When I Grow Up

I want a room like this really badly! :) Oh my! I can just see myself spending my whole life here! I'd even invite you over! Unfortunately, I think I'm going to have to wait until the boys go to college! They are 6th grade and 3rd grade, I think I've got a while to wait!

Thanks for all the really great comments on my ornaments! Maybe someday they'll even get to their final finishing stage..we'll see! I still have a few left that I want to do, but am starting to get out of the mood of Christmas stitching! I have a few stitching obligations: Valentine exchange (which I keep forgetting about!), Spring exchange with my diva's, a quilt square for a twin infant that passed away, and of course my Friendship Sampler RR. I'm still waiting on my pattern and starting to get ill!! :)

DH is gone today, tomorrow and Thursday. He's at a round table discussion on missions in Dallas, Texas. They bring a bunch of people from all the different states, and some countries too I'm sure! He said they sit in a U-shape and they put the NC group in the back corner! I told him he should recommend it be called the U Shape Table discussion for next year. He doesn't think I'm funny!

I'm feeling really old tonight! I'm only 33, but just feeling old! I had my lovely yearly exam this past weekend and the doctor wants to retest a few things. And my cholesterol is sort of high. Well, actually it's 50 points higher than my good friend and 55 points higher than my DH. I'll freely admit I eat like crap... I actually started to eat breakfast last year for the first time in my life, I eat an okay dinner (thanks to DH's diet) and I snack bad stuff the rest of the day! The doctor told me I need to introduce excerise to my life...hmm, wonder if putting a needle in the fabric counts?

I'm sort of rambling, aren't I? I guess it's cause Dh is gone and I haven't had much grown-up talk today, except for with doctors offices!

My Dh is not a movie watcher at all...in fact, the nearly 14 years we've been married..I think we've been to 5 or 6 movies together, and most of those were kids movies! And we don't rent them either...he just doesn't like them. But I do! :) So whenever he's gone, I like to get a movie. I found these cool little kiosk things at Walmart and Kroger (a grocery store) that rent movies for one night for $1! Can't beat that? So today I rented three! Yup, I dropped kids off at school, rented the movies, stitched and watched movies!

First I watched: 28 Dresses-the language was a little much for me, but really a great movie! Had a perfect ending, just like I like!
Then I put in: P.S. I Love You- darn if I didn't cry through that whole movie! I didn't want sad, romance! I wanted happy, silly romance and this didn't fit the bill! But it was a good movie. It even had that actor I like from Grey's Anatomy! Denny Dueket(?) is his name on Grey's.. sad that I don't know his real name! Actually both those movies had actors from Grey's Anatomy
Then I picked kids up from school, fed them dinner, vacuumed the stairs, helped with homework, and put them to bed.
Then I watched Catch and Release. It was pretty good too, actually I liked it a lot.

I think they are mostly old movies, but like I said...I rarely watch them.

Since I "wasted" today, tomorrow I"ll be better. Tomorrow is my day at school each week to volunteer with a reading program. Then I'll move to my son's class and help with the centers they are having. Then I'll go to lunch with Luke, and then I might be meeting up with some friends from the church my DH used to be the pastor of.

I've probably talked your ear off by now! Guess I'll head to bed! I'm usually up this time of night by myself anyway, but it seems too quiet without DH!

At Last!-updated

Stitching pictures! Yup, finally! :) These are what I've stitching Dec and Jan...plus the ones I posted before I went to AK. Kids are still home from school, so I'll have to add all the details later. They are all from various JCS Ornament issues, 2000-2008. Some I'm really happy with and some I'm not at all thrilled with! :)

This one is stitched over one, I guess on probably 32 count. It was just gonna be way too big! I messed up on the stocking, can you tell? :)

I'm not thrilled with this one. The white is really hard to see... I didn't use the fabric called for and I guess it was so light, that the white sort of blended in with it?

I stitched this (over 1) while I was watching the Inauguration all day! I figured it fit the occasion! :) I have loved this pattern for a long time. I had already stitched it once over 2, but it was too big. So I did it this time with the right colors and over one.

