Blog Parties

Man, it sure has been a while since my last post. I blame it on... um, life. Yes, life is the culprit! I've been trucking along on my quilt project despite a misbehaving sewing machine. Hopefully, I will have all the blocks finished this week. I also successfully made gifts for my nieces and a friend at my ward Super Saturday.

Since I can't post pictures of my quilt till after Christmas, I will share one of my favorite hobbies: reading blogs! It is amazing what a person can find in all the blogs out there! There are a lot of food blogs, quilting blogs, sewing blogs, crafting blogs... The list can go on forever!! I just love, love, love this wonderful resource at my fingertips. I'll share a few of my favorite blogs!

My favorite food blog is Our Best Bites! The two ladies have a ton of creative recipes like fudge cupcakes and personal pies in a jar! How cool is that? Spend some time on their site, and you will be hooked just like me! I love the detailed tutorials and directions for their recipes. I plan on making a sugar scrub for my visiting teaching ladies that I found from this site!

A craft blog that I am amazed by is A Little of This... A Little of That. This blog has some great DIY projects like a Christmas Countdown that I love! She also made some really neat Halloween place mats.

If those aren't enough for you, I discovered this blog today that what I will call the encyclopedia of free print-ables! Basically, you can find cute and crafty ideas such as a Christmas advent calendar and gift tags made by the blog's creator or you can find links to other projects on different blogs. It's amazing what she has collected!

These are just the tip of the iceberg to what you can find on these blogs and others. Technology is so amazing!

Happy Holidays!

Quilting Update

I am happy to report that I finished cutting out all the fabric for my current quilt! Four days and five movies later, I now am the owner of 585 squares!

 I've discovered I prefer movies as background noise as opposed to music. I just haven't found any good "cutting fabric" music.

Let the sewing begin (after making a few triangles)!!!

An Aunt-filled Weekend

I had a fun weekend with my niece, Bookworm, and her brother, Roadrunner!

Friday, I went to a football game with Bookworm. It was SO much fun! I was dancing along to the band, being silly and enjoying myself! It helped the spirits when our team ended the first quarter with a score of 27 to 0. By the half, we were up 42 to 3. Our team won by a landslide: 56 to 3. It was a great game!

After spending four years' worth of Friday nights at high school football games with the band, I picked up a tradition of having a candy bar during the third quarter. If you really want to know how this tradition started, you can ask me. That's a different story. Anyway, I treated our little group to candy, being nice to the boys and treating them too! Bookworm decided to be nice to the boys. Eh, they were worth the three dollars! Bookworm and I took a few pictures, but I can't find my cord to download the pictures to my computer. You'll have to be patient with me on that one.

Top three favorite moments for Friday:

3. Dancing to the Band music, causing Bookworm to laugh at me!

2. Discussing the idea of a Pep Orchestra and the sports it would support!

1. Driving Bookworm home and hearing that I am the best aunt! You can't top that!

Saturday, Roadrunner and I spent the afternoon together. We were going to go to a pumpkin patch, but the entrance fee was more than I had in my wallet, so we did the only sane thing to do: go to WinCo for pumpkins! We picked out four little pumpkins about the size of a baseball and two big pumpkins about ten pounds each. I was impressed! Roadrunner climbed into the cart and "steered" us around the store. (I was the "rear-wheel-drive" and the motor.)

After that, we headed to the park to meet some ladies I know. 

There was a really cool ring that spun around. We had fun on that one. Roadrunner stood on it while it went around, keeping his balance quite nicely. I was not nearly that brave; I almost lost my balance just sitting! Take a look.

I did all the work of going up hill with these boys. My legs got quite the workout by the time I was done!

Top Three Favorites from Saturday:

3. Running to the back of the parking lot pushing the cart as a "race car", then screeching to a halt just prior to hitting the car. Roadrunner's comment: "Wow, those brakes worked better than expected!"

2. Roadrunner folding himself in half with his feet sticking up in the air for luck as we drove over the railroad tracks.

1. Learning that Roadrunner turned down a play date to hang out with me!

I love my family!

Tying on the Apron Strings

I was working on a quilt all day on Saturday. As much as I love making quilts, they just take forever to be completed! I was in desperate need to create a small project that could be finished quickly. I remembered an apron tutorial I found online here.

After one trip to the fabric store, two Disney movies, three seams picked out, four improvisations, five pin pricks, six separate fabrics and seven hours of working, I finally had my girlie-girl apron! It really was fun to make and turned out fantastic!

Check out all the colors in this apron!

I just LOVE all the ruffles! I feel so feminine and like a little girl when I wear this apron. I don't think I will wear this when baking, but I could probably wear this every day! It's one of those pieces that makes me happy by just wearing it!

Since I am on the subject of aprons, I want to share another apron I made a few months ago for a friend's birthday. This next apron was super easy to make. The hardest part was threading the ribbon through the holes.

This is me modeling the apron before mailing it to my friend.

This is the picture my friend sent to me with a big "I love this!" Check out those pretty details!

I love, love, love sewing and turning an idea into a beautiful piece of artwork!

My Apple Dumpling Gang

We had a family reunion last month where, for the first time in a while, all of my immediate family was together.

My parents with my brothers and myself

My parents with my oldest brother and his family

My parents with my second brother and his family

Since all nine of my nieces and nephews were together, I couldn't pass up the chance to take a picture with them. 

I love these kids!

Summer Craziness

That is my excuse for not updating my blog in the last month. I had a few crazy weeks full of everything from weddings to family visits to a complete computer overhaul... Oh and a few trips here and there. So, you can see that I was probably busier than the bumblebees around our lavender plant! As busy as I was, it was a grand summer filled with a lot of memories and fun. I haven't loaded all of my pictures onto my computer yet, so hopefully I'll have some good ones up in the next few days. We'll see how this weekend goes since this weekend is packed as well. Speaking of packed, (Honestly, there was no planned transition there.) I'm moving about six miles up the freeway next week. I am hoping this weekend will let me get some packing done between visiting with out of town friends, a jewelry show and a wedding reception. Wish me luck!

To tide you over, here are a few pictures from my trip to Seaside, OR.

Lessons in Baking

If you have paid attention to my blog at all, you know that I love L-O-V-E love baking! This summer has been no exception in my baking, although I've had to pick and choose when I bake due to the heat of summer. Here are a few things I have learned in my experiments and pictures of why I learned these lessons.

1) Be sure to check the oven before preheating.

So much for the left over corn bread!

2) Always measure butter correctly.

I'll just say that these "cookies" were not presentable for the party that night. I ended up making another batch with the correct amount of butter.

3) There are baking times for a reason!

These are my experimental peanut butter & chocolate brownies that I took out of the oven too early, causing the middle to be gooey, gooey, gooey.

4) Chocolate Sauce makes desserts look pretty.

Now, doesn't that look pretty? It certainly was before I ate it! Yum!

While I was visiting with my grandpa tonight, I learned that his mother loved to bake. I'm beginning to think baking is in my blood! Or it could have something to do with the name she and I share. Perhaps her love of baking was passed to me when I received her name! Regardless of where my love of baking came from, I am determined to embrace and develop my relationship with baking!