A Trip, A Quilt, and Trade

This morning after Jeff,Elena,Grant,Alan,and Josh finished their paper routes they left for Illinois to visit Jeff's family. It has been a quiet lonely day around here today. I think it is funny that I have no worries with Jeff leaving me behind with ten children for the weekend.I remember the days when we had four or five and I would just dread Jeff leaving me home for the weekend even if he would be taking a few children with him! Have I changed that much?

I have been working on three quilts for friends who either just had or will have babies soon.All three are girls so I wanted to do something scrappy with the extra fabric scraps I had left over from the girlish baby blankets I made recently.

I will not tell who they are for exactly to keep a little surprise but I could not not show off what I finished so far.

Here is a sneak peek at one of them. This is my artistic photo.



I just LOVE the white around the nine patches.




I just finished up another trade with Creations by Carleen last week and her beautiful items arrived a few days ago. Like always Carleen did a beautiful job!

Scrafty Paper Lady

I was SO exited when Scrafty Paper Lady asked to do a trade with one of my Etsy shops.

It was very hard to not want most everything in her Etsy store. Aren't these just so pretty?!

Etsy Trades

I thought I would show you a few more Etsy shops I traded with the past few months.

I have done a good amount of trading with Creations by Carleen. She makes very beautiful items! I am always pleased with our trades.



This earring and bracelet set was made by Inspire 2 Create Designs by Susie

Brown is one of my favorite colors so I just fell in love with this bracelet! Susie also made matching earrings for me.

While The Rest Of The Kids Are Away...

it's toddler time!

This calls for the much loved hot chocolate pot and...



Some very sweet treats.



The table is all ready



For my very special guest!



I love you Lily!!!

Sweet,Sweet Suzy's Zoo

I came across this sweet Suzy's Zoo blanket panel and it made just the most adorable baby blanket!

Pumpkin Seeds, A Trade, and Suspicious Minds

Carving fourteen pumpkins leaves us with a LOT of pumpkin seeds! I will not complain about that!



I have had the privilege of participating in a few great Etsy trades the past few months and thought I would feature them when I can.

All of these beautiful hair accessories are from Lillianna Marie Designs. Her items are so cute and very well made!

Thanks Nicole!



Somewhere on one of the paper routes Saturday Jeff and the boys found the best treasure! Someone was throwing away this terrific record player,Am Fm Radio,tape deck,and 8 track player all rolled into one. What a find! The question is does it work? Well,we dug out our albums to check. Too bad we did not have any 8 tracks.



Well,the record player was running a little slow so Grant rigged up an extra motor connected to a plastic cap that helped to speed the player up a bit. Pretty clever way to solve the problem ,isn't it?



Here is a quick video demonstrating Grant's contraption.



Doesn't this make you want to dig out those old Elvis records? CD's are great and all but they are just not the same as records.

Still More?

Yes, just one more post about our party this afternoon.

We kicked off our Frye Halloween party this afternoon with some good pumpkin carving.









This being the last post about our Halloween weekend but probably the first post most will read, I just wanted to say one thing about our choice to participate in Halloween activities even though some of my blog readers might not.

Years ago, when our children were real little we really did weigh heavily the do or don't Halloween choice. We have heard lots of debate on both sides among born again Christians and decided that we felt comfortable (before God) with the choice to participate. That really is the bottom line. We have a ton of fun and it gives us a sense of family togetherness. Maybe our children when they have families of their own will have the conviction before God to not participate and that would be good,too. But as for our family, right now, we are so very thankful for our large fun family and are enjoying the weekend festivities.

Even Big Kids...

enjoy jumping in the leaves!

Enjoy these quick videos of the boys jumping in the leaf pile while the girls are finishing up their pumpkin carving and the hot dogs are cooking over the fire.Doesn't this make you wish you were young again?

Frye Party Fun!

We had a blast at our Annual Frye Family Halloween Party!

Here are a few Mummy Game participants





Of course, bobbing for apples is a must do at a Halloween party!

Frye Annual Halloween Party '09

As always our Frye Halloween party was a lot of fun.

It was requested by some of my older children to not add these videos to our Youtube so these are just for you lucky blog readers so you have to promise you will watch them. It is fun to see all the kids in action.


Just a little side note: despite the appearance of a few bigger boys not really getting into the fun dancing they did enjoy it they just forgot the actions or so I am told :-)

The Mummy game


The Chicken dance


The Hokey Pokey