Yes, It's Finally Long Enough!

Lily's hair is finally long enough to pull back in a binder!!!!!

Congratulations,Lily!!!

The world of cute little girl hair styles has been opened up wide for you!!





How does it feel,Lily to walk through this new hair fashion door?

A Bunch About Almost Nothing

I have been thinking about my blog lately and you know what I came up with? My blog is a bunch of chat about nothing much unless I am chatting about my family that is. There is nothing nothing-ish about them. Ok, nothing-ish isn't a real word but I am sure you know what I am trying to say.

For a few weeks I have been a tad worked up about my blog not being very meaty but more fluffy. I have been thinking 'what is the use of blogging if I am not benefiting the lives of others'? I was thinking 'why go through the effort.Does me having a blog even make a difference'? Self pity is SO unattractive, isn't it?

I read some very good blogs on a regular basis and they all seem to have something good to say. These blogs benefit my life. I have been tossing around whether I am ok with my blog just being plain and ordinary. I am a much deeper person than my projects,aren't I? Should my blog me more than what it is?

I thought I could write more about my relationship with the Lord. I also do have a lot of experience in parenting and taking care of a large family along with international adoptions and all the issues that come with adopting older children.I could write about those things. I have a unique situation in that we home school thirteen of our fourteen children. I did try a home school blog and lost interest pretty quickly. I have been married for sixteen years and always seem to be learning and re-learning how to be a good wife.I could write about that...

I do have a lot I could write about...I do...but in the end of my discouraged and contemplating few weeks about my blog I decided I really like my blog just the way it is.I like it even if it is mostly about my projects with a small amount of family life tossed in. It makes me happy to read and re-read and re-read again about our days. Besides, what mom of fourteen children age fifteen on down can sew up a storm like I can? Ok,ok, sometimes (but not all the time) I sew to avoid my mom job but don't tell anyone.

I decided even if I had absolutely no other readers aside from Jeff and myself or was not sharing anything profound to the blog world that would be ok. I am ok with that. My blog expresses me. I like me (most of the time anyway). I just thought I would ramble a little. I do like rambling...


Ok, here is today's post of a bunch of goofy stuff...

I have been lacking funds to buy batting so I dug in the depths of my batting surplus and found enough polyester batting to make these two cute baby blankets.

Whistle Stop Station



and another Suzy's Zoo baby blanket. The other Suzy's Zoo I made a few weeks ago has flannel batting and quilted a little different. This one is fluffy-ish polyester batting.



and this is it...the last of my batting...the end...the bottom of the barrel...these pieces are only wide enough to make a few fabric books but not even worth piecing together for even one more blanket or quilt.

**Are you interested in a little batting ramble? See my note at the bottom of this post.



So what is next? Am I at a total stand still with my sewing!?

NO WAY!!

Now it is time to pull out my yards and yards of minkee type fabric (not truly minkee but minkee copy cat stuff) and fleece I have been storing...



...and my piles of fabrics I could pair with the minkee and fleece to make some very cute cozy soft baby blankets that do not require batting. Once these are done I can truly say there isn't a whole lot left to sew but I would have cleaned up my sewing fabric stash!



**Note: The picture of my batting leftovers is a nice display of the different batting available. The whitest white one on the top left is polyester fleece batting. It is good for fabric books. The white one next to it is fluffy polyester batting. I do not really enjoy working with this. The off white stuff on the right is Walmart cotton batting that is sold in packages. I REALLY do NOT like this at all. It does not wash well at all.Besides there is something about this batting that the cats love to eat.Weird,I know.Any then there is the Warm and Natural.I really like working with this batting. I have no complaints about it at all aside from the price. My second favorite thing to use is just plain old white cotton flannel. I like the thinness of it and the weight. It is also easy to machine quilt.

Late Night Action

While most of the family are all snug in their beds sleeping we the few night owls are just starting our fun!

At about 10:30 Alan noticed that our Christmas decoration bin was full of snow and the few decorations that have survived another year were in danger. I set Joel and Lily to the task of unwrapping them and setting them out to dry. We will get a tree to hang them on eventually.



I caught Alan eating some of the snow that had accumulated in the Christmas decoration bin. Who can resist fresh fallen snow?



Elena located the only remaining string of working lights and hung them on out banister. Alan (in between munching on snow) helped her repare some of the broken lightbulbs. Great team work!

Notice below...Elena and Grant both are holding their phones. Did you know one can text and hang Christmas lights at the same time? I actually think Elena and Grant are texting each other. Now that is true brother/sister friendship! I would think it might take less effort to just talk since they are right next to each other (no phone needed) but then what would be the use of the unlimited texting fee we pay each month?



My completed pile of baby blankets I had been working on the past few nights.



Here is one sweet conversation I overheard tonight as Joel was following Grant around.

Joel (5): "Grant, if I say 'I love you' then you say 'thank you Joel', OK?"

Grant (14): "OK, Joel. I will remember that."

Joel: "Grant, I love you."

Grant: "Why thank you, Joel"

Joel: "You're welcome."

A Quick Monday Post

He is growing up too fast!!

Just a random picture I took of Grant today. Isn't he just a handsome young man?!

Where have the past 14 1/2 years gone?

A Few Boys and a Few Books

Nolan has a great time at his tenth birthday party. I overheard him state to himself that this was the most perfect day.

Here is Nolan with Josh and his friends Cody H. ,Jeff M., and William S. at the bowling ally.



A real pretty picture of Naomi that I think Elena took this afternoon.



I did finish up three more fabric books this evening.



