Garden news

Just a little update in the "green thumb" department.... My garden is coming along!  We've had some lettuce and a few peppers already, a few tomatoes...red and yellow ones..... the green beans are coming...

 And so are the squash, zucchini babies and yellow crook neck are all so tiny and cute!

 Tomatoes, I think my plants are all rather scrawny looking but they have tomatoes so I guess that is what counts!

 The lemon tree has set on nicely for next years lemons.  After it's tried to die on us twice it has come back nicely and looks like a tree again, after having years of huge crops we really did miss our lemon tree for the last 2 years, but last year we had 1 lemon and now this year there looks like a nice crop, now if it can just get thru our monsoon winds and not break every branch!

 And the apricots are coming along, I was hoping nature would thin them out since most you can't reach but it's not happening so I'm thinking there will be tons of tiny little apricots!

We got the bushes out front trimmed up again, a chore we are glad to be done with before it's so hot!  It'll be fun to see yet what we get producing out of our yard. I'd really like to make a cover for my garden this year so we shall see if that happens!

Buggy Barn Stars

Well it's not quilted yet but I took this sample down to work this week for classes, it's our Buggy Barn Stars class coming up June 9th at ETC.  It was so much fun to do. I just love Buggy Barn Style quilts.  They are carefree, you stack your fabrics, whack them up, sew them back together and there you have it!  Nothing matches and it's not supposed to!  So here are the Stars...... You could do it in patriotic, very manly, or wouldn't it be a cute soft baby quilt!  I did mine 1 row longer than the book calls for so it's a twin and someday can be on some little boys bed ( I'll have 6 Grandsons by this summer so I"m thinkin ahead!)

 I'll bring it home and get it quilted and show you how it looks then...I'm thinking it needs stars quilted on it!

Thursday Club

My Thursday Club got together this last week at Judy's house and of course as confusing to Ken as it is, it wasn't on thursday!  We were celebrating Mindy and Cindy's birthdays and Judy is getting us organized for the year as to who is hosting when. So it was her turn to organize for the spring birthdays and this is what I walked in to.......I said oh my gosh I can't compete with THIS !  It was so festive and fun!

  Judy laughed and actually had been to a party the week before and just borrowed everything to bring to her house....and then it was all going to her daughters the next day for another party.  Whoever did all the great decorations and flowers better realize how many have enjoyed them all!
 So here is Judy and Cindy.

We had a great mexican meal, Judy made green chile burro's with wonderful tortillas and all the trimmings!  Kathy made a wonderful Spanish rice which she gave us the recipe for. We had 2 kinds of pie for dessert.  I was in charge of the party favors and they actually blended in really well with the decor!  They are little jars filled with the packets of no calorie drink mixes in them( getting ready for that Az heat!)

 Sorry for the rough photo's, but here are Kathy and Mindy....Ann was missing and off to Ireland!

 Look how cute and easy this centerpiece is.  Judy you did a wonderful job making us all feel like we'd been to a fun party! And Happy Birthday to Mindy and Cindy, I'm so glad they are finally as old as me!  I'm hosting our "summer get together" so if anyone has any ideas on something fun to do in the heat of the summer let me know!

Nesting Boxes

Here's a cute little set of nesting boxes we are teaching at ETC.  they were so much fun to do, you'll make 3 in the class and from there on you can make whatever size you'd like to.  The class is on Friday May 18th and the schedule just says "boxes" so here's just a little peek at what you could do. I'm thinking one might be nice back in my bathroom with the diapers in it!  And wouldn't one in the right colors be nice to put all those blasted TV remotes in!  How about one for each project in my sewing room, at least then it's contained.  So be thinking, you could make some really neat boxes!

Martinique Bag class

We have our Martinique bag back on the class schedule at ETC.  So if you missed it or want to do another one, now's your chance. It's coming up on May 29th, I heard one of my coworkers say, I love this bag, it just stays on your shoulder so good, even with a jacket on.  We've gotten some really neat laminated cottons in too so I'm gonna make another one!

Behind on the celebrations!

Well I'm way behind on posting this last weeks celebrations in our family!  Chris and MB celebrated their 4th wedding anniversary!  They invited us over this weekend for supper and boy was it good, MB is such a fantastic cook.  I'm still thinking about how good it was!  So here are just a few snaps from that afternoon...

Chris and his son Bode...

 4 years married, Bode in the photo and little baby on the way this summer!  What a great 4 years it has been, we are so thankful for you guys!