Messed up on this one too!:) The blocks are all supposed to be filled in with white Fuzzy thread, which I thought was a cool idea. I used the white called for to stitch the blocks, but in the sample (after I had already stitched it and went back to look at the picture) all their block outlines are a dark gray. Since mine is much more white, you couldn't distinquish any blocks when I added the Fuzzy thread. So I just left it empty! I think I like it better anyway!

I think this is one of my most favorite ones! But see that goofy bottom right corner? what is with that? It's how it is charted, but I'm thinking I'm gonna have to go back and square it up! what do you think?

I love this one! I stitched it to go with the bunny one, but this one turned out much better!

I didn't originally really like these, but at the fabric store I found fabric that is all lines of music...and I had to buy some to back these ornaments. And that meant I had to stitch them !I really like how they turned out. It was supposed to be all beads, but I don't get along well with beads..so it's just all stitched! There is a ton of counting and backstitching in these babies!

This little birdy is cursed! My good friend stitched it and she had to frog a bunch of it...I was doign just fine on it and got to the hat and messed that up too! So beware the hat if you stitch this one! :) It's only really pretty blue sparkly fabric! Love it!

This was another little booboo! :) These too are supposed to be connected at that middle green stitching line. Then it looks like one piece of fabric. Very cool idea. BUT I just used fabric from my stash and despite counting a million times, they aren't the same count! I think one must be 32 and the brown one is 35. My option is I can just do two seperate ornaments, which would be cute..but wasn't the main idea! :) Or I can add another line on the brown fabric across the bottom,but then it won't match the border on the right and I'll have to add a line to that. What to do?! haha


See I stitch, really I do! :) Kids are back in school. They started two hours late, that meant my youngest didn't go to elementary school until 10:45! Crazy! So I have a few hours by myself. I started yet another ornament last night..it is CUTE if I do say so myself! :) So I'm gonna work on that a little bit and watch something on tv that I want to watch!

The snow is still hanging around, which is very strange for NC! Enjoy your day!

Snow in NC!

School is cancelled! Work for DH is closed! So everybody is home again! :) They were all home yesterday too. So that means no stitching for me! One of these days I tell ya, I'm gonna shock you will all my stitching pictures....maybe!

Here are some snow pictures for the day! :) Six inches and it's still snowing pretty good out there.

View of the front of the house:

Looking out that front door:

Totally Posed!:)

Andrew trying to catch some snowflakes!

Luke making a snow angel! :)

Andrew showering himself with snow from the branches!

It was Luke's idea!

Stitching pictures tomorrow! :) Unless, it's still a snow day!

My baby is NINE!

This was the funniest thing ever! His birthday fell in the middle of the week, which was "Totally unfair"! When his friend's mom asked him if he had a good birthday he said, "Not really, I had a test, jogging club and ART!" Jogging club happens one week a month and instead of playing during recess time, they JOG! I agree...boring! :)

So here he was with his cake.

1st attempt at blowing out candles!

Notice only three candles blew out! I have no idea what he was doing, but it was so hilarious. He could NOT blow out the candles! He'd huff and puff and blow and only one or two would go out!

2nd or 3rd attempt!

Success=Pure Joy!!


Tonight he is having his best friend spend the night. They are funny because they are complete opposites, but they have a great time together. I think they balance each other a little bit!

I'm hoping to survive the evening, and maybe even get some stitching in!

When did this blog turn to be about my family?! Seriously, it's gonna get back to stitching soon! I did take some pictures of the ornaments I'm stitching, but they turned out icky! (The pictures, not the ornaments!)

I'm organizing an RR with the pattern Friendship Sampler and we still want to add about two more people. That will take us up to 20. We have people from all over the US, and even a group from the Netherlands is joining us. The funniest thing, is after all was said and done, one lady in the group is only about 20 minutes from me! :) Blogland isn't so big after all!

Talk to you later!