I also made a simple baby blanket to match the Woodsy Wonders fabric book.



These will be next on my list to finish this week. These will be simple baby blankets.

A Few Things

Between Friday evening and this afternoon I put the binding on my four waiting quilts and washed them all up. I also whipped up a cute little baby blanket out of Mary Engelbreit fairy tale fabric.



I also made three fabric books.



The Mary Engelbreit baby blanket and Mary Engelbreit Three Little Pigs fabric book make such a cute set, don't they?

* A little insider FYI: The Mary Engelbreit fabric and the Three Little Pigs fabric book panel are at Walmart (at least the Walmart in Owattonna). There is even a cute Mary Engelbreit Mother Goose Vol 1 fabric book panel that would match the fabric. I think the set is a very fun,easy, and inexpenseve baby gift to make. I used just plan cotton flannel as the blanket batting. You could even use flannel as the batting for the fabric book. I used some extra Warm and Natural I had from the quilts I just finished.



Sunday afternoon Nolan will be having a few friends over for a birthday party. Jeff and Grant will take them bowling and then they will come home to eat tacos and play. Nolan is very exited.

After the party is over and things are cleaned up I think I will see if I have time to make two more fabric books. Woodsy Wonders and The Velveteen rabbit.



I thought it would be funny to show a little scene that was going on while I was trying to take pictures of my quilts for my Etsy shop this afternoon. I wanted to get day light pictures so I decided to try and squeeze the pictures in while Lids was up. It did not go as smoothly as I wanted...maybe it could have been a little on the stressful side if I would have been in a more intense mood. I was not so it was just funny.

The minute I got my first quilt on the chair to take a picture Lily claimed both the quilt and chair as her personal property.



Not much could convince her otherwise.



And then she wanted to be held because she was so upset.



All my quilt shots have Lily just out of view fussing. The mom of many talents that I am, I was able to keep her back with one of my legs while I stood on the other foot snapping pictures as fast as I could.

Until I was finally finished.

I set her into the chair with a special quilt.



And she was happy.

Ginger Ale and Tuna

Late last nigh Joel had it set on his mind that he wanted a 'Pepsi' which ha calls all pop. I would have considered sharing one with him if it was not SO late. To avoid a very late night temper tantrum I did what most moms would have done.Well, maybe just me and my great parenting techniques. I promised him a ginger ale the next day. That did not quite do the trick so I promised a ginger ale in a very special cup. That did the trick.

Well, today came and it was time for our ginger ale in a special cup time. Very exiting but there seems to be a sort of upsetting issue. I could not figure out what was wrong but I captured it on camera.



But Joel quickly recovered.



Lily joined us and we had a fun time.



For lunch today we had cold tuna noodle salad with homemade bread...SO TASTY!

Of course the cat tried to sneak a taste,too.

Something Went Horribly Wrong...Or Did It?!

One of my sweet sons needed to make some Friendship bread for his AWANA Trek class.

No problem. This son has gotten ribbons at the Waseca County fair for his baking efforts. Easy as pie...or was it?

His AWANA Trek book was nice in including a friendship bread recipe right in the book so that made the bread baking task that much easier!

Off he went to make his four loaves of bread. One for him and three to give away to his friends.

What came out of the oven was more like four friendship crackers than four nice loaves of bread. Maybe the Trek Bible study purpose for this week was to determine who your real friends were by giving them each a loaf of friendship cracker?Wouldn't your real friends love you regardless as to what your bread looked like?



Well,we thought we would just find a better recipe and off he was back in the kitchen measuring and mixing. Out of the oven the second time looked much better. Friends would be coming out of the woodwork to eat this bread.



Friendship cracker or friendship bread...would you be my son's friend either way?

When The Icky Attitude Take A Little Rest

Today was a pretty icky day for me so I am loading today's post with a lot of what happened when the icky-ness took brief moment of rest...

So now in 20 years I will look back on this post and think "gee what a genuinely great day this was.What was so icky about it anyway?".

December 1st starts our Christmas Eve count down!

I could not find our little tree so Elena thought putting every ones Christmas treat cones on the stairs like this would work just as good. I agree. Twenty four days...twenty four treats or in our case twenty four days 384 treats.




Here is the cute countdown calender the kids received from their grandparents. We found that someone could not wait to open each window on it's designated day but instead opened a lot of the windows out of turn.



I'm not going to name names or anything...



Anya wanted me to take a picture of her cozied up in her Tinkerbell blanket...a little escaping life under a blanket sounds good to me...



My newest Christmas gift idea...

Well,it truthfully was these cute The Purl Bee embroidered Dreidel game pouches. Aren't they real cute!? We are not Jewish ( Jeff's sister and her family are) but my kids would really like these all the same. Who does not enjoy a game which includes chocolate coins...

But...

I settled for trying my hand at hair accessories since I have eight girls instead.

My vision is to somehow try to attach these cute buttons to the hair clips. Any thought on how to go about that?

I also remembered those cool ribbon weaved barrettes we had way back in the '80s. Remember those?



I could not find the type of barrettes we used back then. I did find these tiny clip barrette. I thought these tiny clip ones would work better on African hair.

Here is Lily modeling this purple barrette that I made for Ekie's Christmas gift. Ekie just loves purple. Not bad.



I might still attempt the Dreidle game pouches for the boys. I think they would like those.They are very cute.


I thought for sure our money troubles would be over when I found this in our penny jar...



umm...after a little Internet investigating I came to the conclusion that our money troubles would be solved not by this 1937 penny but by me not frequenting the fabric store at ever project whim I have...not what I wanted to find out...