Happy Birthday, Mom

Ninety years ago today a nearly ten pound baby girl was born to a tiny little woman - in a farmhouse in Iowa.  Happy birthday, Mom.  She has been an amazing inspiration for all of us as she lives a full and happy life.   Never complaining about becoming a paraplegic seventeen years ago, she continues to celebrate her life with her family and friends.  She is a beautiful woman, inside and out.  Sunday we celebrated with a family dinner. 

Such a beautiful smile as she enters her 91st year!!

Cotton dishtowels are something she has been wanting lately.  I found some terrific towels at http://www.acshomeandwork.com/flour-sack-towels.html.  These are the softest towels and we all know how great they are for drying dishes.  There is nothing like them.  I remember as a child learning to hand embroidery on this kind of towel.  It was also our first experience in ironing!!  Anyway, I ordered some flour sack towels - very reasonable, too - and they included a few extra in my order.  I decided a giveaway was in order.  Just leave a comment and if you are also a follower, leave a second comment to be entered.   I'll draw a winner next Tuesday evening (March 5th).

This is what I did with them.

The designs are from www.designsbyjuju.com .  They have some of my favorite redwork machine embroidery designs as they always stitch out so beautifully.  The best part is that their design SETS are on sale through February for only $5.  You could easily pay that for each design.  Be sure not to miss that offer. 

Her birthday card.......

Our warm weather has finally arrived and I am loving it.  It's time to head out to the garden and play with a little dirt before my sister and I take my mom out to lunch.

Snow and More Snow





We've been away again enjoying our family with our annual trip to the snow.  I am sure that snow is probably the last thing many of you would want to hear about right now, but we always enjoy the trip.  I guess one can do that if you do not have to live in it.  There was a lot of snow this year which made for some excellent sledding for the children.  Of course they got a really big storm up there on Tuesday.  One of these years we may get snowed in up there.

 

 





I can never get enough of this view.

 

The adults had a little island to sit on while watching all of the children sledding.

WHAT is it????  First feel of snow.

Loving the ride.



Two man downhill.

 

The old folks.

#1 son and wife

#2 son and wife

#3 son and wife

Daughter and family

 

#4 son's wife had to miss the trip as she was down with a head cold so he would not pose for a picture by himself.  ;-(

 

A Hint of Spring

 

Although our temperatures have been unseasonably cool with some freezing nights, I can start to see that spring is coming to the yard. 

Busy bees!!!

Peach tree in bloom

Pear trees in full bloom too

The kids were all over this weekend helping to reduce the abundant supply of citrus that is currently ripe in the orchard.  Thank heavens for the help!  At the moment we are loaded with tangerines, Meyer lemons, naval and Blood oranges as well as grapefruit. 

Tangerines



Blood oranges

Lemons

I even put up some preserved lemons this year.  I recently attended a cooking class and they used the preserved lemons in a salmon dish.  It was heavenly!  They will be ready to use in a month.

Those of you who follow my blog know that spring is also the time when I make a doll's uniform for the grandchildren's school auction.  That was my project for the weekend. 

I also finished up the last of the stars for my Starburst QAL.  Now to assemble it!

Saturday I received a wonderful box of fabrics in the mail from Jacquelynne Steves of The Noble Wife.  She is a new sponsor to my blog and her fabrics are beautiful and fun.  I am really looking forward to playing with them over the next few weeks.  Oh....the ideas I have for this line are numerous!!  The line is called "Happy Town" and it certainly lives up to it's name.  As I said in my last post, the royalties from the fabric sales are donated to Quilts for Kids - such a great cause.  Be sure to check out my sidebar for a link to the contest using the fabrics. 

We enjoyed celebrating another birthday in the family over the weekend.  Why do they grow up so quickly?  The years are just flying these days.

Cousin love

I had to waste time this morning canceling my credit card.  Someone decided to use my numbers to book tickets on Exped*ia and Or*bitz.  Grrrrr.  Need I say more?

A Walk in the Dark

DH always takes an early morning walk - before light.  You can imagine his shock when this came bounding out of the bushes to greet him this morning.  Remember our dog was killed by a mountain lion in our yard not so long ago and we've had many coyotes in our yard as well.   One never trusts animals coming out of the dark.

It followed him for the entire walk and back to our house.  SIGH!!!  We have placed "lost dog" signs throughout the neighborhood and that someone will call SOON.

We had a delightful five days at our annual business trip in Florida.  The weather was the best that we have ever experienced there.  Some of the sights we enjoyed.....

View from our room.

Ooooh!!!  The flowers!!!!

I know that I showed this last year too, but it still fascinates me.

As you can see, it continues across the entire front of the house.

There is a wonderful pond that I always thought was a lily pond, but after seeing Vicki's beautiful quilt in the making, I am thinking that it might be lotus flowers.  Am I right, Vicki?

Our dear friends departed in style for Maine as we dreaded the long lines of security and a cattle car plane trip home.

Have you heard about the wonderful contest with the projects going to a terrific cause?  Please check it out at http://www.henryglassfabrics.com/media/fabrics/projects/HappyTown_join_form.pdf .

The fabrics being used are Henry Glass fabrics designed by Jacquelynne Steves and the winning quilts will be displayed at International Quilt Market in Portland.  All submitted quilts will be donated to the Quilts for Kids charity and distributed to hospitals throughout the U.S. As well,  all royalties from the fabric sales of the Happy Town line will be donated to the charity.  Hurry though as the deadline is April 15th.

 
I took more scarf making material with me for the long flights and managed to get MORE scarves finished.  I think I have filled all the granddaughter's wishes now.

The orange is great.

Another block is finished for our Starburst QAL.  I really like the yellows in this one.

I'm trying to sort out my goals for this month.  I really need to hand sew the binding on this very large quilt and I would like to quilt my Halloween Schnibble that I made a few years ago.  It's a busy month with our family snow trip coming up, two sets of houseguests arriving and my mom's upcoming birthday party.  Wish me luck!  I'm linking up with a Lovely Year of Finishes.