Jockey's Ridge and Wright Brothers Memorial

I love being raised in Alaska, really I do! But living on a remote island in Alaska sort of limits the day trips! :)

DH had to preach at the Outer Banks in NC this past Sunday. So we woke up early on Saturday and went and spent the day together. We went to the Wrights Brothers Memorial. It was very cool! This is a monument on top of a huge hill. But on a big flat field they have the spot marked where they first took off. Then there are four more markers that mark each attempt. The first three are very close together, the fourth one is quite a distance down the field. There is a little walkway to the last marker. As the four of us were walking down there.. I couldn't help but imagine back when it was actually happening! I could just imagine the people running alongside the plane as it was actually flying, knowing they were history in the making! I told the kids..imagine how much screaming was going on! They must have been so excited!


Dh asked me if we wanted to go play on the sand at Jockey's Ridge. Whoopie is what I really wanted to say! But of course I said sure! :) Well, we got there and it was so awesome! You could do out and climb and play and crawl on these huge sand dunes! And it really felt like you were in the middle of a dessert somewhere! Anyway, the boys had a blast! As you can tell from the pictures!

It was just dune after dune, with views of the ocean on both sides!


Aww! So sweet! Why don't they act like this in real life? See all the cool markings on the sand, I thought that was so pretty.



So much for "whoopie"! I'll go back any day,even if it is a 3 hour drive!

A Little Bit More of Alaska

The day we left, my sister took the boys out to the Coast Guard base to see all the airplanes. Here they are in the helicopter like the ones Mike used to fly. One of his jobs was to man this basket when they rescued people. The boys thought it was "awesome"!

This is the three of them facing the helicopter hangers. You can see the awesome Alaska mountains in the background covered in snow! And there are three Coast Guard boats in the background. The one furthest away is the one they got to tour. Can you tell how cold the kids were? It was only about 18 that day.

My brother owns two Subways in town and my sister is the manager of them. They have a daily deal with the local jail. They provide their lunches every day for the prisoners. Christmas day is no exception...since the store was closed the boys went down with their Aunt Debbie and made the subs for the prisoners.

The family joke is that Mike can sleep anywhere! This is at the pool when we took the kids swimming.

This a view of my parents' house from their backyard (aka the beach) Their house is the brown one. When I was growing up there, it was only the brown one and the white one to the right. The space to the left of my parents is where my older brother will be building his house one day. This picture was taken at a really low tide. When the tide is high, the water will be all the way up to the grassy edge.

Did you know Alaska beaches are black?! :)

A RR anybody?

Via Vonna's blog, she linked to another lady who wanted to do this chart as an RR. A bunch of people thought it was a great idea..but I think the response was rather overwhelming!

Is anybody interested in doing it? I'm imagining that each person would provide their own fabric and chart. (duh, right?!) And then we'd rotate through everybody, each stitching their name and one set of hearts. It would be probably only one night of stitching for each person. But I think there are about 20 hearts on there. I'm not a big fan of the big lock of hair in the middle! I think I'd just add another heart or something.

Anyway, I don't even have the chart yet, but I wouldn't mind getting it started if anybody is interested. I just looked at the chart, and there are 20 spaces for names, but there are a few places with extra hearts and no name! :)

Leave a comment if you're interested!

Oh no!!!

Today I checked the mail, and their was a package..well color me surprised! :) I opened it and found two cross-stitch charts!

After I saw what they were, I remembered that someone had a giveaway on their blog and you could request a pattern. I did that while we were in Alaska.

Here's my problem! :) I have a pile of blogs I read, but often click links on those blogs to go to other blogs. Now, I have no idea where the blog is that gave me these patterns!

I might just have to resort to sending a thankyou the old fashioned way! But sure wish I could find her!

sleeping

And by the way, the boys and DH and I finally fell asleep at 2:00 AM! Here's hoping we can get to sleep quicker today!

A bunch of random pictures!

A few more pictures from Alaska. I didn't bother to put them in any special order! I have a few more to upload, but will probably wait until tomorrow!

We love playing cards, really we do! :) This is my DH with his head in his hands! My brother and his wife, Jill.

These two are Anna and Bailey. They belong to my little brother Sam. They came to the airport to say goodbye! Aren't they sweet?

This is Luke with Mary. She belongs to my big brother Dan. He was reading her a story.

