Update with PICTURES

I went to bed way too late. I was wound up from my stippling, afraid I would not set the alarm right, not sure we were leaving enough time to get to the testing site. I tossed and turned. I woke up before my 5:40 alarm. But prayers were answered and God saw us safely to and from the testing site. My son said it all went well and he felt really good about how he did. Thank you for any prayers said on his behalf. I am so tired now though and I dont' trust myself to work on the quilt. I do have pictures to share though!

First of all a couple of close up shots of my first attempt at stippling a quilt. Now don't enlarge the image and get out your magnifying glasses. I TOLD you it was not great and you don't have to point out my flaws. Just look at the good parts. :D




Then here are a couple of pictures of my son's Cakeball Birthday Cake. That is a dinner plate it is on.




I need to make a graduation card, get the ingredients out for Caesar salad (church picnic/potluck tomorrow after church) and get ready for bed. If I can make it until 9 I will be doing good.

Tomorrow when we get home from the church picnic hopefully the guys will be full up and not need another meal. I hope to be well rested and ready to finish the stippling on the baby quilt. If I get that done then I want to finish sewing my strips together for the Quilt Along quilt. I am hoping not to fall behind with that so that means I need to finish the strips, iron them all and then cut the blocks. I love having a plan all laid out. What do your Sunday plans look like??

Praise - we had safe travel and my son was happy with how he did on the SAT. Praise that it is behind him!

Prayers - college girl is on the home stretch - just a few more papers, another test, a couple days of classes and then the packing. Praying that she would keep her priorities straight and not sweat the small stuff.

Before the month of LOVE is gone

I thought I'd better get these Valentine photos blogged. LOTS OF PICTURES DES!!! :D Des likes lots of pictures.

So I had two families of 5 (our very dear friends) coming to visit for Valentine's weekend (also known as President's Weekend) and my college girl was hitching a ride home with one of the families! Now I always make frosted sugar cookies for Vday for my family, and it is the one time that I don't let the kids help me with the process. It is my Valentine to them. I usually wait until they are in bed to bake and decorate the cookies. Side note - This gets harder to do as they get older and stay up later. Some of the guests were to arrive on Thursday. I needed to get my act in gear since everything had to be done and put out of sight before they arrived.

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This is what I made. A LOT of cookies. More than I usually make. The cutting out and baking is the easy part. I also made a big batch of cake balls on a stick and got those in the freezer.

Oh yeah....did I mention that I was trying to make the Happy Zombie's Pennie Pockets for everyone? Yeah, call me crazy. These are 'supposed' to be embellished and bejeweled. I tried to make a yo-yo and it was more like OY-OY! I knew that was going to be TOO time consuming and I should have started in October. I gave up that dream and just got them all sewn up. I had a few different prints but the other picture did not turn out. I filled these with foil wrapped candies and conversation hearts and hung them on each chair.

I got a reprieve.

The guests that were to arrive on Thursday had a change of plans and would not arrive until Friday. Whew! More time to frost the cookies. (should read - more time to procrastinate on the frosting of the cookies). My plan all along was to use decorating tips and frost each name on a cookie. That did NOT happen. Each person did get a LARGE cookie on a doily, on a plate at their place for breakfast.

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Now if I had started back in AUGUST, I could have made a cute table runner, but I did not. I used my new, clearanced after Christmas at WM, RED place mats and called it good.

I needed two tables so I called this one the kid's table, although there were kids at the 'red' table as well. I see I should have ironed that tablecloth!

Now mind you, ALL of this was set up and set out AFTER my guests had all arrived (some at 11:30pm) and they had all gone to bed! Oh yeah, that was at about 1:30 A.M.! I was going back and forth as quietly as I could, dining room to the garage, as I had the cookies in a big tin in the garage, the cake balls in an ice chest in the garage and the pennie pockets in a box in my closet. I put window cling hearts on the dining room windows too.

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Here is a close-up of the cake ball bouquets. I wish I would have had some shredded, crinkled red paper to fill in at the base of these, but I didn't.

Edited to add link to cake ball recipe/directions. Hey, if you get lost on this site, don't blame ME!

Bakerella is so creative and talented. Go see for yourself.

As I slipped into bed about 2:30 (after I took pictures!), I prayed that neither guest family would let their dog out of their room during the night. That would have made me cry.

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Everyone was so surprised in the morning that the Valentine fairy had visited during the night. I got lots of hugs and kisses and requests for yearly Valentine Day visits. :D

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Prayers - for a friend's mother who is not doing well at all. The family has been gathered around her and are wondering how long they have with her.

Praise - College girl has made it through an especially stresssful week and has registered for the new quarter, getting all the classes that she NEEDS. My son is doing well in school, staying on top of things. Hubby is enjoying his new adventure.