 Then yesterday was Jeremy's 31'st birthday!  woohoo!  I thought I'd show you just a couple of the photo's from their photographers session before Jeremy's deployment....which since was cancelled....the best news of THE YEAR!   Here is Noah out by the jets with his Daddy's hat on, sitting by Daddy's boots and playing with his dog tags.....

 Love the family shot!

 Doesn't get any better then this does it!  I'm so glad you got to be home for your birthday this year Jeremy! Birthday's in the middle east are no fun, you've had enough of those already!

 How many little dudes get to sit on their Daddy's jet!  So Happy Birthday Jeremy, I hope you got to do some fun things not work related and enjoyed the time with your little family!

classes

 I've been bad and forgetting my camera at all my classes this month!  I had a couple students pop in yesterday tho and showed me things they'd gotten done from class so I snapped these 2 of Shari's quilts.  My Beyond Basics class ended after the 2nd month of teaching this quilt, remember mine was the red one with the posies.  Shari put lady bugs on hers and it came out so darling!  We had some great ones so if they bring them back I'll try and remember to take a photo this time!  I had 9 coming to the morning/evening classes this last month so we had alot of different fun quilts leave.  And they are excited to get started on the Watermelon picnic one I'm teaching in May/June.
And Shari got her twister done from our class last month too!  This was the first one I'd seen done as an I spy type and now I want to get out all my novelties!  What a great way to use those!  She added that inner border too....great job Shari!  I love it when our students just take it and run!!!!!

The birds and the bees

 We've had some fun spring "action" in our yard recently.  We have this nest on our patio that keeps getting occupied and rebuilt each spring and I guess it's an apartment as there is some cohabitation going on, 2 mother birds sitting in it again, I always wonder if is the same 2 from last year that sat there diligently each day.

And we have bees visiting.  A piece of the soffet on the patio was loose and they kept hanging around it, so Ken pulled it off this weekend and yep, they've already set up housekeeping.  I keep hoping that now they won't like it so much now that's its not all dark so they'll move! Perfect honeycomb being built, it's amazing to see. But how long will they stay visiting????

Cactus Wren.....we have a little Momma Bird cactus wren that we see every morning when it's just getting light on our walk.  She has 4 little poofball babies that are so cute.  She sits on them and all the sudden stands up and out they come.  Or she does this little ducking motion and they came running trying to get under here.  She yells at us each time we come by so we give her a wide birth from where she's sitting, sometimes on one side of the street and sometimes the other.  So cute.

We have the best students!

We have the best students you could ever have in our Sew and Go classes.  They all come to class and have so much fun and leave with big smiles on their faces.  Even when we make them do zippers and join bindings and all these strange things it takes to make things look professional....we have this thing about making sure our projects look nice, all finished off and very nicely done.  So they persevere with us and our funny hangups to have projects that don't look homemade but handmade!  So I had to show you what one of our students brought to us this week, it was such a sweet gesture and such a cute idea so maybe you can make one too.   It's an angel...... the wings are a dish cloth she crocheted, then the body is a towel tied with a ribbon......

 And here is the back side, it's all looped with the ribbon over a cup....how neat is that, I needed a new cup!  And a new dishcloth and towel!  So thankyou Shirley that was so sweet of you!  She's leaving to go back to her other home and hoping to be back really soon!  We'll be watching for her return!  We are just so lucky to have such nice students....

Karen brought us each a pan of homemade rolls a couple weeks ago, Toni brought us fresh eggs from her chickens,  Kathy is always bringing us cookies. Ce brought some yummy treats to share with the whole class......everyone makes us smile... Monica keeps the whole class in stitches, we have our "special needs" table...they know who they are and are proud of it!  We love their perseverance and neatness on their projects.  So much chattering back and forth if you step back it's fun to listen to all the happy chatter, and they all help each other, if someone forgets a step I hear them telling how to do something, what nice students....aren't we the lucky ones!

Sew and Go machine needle case

What a great group of ladies came and enjoyed our project this week, our machine needle case.  They LOVED it!  Here is Lorene with hers, all she has to do is stitch down the binding and load it up!  She's gonna be so organized!  If you missed it we are teaching it again at ETC. next Tuesday.  Everyone was signing up for our summer series too so lots going on.....lots of excitement....lots of fun!!!!

Easter Sunday

Well I'm slow as can be getting these posted but better late than never!  Here is our Easter Sunday.  Ken and I hosted family here at noontime with an Easter egg hunt and our great family potluck after.  Boy we all made some great food!  We enjoyed a nice skyping time with Jeremy and Jamie and Noah, we were all in our jammies and enjoyed a fun time with them first thing in the morning.  Noah had fun opening his Easter box from the mail and then showing us his crawling and standing skills!  

