Sunday, fun day......

Well, I survived girl scout BOLT training this weekend! I learned a lot of fun things (who knew you could make omelets in a freezer ziplock baggie in boiling water?, never try to learn knots at 9:30 at night!). I was also glad the ranger found the little rat snake in the middle sleeping portion of my cabin AFTER I had packed and got everything loaded on the wagon to go back to the cars this morning. The little green frogs in the bathroom were very cute - and I did remember to check before I sat each time =)  The shower around 11AM when I got home was lovely too! Boy was it hot and humid yesterday and it was a little toasty by the file last night. A fun time though and I can't wait to go camping with my troop next month.

At some point today (after I clean up the house a bit - just run the duster and vacuum cleaner around) I will sit with my feet up and relax with the final stitching on the border edge of the green dresden plate block.

I love how these are coming out. Do I wait to see what color March will be or select a color and prep it today?

Family is in the air in route to Florida. They should arrive to my house sometime between 6-7. I'll have burgers on the grill and potato salad and kansas cucumber salad ready for whenever they arrive. Emily is on cookie duty (crinkle cookies) and Aidan has plans to make a raspberry cheesecake when he gets home from Grandma's house for our dessert tomorrow night. I hope they enjoy the mid 80's and semi humid weather we are having.

I have also been knitting some dish cloths - a little left on this white one that peanut is guarding.

The tail end of the blue variegated and white got put into use before I could snap a photo. Some hand work lemoyne stars got done in the car line too. I really need to print out some more white parts to finish these off.

Linking up with Kathy and the other slow stitchers today..... if the kitten decides to let me up. He decided to lay down next to me - using my knee as his pillow with his paw holding my leg down. Silly kitty. I think he missed me =).

RSC Saturday....

I finally found the sewing machine and some purple fabrics.

I made one of 3 of the RSC Sampler blocks for the month in Purple. I have hopes of making the other two Sunday afternoon.... assuming I survive BOLT training at Camp Wildwood Sat/Sun. Then I get to prep a little for family arriving Sunday evening. Hope they are ready for warm weather and active kittens.

I also have hand stitched a few more lemoyne stars... there is purple in there so I am including them.

Linking up with the RSC on Saturday.

Slow Sunday....

I'll be joining the other slow stitchers today at Kathy's Quilts and adding some slow hand quilting stitches to the green dresden plate block. What will you be working on today?

Graduation quilt...

 I seem to keep putting this off but when I look at the calendar the month of June is coming up very quickly and I have yet to start this graduation quilt. This is the photo the graduation girl sent me. I think I have drafted it out but need to do a few practice blocks and check the math.

Finally some hand work....

I pulled out the dark green dresden block, found and pressed a greenish FQ and assembled the little quilt sandwich Monday. After school pick up (and another hour of working) I started quilting the blades.  I continued on after girl scouts while watching The Martian on tv. I managed to get the blades all quilted and outlined the snowman in the circle!

Now to find the herra marker and make those cross hatches in the white background areas.  I'll need the soothing of the quilting today.

Maxie cat had a rough night and her breathing is not great this morning. I think it is time to call the vet so she can go on to cat heaven where she can run and jump and play to her hearts content. She will be sadly missed as my quilting helper and cat tester of quilts over the last 13 years.

Weekend wrap up...

What a weekend!

Saturday, Grandma has been wanting to take the kids to Universal Studios for a couple of years now. Well, it happened. It certainly is not like I remembered it was. I miss the old rides where everything was not a 3D or 4D simulator.... as those really make me nauseous. I didn't do rides...and Emily was not wanting to do them either. We broke off and did the exploring and a few shows instead while the other 3 did the rides multiple times. Well, Grandma and Aidan did the rides multiple times. Seems the 3D didn't sit well with Greg either. Emily humored me and we got a wand and did some spells in the Harry Potter area, saw the Fishermans warf show and the pet show and a couple of the parades. I much prefer the beach =)

Sunday - It was pick up the house a bit and gather the pre-order cookies for Emily from one of my co-leaders house. Then the grandparents down here in Florida came over for some Brats and burgers on the grill and Aidan's second birthday cake. This time it only took him 2 blows to get those candles out..... It took 5 tries on the first cake closer to his birthday last week!.

After that.... I think everyone was completely pooped and rested for the rest of the day. The guinea pig cage got cleaned and the kittens were sure curious about that indoor fence area where those creatures were running around! The spray bottle may have been used to keep some kitten paws out of there.

Some pictured from Universal Studios and the birthday boy.

Minions!

Did you say car parts?

Harry Potter triple decker bus... Emily was not liking that shrunken head.

Waiting on the pet show.

Some colorful flowers for those up north! It's int he 80's all week here =)

Aidan's Sunday cake - he went to the store for chocolate and came home with Vanilla elegance with raspberry jelly in the layers. Someone has been watching too much of The British Baking Show!

The ice cream cake that took 5 tries to blow out the candles!

What a week!

