Friday, October 11, 2013

Well, we just got back from a nice little vacation. The kids got to skip school, hubby took some time off and we traveled to Las Vegas then on to my parents' house. One of the highlights was that my kids had their very first flight on an airplane. Hubby dropped the kids and I off in the Big City then drove to Las Vegas and picked us up at the airport there. After he dropped us off in the Big City, we had several hours before our flight so we hit the movie theater and had a double feature (Despicable Me 2 and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2). Then we took a cab to the airport, made our way through security and settled in at the gate to wait for boarding. Here are some photos of a couple of extremely excited kids at the airport.
My photobomber

another photobomb
the gate

I'm going to fly on a plane!

Waiting patiently




Unfortunately, near the time they were to begin boarding the plane, we found out that the flight had been delayed an hour due to adverse wind conditions in Las Vegas. :( Then after an hour we found out it was delayed yet another hour. :( But they finally cleared the plane for takeoff and we got to board.
Yes! OK'd for takeoff!
We FINALLY get to board!
Here are a couple onboard.
At the gate but finally on the plane

about to take off

The actual flight was uneventful (unless you count the really inebriated group across the aisle from us. But at least they were happy drunks).

Hubby picked us up at the Las Vegas airport and then we drove the rest of the way to my parents' house. We had a great visit. And enjoyed the warm weather. We'd had below freezing temps (overnight) before we left our house so being somewhere that was in the 80's was a treat. Of course, visiting with family was an even bigger treat. But we had to head home yesterday. No planes this time. I have to say I prefer flying. ;)

Anyway, today we did some harvesting from our garden. Since we've had freezing weather already most everything is dead or dying. We had about a million billion tomatillos out there. We picked an overflowing 5 gallon bucket full plus more. Maybe another 3/4 of a 5 gallon bucket. And there are still tomatillo plants out there with more tomatillos to pick. I'll be roasting and freezing some plus canning some salsa with them. We also harvested potatoes. I don't know how many pounds we dug but it was quite a lot. Both Yukon Gold and Red Pontiac potatoes. Plenty of large sized potatoes for eating plus plenty of little ones to use for seed potatoes next year. Here are the kids digging potatoes.

this is just a fraction of the potatoes we dug

conjoined potatoes

The kids dug for a while then got tired so I was left to finish digging. Our chickens were having a ball scratching in the freshly turned dirt and eating all the roly poly bugs they could find. There were a LOT of roly polies. The chickens were in heaven. Tomorrow we'll have to finish picking tomatillos and start processing them. That's pretty much the end of the garden for the year. There are some more carrots out there and some parsnips but I think that's it.

Alright, well, I guess that's all for now. Bye!



Thursday, September 19, 2013

Avast ye landlubbers, it be Talk Like A Pirate Day, arggh! (But, no, I'm not going to do this whole post in pirate talk). I hope you are rewarded with pieces o' eight, not made to walk the plank. Alright, that's the extent of my pirate lingo. You may have noticed, though, that I've been blogging quite a lot lately. What's up with that? Ya'll are getting spoiled. LOL Anyway, I just wanted to share another couple of layouts that I did. Both are of my darling baby girl MoMo. I can hardly believe she's about to turn 9! NINE!!! Sheesh! They grow up too fast.


Unfortunately, Big R is at that age where he is sometimes resistant to being photographed so I don't have as many photos of him to scrap. But I do have some and I'm planning my next page to feature him.

So, I also have some photos of my newly finished Triangle Baby Quilt! Woo hoo!



I love, love, LOVE it! It's kind of hard for me to part with it. But I will. ;)

Alright, well, I better go. Things to do, things to do...

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Hello, hello. So, we have an addition to our household. For MoMo's birthday we decided to get her a kitty of her very own. One of Hubby's coworkers has a whole lotta kittens he was trying to find homes for so today (even though it's not quite her birthday yet) we went and let her pick one out. She picked this guy.

He's not a tiny kitten. He's 5 months old so not full grown, either. They had little baby kittens, too, but their not quite ready to leave their mama. They were calling this guy One-Eyed Willie-not that he literally has only one eye (obviously) but when he and his littermates were babies and their eyes started opening only one of his opened and the other stayed closed for several more days. So, they called him One-Eyed Willie. But MoMo decided to rename him Peanut Butter. He is the most snuggly kitty. When you pick him up he's kind of like a ragdoll. Just lets you do whatever and he's very relaxed. MoMo already told me that he is everything she hoped he would be. Cuddly and soft and playful. So far he's getting along with our other cat well. He's very laid back and just made himself at home. Mrs. Kitty (our other cat) is a bit jealous but she's not bothering him. She's not very aggressive, in general. Mostly she's just trying to make sure he's not sitting on MY lap by sitting there herself. I'm her favorite. She doesn't want to sit on MoMo's lap, anyway. So, here's a photo of MoMo and Peanut Butter. She's so happy and excited.

