Caroling Patch

I mentioned in my previous post that Nora went to a Caroling Party last weekend. Her classmate, Keegan, invited all of the 2nd grade girls over for door to door singing, cookies, and hot chocolate.  Since everyone in her Brownie troop was present for the Caroling Party, I looked on line and ordered these cute Caroling fun patches for Nora and the 3 other Girl Scouts in her troop.  I hope they arrive before Christmas so we can mail them to the other girls. :)

Edited to Add: I ended up receiving them the week after Christmas, and to save on mailing costs, I just waited until she returned to school today and had them in envelopes so she could hand deliver them :)  I cant' wait to show you her Brownie Vest with her patches sewn on...... there is another badge we ordered just for her, but I can't say for what reason.  Yet! :)

Happy Nap Times & Love from Indiana!

Only 3 more sleeps!

Christmas is almost here! It's been stretched out before and after the holiday for us this year. Last weekend David took the twins to KY to have Christmas dinner with his Dad's side of the family. Nora had a Girl Scout Christmas party immediately following Mass and also they had their badging ceremony and she didn't want to miss that.  Also that evening a classmate of hers invited all the girls over from the 2nd grade and they all went door to door Christmas Caroling Sunday evening... which if we had skipped the Girl Scout thing and went with David and the twins to KY we would have had to leave very early to make it back in time... so for us it was best for Nora and I to stay here and do her things, and David and the twins go to KY for the day. :)

This weekend, we'll go watch Nora in the Children's program at Christmas Eve Mass, then wake up at home Christmas morning and have to be on the road by 11am to make it to my Dad & Clara's home for Christmas Day dinner. Then early next week David's mother will have her Christmas dinner.  Thankfully David is off work until Wednesday!

Last weekend was a busy one for us as I mentioned above with Nora's activities, plus throw in there that Olivia had a Birthday party to go to on Saturday evening.....  but the most fun thing of all was on Saturday, I baked cookies all day while the kids helped with decorating brown lunch bags that said "Merry Christmas from the Minor Family." After supper we bundled up in our warmest coats and took our jingle bells with us door to door and started a new for us tradition, Christmas Caroling! It was so fun! The kids had been begging to do it and I was much easier to convince than David.... But in the end he obliged and ended up having fun too. :)

"Jingle Bells" ~ "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" ~ "May the Good Lord Bless You" are the three songs we sang at each home.

 

So speaking of only 3 more sleeps until Christmas - are you done with everything??  I've been all done with my shopping for at least two weeks now, but something I haven't done yet is wrap A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G. Nadda. Nuttin! Notta Thing!

 

The last 2 days I've been feeling terrible.  Perfect timing with school letting out :/

It started off with aching all over (back and neck) and fever.... Then yesterday every tooth in my head throbbed while my back also ached and I was so cold and chilling with fever on the sofa. Also as of yesterday it felt like I had a HUGE ROCK stuck in my throat. Ouch!

Thankfully David came home from work and served supper to the kids and oversaw their baths... not that he wanted to b/c he was plenty tired too from all the hours he's been putting in at work. He's up and gone from our home each morning before 7am most days.

Today I'm feeling a little better. I've been keeping the ibroprofin in my system all day and that helps a lot with the throat pain. No chills or aching today, but still feels like a rock in my throat.  I might feel up to eating supper which is a big improvement!

Tonight after the kids go to sleep, I'll have to get out to the garage and *FIND* all the presents that I've tucked away here and there... and get them started on wrapping. Only 3 more sleeps until Christmas and would you believe there isn't a single present wrapped under our tree? The kids get up so early (before the sun) each day and are running downstairs to hunt for our Elf on the Shelf, that I just haven't been able to trust that they'd not unwrap anything..... so I just haven't put anything out.

 

I will hold back the gifts they told me they wanted to buy each other and let them help me with wrapping those. We'll see how good they are with secrets after they've helped me do the wrapping..... they also have gifts to each other to take to Dad & Clara's dinner - they let all the grandkids draw names at Thanksgiving but forgot about adding my kids names into the hat. No problem, Nora can draw Paul Thomas, he draw Olivia and she draw Nora. Problem solved or so I thought... then they said their limit was $10 and the gifts we already bought for each other are more in the $25 range.... So I guess I need to pick up something else to use for that.

