Its beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!!

Temperature wise anyways.  Its about thirty here. 

I just finished painting the big girls room.  I would love to post pictures but my camera is not working.  I need to order a new rechargeable battery for it.

I am working on Christmas cards and my painting project this weekend.  I hope to have all that done and lesson plans for the week.  I have to finish cutting batting for my brother's rag quilt that I'm making him for Christmas. 

I have started to hand quilt a wallhanging I  made a while ago so that I can start hanging some things up.  I have very few wallhangings, but lots of fabric and patterns to make them.  Unfortunately, I think most of my fabric is still in CA and I won't see it until June when hubby brings it out.  I hope to work on the quilts for the kids bedrooms at least and get them done.

Have a wonderful week.  I hope to start decorating for Christmas this week.  Probably closer to the end of the week, the kids' schedules are really busy!!

whew!

Two weeks ago today, I got really ill with the flu.  Coughing, headache, chills so bad I couldnt stop shaking, and then the fever so high I was covered with sweat.  I was in bed from Sunday till Saturday.  Thank goodness we homeschool, I don't think I could have made it without the big kids to help me out.  They nursed me and took care of the two little ones.  I also threw up during the coughing fits so I didn't eat for almost a week.  A week after recovering and I'm still gettting my strength back.  About nine at night, I'm so exhausted that I could fall asleep immediately.

Its taken me a week to get the house back into shape and work on laundry, I'm still playing catch up with that. 

I did manage to buy a shelving unit to put up in our foyer.  Not an ideal place for my scrapbooking and quilting supplies, but at least its out of boxes and neatly organized in one place.  I can't take a picture though because my camera battery has decided to die on me.  I need to get  a new one.  This is a rechargeable and I guess after about ten years, its bit the dust. 

So, here's some photos of the new house:

Lots of cabinets.  Really old cabinets, but they will do until we can do a kitchen remodel.

The back patio of the horse barn.  It has nine stalls all set up in there. 

TL standing in the front yard on the south side of the house.  That fencing goes around the entire property and divides the front four acres into five different pastures.

Morning glories climbing up the chicken barn

View of the horse barn and the garage. 

Our navy friend who lives about thirty  minutes away walking out of the driveway.  Pretty view.

Front of the horse barn

Back of the house

This is the smaller barn on the north side of the property.  We  hope to put our chickens in there.  Right now there's three stalls set up.





 

I hope to get some hand work done this week so that next week I can work on quilting the littles' quilts.  The big girls' quilts will be hand quilted but I need to sandwich them yet and don't have the energy yet to do that.  Tomorrow night is super busy with Taekwondo and Boy Scouts.  Tuesday night is American Heritage Girls so I won't be home until late then either.  I hope to get some hand work done with at the AHG meeting on Tuesday so at least it won't be a total waste!!

Hope you enjoyed the photos of our new home.  We're very excited and I'm already planning a huge garden and a grove of fruit trees.  Can't wait!

Trying to get organized

Now that we have FINALLY closed on the house, I'm trying to finish unpacking and getting organized.  Since we will never move again (thank goodness) I am trying to make sure its done and organized correctly the first time.

I'm down to my scrapbooking and quilting supplies.  I dont have a room or closet to put my supplies in.  This house is 75 years old and although I'm very impressed that we have such large closets for such an old home, there aren't any extras. 

Hubby wanted me to put my supplies in the basement.  The old limestone basement.  Uhm, no!

We have a large space that could have housed a closet by the front door.  To be honest, we will probably never use that door at all.  I'm going tomorrow to buy a shelving unit to put up there and hopefully get some of my stuff organized.  I need to start getting settled so I can work on some Christmas projects.  I also need to work on the kids' quilts.

Have a great weekend!

Finally

after weeks of delays, we are finally closing on our house on Thursday.  Kevin had come at the end of August with all of our stuff which we had to load into his cousin's garage.  Thankfully, the sellers had moved to KY last year and knowing our situation, allowed us to move into the house a few weeks ago.  All we had to do was switch over the electric....we have well water so we didn't have to switch water.  I waited to order internet and phone until we had the all clear.  It was supposed to be hooked up on Monday, but the gentleman had an opening today, so yeah.....internet!!