In other news, I am almost done with the triangle baby quilt. I got it quilted and I just need to finish sewing on the binding around the edge. Yes! And I loved making the doll for my niece so much that I think I will make another for the quilt recipient's big sister.
 
Then I also started a sewing project for MoMo's birthday.  I hope to have some photos to share soon.

Ok, well, I guess that's all for now. Until next time...

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Hello. I'm back again. I've got some more photos for you. First, my Dad's birthday present. One day (this was months ago) we were at the thrift store and I spotted a paper piecing pattern. When I saw it I immediately thought of my Dad. One of the things he really enjoys is fishing. When we fish, it's almost always for trout. And the pattern was for a tie with a paper pieced rainbow trout. So I bring you the rainbow trout tie.

It actually is a whole tie. I just took a picture of the pieced part. Because, really, the rest looks like a regular tie. And even though I told him I didn't expect him to actually wear it he says he's going to. :)

I also said I might have some photos for you of my hourglass quilt but I don't. I have some blocks done and sewn together but I haven't taken pictures. And I need to finish the triangle baby quilt because the baby I'm making it for was born yesterday! Better get it done.

Ok, so this morning I surprised my kids and woke them up at 3:30am. They had no idea why. When I woke them I told them just to get dressed because we were going somewhere. The surprise destination was the Great Reno Balloon Race! I have wanted to go but usually I have found out that it was going on too late to be able to go. But not this year! They start with a cool thing called the Dawn Patrol where a few select balloons lift off in the dark. And they light up and glow. We got to watch that as we were sitting in traffic trying to get into the parking lot. These photos were all taken from the car. Sorry they turned out blurry. No one here is a trained photographer and it was dark! And the car was moving at intervals.






We finally got parked and found ourselves a spot at the top of a hill overlooking the field. Here are some pics of us waiting for the Mass Ascension to begin.

No, not smoking, chewing on the straw from his juice box
My girl and I
Smiling and it's not even 7am yet!
Then they started inflating the balloons...


It was fun to see the design as they filled up. We kept wondering about the one there on the right that's tan with brown triangles. Then we saw that it was...

Smokey Bear! I think that one was my favorite. A couple of years ago Big R got to go with his class at school and they had a shaped Darth Vader one that year. He wasn't there this year, though. But there was...

Spider Pig! He even had a curly little tail. Unfortunately we never saw that one lift off the ground. It inflated but didn't lift off. There was also a fun shaped Wells Fargo Stagecoach, a soccer ball, a panda bear...


A whole lotta balloons in the air.



There were almost 100 balloons. Can you see the strawberry one?

And a last shot of MoMo with balloons in the background .(and some random people)

Once we got home naps were definitely in order. 3:30am is EARLY!

It was just the kids and I at the Great Reno Balloon Race. Hubby is off with his buddy scouting hunting area for a buck hunt. His friend is the one with the actual tag. But they are both out there supposedly living off the land. Or at least trying to. I think they did take a can of soup or two as backup in the event they weren't successful. :)

Perhaps next year we'll make it to the camel races in Virginia City. We've been wanting to do that as well but it's the same weekend as the balloons and, again, we usually hear about them too late to go. I hear they also race emus and ostriches. It's supposed to be great fun. Well, that's all for now. Signing off...



Thursday, September 5, 2013

Hello again! Well, I've done some more scrapping. My MIL actually took some pictures when we were down visiting so I scrapped a couple of those.One of me...I know, I hardly EVER scrap with photos of me!

And one of my Auntie & I. We only had a few days to spend down in So Cal and I definitely wanted to see my Auntie while we were there. My MIL graciously invited her to a get together she was having so we got to spend some time together. Not nearly enough, though! I really wish we lived closer to everyone.

Hubby's sister and niece came out to visit from all the way across the country. It was really good to see them and the cousins always have a fabulous time together.

And my sister and nephew went to the beach back in June. I totally stole pics and quotes from her Facebook page to scrap! I'm sneaky like that.

Isn't he the cutest? I sure missed seeing him this summer. He and my sister didn't make it to the family campout or Grandma Camp. Well, hopefully we'll be able to see them again soon. Thanksgiving or Christmas, if not sooner.

Ok, well, I'm going to wrap this up for now. But I want to wish my Dad a very happy birthday! Hope you like your present and I really don't expect you to wear it (unless, of course, you want to LOL). It's hard to get something for the man who has everything (well, it certainly SEEMS that way sometimes). But when I saw the pattern I thought of you. I'll share a picture of my Dad's birthday present in a couple of days just so I don't spoil the surprise. Plus I may have some progress to show on the Hourglass Quilt I'm making. I spent some of yesterday cutting, sewing, and pressing. I hope to be able to sew some blocks today. Maybe get some rows sewn together.