 

I have a few things in mind...for the $10 gifts... and thankfully with David off work tomorrow, he can stay at home with them while I slip in and out of Walgreens or CVS and avoid any last minute shoppers tomorrow. 

Until then - I hope you and your family have a wonderful Christmas Weekend! 

 
Happy Naptimes & Love from Indiana!

Schools Out - Teacher Let the Monkeys OUT!

Going to McDonald's is something we do often. 

Going INSIDE to eat is something we rarely do, but since today was their last day of school and they were being so good, I thought why not?  They were thrilled!

You just never know what kind of poses you're gonna get when you point the camera at them and tell them to SAY CHEESE!  The one below is my favorite. I asked them to get cheek to cheek... but they didn't want to touch faces so they put their hands up to separate their cheeks. :P

 

It's hard to belive that they are already 4.5 years old!

I'm so thankful that we decided to have our children close together in age.  They all three get along so well and are each others best friends.  I hope and pray we can continue to help foster those relationships. ;)

Oh and you want to know another thing that got them so excited??  ALVIN and THE CHIPMUNKS were the toys inside the Happy Meals!  Oh yeah BABY!  I have a feeling we will be taking the kids to see the latest movie that is in theaters soon!  

But I didn't tell them that - I'll wait until after Christmas to tell them. :)

tic-tac-toe - magazine update

This very well could be the slowest project ever! ...and sadly, not for any good reason other than after the kids are in bed, it's just more cozy to sit on the sofa with my NOOK rather than go down to the cold basement alone.  Here's a look at my progress so far.  All X's and O's are sewn on.  Can you notice that the X blocks are 1/2" larger.... :(  I guess I'll save those for another set and remake some for this set.  Apparently I wasn't paying close enough attention when cutting!

 

A couple days ago Andee commented on my design wall post of my tic-tac-toe project and asked what magazine I was working from - here's a photo of the cover for ya :) 

I played around with different stitches before I found one that I really liked to sew the O's onto the squares.  Each game bag will be unique, b/c I'm not going to go back and rip stitches to redo them all the same.

Olivia was playing in the sewing room with me last weekend, and didn't take her but a few seconds to spot my camera beside me.... What is it about kids loving camera so much?  "Say Cheese Momma :)"

As for the templates for the O's circles, I winged it.  Instead of tracing from the magazine their guides, I spotted two circular items that I thought would work well - and they did!  the bigger circle was traced from the monkey tumbler cup, and the inside circle was from the top of this lotion bottle that was just sitting there in the basement window..  I'm sure quilters from the past did this often. :)

I'm not sure why, but I cut my strips to use for making the X's on the bias.  Hoping it won't ravel too much, I guess.  Again not using the pattern in the magazine - but just guestimating and making them 3/4" wide.

  

In other news, David and the kids have come up with a NEW GAME of their own.  Apparently no one liked the Skittles from the Halloween candy - as there were about 20 individual sized bags left.  Well they have made up their own rules and call it "Skittle Skattle" and have lots of fun each night after supper playing for their dessert.

See the blue plastic plate on the table?  That's the game board.  Before David opens the pack of Skittles, everyone chooses what color they want to be. Some may get more pieces than others - as they are randomly placed in the bags.  

Then he opens them up and spreads them out on the game board.... then the rest is played a lot like marbles.  Each player gets to blow on their own color hoping to make it hit some of the other players... whichever ones his hits - he gets to eat those!  last player left on the board wins.  You are disqualified if you spit when you blow! :P

So far Olivia has been disqualified after her first turn in every game that she's played.  However she doesn't care much - so no big loss. hahahaha.  

On the other hand - Nora and Paul Thomas are pretty competitive!!! But no one has been able to beat Daddy yet!!  And he's always the last to choose his color and the last to take a turn. The kids are so puzzled on how he can end up winning if he's last? lol

Love from Indiana!

