all go out to lunch and celebrate ! We ate outside at Cornish Pasty and everyone enjoyed their yummy Pasty. It was their first time there and it was fun for my folks to try too. I bought my Dad a beer to celebrate Veterans day. Marcy I hope you have a wonderful day today and enjoy doing special things with your family ! You are the best/sweetest/most wonderful sister anyone could ever want ! I love you !!!!Happy Birthday !

Swirl It

Well our fun adventure of the week led us to a new ice cream place called Swirl It. I'm thinking this is the one you fell in love with Alissa, and it is DANGEROUS ! Chris told me at lunch it had opened near their house so when I picked Aiden up from school for the afternoon that is where we headed. Garrett got to come along too, I had Ethan in the morning for preschool so it was fun taking the "big boys" ! So you go in and get a cup, put however much frozen yogurt in that you want...many flavors...then you add however many toppings you like....gobs....and they weigh it and that is how you pay. So we had chocolate, vanilla, Aiden choose sprinkles.... And here is Garrett looking at his gummy worm !

Oh my, I already told Ken I'm taking him soon ! The boys both said that was the best, course the dollar store is in that complex so that made it even more fun to go buy a prize.... cowboy guns with spurs and badges and bullets !

Happy Veterans Day!

Happy Veterans Day to all the special people in this world who served our country and are still serving it ! I hope you enjoy a day of salute to you ! Thankyou for doing what you do so we can live as we do !

Now I"m trying to figure out how to do this video thing without the help of my Guru's so please forgive that this one is on it's side ( geez ! ) I didn't realize that when I took it ! But I hope you enjoy it as I think it's darling ! So taaadaaa, here is Aiden last night singing his song You're a Grand Old Flag ! yea for being 5 and so good at it !

A fun filled 4 days !

We just had a great time at Jeremy and Jamie's house. We got in late thursday and enjoyed dinner out with them, Jamie was home when we arrived via plane thru St. Louis and then to Birmingham, then via car for 2 1/2 hours. Jeremy was busy texting me as soon as his last flight landed, was worried about getting home to see us so we 3 sat in the car visiting with Jamie in the driveway as it was freezing out until he got there 1/2 hour later. He wanted to be there when we first saw what they'd done to the house !

Here is Jamie showing us her pendants lights that will hang over the breakfast bar.

Here you can see behind her, a dining room wall that has come down, and the kitchen wall that is gone ! Wall towards the entry behind Jamie still has no sheetrock but is soon to come ! Ken did lots of measureing for cabinets in the kitchen, dining room, master bath and laundry.

The next day was beautiful out so Jamie and I got to enjoy some yard work together, smoothing some sand out that was piled here and there to fill in ruts in the yard and doing odds and ends of trimming. Her garden still is loaded with peppers, look at these peppers, we buy these kind at the grocery store ! They were huge ! It was neat to see the change of seasons, since we were there in Feb. last and it was winter !

It was great to see the renovation of Jeremy's shop. This room was a huge room of no use to them, is part of the house between the garage and family room and was actually sort of a game room but now is this great work shop ! And yes it is VERY organized ! It's getting it's share of use now that the house has been GUTTED !
and here is the best sport and helpmate to do all these renovations ! Jamie and Aileron ! Jamie is right in there doing things but for this photo she was in her "furniture" with the "lap dog" !
Yes camping chairs and you can see, cement floors and all the wall repairs behind her ! I can't wait until we take the cabinets there to see the beautiful stone tile floors they are going to lay, and the paint on the walls and new lighting everywhere.

And wouldn't you know it, there was still a wall that could come down ! Yes watch out walls, if you are around Jeremy and you aren't a bearing wall, out you come ! So now you see it...And now it's gone ! But look at how nice and big the laundry room just got, those cabinets are on the "burn pile" by now I'm sure ( altho he's very good at Craigs listing all kinds of things and people come and haul them away with a smile ! ) Things like old carpet....the fireplace front....the couch and loveseat....more carpet. Gotta love those Mississippi people ! Most of the cabinets and such are finding their way to the fireplace for heat ! It was lovely to see the change of seasons in their yard ! And watch as the breeze blew now and then and the leaves would fall ! I got my "fall" in this year !!!!We spent one afternoon on base so it was wonderful to see where Jeremy works now. It was the spouses ride along day and so we got to tag along on all the wonderful things they had prepared for the wives to do.This is the jet that Jeremy is teaching now, the T6, he loves teaching and is now Assistant Flight commander of one of the flights in his squadron.
They had this great static display for us to take pictures ! Thanks to whomever organized all this !

Here is Jeremy's flight room, thought you might be interested in seeing what it looks like. Those are posters from past flights that have graduated on the ceiling, his desk is in that far back corner so that is where he sits to brief and debrief his students on their flights. That table down the center is for all the students to do their flight plans on, close quarters to all the Instructors so I"m sure there is alot of "tension" in the air on busy days ! He's got great incentive photos of his C17 flights on the student side of the desk. And Jamie and I found the stash of red vines and cherry coke and peanut butter and apples ...his time between turning students is minimal during the day so when one is done the other is on the way so I can see those 12 hour days are fast and furious with food tossed in when you can !

This is outside the squadron building.

We had great tours of the tower and radar rooms.

Jamie had some egress training , of course she got to wear Jeremy's flight suit but they had patches made with her name on them, see how her wings have a heart in the center !Here she is suited up, helmets, parachutes, all the good stuff !

Jeremy's got her in the jet now ( they let us walk out to the jets too with our "student " escort. That was so nice so we could see what was going on ! Jamie you make an awful cute pilot !
I think she's ready !

And here is the "real" pilot ! Now you can envision what he's doing every day ! Here they are ready to go. Jamie is in the back seat where Jeremy normally flies, the students sit up front. Ok, this is my very first video, hope it works. Jamie is in the back, hands up, don't touch anything while they remove the blocks underneath !!!

Here is the Capt. and his Mrs. !

sure was fun seeing Columbus AFB !

We took a detour one day on our way to a Loews run to look at cabinet stains, buy paint etc. and went for lunch and a jeep ride. They showed us this marvelous lake and park just a few miles from their house, we actually got to go along for them to hide a geo-cache that they were putting out ( it's under that big live oak tree-shhh!) We had a wonderful mississippi bbq ( it was actually as good as Joe's BBQ here !) but they wanted to put the "SLAW" right on my sandwich, I guess that's a southern thing ! We did hunt for another geocache that they hadn't found yet and it was discovered !

We loved our 3 dinners out with them, we had a fat fest at Chiles one night and drove to another town to a place called Mug Shots and had the best and biggest hamburger I've ever had. This photo is at a little italian place in Starkville, we went there to celebrate their first wedding anniversary that is coming up later this month !

So here are the "boys". Everyone always asks how they are doing, they are so happy and mild now that they have so many acres in their back yard to run in ! Aileron is still part human, best friend and always hungry !

Rio is the "guard" ! Anyone coming near is a fool with him keeping watch. I'm so glad he's there when Jamie is there alone ! He also is able to stand on the back side of the fence rails and peek over the top !

and here is Riley, just chilling out by the pool that is covered up once again ( some day we will see it uncovered !)

So that was the end of our fast 4 days in Columbus Mississippi ! We drove back to Birmingham at noon on sunday, flew to Nashville this time and home to Phoenix by 8:30 ! Maybe next trek we'll be able to have more than 2 days, but it sure was fun to see the renovation in progress and have time with Jeremy and Jamie !