Kevin got to spend a week with us before he had to head back to CA.  We got all moved in and most of the boxes unpacked.  We were also able to do some minor repairs and get some things winterized.  Things are starting to come together now and we're excited about our new home.  The first night we stayed, we enjoyed the sunrise out of our bedroom french doors....the view from the bed which faces out was breathtaking!!

Off to clean up and do some unpacking!!

We're enjoying WA

We ended up driving up to WA.  Our plans of flying TL up to summer camp didn't fly....sorry, hehe!!  It was cheaper to drive him.  We leave on Monday to head to IA.  We close on our new  home in MN on the 31st.  Can't wait!!

We've spent the week visiting lots of friends.  Not alot of sightseeing as the kids just really wanted to play with their friends.  I did run over to the quilt shop in Anacortes to pick up some backing for the girls' horse quilts.  I could have spent a fortune buying fabric. 

Here's some pictures from this area.  We will miss it; the people and the beauty of the area.

Enjoy your weekend!!  We're having gorgeous weather here in WA.  The kids are having a  blast here!

Coming out of the fog.....

School officially ended this past Saturday for me.  I hope my kids are learning to attend college when you're young and not try to do it while working full time (like my hubby) or taking care of your family. 

Now that I'm finally done, I have about two weeks before the girls and I leave.  We will be going to IA to spend time with hubby's family until we close on our house on August 31st.  Lots to do with only a little bit of time!!

I need to finish doing some quilting and sewing.  I have to sort through the entire fifth wheel and figure out what we're taking in the car, leaving here, or packing in a box to go to the storage unit.  I'm going to take it room by room.  Thankfully, there's only three rooms and they are small; but there are seven of us in here and lots of stuff!!  ugh!

Take care and keep cool!!  Its supposed to be in the 100s here this week.  ugh!

Our new home

We have put an offer in on a new home in MN.  Its a 12 acre farm with several barns.  The house is a four bedroom, older farmhouse with lots of personality.  We are going to be doing the inspection soon and waiting for the appraisal to go through.  We're very excited!!  Means lots of packing and getting ready.  But to never have to move again!!  Yeah!

See, I have done some quilting.....

I've been busy finishing up the kids school year and working on my own classes.  The next four weeks will be busy finishing up the last four weeks of two classes.  But, I have been busy quilting!!  See!!!!

 I have been busy hand piecing this quilt and another just like it for my two oldest girls.  I don't have a space big enough to take a good picture.  The second one is almost done, I'm piecing the green borders on that one now.

Blocks for my BOM.  This is the only one that is almost done.  I've applique the pieces but have to do some finishing touches.  I hope to have the others done this weekend and finish up all the little touches.  This is supposed to be 12 blocks and a topper but I think its too big.  I don't have enough wall space to hang it so I've decided to do three wallhangins with four blocks each and then use the topper as a table runner. 

I'm also trying to keep the kids cool by hitting the pool everyday if we can.  Its been in the high 90s and hundreds.  None of us like this heat at all.  .......And I'm spending my "free" time lesson planning for next year.

Have a wonderful week everyone!

Hello, I'm still here!!

I'm sorry that I haven't posted in so long.  Hubby was gone for a month.  In the military, we have a saying, "when your hubby deploys, everything will break." And so it did. 

The fridge in the camper broke.  Thankfully, we own and electric cooler so I was able to keep stuff out there.  It was a pain not having a freezer, so I had to keep running to the store to buy meat and other stuff that wouldn't fit in the fridge.  My laptop starting acting up and is not working now.  And some other minor things didn't work. 

Hubby returned and we tried to relevel the camper to see if that would trigger the fridge.  The hitch got stuck for the fifth wheel in the back of the truck and hubby jumped in to try to fix it.  It was stuck so he jumped over the side and landed on a railroad tie and broke his foot.  Yep, broke.

