Introducing Miranda

My sweet little granddaughter, Miranda Cadence, arrived on Sunday, March 2. She is doing really well and is at home now. The weather has not been too kind to her (who expects all this snow and cold weather in the South when it's almost Spring), but her mommy and daddy are taking really good care of her. I think she is very lucky to have them as parents. Hopefully we will see you soon, Miranda!

Valentine's Day Snow Delay: IOU

When our newspaper arrived after a couple of days of snow, sleet, and rain I had to laugh a bit about this Valentine's Day IOU. It was a full page ad.

I made the photo large so hopefully you can read it. Yes, a Valentine's Day Snow Delay...
and here is the coupon your can present to your special sweetheart.

This one might be a bit harder to read so I typed out the wording on the coupon:

Dear _________
I'm so sorry your Valentine's Day gift is running late. If you will give me a little more time, I promise to make it a little more special. There is no amount of snow that can stand between us, so let's celebrate on February ____.
Thank you for your understanding!
Love always, ______________

I've never seen anything like it before. Fortunately I shopped early.  Unfortunately, even though we sent the packages priority, one didn't reach a daughter and son-in-law in time. (A priority package that was mailed in South Carolina took 6 days to reach North Carolina. The South Carolina to California package made it in time.)

My husband and I exchanged small gifts and cards and last night was our special meal - cheese fondue with two types of bread, Granny Smith apples, celery, cauliflower, broccoli, and carrots followed by Valentine cookies. It was so good!

Lately I've been working on my Scrappy Trips Around the World quilt... at my usual slow pace.

Snow, Freezing Rain, and an Earthquake

What a week last week was. We had our second bad winter storm of the month: this time with rain, snow, sleet, freezing rain, and more snow. The ice build up on the trees was just short of what it would have taken for lots of us to lose our electricity. In the next county over 90% of the people lost power.

Here you can see lots of layers of the storm on our porch railing.

 

 

Here is ice coating all the trees.

Then to add to all that on Valentine's Day evening, we had an earthquake. What? Exactly what I was thinking. It was just a rumble and I wasn't even sure what it was until the local weather interrupted the Winter Olympics to say there had been an earthquake.

Certainly this week can be better than last!

Snow! A Winter Wonderland

It has been a few years since we got snow in this part of South Carolina, but we woke up to snow yesterday. Of course that meant I needed to take my camera outside and snap some pictures. I hope you enjoy these. What a magical winter wonderland!

View out the front door

Big Fluffy Flakes That Stick to the Trees

No Gazing in the Gazing Ball Today

Would you like a seat in my garden anyway?

View on the way to the barn.

Piper says "Neigh" to the snow and Sydney doesn't care for it either!

Thanks for visiting and stay warm!

Andrea's Baby Shower

The baby shower for my younger daughter is the most I have been involved in creating quilts and other things for quite some time so I'm sharing. This is the quilt that I made for her baby shower. I finished it at 1:30 a.m. on Friday and the shower was on Saturday. Oh, well, it was completed and wrapped by the time the shower started. What more can I say?

We had a wonderful time at the shower and for those who might want ideas for baby showers or just a peak at the fun we had, I'm posting some pictures. Sorry about the lighting and lack of clarity on some. It was a hectic time and my camera, for some reason, doesn't do well in the light that we have in the family room and that's where we were most of the time.

Here's the diaper cake that I made with my husband's assistance:

It was the first time I ever made one and wasn't too bad to assemble. I highly recommend an assistant to help by holding the rolled diaper as you tie it. We used various sized pots and pans to hold the diapers in place until we could tie them and that seemed to work really well. The bottom layer has Hershey bars included. An idea I saw on Pinterest was to shade in the "she" with pink highlighter. We did it, but it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. It took several coats. We also highlighted the "her" on some of the candy bars.

 

We asked the guests to write baby advise on the little paper baby clothes and put them up on a ribbon that said "It's a Girl." They are attached with little pink clothespins. This was lots of fun and something my daughter can have as a keepsake of the shower. It also worked well for guests who could not attend. We just added their words of advice.

We had goodie bags for the guests to take home. I included pretzels, pecans, M&Ms, and pink peppermint popcorn that we made. It was an experience to have all the cookie sheets of popped popcorn waiting for their peppermint drizzle! The pencil tied on the bag is special for 2014 as the "Year of the Horse."