Here is how Chris and Bode came in the door!

 MB making her gourmet deviled eggs! Some of them had salmon in them!

 We got all the little ones in a photo together.....whew!

 Here is little Landon, he's tootling around so cute now! He wasn't to interested in the eggs but just the walking!

 Bode finding an egg...

 Cailyn all settled on the quilt to see what was in her eggs.

 Here are Ken, Alan and Chris and my Dad...

 Bode again with his golf stance at 21 months!

 Here's my Dad...

 he's helping Aiden with something...

 My Mom, Jen, Mike and Marcy and Alissa on the quilt.

 Alissa and Jen and Amy...

 And yep it was a hot Easter Sunday....how did this happen....I gave the big boys this snake that you hook the hose to and it sprays water....before we knew it they were standing on the pool steps....then up to their knees, then pretty soon we said go for it!

 brrr I thought it was cold but they thought a first swim on Easter Sunday was pretty fun!

Soccer Games!

Lucky me got to go to 2 soccer games on Saturday!  It was freezing out here, funny spring storm coming thru, hard to believe last weekend the boys were swimming.  Both Garrett and Ethan are playing soccer, the games were both at the same time on back to back fields so I went back and forth as each one went in to play.  Here is Garrett....doesn't he look like the "athlete"! 

 And some action....he loved playing the goalie and just stayed so engaged, wiggling and hopping around, then pretty soon here he comes skipping across the field, it was so cute.

 So here is Ethan..... So cute, he loved running around, sometimes after the ball, sometimes just hopping around whichever way!

 I'm so glad you can be such a busy little guy at 3 and get to play soccer!

Memo holder

Here you have it.  This is our first Sew and Go Companion Kit that you can sign up for.  We have WAY TO MANY ideas for our travel series for June/July/August so we came up with Companion kits, there will be one available for each of the different Sew and Go's during the summer and yep if you order them ahead they'll magically appear out of your selected fabric!  Yeah for Lisa who just magically has the kits all appear!  What would we do without her!  

So here is the first one that you can already sign up for (and yes you have to sign up ahead so at the first or second Tuesday Sew and Go in June you will have a kit just for you!)  It's a memo holder and is such a neat one, I love it.  It has the elastic band and closes so nice and neat for your bag.  These companion kits will all be easy enough for you to take home and do.  

 Here is the inside, there is a spot for a calculator and then 2 little slots for cards and a place for a notepad ( those kind you can easily replace) Now this was prototype #2 and Barb came up with a pen holder too now.  And YES the calculator and the notepad will be in the kit!  All for $12 and it'll match your chosen set. Can't beat that!  The fabrics will be out again at Sew and Go this Tuesday so more choices can be made, you can sign up for this companion kit.  So join us, we are making that neat machine needle case I showed you a  couple posts back and you can get your summer series fabrics chosen while the pickin is good!!

Everything but the Kitchen Sink Bag

Well this is the bag we taught for 4 different Sew and Go classes, each group took 2 classes to complete their bag and we had people begging to please get in the class.  We only took so many as they were quite a labor intensive prep and a HUGE project.  I love mine, it fits my acrylic table for my sewing machine and then it fits an 18 x 24 mat in that side pocket so you can pack projects around it all and are ready to go.  There is an inside pocket and nice big zipper that opens wide, and to top it off a board bottom.  So  here is the final photo of one, and yep the pattern is finally done.  Not only labor intensive prep but so was the pattern!  But it's out at ETC. now so if you didn't get into the class the bag pattern is available for purchase. I couldn't believe the number of people that saw the first class making the bag and then wanted to do one too but by then the 2nd class was closed.   I guess this was one Sew and Go that the people that signed up early enjoyed,  I guess the early bird still gets the worm!  But if you didn't then look for the pattern down at ETC.   And yes the bag is called Everything but the Kitchen Sink...and I'm sure you can see why!!!!

Gaa-go.....I have a name!

Well this little cutie got to come and play with me on Friday afternoon.  I'd been hearing that at his house he's been calling me a name ( Grammy is hard and is usually the last person the grand-boys seem to verbalize...altho I am one of the first they really want to see when they see me!) MB had been saying that he talks all the time about Papa and Gogo.  Of course they figured that was typical since I am always going fast all the time!  So finally yesterday I heard it and it's more Gaa-go with a short a....now how cute is that.  

 I'll be glad to be Gaa-go!  For awhile Garrett called me Bammie and that was fine too, they've all learned Grammy but it's nice to have a name and I'm proud to be Gaa-go! What a fun time I had tootling around with Bode!