Learning my ABCs

Hello!  I know it.  It's been a while.  My summer "theme".  Our summer has been moving steadily ahead.  In fact, it's almost over!

In 3 days, we're headed here:

Going to party it up.  Celebrating Punk's 9th birthday and our 10th wedding anniversary.  This year she will be turning 9 AT Disney World.  She is soooo excited for that.  The day after we get back, my 4th grader heads back to school.  She's excited to start 4th grade and I'm happy she is excited.

I have been doing some sewing.  I started and finishd my ABCs in 2 weeks.

Moda did a blog hop back in February and all their fabric designers (and others) created the letters and Moda offered the letter patterns for free.  I followed along and downloaded all of them.  I have since found out that Moda took down their links to the free letters because they put all the letters into one PDF file and some online shops are selling the PDF for $8.00.  I'm not sure how I feel about that practice.  A bit shady to me.  But I have them all printed out and saved so I'm good.

I do love this quilt.  I was hoping to hang it on my bedroom wall but it's too wide for the rod hanging there already.  I hate to use it because while I love the black background and how it makes all the colors pop but the lint and cat hair it collects.... UGH.  I have lint brushed this thing numerous times while sewing it.

I got another quilt done and off my bannister.  Morning Joe is on my bedroom wall and I just love it!

Not sure what I"m going to work on now.  I have been creating some appliqued owls for a quilt but they take forever.  I work on them when the need strikes.  I think what I'm going to do it work on getting fabrics cut for the free pattern that the Fat Quarter Shop launched a few days ago, Fat Quarter Fizz.  Quick and easy and again, using up that stash!

Enjoy your day!!
Jen  :)

Summer Excitement

Last week, prowling the virtual world, I planned my family's fictitious, grandiose trip to Disney.  I had a good time with it.  Money wise?  Wasn't happening.  But I had fun.

This year, my husband and I are celebrating our 10 year wedding anniversary.  Last year, I stated that I wanted a real vacation.  No long weekend away.  No "quick trip" to PA to pick up farming supplies.  A REAL vacation. One week.  An airplane ride away.  Preferably on a white, sandy beach.  My husband was on board.  Kind of.  Beaches are not his thing.

Time goes by and house expenses come along.  I took the tropical vacation off the table.  No need to stress things out more.  But I wasn't willing to cave on the real, one week vacation away.  Figured we would draw a circle on a map and drive somewhere.

Here comes the exciting part.  My husband walked in on me planning our fictitious trip to Disney and after talking about what we would do different, what we would skip and scaled it waaaayyy back.... he agreed to go back this summer!

Punk's first trip - 2012

Comparing prices for lodging/food/airfare to Disney and driving to say, Virginia Beach for a week... Disney won!  He very much surprised me with his quick agreement because that is NOT my husband.  He will take time, LOTS of time, to mull things over and just think about it.  For him to agree after an hour's conversation, that's a big deal.

No secret this time.  We told Amelia over the weekend.  And you know what?  I got the same exact reaction out of her when I kept it a secret for 8 months.  She just doesn't get excited the way I think she should.  She is helping us plan our trip.  Figuring out what she would like to do again versus what we can skip.  We are skipping Animal Kingdom this time around and I booked an additional "chill out" day.  No park that day.  Just pool time and hanging around.  I like that.  Just a day to relax.  We didn't have that our first trip.  She helped pick out the resort too.  We're staying at Disney's Port Orleans - Riverside resort in a "Royal Guest" room.  Can't wait!

218 more days!!  LOL!!!

Enjoy your day!
Jen :)

Disney Trip 2012

I realize that a month has passed since our first big family vacation to Disney.  To sum up our week in a nutshell it was:

• VERY hot and humid
• rainy
• Awesome!
• Terrific
• exhausting

We had a super terrific time and so much so that my husband agreed to a second trip!  In 2015.  Gives Amelia some time to get older and appreciate more of Disney.  We didn't even get to walk all of Epcot because she was just so exhausted from the constant on the go we were doing.  So I didn't force it.  Just another reason to go back so that I can see the countries in Epcot.

We stayed on-property at Pop Century.  One of the value resorts and we liked it.  Only thing that we will change for our next trip is having a family suite.  We stayed in one room and it was small but that wasn't a big deal.  The biggest problem we had was Amelia and sleep.  Now initially, I wanted to book a resort with family suites so that we had the room.  My husband vetoed the idea due to the fact that we weren't going to spend much time in the room except for showering and sleep and didn't want to spend the extra money.  He was banking on the fact of Amelia just being sooo exhausted from her day's adventures, would pass out in bed as soon as we walked in the door at night.  It would have worked but the walk from the shuttles to our room gave her a second wind and she was ready to go swimming at 11pm, not sleep.  Lesson learned.

Had a few days of rain but that didn't dampen our adventures.  Just put on some ponchos and away we went!  I have a ton of pictures but I'm not going to unload them all here. Just some highlights.

Chef Donald at Chef Mickey's dinner

Cinderella's Evil Stepmother and step sisters

Beautiful birthday cake enjoyed at Cinderella's Castle

Amelia with Ariel - her favorite Princess

My Princess

Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party

I could go on and on.  I'm having a hard time picking and choosing the pictures to upload.  We had an awesome time and can't wait to go back!

Enjoy your day!
Jen

Knock Knock. Anyone home?

I'm not going to whine or complain.  It's been a while.  No sewing here.  Zip.  Nada.  I think it's been 4 months??  So sad.  I've been enjoying everybody else's sewing fun.  I've spotted some projects I would love to work on.  I hope my mojo finds its way back home soon.  This is depressing.

HOWEVER.... I'm not depressed.  You wanna know why??

We are headed here TOMORROW!

