March Madness Final Four

It's down to the final four at www.fatquarterly.com. Who will make the final two and then take the champion postion.

Check out the results and cast your vote today.

http://www.fatquarterly.com/modern-madness-the-final-four-2.html

I can't wait to see the results!

When I Grow Up, I want to be a Blanket!

Another knitting class and another project. These balls of yarn will someday be combined into a lap blanket. For now, they are a bunch of little squares that are waiting for me to get it together and put them into a small lap blanket. I've been knitting and knitting some simple plain red squares with the crinkly red yarn and have just started knitting some various stitch patterns into the lambswool angora yarn. If all goes as planned, I'll knit the various stitches into squares then eventually sew them all together. Meanwhile, I'm having a great time with the ladies at knitting class. We laugh and talk together while working on our various projects. Our teacher, the amazing Carole Dulitz, is always teaching us something new while we develop our skills with lots of fun projects. I can't say enough good things about the teacher and/or the class. Hopefully, I'll have more to post as this blanket progresses. Next time I'll show a few of the other small projects I have in the works. Wish me luck!

Inge Look Postcard and Postcrossing

So I'm back at Postcrossing and am so very delighted with this adorable postcard from Finland. It's by a very talented artist by the name of Inge Look. Her depictions of these two charming little old ladies is absolutely wonderful. They bring a smile of delight to my face and laughter to my heart. Such simple, sweet expressions of life. What a treasure! If you are at all interested in exchanging postcards with people around the world, please check out www.postcrossing.com. It's certainly been a fun adventure for me.

Catholic Scouting Rosary Patches

Something I wanted to do for a very long time now is to help my children earn the rosary patches offered by the National Catholic Committee on Scouting. However, I had never seen one in person, only online. I didn't even really know where to begin. Although I wish I could say we said our daily rosary still, I can't. We used to be diligent and say it every night as a family then we would go through times of crazy busyness and it wouldn't get done. I wish we still did. Most of the time it's just me saying the rosary as I'm driving or perhaps as I'm about to fall asleep in my bed at night. My husband once asked, before he became Catholic, why we just said those "chants" all the time. Why didn't we just say prayers? Well, the rosary is prayer. Not to say that you cannot pray anytime, anywhere or anyway you want to. However, when you're crazy busy, life is overwhelming, you're exhausted or completely stressed out, the routine, the habit, the repetitiveness of the rosary prayers is amazingly comforting, it builds the habit of prayer and soothes the restless soul. I love the rosary and am delighted that these beautiful patches are available.
Unfortunately, my camera (or perhaps it's the photographer) is a bit challenged when taking close up shots of the individual patches. They are larger and more lovely than I thought. Each one measures about 5" in diameter. There is plenty of gold thread throughout to emphasize different features. I really think they are beautiful. To earn these patches, you have to answer a few simple questions about the various aspects of the life of Christ corresponding to the mysteries of the rosary. There are various levels, for example, the first grader is not going to answer the same questions as the high school student. However, I like to think my first grader could answer most if not all the high school questions. After you complete the questions, you place an order at http://nccs-bsa.org/activities/index.php . It's not difficult, the patches are beautiful, and you can take another step in your faith. Or if you are in the neighborhood, Fr. Gregory Beaumont of Holy Family Church in Hanford is offering a few more presentations on the rosary. I was fortunate to attend one of his presentations, watched a beautiful slide show of the various Joyful Mysteries, met some very nice people, shared a meal together and enjoyed myself immensely. The Luminous Mysteries will be presented on Wednesday, April 4th, 2012 and the Glorious Mysteries on Sunday, May 6th, 2012 at Holy Family Church in Hanford. Hopefully, I can arrange to attend another presentation. Maybe I'll see someone I know there!

Jim Shore Santa's Workshop

I saw this beautiful quilt online a few months back and absolutely fell in love with it. It is from the very talented Chasing Cottons blogspot. I not sure how to link to the blog about it but it is so fabulous. It has taken me quite a while to track down the fabrics and guessimate what was used to make this beautiful quilt. However, much to my pleasure, I have now collected the fabrics from several sources-most notably Auntie Chris' Fabrics and Over the Rainbow fabrics. It has been an absolute pleasure to work with these people in finding these lovely fabrics and I couldn't be happier. Can't wait until my pile of fabric looks like the last photo from Chasing Cottons. Wonder if I'll ever be that amazing with my quilting skills? Hopefully I can do this be Christmas this year. Wish me luck!

Happy 18th Anniversary

Eighteen years later and we haven't aged a bit. HA! Time does take it's toll on a person. That and six children. However, I have to say, it's been a lot of good years. Not always fun and easy but good years still the same. Lots of great memories, six great children, three houses, one apartment, lots of jobs, homeschooling, and a multitude of other things. Happy Anniversary to us. I love you Gary Miller.

