Another Kitty Distraction

and this time the distraction is Grizzly.

But I did finish binding these two quilts this evening.

Top Drawer's Calipso group of fabrics

Top Drawer's Secret Garden group of fabric

I am loved and that feels nice!

From Jeff. He spoils me.

From Joel

Warmly, A Dragonfrye Mommy

Wednesday This and That

Another morning goody.

Sour cream cinnamon coffee bunt cake.

Better than yesterday's cheese blintz.

To some of my young men, a clean sock is a clean sock even if the socks do not match and one happens to belong to his six year old sister and the other to his 17 year old sister. Face and name withheld for obvious reasons but this young man might be a McDonald's Manager and hitting the big 19 in June. But like I said, identity withheld. You could not torture the name out of me.

Loki finally let me get back to my quilt.

It turned out VERY pretty!

I have two more quilts waiting for their bindings and then it will be time to put my Brother away for a while and go back to dress sewing on my Kenmore.

Warmly, A Dragonfrye Mommy

Cheese Blintz

I was up extra early this morning and in a cooking mood. I thought I would attempt this cheese blintz recipe from Smitten Kitchen

add a little fried potatoes with scrambled eggs, crumbled bacon,cheese, and sour cream for a yummy breakfast...

Warmly, A Dragonfrye Mommy

Loki, How Is This Helping?

Loki, you cute kitty, you...

I would like to finish my quilt.

But I can wait.

No need to hurry.

Warmly, A Dragonfrye Mommy

A Little Bit of My Day

A plate of blessings from Christ the King Church here in Waseca who gave us the buns and the apple dessert. Christ the King also gave us hot dish, mixed veggies,and a very yummy pink cherry dessert. The venison summer sausage is from our long time friends the Grays. The salad and not pictured but equally appreciated, cartons of eggnog and green onions are from the Ring family. What we could not eat or dring right away went into our freezer for next week. Nothing will be going to waste!

Thank you!!

I tried editing another a-line dress I will be listing on Etsy. I was not as careful with erasing the background around the dress but I will get better. I hope I will. At least it did not take quite as long this time. There just has to be an easier way but in the mean time I enjoy learning something new.

Warmly, A Dragonfrye Mommy

Pretty Cute!

What started out like this a few hours ago...

Turned out like this!

It took me hours to edit this photo for my Etsy shop. I wanted something fun and eye catching. For only using Paint and Picasa it looks pretty good,doesn't it? Don't look real close because I could not get all of the background erased. My fingers were starting to cramp up.

Now, I am sure I did this the prehistoric stone-aged way. I just do not have a clue about photo editing beyond paint and Picasa. Any enlightening advice or direction would be welcome!

Warmly, A Dragonfrye Mommy

A Little HyVee Craft Fun!

My four youngest and I walked over to HyVee the other day to decorate cupcakes and make a few winter crafts.

It was a fun time. The ladies in charge of the activities were very nice.

They said there will be another activity time around Valentine's Day. Good. I think I will keep that in the back of my mind.

Anya, Joel, Grace, and Lily with their cupcake snowmen.

A sample of the crafts. I love the popsicle stick snowmen. I really want to make that craft at home next year with the kids.

Warmly, A Dragonfrye Mommy

What a Mess!!

What a mess the frozen water pipe made.

The damaged part of the pipe is to the left. You can see where Jeff cut the pipe to cap it off. Arg...This is the fourth little white end cap we put on BUT the water is STILL leaking!! At least the water is not gushing anymore. The silly thing is the persons who did this part of the house addition thought that only one water shutoff valve was adequate for the whole side of the house. This affects some of two bathrooms and the laundry room. I have the water to that side of the house turned off unless we are doing laundry or someone has to take a shower. If the water is turned on I have assigned bucket emptying duties.

We bought Charlie's Hardware out of the white cap things so now that Jeff's car is working again (hurray for that!!) He made a trip to Lowe's for this bundle of goodies. I hope something works. I was so desperate last night I even chewed up some gum, stuck it in the pipe to plug up the leaking. It actually worked for a few hours. That was long enough to crank out about four loads of laundry and a few showers. Not a good long term solution,though.

I just have to keep in mind that everything we try is a part of our learning and problem solving skills. Nothing is a failure just closer to getting it fixed...

And we could call a plumber but what's the fun in that. This just seems like such an easy thing to do ourselves. Plumbers happen to ask for something silly like money in exchange for their help. A silly thing we lack at the moment.

We will get this done. I am determined!!

Lily prayed at dinner for the Lord to help Jeff fix the pipe so that he could feel like a super hero.

That was so sweet.