Alright then, TTFN (ta ta for now)!


Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Wow! Summer went by fast! Yesterday was the kids' first day back to school. Big R is now officially a middle school student. MoMo is a 4th grader. What!?

Well, we did have a fun summer, even though it went by too quickly. This is gonna be another one of those catch up posts where I do 3 months in one so get ready for lots of pictures! After Big R's birthday we had the family campout in UT. On the way the kids and I stopped at Bryce Canyon. I posted these pictures on Facebook so you may have seen them already but here they are again in case you missed them.












We almost saw an 1800-year-old bristlecone pine tree. There's a hiking trail that is about 1 mile long and loops around and you can see a tree estimated to be 1800 years old. I wasn't sure the kids were up to it but they wanted to do the hike so we set out. We got almost halfway (just shy of the tree) and we decided we'd just about had enough hiking (we still had to walk back) so we turned around without making it to the tree. The elevation (over 9000 feet) makes it a whole lot harder to hike. Oh well. The hike was still nice there among the trees.
hiking the Bristlecone Loop

At our actual camping site I neglected to get out the camera and take pictures except for a couple of times. I've been really bad about that. But the kids had a great time playing in the small creek that ran along the edge of the campsite. We also played games ( a lot of 5 Crowns and some kings on the corner) and got rained on. But all in all it was a good time (for most of us).
dancing around the firepit

Playing 5 Crowns
After we packed up camp we went to my sister's house for Grandma Camp. Grandma had lots of fun science experiments for the kids to do and they had a good time.







I think it's awesome that the cousins get to hang out together at Grandma Camp. It's a lot of work but the kids are making lots of memories and that's pretty cool.

When we got home I finally did a little bit of scrapping again.


One of the things on our Summer Bucket List was to have a Harry Potter day and watch some Harry Potter movies and have some Harry Potter food to go with it. I made some butterbeer cupcakes (super yummy by the way), we had some Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans (in case you're not familiar these are jelly beans and they really do come in all flavors even ones like vomit, booger, and earthworm), and "potions" made by dissolving Jolly Rancher candies in 7up. Those were MoMo's idea.
porridge for breakfast

Mmmm! Butterbeer cupcake!

Porridge

Butterbeer!

Bertie Bott's Every Flavor beans

Hope I don't get booger...


Drinking his potion. I think it was a Draught of Living Death.

Polyjuice Potion?
Last (school) year when the kids were doing testing (CRT) their principal promised that all the kids who met their goals on the test in reading and math would get a trip to the water park. Well, both big R and MoMo both met their goals and got to go! They were pretty excited because they have been wanting to for quite a while. They've never been. Or at least not until they got to go a couple of weeks ago. I wanted to take them again last Friday as a sort of last hurrah before school started yesterday but we have had a lot of smoke here from wildfires burning in CA. So much smoke that the water park has been closed. Yesterday we finally had a glimpse of the sky after days of it being blocked out by smoke. That kind of put a damper on any outdoor activities. Usually every year on or near my birthday we watch the Perseid meteor shower. This year, however, we couldn't see much due to the smoke. :( Hopefully they are able to get the fires out soon.

I was able to get some sewing done. Before our camping trip I suddenly decided I NEEDED to make a jean rag quilt to take with us. So, I dropped my other works-in-progress and managed to throw one together in time. I like the way it turned out. And it's sturdy and substantial since it's made with denim. It'll be good for camping and picnics and such.

I also finished the triangle quilt top I'm making for my friend's baby boy due in September. I LOVE it! I almost don't want to give it away! But I do have some leftover fabric from it so maybe I can make another quilt to keep. ;)

I need to get batting so I can finish it up which I'll get later this week. I've got a trip to the Big City planned for Friday. I get to go all alone, no kids, no husband so I can browse as long as I want in the fabric store. And the craft store. I can hardly wait!

In other sewing, I have a niece who turned 1 recently. I made her a rag doll for her birthday. I think she's pretty cute.

Too bad my niece is at an I-only-want-my-mommy-so-don't-you-even-try-to-hold-me stage. I only got to hold her once without her screaming for her Mommy. (sigh) I guess she just doesn't know I'm her favorite auntie yet.

We also had a quick weekend trip down to So Cal to visit with Hubby's family. Again, no pictures. :( Sorry.

I think that mostly catches you all up. Maybe it won't be so long until I post again. We can always hope...

Anyway, I've got one more scrapbook page that I did. Until next time...