Monday - Was scouts night.
Tuesday - Someone had a birthday and turned 10. We also had Publix Math night  and Dad had to work late.... so we ended up not doing his ice cream oreo cake until the next night.
Wednesday - I moved Emily's gymnastics up an hour to a new instructor whom she loves! It should be a better fit for us... then we got home and did a quick happy birthday song and cake then I was off to the girl scout leader meeting at 7.
Thursday - Lots of errands - dropping someone's lunch to school that she forgot and dropping a load of things off to goodwill to get it out of my house! Bowling, then Aldi then home to put things away before heading to pick up the kids. I had to go at 3 to get another x-ray on my mouth for insurance to pay for the root canal last week.... someone forgot their guitar so then we had to head home (20 minutes) then back  to guitar center (15 same direction) for Aidan's 4PM lesson. Emily and I got our steps in and after we got home we went out to a 6:30 reservation at Yamatos for the hibachi grill. We got there 6:15, thinking we could sit and start for the 6:30 grilling..... Um, nope. They must have been short staffed this time.... didn't get to sit until 6:40 and then didn't grill until a little after 7! It was another late night. 2 tired kids so got them home for 8PM bedtime then I had to run out and get cookies for Aidan to take into school today for gifted class snack for his birthday. He took sugar cookies in for his normal class on Tuesday.
Friday - Aidan got his lunch with Mom at school today - he normally goes before 11 the rest of the week (and they don't start serving the takeout the lunch he wanted until 11AM) but has the late lunch on Friday - 12:20! He requested Wendy's. Back home to work another half hour then into the car line where I have been working on this which finally got finished today. It seems it is difficult to quilt with Peanut and Ollie - the new kittens in the house.

Peanut say's it is kitty approved.

I'll have to pick the next color to work on - and since Purple is done already I get to pick another color. I think I have 2 greens - so that might be the next color. Three of the 12 blocks are hand quilted - purple, red and light blue. 9 blocks to go!

Slow Sunday stitching.....

I hope to get a little slow stitching in today while observing the kittens playing and getting familiar with the house.

One is all settled in and playing with the kids and slept curled up on Greg's neck last night.

Emily is tickled pink a cat is snuggling with her. This is Peanut the very social one.

I think the name Peanut will stick with that one... since no one could remember Rascal. Star finally came out from hiding this morning once things got quiet.

Star is on the lower tier going after his brother Peanut.

He was playing in the middle of the night until Sophie started hissing at him. Sophie is not happy with the additions to the household. Max... she is not happy but tolerant by making a big circle around them to get where she wants to go.
The kids decided to head to Grandma's today since I told them after 2 hours of playing with Peanut he needed some nap time and we could make cookies once they return later today. Just need to go purchase a spray bottle since I can't find an empty one for water. They keep sticking paws into the guinea pig cages. Fun time at my house! I forgot how fun it was to watch two kittens attack each other while playing!

Linking up with Kathy and the Slow Stitchers.

Saturday.....

Well, the disadvantage of Aidan moving the guitar lessons to 4PM on Thursday with Nate (an instructor he really enjoys); is that Emily and I walk to get our steps in and we tend to walk over to Petco. They have kittens from the humane society in cages. For us to look at... each week.

Emily had a favorite she played with last Saturday. She was gone on Thursday. There were two new ones on Thursday.... one was gone on Friday. Two shy ones were still there that had to go together. They were very active and following us Thursday and Friday in their cages. But Mom..... what if someone gets them? (from Emily).

Sigh. We still have 13 year old Maxie and Sophie. Maxie is drinking but not eating much. She still does not look to be in pain. They are both giving me the look right now.....

cause we brought home Star and Nazareth who has been remanded Rascal.

Star is still Star so far and still a little shy. He was purring up a storm as Aidan pet him though. Rascal has explored the whole house (except the garage which is my office and sewing area and is way too messy for them so that door is shut!).   He is where ever people are... and has claimed Greg's lap once he wanted to settle in for a rest after being home for  a few hours. Star settled at the bottom of the cat tree at was purring up a storm as Aidan was petting him.  We are officially outnumbered. 4 cats and 2 guinea pigs to 4 humans =). Must find the water spray bottle as they are putting paws into the guinea pig cage.
Everyone is giggling as Rascal is chasing the red dot on the floor. Silly kitty. Star just came out to see what was happening. We will see how long it takes for him to join in the fun.

Star

Rascal

10 minutes in the car line Thursday.....

If you have things prepped you can get things done!

I found this baggie of hexies a while ago and threw it into the car. One more flower done.

It will join this pile of hand pieced ( not english paper pieced) flowers from a few years ago with the RSC Challenge. The plan was to have that middle yellow consistent on the flowers and then surround it in black. I found Inklingo has a 1 inch hexagon that should work for printing the lines on all the black fabric for me to do the surround. I got sick of the prep work of drawing and cutting out each one so it got put aside. I just need to take the time and print some out and make sure it will work.  These are itching to start becoming a quilt top sometime this year.

February....

A new color at the RSC Challenge in February as Purple and Lilac were chosen this month. As that was the first color last year.... I have a lot of my existing blocks set in purple. I will probably still add some more purple blocks through the month...but I checked my UFO list and it turns out I have a bunch of blocks from the 1857 appliqué quilt in purple that need to be sewn together! I think that will be my goal this month - to get that quilt to a top stage. This is an old photo of all the blocks laid out on the floor... I know that circle block has the peel added so it is ready for play time to see how the blocks will be laid out for the final quilt layout.

It has been an interesting week. I had a root canal scheduled for Tuesday.... got off work and drove there to find out there was no power at the dentist office. Reschedule for Wednesday. Emily had an orthodontist appt Tuesday afternoon and got tightened and was in lots of pain with little sleep on Tuesday night. She stayed home.... which meant I had to have Greg get off work to stay with her while I went to my appointment. It took forever to get numb....seems I have stubborn nerves and it took 4 shots! Good thing Greg was home as I didn't get home until 2:15... so he had to do school pick up. Hopefully that is behind me now. Do you think I had hand work with me for that waiting to numb time? Nope, left it in the car, darn it. Oh well. I sent Dad to gymnastics with Emily as I was still numb and he had never been to see her. Now he know's what I get to do every Wednesday with her.

Off to bowling. Let's hope it is a good day.

Linking up to the RSC Challenge on Saturday. Check out what we did on Saturday with adding onto our family!