Happy 50th Birthday, Gary

Happy 50th, Gary. Gary turned 50 years old today so we celebrated with just the kids and plenty of cake and ice cream. He didn't want a big celebration and since it has turned out to be a wet, rainy day, perhaps that was best. He did get some fun golf equipment to add to his collection and I just know his golf scores will improve now. Happy Birthday, Gary! I love you very much.

Pinewood Derby Race 2012

The annual pinewood derby race never fails to please. After weeks of anticipation, the race was on. Andrew has been so excited all day for the big race tonight. His little yellow Star Wars car was finally on the track for the big race day. After many calculations by the computer and several heats of races, his little car didn't make the top three. However, he did get the Best Dragster award and was pleased with the race overall. The chocolate milkshake afterwards helped him in planning next year's car.

Diagonal Scarf

Another scarf completed. Actually completed this one a month or so ago but never uploaded the photos. It's a beautiful yarn knitted on the diagonal so it's pretty interesting to knit. However, this particular yarn is a little challenging to work with for a beginner. The variations in the yarn itself look great as you knit but don't make mistakes as it's difficult to correct them. Anyway, my scarf collection is growing. Whom to give it to????

March Madness Continues

So my quilting friends-if you aren't playing along with March Madness, you should. I can hardly stand the anticipation and am anxiously awaiting the results each day. All these fabric lines are beautiful but I can't help but have my favorites. Maybe this is the feeling that my husband gets watching LSU football-anticipating who is going to win. It's killing me to wait and yet I almost don't want it to be over. I'm so enjoying seeing all the various patterns and also seeing a bit of what people are able to create and make with these lovely fabrics. If you aren't playing along and want to see some of this year's fabulous fabrics, check it out at http://www.fatquarterly.com/blog.

Once I figure out how to link some of the fabric photos to this site, I will. They are all fantastic so it's going to be hard to pick a winner.

What do you do with your Duplo?

Saw this idea on the Filth Wizard blog and loved it so I commandeered all the Duplo blocks and started writing. It worked okay but was a little wonky. Later on I got a label maker and went to town putting words on all the Duplos. Still have a few Duplos left and am on the hunt for some more. I'm thinking this will help build reading skills with the four year old and the six year old. We've had a lot of fun coming up with silly sentences and adding words to the collection. What's your favorite word?

March Madness-Brackets

My latest addiction is learning to quilt. Along with learning to quilt, you look at lots and lots of beautiful fabrics. If only my budget would accomodate all the lovely fabrics I would like to own. As a genealogy enthusiast, I've often used family tree charts to show the descendant or ancestry of a family. I find this chart very similar. If you would like to play along, check out the fabrics for round one and print your chart at http://www.fatquarterly.com/march-modern-fabric-madness-is-here.html. This will be a great way to see some of the top fabrics for the year. Have fun.

Learning about Seeds

My sweet six-year-old had a project in school to see how a seed develops. We "planted" some seeds in plastic bags with some wet paper towels then recorded how they grew and developed over a ten day time period. He was amazed at how quickly the roots developed then the stems and leaves. His measuring skills may not have been exactly accurate but the rapid growth and development certainly made an impression. He was pleased with the test and has planted a few seeds in our little garden outside.

Tiger Cubs visit the Porterville Recorder

The Tiger Cub Scouts visited the Porterville Recorder for their final requirement for their Tiger badge. Mr. Rick Elkins, editor, provided an excellent tour showing the boys how technology is the way the newspaper is created each and every day. He showed us the various centers where the news is written, the front page is created, classified ads are collected, advertising is purchased and how the newspaper is developed. In Porterville, the newspaper is created online then sent to Visalia for printing then returned to Porterville in the wee hours of the morning for distribution. All papers are delivered by adults these days so there are no longer any newsboys making deliveries. The printing press in Porterville no longer operates. It was originally purchased in the 70's and the cost of upgrading it was more than having the printing done in the neighboring town. Mr. Elkin's also showed us a paper from 1926. It's rather amazing to see how the newspaper has changed since then. Yea for Tiger Cubs completing their final requirement.

New Plants!

I'm so excited. We have some new plants in the backyard. In our last two houses, we had beautiful Japanese magnolia trees which bloom right around Morgan's birthday. When we had this house built, we failed to get another tree so FINALLY I bought one and the kiddos planted it for me. I love it.
The other tree was purchased is a hybrid that Morgan really wanted. It's a combo of a peach, apricot and plum. Hopefully, we'll have fruit in a year or two but it's just a baby for now. James was outside without his shirt so Thomas decided to forego his shirt as well. Notice the muscles on the four-year-old. He's growing fast.

I am so looking forward to having these trees thrive in the backyard. The blooms on the Japanese Magnolia are incredible and even more stunning in real life. Next year it should put on even more of a show. Now for the rest of the yard work. Obviously, I have quite a bit more to do as we get the yard in shape for spring and summer activities.