So, between fixing all the broken stuff, helping him with this foot, and doing homework, I haven't had much sewing time.  I have just finished my final and have two weeks off.  I hope to get lots of sewing done!!

Have a wonderful Mother's Day!!

Hand piecing is taking forever....

which is why I don't have any new pictures to post.  I hope to have the borders on the one horse quilt this weekend.  I am working on piecing the blocks together for the other horse quilt.  Maybe I can get all the borders together this weekend.

I need to get working on quilting the littles quilts.  Maybe this weekend I can carve some time and space to get out the sewing machine.  I decided to do those by machine quilting because I already need to finish up TL's and will soon have too more to work on.  My goal is by June to have them done so I can work on Christmas and fall wallhangings and my Halloween quilt.  I have four blocks for my pumpkin block of the month and don't even have the first one done yet.  Need to get cranking.

I also hope to (starting this week) spend three to four hours a week doing some digital scrapbooking.  I need to get working so that I can complete some books for the kids by Christmas.  They spent alot of time in Iowa looking at the books I made for my mother-in-law a few years ago.  I just realized that they really don't have any books to look at because they are all works in progress.  I can't work with the boxes of pictures because they're all in storage right now but I can work on my digital pictures.  So, that's my goal.  Someone keep me honest, okay!?!

Back home!!

The kids and I are back home.  I'm so glad that our trip went well and the kids traveled well.  2057  miles in three days is a long time in the car.  They were fabulous though. 

My niece is doing really well, which is why we decided to come home.  She is so strong, she is able to move herself from the chair to the bed.  Tomorrow she has surgery to remove her pins.  We're so excited about that.  I was so nervous with the little ones around her pins.  They stick out from her hips about six inches and I was worried the little ones would hit them.  Monkey loved to climb into her lap and get wheeled around in the wheelchair.  I am so excited that she is doing so well!!

I didn't get much quilting done.  I worked on finishing up the piecing for one of the horse quilts.  I just have to put on the borders.  I have almost four rows done off the other horse quilt.  Little Miss Trouble pulled out her quilt that is pieced, just needs to be quilted and she has been walking around with the top wrapped around her.  Guess, I'd better get that quilted.  I'm just going to do a quick machine quilting for it.  I still need to finish hand quilting my son's quilt.

And I realized that my kids really want scrapbooks to look at.  I have one for TL and Princess.  Bug-a-bug has one started and the littles don't have any at all.  I hope to work on this year's photos and the last two years, since everything is digital, to present them for Christmas.  I have stacks of photos in the storage unit that I can't get to, so that will have to be for another day.  At least I can get the digital stuff done. 

Happy Valentine's Day!

Off to Iowa!!

My niece has been sent  home.  She will be bedridden for the next four weeks and then have surgery to remove the bar.  After that I'm not sure if she's heading to a rehab place or home and back and forth to physical therapy.  The kids and I are leaving tomorrow to drive 2000 miles (ugh) to help out.  She has to have two people with her at all times to help move her.

I've done all the packing and managed to pack some quilt projects that I'm working on.  I have the girls horse quilts and TL's dino quilt needs to be finished hand quilting.  Sorry for the yucky picture, but I was in a hurry!

Working on my pumpkin block of the month

Trying a little embroidery

Hopefully, I can get some of this done while I'm there.  I'm hopeful anyway!!

I'll let you know when I arrive!!

prayer request

Hello everyone!










I'm sorry I haven't posted. We have limited internet and December cost us a bundle, so I held off on posting.









Last week, our niece was involved in a serious car accident. She doesn't have any internal or brain injuries (thank God!) but she is in serious shape. She literally broke her pelvis in half in three places and fractured her clavical. Last week she had surgery to repair her pelvis. She has a eight screws and a plate in her, along with an external device (which basically looks like a bar sitting in front of her). Today she had seven screws and a plate put into her clavicle.









She's not eating because its making her nauseaous. Please pray for her quick recovery.









Its looking very likely that the kids and I will be heading to IA. Bailey will be in the hospital for another week or two and then in a therapy center. We will help with her brother and sister and hopefully take turns with her mother at the hospital.









Thank you for praying!