A ninth birthday in winter

Out of all of the cakes this dear girl could choose from -- pinks, purples, frilly cupcakes -- ....

NOPE!  She chose the Packer cake.  I was pretty pleased :D  And all of those Packer helmets are rings, so that was an awesome bonus on top of the wonderful buttercream frosting!

Amongst her gifts, one of the most exciting for her was that she was able to get some fish.  It's kinda fun to think that three lil' $0.38 goldfish were the highlight of her day!

We stopped at the local Thrift Shop as well where she found a game and toy.    She truly was having a great simple lil' birthday shopping day!

While walking around, I couldn't help but feel a little bit emotionally mixed at this beautiful baby afghan on the shelf.

Priced at $1.65.  I understand it's a thrift shop.  I understand that whomever donated it possibly doesn't have the same passion and understanding for handmade afghans as those of us in the craft.  I understand that I can't judge nor know the whole story behind how it came to the donation pile.  It was beautifully crocheted.  It wasn't just a simple design;  it was quite lovely.  And as badly as I wanted to bring it home, I knew it had no rightful purpose at my house when it could end up being something affordable and special to someone else who may truly need it.  

The day was gorgeously sunny!  The drive home, with the sun beating down on my jeans was splendid!  The time at home with the sun overhead, glaring through the windows was wonderful.

BUT, folks... we can't let that sun deceive us...

This was the current info at 3:00 in the afternoon.

And this morning........this MONDAY first-day-back-to-school morning......

SEVENTEEN BELOW, with windchill of -32.  !!!!!!!!!!

Folks----- I know this is Wisconsin, but... we Wisconsinites are STILL HUMAN!  That's cold!   LOL

Candace turns 7 :)

Candace turns 7 today!  And I have to chuckle that her favorite present was a huge container of cheesy puff balls :) LOL

I have some school work to take care of this weekend;  there was no way of avoiding it since I had to bolt out of school today to do some last minute BDay things.  Pizza, snacks.... ya know.

I also hope to have some time to work on Easy Street.  On Tuesday, this was as far as I got...

I was realllly planning on pushing through the piecing (See the glass of Mountain Dew??!?!?!?)

But when I laid out all of the units for this block......

????????????????

Am I missing some green squares?  Did they fall?  Did I fail to cut them out???

I CLEARLY was short!

So, I figured it was a sign.  And walked away.

This weekend though :)

However, shortly I'm heading out for a night out with some lady coworkers:  heading to see Les Miserables!  Can't Wait!!!!!!

Happy Weekend :D

A good mommy

Candace's 5th birthday is tomorrow, therefore she is the "Star of the Week" this week at school. Tomorrow, I have been invited to the classroom to celebrate the day with her, so I'm also whipping up a snack for the class.

Caramel corn was a hit for Caitlyn's snack day once last year, so I figured I'd give that a try. Afterall, it IS quite yummy (IMHO).

Amy's Favorite (and SIMPLE) Caramel Corn recipe
Ingredients:
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup white corn syrup
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3 to 4 quarts of POPPED corn

Directions:
Combine sugar, syrup, butter and salt in a 1½ to 2 quart microwave safe bowl.
Cook in microwave (HIGH) and bring to a boil, stopping every couple of minutes to stir.
Boil for 2 minutes, stirring well once removed.
Stirring constantly, add the soda.
Place the popped corn in a brown grocery bag and pour the syrup over the corn. Close the bag by rolling it down a couple times and SHAKE HARD.
Mircowave in the bag on HIGH for 1½ minutes. Remove and shake well. Repeat 2 more times.
Shake when you remove it from the microwave the last time and pour it on a large cookie sheet to cool.
Eat instantly OR store in an airtight container when cool :0)

Microwavable Popper was a gift to DH from my sis last Christmas. He usually adds quite a few tools to his kitchen every Christmas; this year, he received a Dehydrator and is excited to try it out!

Corn popped and waiting in bag...

I couldn't get any pictures of the actual cooking/mixing of the caramel syrup because it happens kinda quickly....but this is just as good? Mmmmm......{{sarcastic lisp}} Gosh....too bad DH didn't use the spatula to scrape out the bowl when dumping the caramel into the bag. Now I have the job of licking cleaning out this sticking bowl! ;0)

The final product is cooling and will be bagged up into 24 cute lil' baggies shortly.

