Land of the Free

I also made a quilt for my Mother in law this Christmas.















The pattern is a disappearing nine patch which was pretty fun to work with. I really like the border that I added around the edge of the front. Originally I was going to use it on the back, but it wasn't quite large enough.














The back is somewhat pieced, using some fabric my grandmom gave to me and some large leftover scraps from the fabrics used for the front.

Though I'm not much for red, white and blue as a color scheme, I think they do go together very well. And it's hanging from a clothesline, so it has to look good!

For Mom

I made this quilt for my mom for Christmas following a pattern I found in a magazine. It was fairly simple, especially because it was so small.








I wasn't wild about it until I put the striped border on. That really helped pull all the colors together.








This was my second ever free motion quilted project and I feel like it came out alright. I've still got alot of learning to do, but everything I read says only practice will help.








The back is just a solid piece.
I didn't come up with a name for this quilt, my creativity only goes so far.

Christmas Take 1, 2 & 3

Our family had 3 Christmases this year. Before we loaded the car for San Antonio, we had a small Christmas morning celebration at our home. When Daniel woke up we read through the Christmas story and talked about when Jesus was a baby and we prayed, thanking him for his life on Earth. Then we went to the living room where Daniel's Mega Blocks were ready for action. Tommy and I also exchanged small gifts for each other. It was so nice to have some special time just for our family, something we didn't have last year.






On the way down, we stopped at Ikea. Daniel enjoyed the ice cream. Incidentally, this is the same face he made when the communion wafers were passed at church on Christmas Eve.







We stayed two nights with my aunt and uncle and did our traditional Christmas Eve celebration with my family.













Then Christmas morning we went to Tommy's parents and had our third Christmas celebration.
















On the way home we stopped at McDonalds where Daniel learned how to dip french fries in ketchup.










When we got home, I gave Daniel a small piece of chocolate to occupy him. I found him later with a chocolate beard. When I commented on it and told him I wanted to take a picture, we went to his diaper bag, and pulled out the wipes. He pulled out one wipe, pushed the other back in and closed the container. Then he wiped his face and walked to the trash to throw it away!

Where did this Little Piggy Go?

Graduation

Last night I graduated from the University of Texas at Arlington. Seven and a half years after graduating high school. I think my family was ready to shoot me when I forgot the tickets at home, but thanks to a gracious event coordinator everyone was seated in plenty of time. And a ceremony under 60 minutes redeemed me.
And in case you were wondering, my post graduation plans are still to stay home and have more babies, Lord willing.

lame

I've been lame lately, I know.

No Zebras...

Were Harmed in the Making of this Crayon Roll.



















I made this for my friend Tiffani's little girl's 3rd birthday today. It was a big hit at the party. Isn't the zebra fabric wonderful! I've been hoarding it for years, and just started using it this week. I LOVE it!














I used this tutorial from Skip to my Lou. She has lots of excellent tutorials and fun crafts for kids and adults. I plan on making more; this one came out well, but there are a few kinks to work out, mostly spacing my lines so I don't end up with one short hole on one end, and one large hole on the other. And counting, apparently I need to work on that. 16 crayons in 15 slots.

Two for Thursday

Enjoying a lime.














Play hard, Sleep hard.



















PS- 28 Days until I graduate!!

Happy Halloween

My sweet friend Martha graciously let us borrow a skunk costume for Daniel this Halloween.



















Tommy was a Detective.



















We went to a church festival that had "Trunk-or-Treat." We walked from trunk to trunk collecting candy. Daniel held his bucket the whole time, stopping occasionally to inspect what was deposited inside. By the time we reached the end it was just about too heavy for him!




















Ready to munch on a Reese's Cup.




















We were some of the best dressed folks there (If I do say so myself!) I was Mrs. Santa.











Daniel was LOVING the cotton candy.














Gimme More Dad!














It was also a fantastic birthday for me! Friday evening I went to Goodwill's half price night with two girlfriends who threw me a mini surprise party afterward. We'll ignore Daniel trying to make it memorable by puking for the first time ever during breakfast Saturday morning. Then another girlfriend took me to lunch Saturday and we spent the evening with great friends using every minute of our extra hour.
How was your Halloween?

Water

Apparently water is a crucial ingredient in cream puffs.

Disappearing Socks

Daniel has a knack for hiding things lately. Recently Jessica and I spent several minutes trying to locate a half-full bottle of Daniel's milk, not wanting to wait for a sour smell to eventually reveal the location. Turns out he had hidden it behind some furniture on a window sill.

Yesterday before church, as I was ready to put Daniel's shoes on I found that he had taken his socks off. I looked high. I looked low. Nowhere to be found. So I asked Daniel, "Daniel, where are your socks?" He went and stood near his dresser, holding his hands up. "Smart kid, he knows where his socks come from" I thought to myself. But on and on I searched, finally heading to the kitchen to look in the drawers and lower cabinets. Even though we've locked the lower cabinets, Daniel has found a way to open the drawers above and slide objects underneath to fall into the cabinet below. But still no socks. After twenty minutes of looking everywhere, they are simply gone. Maybe he ate them.

Finally, going back to his room and opening his top drawer, which is the sock drawer, low and behold there they were! Daniel had put his socks back in the sock drawer! He had even tried to tell me where he had put them! What a stinker :)

Texas Fried Fair

We really could just post this picture and it'd be enough.
















everyone was abuzz about this, one of the new foods for the year















Enjoying a Fletcher's famous corny dog. YUM!















Funnel Cake















Fried Cheesecake.















Fried Yam, highly disappointing.