Here's all the cousins together! All girls, except my two!

This is my mom's backyard! Isn't this a great picture of Luke! It was FREEZING that day...The high was around 18, I think!

We were delayed in Anchorage for about seven hours, due to being detoured to Fairbanks. Thankfully, cause it was only snow the boys saw the whole two weeks we were there! Isn't this gorgeous?!

This was taken at 9:30am!! look how dark it was! I actually took this picture accidentally! I was trying to get them beside the little tree..they didn't want to stand still and this is what I ended up with! I love it!

My best friend from 1stgrade-8th grade. Then she moved to Fairbanks! BRR! She came to see me at the airport at 2am-4am! What a friend!

This is Jenny! Our moms' forced us to be friends way back when she was in 10th and I was in 12th! I hadn't seen her since her wedding five years ago, we bonded instantly! Love that!


Delta has these cool maps on each seatback. You can watch where you are exactly while you're flying! Luke took this one, I was sleeping...but looks like we were somewhere over South Dakota!

And yes, I did wear a shirt other than my blue turtleneck while I was there! :)

They are STILL Awake

The bad thing about going to Alaska, is coming home to a four hour time change! They both have school tomorrow..Andrew has to get up at 6am and Luke at 8am. And it's already 11:30pm and they are both WIDE awake! The bad thing is, it's only 7:30 in Alaska. Tomorrow morning is going ot be rough, I already know it! Pray they go to sleep SOON! :)

Time to Go Home

We leave today at 4pm, which is 8pm eastern time. We'll get home on Saturday at 4pm eastern time. We have a six hour layover in Anchorage..BORING! :) We haven't decided what we'll do, we can get a rental car for four hours for $12, so we'll probably just do that and go somewhere. My friend from high school might be in Anchorage, depends if they make their afternoon flight. So hopefully (for us) we'll be able to meet up with them. Hopefully for them, they'll already be on their way out of the state.

We've had a great time. We all made tie dye shirts yesterday, and everybody is anxious to open them up today and see how we did!

A load of laundry to do, and four suitcases to pack and then we should be good to go!

Back to real life of cooking, working, homework, cleaning, etc. etc. The break sure has been nice!

Some Alaska Pictures

This is my DH Mike! He's lost 60+ pounds, isn't he a cutie?

My dad with my sister and my oldest: Andrew. My dad is MUCH improved, but has been in this exact position (minus my sister and Andrew) for the past month! The eye he is squinting is actually the good side of his face, the other side is the side with the Bells Palsy.

My mom with Luke.

This is my SIL Jill. She is married to my oldest brother Dan.

We got to tour a Coast Guard Cutter. It was about 20 degrees that day and FREEZING! This is my mom with almost all her grandkids. We left two little ones at home!

Here is a much better view of the boat. Check out ALL the snow we had!

Here are all the kids (and the Coastie that showed us around the boat!) The poor kids (and us) were so cold! Look at them all scrunched together! Poor things! But they had a great time. You can see my mom's and my shadow on the picture!

Here are all the cousins. They were eating chocolate bars from my aunt's chocolate factory in PA.

Left to Right:

Mary (my big brother's youngest), Ashley (big brother's oldest) my Andrew, my Luke, Emily (my big brother's middle) Anna (my little brother's oldest) in front of her, totally engrossed in her candy is Bailey (my little brother's youngest) Confused yet?

Ever heard of King Crab? Yum! My sister got some for us to try. Her's is out of the shell, mine is still in the shell. Look out the window: that is ALL the snow we had while we were here! And yes, that is the ocean right outside my mom's window!

This is Luke is a rare calm moment, reading to Bailey...the youngest cousin (so far!) I love how she is cuddled in his arms!

My mom got a new camera for Christmas, these are all with her camera. I have some great ones to load when I get home. We leave the day after tomorrow. Hard to believe two weeks passed so quickly! We've had a great time, but I think we're about ready to get home! We have a family dinner tomorrow, and we're hoping to tie dye some shirts for everybody. We'll see if we get around to it! :)

Happy New Year everyone!