And.....LOL.....DH just said {{amidst chomping on a handful of finished product}}..."Alright. Ya gotta make up another batch!"

;0)

I HAD intentions of dubbing tonight "Mother-in-Law Monday" because I have a stack of projects from her that need to be quilted. I feel so bad, because I've had them since about October! Yikes!!!

Okay...off I go to make another batch!

Happy Monday.

Some UFO progress...

Since I have officially made peace with myself for the fact that I have decided to NOT do Bonnie's mystery (at least not at this time), I spent a few more hours this morning tidying up the sewing room again. I haven't taken pictures YET of the nicely organized shelf, two full drawers of FQ's, and bins upon bins of 1.5", 2", 2.5" 3.5" 4.5" strips and squares; shoeboxes of 2" strip cut HST and 2.5" HST. About 30 minutes after DH and Cassie left for ice fishing, I figured I needed to leave the sewing area and spend some time with Candace and Caitlyn, unless I wanted them to kill each other. *(chuckle)* GOSH! Those two just CAN'T play nicely together without supervision :0)

After lunch, we put Wall-E into the DVD player (AGAIN!), and I took that time to pull out my knee-high stack of quilting magazines to remind myself of all the patterns I am dieing to make, but being patient to get to them. :0) However, I did come across a pattern that I think will be perfect for a lap quilt for Julie (running buddy---the one that always threatens to steal MY scrappy blue heart lap quilt everytime she visits.)

By the time DH rolled back home at dark and I had some Chili cooking, I was READY to head back downstairs to unwind my nerves from the "bickering" between Caitlyn/Candace.

I pulled out the Oklahoma Backroads blocks and plugged away at sewing up a bunch more blocks. It is now at a 6x8 setting, and with each block measuring 8" finished, that's already a minimum of 48x64", which I think will be just a perfect size for a snuggly lap quilt. I'll throw on a 2" inner border, a 2" pieced border using the bazillion 2.5" squares I still have, and then finish with another 2" (of 3"?) outer border and call it done. THat would be .... *doing some quick mental math*....60x76 (or 62x78 if I use a 3" outer border) as the final dimensions. The quilt pattern I found for Julie in the magazine measures 44x56", so....I'll make up that one and then let her choose between this one and that.... I might also "adjust" the magazine pattern to make it a bit larger.


I also decide to lay out the Scrappy Irish Chain blocks that I've been piecing as Leaders-n-Enders. I can't BELIEVE how quickly quilts seem to come together when you're not really "working" on it. :0) The layout doesn't match the pattern exactly; it's a bit smaller, but even at this size, it'll be a nice large lapquilt; maybe even a twin size.....let's see: 5 blocks wide with 1/2 blocks on each side, so that's really 6 blocks wide, and 7 blocks tall. Each block measures 9" finished, so 54x63" is current size. Yup---perfect lap size :0) Hey--maybe I'll get all three lap sizes done and let her pick her favorite of the three :0)

And yes...Candace celebrated her birthday rather "uneventfully" tonight. No cake, no fancy wrapping paper, and sadly, no grins from her either! She was grumpy from being awakened from her nap (LATE afternoon nap). We didn't want her sleeping away ONLY to be awake all night!


Tomorrow, all of us teachers head back to the classroom. Cassie and Caitlyn are both excited to get back, but I don't know if that'll be the case for the older kids....
Happy Sunday!

Birthday girl

Today is my Candace' birthday! Cassie came bounding down the stairs earlier than normal saying.."MOM! It's Candace's birthday!!" I hate to admit that I hadn't quite thought about it yet, but she was so excited that she went back up to "see if Candace was awake." She says she was, but I don't think so---she was just so excited to be the first to wish Candace a Happy Birthday!

When Candace emerged, she parked herself at the top of the stairs with a silly little smile on her face. When I grabbed the camera, she suddenly wanted to play "You can't see me, Mom!" What a hoot how the mind works at that age.

Today is the last day of my freedom---vacation ends today and it's back to school tomorrow. I'm okay with that though---it's been a great break, finishing off Cathedral Stars.

Happy Sunday!