Next year I'd like to have a lottery for trying the fried snickers, cookie dough, oreos, nutter butters, ice cream, pecan pie and honey bun.

Growing Boy

Daniel talks more and more these days. Tommy and I wonder if he's trying to say anything in particular or just learning how to make new sounds. Either way we love to hear him.


This video pretty much summarizes our day, but there's usually alot more throwing.

Frugal in the Kitchen

I checked out The Complete Tightwad Gazette from the library. WOW. This thing is like the frugal bible! At nearly 1,000 pages and tons of calculations for making the most of every penny I have found a renewed desire to save even more.

Amy Dacyczyn (pronounced decision) advocates the use of a Price Book, which is a concept I've seen all over frugal blogs. Basically you keep track of the items you buy and their cost to determine when and where is best to buy. I finally sucked it up and started. I am already surprised to find that the name brand applesauce sold at Central Market is less expensive than the store brand at Kroger!

Convenience foods are one of the biggest drains on a grocery budget and they can be pretty detrimental your health as well. While we really don't buy too much prepackaged, single serving stuff one of our weak spots has been granola bars. I made my first batch last week using a recipe for Playgroup Granola Bars. They were a big hit. This week I made Gobble Up Granola Bars. Tommy hasn't taste tested them yet, but I doubt I'll hear complaints.

But what's the cost? For the Gobble Up: Since I omitted one ingredient (raisins), got 4 for free (cereal, oats, sugar and peanut butter), the vanilla was super cheap and I've had the corn syrup so long I can't remember: cost 0.50? for 12 granola bars, that's about $0.04 each!
For the Playgroup Bars: About $1.00 for 12, which is about $0.08 each!

I also made some pancakes to put in the freezer to give Daniel for breakfast. I tripled the recipe and used The Happy Housewife's method for freezing them so all we have to do is pop it in the toaster in the morning and he's got breakfast. To the best I can figure they cost me about $2.00 for a batch of 30. Less than $0.07 for breakfast. Can't beat that.

Our next task is to renovate our drink situation. Tommy vowed to abstain from cola during October, but he requests something else "tasty" to drink. Any suggestions?

Thursday Mishaps

I shouldn't use the breadmaker on Thursdays.

Tommy has class Thursday evenings at 6:15pm. This means dinner needs to be ready pretty close to when he gets home from work.

Last week I remembered he had class. I wanted to make ham and pineapple pizza with homemade dough. I use the breadmaker's dough setting so I don't have to kneed. I fiddled around with the breadmaker trying to figure out the delay setting because I was going to visit a friend and wouldn't be back until close to 5pm. I had given up and decided to start the cycle and just let the dough sit risen for a couple hours when the delay worked. Hurray!

I got home pretty much at 5pm which isn't a big deal because pizza only takes a few minutes to prepare and about 12 to bake. I thought it smelt alot like bread when I got home. That's because I baked a loaf of pizza crust. Whoops. Apparently I didn't have the setting right after all.

We ended up eating at Taco Cabana. Where Daniel and I waited for 30 minutes after eating for the rain to let up before we headed home. Tommy couldn't wait and sat through most of class wet.


Tonight I forgot Tommy had class. I was running behind on preparing dinner. And I'm pretty sure I only used 2 1/4 cups of flour in a 3 1/4 cup recipe for focaccia bread. And I forgot to buy fresh tomatoes for bruschetta but was willing to substitute canned until I opened the can. Lots of seeds and mushiness (great for salsa, not so much for bruschetta). I also forgot broccoli to add to the pasta.

I collected my wits and decided on what I thought was a decent plan. We'd put Daniel to bed at 7pm and eat a nice late dinner just the two of us! I'd force a rise out of the bread, use the less than perfect tomatoes and just nix the broccoli. Then Tommy reminded me about his class.

So we went to Whataburger. We debated over which one to go to. He wanted to go to the one on Seminary Dr, but I told him the one on Altamesa was closer. The light at Altamesa was backed up about 5 times longer than I'd ever seen. Whoops. We made it with about 15 minutes for Tommy to order and eat.


Maybe next Thursday we'll just have peanut butter and jelly. On anything but homemade bread.

Daddy's Boy

at the SWBTS picnic
















Tommy is such a great father. He loves getting down and playing with Daniel, teaching him how to play with cars, how to play hide and seek and how to avoid eating carrots.







after church this past Sunday

Splash Pad

After hearing about the Splash Pad a few months ago, we just got around to going yesterday. I'm kicking myself for not going sooner. It was so much fun (and free too!). It took Daniel a few minutes to warm up to it mainly because it took us a few minutes to realize that big kids think it's okay to hose down babies. It closes at the end of the month, but hopefully we can squeeze in one more visit when it's not as busy.



Sporting his cute swim suit from Auntie Katie



















































Cousin Vincent loved the water gun.

Featured

Please take a moment to visit my friend's photography blog.
Michelle Monk Photography
Tommy and I had dinner with their family (5 girls!!) Saturday night. Michelle recently (maybe a month ago) broke her ankle and so we offered to bring dinner. And I invited us to eat it with them. How else do you make friends!?

After dinner Michelle took advantage of the opportunity to take pictures of a boy (5 girls remember?) Between Daniel's inability to be still longer than 4 seconds and Michelle's inability to do anything but shuffle on her broken foot it's a wonder she got anything!

Check out the pictures HERE as well as her version of the evening. (She says she invited us, but she didn't. I invited us after stopping by her house unannounced with a Coke from Sonic.)

PS if you're looking for a photographer...

Saturday

Tommy gleaning

















ready for his first haircut















at Daddy's barbershop













sportin' the new do






















building











proud mama and daddy