A Wee Bit Busy

It seems like the busyness of summer is a common lament around blogland lately.  Life around here is no different.  Summer is always packed with fun and exciting events, putting up the products of the garden and trying to maintain a bit of sanity at the same time.

This week has been a bit busier than normal as we added four grandchildren to the mix.  Mommy and Daddy went to Hawaii for the week and had a wonderful trip with only minor rain from the hurricanes.  Life was not boring with a 1, 2 1/2, 4 and 5 1/2 year old in the house.  We loved it, but it was really nice to have some quite time yesterday once everyone left. Can you guess that I was also missing from the blogging world?

I have missed my sewing time lately so I slipped away to my creative room and left the cleaning until today.  My Spider Web leader and ender project has been so close to being finished so I did the last two blocks and then sewed it together.  It ended up to be about 70” square. 



Today was so quiet.  I missed the early morning snuggles with the little ones, but it felt good to have clean floors and windows!!  How could you not miss these faces?





The two year old went to Costco with Grandpa on Saturday and picked out a bouquet of flowers for Grandma.  Doesn’t this just look like something a 2 year old would choose????



We had a little excitement while the children were here.  Our tortoise eggs started hatching.  The little ones kept a close eye on the activity although the process is quite slow.  Two out and three more to go…..



Some of the grandchildren headed back to school today.  How can that be?  The rest go back next week.  Where has the summer gone?

Part Two and Some Fun as Well

The final leg of our trip brought us down the coast and an overnight stay at our #4 son and DIL's home.  They are only a couple of hours from us, but it is always nice to be able to spend time with them and the grandchildren at their home.

We all packed up and headed to the local Farmer's Market, did a little shopping and picked up some yummy food for dinner.  We are blessed to have some fabulous fresh Farmer's Markets in our area almost every day of the week since our area is basically an agricultural area. The weather, however,  was cold and we awoke to frost on the rooftops in the morning.  I'm thinking that cannot make the farmers happy.



Globe artichokes.



Lilacs - the smell was to die for!!!!



A variety of fresh goodies.  I loved the golden beets.



Buckets of Calla Lilies.



Nothing like a fresh strawberry!



Aren't these colors great together?  A quilt idea?????

Our glass elevator attendant!

Never one to sit with idle hands while driving, I had many small projects that I had packed for the trip.  I made several hats for the grandchildren, finished my Birdie Stitches block and did some tatting.

Of course the first few days back home is filled with catching up on mail and laundry.  Can someone tell me how does a house get dusty when no one is even living in it!!!

While we were away some wonderful packages arrived in the mail for me so coming home was just like Christmas.  I had won several giveaways in March and they made their way to my house. 

First was a "everything green" giveaway from Maggie.  It was just packed full of wonderful "green" goodies including a beautiful hand quilted tote.

An inspirational Art Quilt book arrived from Sherri.

A lovely fall book and fabrics came from Vicki.

As well I received some fabulous cards from Tracey.  Tracey makes her cards from her photos that she takes around her farm in Australia.  I love how she places her quilts on her animals for the photos.

My Civil War blocks that I missed while I was away gave me hair pulling issues.  If there was a way to do a seam wrong, I found it.  I took so many stitches out that I almost threw them all away.  In the end I figured I could live with my Little Blue Basket having tan bases instead of blue.  Grrr.

This week's White House block gave me no problems.  Thank goodness!!!

I really love scrap quilts and have started a Spiderweb quilt.   Thanks to Wanda for some fabulous scraps (her quilts are to die for) and some fat quarters from Marilyn, my quilt is growing by the day.

One wonderful thing about returning home is to see how much the garden has grown.  Everything is really blooming out and the warmer temperatures are appreciated by us and the flowers.



This orchid merely had buds when we left.  We came home to this lovely showing.



My new iris garden is popping out all over.



As well, the roses are putting forth their first big flush of color.

I love the lavender.

It is a beautiful weekend in the neighborhood and the kids and grands will all be coming for a BBQ to celebrate the April birthdays.