Warmly, A Dragonfrye Mommy

Odds and Ends

I found a few more random pictures from the past couple weeks. I thought I could make them all separate posts but they are all so fun I would rather show them all now. I am not good at waiting.

The children's Sunday school treated our church congregation with a song on Christmas Eve.

How fun it was to see the children dressed so Christmas-y and all of the kids did such a great job singing!

I did not get the greatest pictures so I labeled our kids.

Lily was so sweet because she kept looking back at Joel to make sure she was doing the right actions to the song even though Odell was off to the side helping the teachers by doing the actions with the children.

Lily being guided back to her seat by Naomi as pleased as can be.

On New Years Day Anya, Lily , and Elena sitting by the heat vent coloring on the wipe (or are they called white?) boards

A good snowfall and some jello powder...

make real sweet 'ice cream'

A pronto puff recipe that was given to Nolan by a friend years ago...Thanks William Stahl!!

provided some of us a very yummy lunch. Apologies to those kids who had to have just regular hot dogs with buns. I got a little lazy after a while.

Josh and I are collaborating on a quilt for his bed. Josh loves watching birds and even saved up his paper route money to buy a beautiful Minnesota bird watching book at Pet Expo in Mankato. I saw this adorable bird quilt that I though would be perfect for Josh!

This is what we have done so far. The birds, leaves, and flowers are put on with fusible web but Josh has the task of hand appliqueing around the edges to keep them on for good. It might take Josh a few weeks but he is good at hand sewing. It might looks like a big task but Josh can do it rather easily.

Elena helped Josh (and me) with the placement and colors of everything.

When Josh is done with his part of the sewing we will put a border on to make the quilt big enough to cover up with. If we stick to a darker border fabric it will look boy-ish even though there is a fair amount of girl colors among the birds and flowers.

This will be just BEAUTIFUL when it is all finished!!

Warmly, A Dragonfrye Mommy

She is Six!! How Can That Be??!!

It is SO hard to believe Lily turned six today.

I started this blog just four months after Lily was born. Crazy how time has flown by.

It has been a frazzling day. Neither Jeff nor Grant's cars would start the past few days. Some dear friends stopped by to help. Grant's car finally started but Jeff's still is having troubles.

On top of the car trouble a water pipe in our basement broke today. Not good.

We had not been able to shop for Lily's birthday so I am VERY glad Grant's car started. Grant brought me to Walmart to pick up gifts for Lily. I am very thankful for Christmas clearance!! We celebrated very late this evening so the kids were pretty subdued. I liked that.

Despite the teetering on being a discouraging day, Lily's birthday celebration was the bright spot I needed.

I LOVE you Lily.

From the bottom of my heart, I do!!!

Happy sixth birthday!!!

Lily and Joel sitting by the heat vent looking at Lily's gifts. See, two peas in a pod.

Elena wanting to feel a little princess-y.

Man, she always hides her face!!

Warmly, A Dragonfrye Mommy

The Last Few

It has been SO cold here in Minnesota the past few days. Our cars will not start, the heat does not even have time to cycle on and off. Old drafty houses and super cold winter days do not mix well. It can't get any colder, can it?

I believe this is the last of the pictures I intended to post this past December but did not post.

I can almost say I am officially caught up. Almost caught up!I still have some missed birthdays going way back to June!

I will get them posted soon.

I know I am missing Thanksgiving. I did not take pictures. I was kind of down in the dumps that day but we did have a great turkey feast! Elena makes wonderful mashed potatoes!!

I was a little too shy to take pictures for our 8th Annual Frye Christmas Caroling Party this past December but it was a great time!!

I also decided to turn in early on New Years Eve which meant no pictures. Ok, I actually did not turn in. I watched Netflix movies most of the evening in my cozy bedroom. By myself. I was a little peopled out. It is ok to be peopled out every once in awhile, isn't it? Even for a mom who has a bigger than average people threshold because it comes with the large family mom job? I get peopled out...more often than I really should.

Lily showing off her new make-up she got for Christmas. She put it on herself. I bet you could not tell by the modest amount of blue eye shadow, could you? It is nice and subtle.

My son Alan bought me this BEAUTIFUL electric fireplace heater for Christmas! I LOVE it. I do not deserve such a generous gift. Alan works so hard for his money. I feel honored he wanted to spend some on me.

Elena serving gravy for our New Years Day dinner. She would let me take a picture if I showed ONLY her hands.

Lily eager to help serve some turkey.

Anya, Ekie, Odell, Naomi, and Grace after a terrific New Years Day dinner!

Warmly, A Dragonfrye Mommy