Here's the cake that I made for the shower. The theme was Carousel Horses. I had a very hard time finding anything with that theme that could be used at a baby shower. These carousel horses are Valentine cards that I ordered online. They are held up by pink drinking straws. There are also some fresh strawberries on the cake. Hollowing out the center of a large strawberry helped to hold up the straw that supported the center.

You might guess that my daughter and I like horses. She is holding up a gift that I bought for her. I marked the tag so it came from her horse. The quote is from Shakespeare: "Though she be but little, she is fierce."

My daughter with one of the gifts from her older sister - a super awesome baby carrier.

One of many presents from Andrea's mother-in-law. This outfit says "Who's Sleepy?" So cute!

And who can resist horse booties?

The horse related presents were a hit with both of us... and how about those people who gave baby advice that every little girl needs a pony? All of the presents were wonderful and my daughter, son-in-law, and I appreciate the people who showered her with such wonderful gifts. I also appreciate all of my husband's help in getting ready for the shower. He was "Super Husband."

Thanks for sharing the baby shower with us. I have 2 more UFOs completed off my list and February should bring my first granddaughter. It's so exciting! We can't wait to meet you.

Closing Out the Holiday Season and Wishing You a Happy New Year

I'm signing on to my blog one more time in 2013 to start wrapping up the holiday season and the year 2013 --- and to wish you a Happy New Year.

2013 was an odd year in more ways than the number. I spent much of the year battling health issues and had a pretty major surgery. The holidays were strange, too. In the picture above you see my dog, Sydney, staring intently at our small Christmas tree after I put it up. (Someone suggested she might wonder if the gingerbread men lights were edible!) Normally I put up multiple trees and decorate everything in sight for the holidays. Although we had THREE Christmases this year, we were not at home for the week of Christmas so I didn't do all that. I missed having the house look so special, but I don't think I had sufficient energy to do that anyway.

Our first Christmas was the day after Thanksgiving and was celebrated with our younger daughter and her husband. Christmas number two was the Saturday before we traveled and just involved me and and my husband exchanging gifts. The third Christmas was on December 25th and was spent with our older daughter, her husband, and their almost 3 year old triplet boys. Those boys are full of energy! As you can imagine, Santa was good to them. Here's one picture where I managed to get all 3 in the shot at one time. They move so fast and go in so many directions, that's not an easy feat.

The boys helped to make Christmas cookies, made paper chains to put in the front windows of their house, and decorated wreaths sent to them by their aunt (using holiday stickers, what a great idea!)

Another wonderful part of our visit was that we got to attend the annual Christmas Eve Polish dinner that is a part of our son-in-law's family celebration. I enjoyed it so much! However, the travel by car in California takes a long time if you have to drive through the LA area, which we did.

Both my husband and I returned home with colds; but as for holiday travel, you have to be happy just to make it to and from your holiday destination. We flew out with a plane change in Chicago and I was very relieved there were no weather issues for the hours we were there. The only flight with an "issue" was our last return flight. The plane was delayed getting into Dulles by 3 hours due to a mechanical problem. So we flew out much later than expected: inconvenient because we got home at a little after 3 a.m., but my schedule is all out of whack from holidays and time zone changes anyway.

As for my UFO list, I completed one more in 2013, but it's a gift so I'll have to list it later.
Happy New Year!

Stockings Completed - UFO Checked Off the List

Here are the Christmas stockings for my older daughter and her family. The picture was taken here in South Carolina, but I know they will be happy in their new home in California. Sorry you can't see the personalization better. I have a close up of one of them in the post before this one.

My quilt guild met yesterday for a holiday brunch so I was able to get these stockings checked off my UFO list. We had lots of delicious food. I made a batch of Mint Julep Kisses for my contribution to the food table. They are so simple to make and delicious! The children in the pre-school group came to the meeting and presented their Christmas program. It gave them a chance to practice the program they will give for their families and we loved seeing them. They learned so many songs and did an excellent job!

With the stockings, that makes 3 of my UFOs completed:
Set of Flannel Burp Cloths
Stocking for Friend in Swap Exchange
Stockings for My Daughter and her Family

I should have a quilt to mark off the list in January!

It has turned cold here. I just took some extra hay down to my horse. She was munching away when I left the barn. Time to get back to some Christmas preparations. I hope you are doing well in completing yours!