FW: Friendship Siggy Stars

I was in a block swap a few years ago with my online quilting friends. Since then I've met some of these people in real life at a quilting retreat in Manchester, NH and hope to one day meet more.  I posted last week a few of my Christmas whist list items starting with this Bingo fabric that I had seen on eBay.

Well there were two sellers on ebay with this fabric for sale and the one with the cheaper price only had 3 yards left. Not enough.  :( The other seller was asking too much per half yard so I asked her if she'd match the other sellers price and she replied back with no can do.  :/

Thanks to the HGTV Quilters on facebook, my friend Karen posted a link to where she had found it online and I looked it up and the price is right!  I can buy my 6 yards from there and pay only $35.88 and they have free shipping on orders over $35.  Still dear hubby doesn't understand why/how that this would make an excellent Christmas gift from him to me... and keeps asking are you sure?  

Yes honey, I want the fabric that is hard to find and the seam guide for my machine. I will be so happy with these gifts. Really! :) 

So far, as you see from the top photo, I have 6x6 blocks sewn together -and I was hoping to grow my quilt some more to make it a 7x9 setting before borders.  BUT after trying to acurately figure up how many yards needed for backing, I realized that would be way tooo big!

Actually I only need to grow it to be a setting of 6x7 rows.  I need it to be a good sofa size -you know, long enough to tuck under my feet and come up to my chiny-chin-chin while watchin TV. :)

So a few people have already said they wouldn't mind making me a block - and thanks to my recaculations, I only need 6 more blocks please! :) 

     

These closeup photos are for them to look at as a guide. As you can see *ANYTHING* goes ugly, bright, old or fungly...  as long as the fabrics are dark/light they'll work! Sorry they're not centered, I was focusing on zooming in on the siggy parts.

     

I've found it to be a lot of fun to participate in a swap where you make # of the same block and mail to a hostess... then she divides them all up and you get back that many different ones. :) Very fun to look at your new blocks.... and get a wide variety of colors and fabrics, plus have reminders of your online friends when you see their names in your quilt! :)

   

My husband was looking at my quilt top and was impressed to notice that I have blocks from New Zealand and Australia as well as many states here in USA :)

   

Can you believe that I never signed my own block??? and for everyone else I traced the state of Texas around my name and put an "Orange" dot where I lived.... no telling where or WHEN I'll find that ornament to trace around for my own stinkin block. :P  Look and see, I'm not too ashamed to admit that I used some old uglies in my blocks! :P or as Bonnie Hunter would call them, "Funglies" ;)

 

Showing you the EQ draft again so you can visualize that white thin outter border is reserved for some siggy strips that I collected the year I was in the FQ Bday swap and we all sent along 2.5" X 6.5" siggy strips. I'll have those all around the border - and that's not all.... there are more snowball siggys planned to use on the back separating my "bingo fabric" pieces... 

I've also found it to be helpful to have a strip of leftover blocks separating the 2 panels on the backing so that when you pick up a quilt to wrap up with, you can easily tell which way is the long ways... :)

I've been asked, so what do I write in the center?  HGTV board name, city state and real name. last name optional. some swappers only listed their state. some put both city and state... it's up to you.

   

TIP - I found it to be a little hard to sign the center if you use a WOW or COC. I'd recommend a solid white or cream... so that your pen's ink will show up evenly. 

 

I'm already planning to use 2.5x6.5 strips of siggys I got a few years ago in the FQ Bday swap in my light outter border... and also some more 6.5 snowball siggys on the back...

   

So thankful that I noticed the size dementions at the bottom of the screen in my EQ7 program... this will finish plenty large enough with a setting of 6x7 blocks + borders it will finish at 86"x95" which is slightly larger than a twin size. ;)

I'm so looking forward to finishing this quilt.  Now if I can only convince the family members who are asking me "Which store would you most like a gift card from?" to just simply gift me cash to use for paying my longarmer.  It really would be helpful and I'd love it all the same if not more than a shopping card to a clothing store. I can only imagine the looks they'd give me... b/c if you are not a quilter, you just don't get it.

Love from Indiana!