Can you believe it??  Tomorrow.  Amelia is ready to burst.  I had to give her instructions that even though she is ready for Disney, today was a school day and she needed to chill out and pay attention to her teacher.  Myself on the other hand, has some packing to do.  I've started but have stalled.  I don't want to over-pack but it looks like that's going to happen.  Oh well.  Variety is the spice of life, right?  So that's on my agenda today.  Finish packing and run a few errands.  Tonight we're headed to a hotel by the airport.  I debated the idea for a week and figured this would be better.  We can all sleep an extra hour or so and I won't have to fight Amelia too much to eat breakfast before leaving for the airport.  If we were to stay home, she would have to be up for 4am to wake up enough to eat before getting in the car.  I can just see that meltdown.  I'm glad I booked us a room!

 Adios Amigos!  I'll see you when we're back from visiting Mickey!
Jen  :)

New Hampshire 2011

A few weeks ago, our family and my husband's cousin's family hit the road for New Hampshire for a nice little vacation getaway.  We had a super time.  The kids got along fairly well; as best as two only children can get along.  Some sharing of toys was an issue and being that we were at "Amelia's" red house, her house - her rules.  Overall, we had fun and we will do it again.

Did some relaxing, did some fun stuff.  First stop on our vacation was the Hobo Railroad.  We took an hour long train ride.  There was Choo Choo the Hobo clown on board and he told stories, did magic tricks and made balloon animals for the kids.

Our "big" adventure was going to Santa's Village.  That was really fun.  Chris and I enjoyed it so much that we're planning on going back over the Fall.  The park is open on weekends through Christmas so that will be a treat.

Chrissie and I rode the Ferris Wheel together while Tim took the kids.  Chris was on the ground, in charge of the backpacks.  Chrissie and I are afraid of heights.  Two dopes afraid of heights riding the Ferris Wheel together.  LOL.

overhead view of Ferris Wheel

NH view from top of the Ferris Wheel

Amelia and Connor on the Merry Go Round

 We fed "reindeer cookies" to Santa's reindeer.

Hi there, Mr. Reindeer!

And Amelia got to see the big man in the red suit!  Amelia was stressing out in line because she had no idea what she wanted for Christmas yet.  Santa asked her what she wanted and she told him that it was too soon to decide.  He told her that he would bring her something special then.

While waiting in line to see Santa, I tried to keep the kids amused.  So I had them do funny faces.

LOL.  It made the time go by faster. 

Gingerbread People

The weather we had was perfect.  Chilly even.  But by Friday, the heat and humidity came back so we spent some time chilling out in the CT River.  Kids had fun swimming and splashing.

And that's that.  Last big hurrah before school starts again.  Next event?  Amelia's 6th birthday.  I don't know where 6 years went already!

Enjoy your Sunday!
Jen

Amelia's 4 Patch

Hello there!  Well, we are back from vacation and we had a great time!  Super.  The hotel was awesome with the indoor waterpark.  We did manage to get out and see some of Lake George.  I'll give you the highlights in pictures.

we took a steam powered paddle boat ride - The Minnie HaHa

Horse and Buggy Ride - that's Sunny

Played a round of mini golf.  Amelia's first time.  She loved it

Lake George

Amelia and Daddy

My future summer home.  HA!

We also rode go karts and did I mention the water park??  We had a blast and we will go back again next year.

Sewing is happening here but nothing is ready to show off.  I will show you Amelia's very first attempt at "real" sewing.  She picked out some fabrics and I cut them into squares and showed her how to do a 1/4" seam.  She did the sewing.  I did the pinning and pressing.  She's very proud of herself.  I am too!

She wanted to do some "fancy" stitches so I added a backing to it and let her have at it.

It's going to be a birthday present for her stuffed cat, Shitake.  This cat has a birthday every other month.  LOL!

I hope to have some projects of my own completed or semi-completed to show you soon.

Enjoy your day!
Jen

We're Back

Darn it. Vacation is over.  Back to work and the daily grind.  We had a great time.  Amelia had a morning where she was sick but once everything was out of her system, she felt better.  I'll share some pictures from our adventures in another post.  Today I'll share what shops I visited and the loot I brought back.

First stop was Hayloft Fabrics in Morgantown.  This was the only shop I snuck a couple of pictures inside.  It's located on the second floor of a grocery store!  I was floored when I saw that.  Multi-tasking at its best!  Run out for some milk and some fat quarters!  LOL!  Lots of yardage and a great variety.  I will go back here for sure.  I held back on my spending since I knew I had 3 more shops to visit during our vacation but I wish I hadn't now.

Burkholders Fabrics in Denver is another "need to go again" shop.  This one is in the middle of nowhere but WOW!  What a selection of fabric!  Wish I spent more here too.  LOL!  And so nicely organized.  Great variety as well.

The Old Country Store in Intercourse was okay.  I had a short list of yardage that I wanted but found out it was available online only.  I think their selection online was better than what was in the store. 

Lastly, The Quilt and Fabric Shack... meh.  I'll skip it.  Not worth going to again.  I didn't like how the yardage was organized and there wasn't much to pick from.

Okay, this is the loot I brought home with me.  I bought some Happy, Bliss and 12 Days of Christmas charm packs.  Happy will be made into a quilt for Amelia and Bliss for me!

The cow and pig yardage is going to be made into pillowcases for Amelia as a vacation memento.

 

I picked up some red and black fabrics for an upcoming project.  The polka dot and paw yardage is for a messenger bag that I was asked to make.

I found some very cute scissor fobs and an ADORABLE pin cushion.  I love that pin cushion and had a hard time deciding which one to bring home with me.  I wanted them all.

So that's my trip.  I'll share more pictures soon!

Enjoy your day!
Jen