Catch Up

Hello! Hope you had a wonderful, relaxing Thanksgiving! I've been out of blogworld for a bit, but I'm back now and hope to be posting on a regular basis again. Sometimes life gets a little busy and keeps me from doing all the things I'd really like to be doing...I'm sure you can all relate! Anyway, here is what I've been up to:


We had a great Thanksgiving! We are lucky enough to live close to both my parents and my husband's parents, so we get to have two Thanksgivings...sometimes it makes for a long day, but we feel really blessed to have family so close.


We also saw Twilight the weekend that it came out. I LOVE the books, so I was really excited when they announced that they'd be making a movie. I wasn't too sure about the casting of Edward, but as I watched the movie, he started to grow on me and now I do see him as Edward. However, all in all, I was a little disappointed in the movie. To me, it just seemed to be different from the book...and the way that I imagined it to be in reading the book....but, that's the way it always is...books are always better than the movie. My husband and I rate the movies we see on a 1-10 scale...I gave it a 6. My husband thought that the scenery in the movie was really beautiful, as did I...I think I'd like to visit Forks one day.
Back in October, I signed up to participate in the We The People Swap III. I sent my package (forgot to take a picture before I went to the post office) to ****** the beginning of last week and look what I found in the mailbox today: Carolyn sent me these for the swap. A great table runner pattern (I've been wanting to make some runners for my table that I can switch out for the seasons) and this fun Dinosaur Uproar charm pack by Moda. I can't wait to use them! Thanks again, Carolyn!


I also received my Spare Change fabric squares during the last couple of weeks. I love scrap quilts, so I'm excited to sew these squares into a fun quilt:

I have had a little time to do some shopping, especially fabric shopping:
I bought this blue fabric for a blue and cream quilt block exchange my quilting group is doing. We'll all be doing the same block pattern, but we can choose our own fabrics...they just need to be blue and cream.


Now, I just need to finish my Christmas shopping and getting everything else ready for the holidays. This Friday, we're having our older nieces and nephews over for a sleepover...they're really excited! It should be a lot of fun....and nice for their parents too! =)

Remember These?

Remember these scraps that I received as part of JCasa :: Handmade's Spare a Square Scrap Challenge?

Well, I turned them into this fabric flower bowl using the tutorial at Poppy Lane. I originally saw this through Penny's blog at sewtakeahike...thanks for posting the link, Penny! When I saw the tutorial, I immediately knew I HAD to make one! This is the inside of the bowl:

This is the back of the bowl: It's the perfect place to store my bobbins!Thanks for the tutorial, Kali! I'll definitely be making more of these fabric flower bowls!

Hope you all have a great weekend!!! =)

VOTE!

Election day has finally arrived...today we find out who the next President of the United States will be. Have you voted yet? If you have...hooray! If you haven't...go vote.....................now! =)

Well, I'm off to vote!

Have a great day!

Halloween Spooks

Hope you all had a fun and safe Halloween!

We really get into Halloween at our house. My husband takes the day off from work...and I try to take it off or else leave early, too. We don't decorate our yard or anything until the day of Halloween so it's a surprise for all of the trick-or-treaters. Every year we make it a little different and add a few new things.

This year, we did a graveyard theme with lots of tombstones, bones, skeletons coming out of their graves, fog, bubbling cauldrons, rats, spiders, cobwebs, ghosts, pumpkins, bats, etc. Some of the things are motion-activated - that seems to be fun for the kids. Rick and I dress up in spooky costumes too.

Here are some pictures of our house before it got dark.Here is what it looked like at night.

You had to get the candy from Rick and I think he might have scared a few kids...some of them wanted to come to me to get their candy. We also had a table with all sorts of goodies - cupcakes, rice krispies treats, donut holes, cookies - and hot cider and wassail. The adults seemed to like that, and of course the kids did too. We went through about 100 cups of cider and wassail and about 150 treats...not to mention all of the candy that we gave away! We did have some repeat guests that came back for more treats on their way home. Some people even requested pictures with Rick. It was fun!

It was a great Halloween this year and we are already planning for next year. But, we are really looking forward to the Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's holidays coming up!