Happy 88th b-day Dad!

Tomorrow is my Dad's 88th birthday so I am posting some of my favorite pictures.

In the Carribean.

Florida vacation

Egypt

England / Ireland trip (don't you love my hairstyle!?)

Sweet Daughter's first communion

Christmas Eve many years ago.

Four of Dad's great kids!

Grandpa's pumpkins

Go Notre Dame!

Tennis anyone!?

A few garden pictures

Just a few pictures of my garden.

The columbine is still hanging in there.


I have nice sunflowers peeking over my fence.

I mulched the entry way this weekend, amazing how new mulch makes everything look so nice!

The fight against Japanese beetles .....

Japanese Beetles

Although we treat our lawn each year for grubs and try to keep nice healthy gardens, we still get the Japanese beetles every year. Behind our house is a huge open area which I am sure is full of grubs. We tried the bag trap yesterday and in less than 24 hours it filled with bugs. I just read on the wikipedia link that these bags actually attract more beetles, so maybe not such a wise idea. The trap says to put it away from your plants, which we did. This is just gross isn't it!?!

Summer project

My dear son stained our deck this summer for a little extra spending $. he did a great job!

quiet weekend

This weekend was pretty quiet. We went to a wedding on Saturday, the boys went fishing and I did a little in the yard. Oh and I baked a cake. it is the Holy Cow Cake.

here is the link: http://rincessquiltandknitalotrecipes.blogspot.com/search/label/Holy%20Cow%20Cake

Quilted Catepillar w/ some help from my furry kids

I worked on Eva's quilt this weekend. I laid it all out perfectly so I could quilt it and then Kodi decided to come into the sewing room for a visit.












Of course he thought it was a very nice place to take a nap and since I was giving him soooo much attention he was certain it was a very good idea to come up to mom's sewing room.









Finally I explained to him he would get a very yummy treat if he would LEAVE.






Awwww, back to peaceful quilting...................




That is when Freckles decided the coast was clear with Kodi gone to see what all the action was.










she did not care if her tail ended up as an embellishment, so I finally had to pick her up set her in the hall and quickly shut the door!











In the evening she decided to give that quilt one more look while I put on the binding.


It turned out beautiful!

The back has a "sweet" surprise.

I love the book http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Very-Hungry-Caterpillar/Eric-Carle/e/9780399226908/?itm=1

I hope Eva does too...... I washed it, no worries about pet hair until she gets it home with her own furry friends.

Knitting two socks at a time

While dear husband and son were in KC playing baseball and Sweet daughter was away at a week long bible camp, I stayed home to work and take care of the pets. Also I enjoyed some time with one of my favorite persons in the world, my good friend Jackie. She came up for a visit, we had a good pizza at a nearby sports bar and then she came over to the house to show me how to start 2 socks at a time on circular needles!




Wow, what a concept! 2 at one time, no lonely socks. I know I am behind the times on starting this but it was because I couldn't quite figure out how to start on my own. Thanks for a little help from a friend!

Linn County fair and Bucky concert

I took my sweet daughter and her friend to the Linn County Fair to see Bucky Covington (American Idol contestant and country music singer). We were able to peak in on him while he was warming up. Then we went to the barns and the girls went on a couple rides. It was a really small county fair.

The concert was better than I expected, Bucky was really entertaining and sang songs off of his CD plus Elvis, Willy Nelson, Pink Floyd, Sawyer Brown and many others. He seemed to just be a regular guy and kind of goofed off on stage. We all enjoyed the concert.

At the end of the concert they had fireworks.

Felted Lucy Bag - Off of my needles!

I finally finished my large Lucy Bag and felted it this weekend.

It turned out very cute.

Here is the before felted picture, see how huge it is? It really felted up nicely!

I love it and I think I will make a smaller one for carrying my lunch to work!

Pool party for baseball team

Perfect weather for the pool!

One of my son's team mates invited the whole team over for a pool party on Sunday. (thanks Lorie and Jeff!) A great time was had by the boys and the parents!

Some of the parents ended up getting a little wet....

Water wars!