Turkey farming

Here are the turkeys that I have raised for Thanksgiving this year!

My clever, ambitious sister in law instigated a little pre-Thanksgiving get together with her, me and my other sister in law, Kalita, to create these cute cupcake turkeys. Seriously, what could be better than a chocolate turkey!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO EVERYONE!!!

I just keep on Quilting

I need to share my most recent birthday quilt project. I actually made this quilt back in October for Colton's birthday. Since he lives in China, I couldn't blog about it until after he had received it and by then I was in Hawaii so I'm just getting around to sharing it with you.

This was such a fun quilt to make!!! I don't know about you, but I always get my very best ideas at the last minute. So about a week before his birthday I came up with this idea. You may remember that I made a denim quilt for Cory for his birthday back in May so I knew I wanted to make some kind of denim quilt for Colton. I decided I wanted to make a tee shirt quilt. Only one teeny problem, I didn't have any of Colton's tee shirts. So I got creative and went to the DI, Deseret Industries, which is a local thrift store here that is a part of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is like a gold mine! Seriously, you can always find the best surprises there and it is very inexpensive. I was thrilled with the tee shirts that I found that were perfect to represent Colton and his interests. If you click on the photo you can see each block up close. Of course, I was able to dive into my stash of jeans in my sewing closet for the denim part of the quilt. I just loved the big polka dots. All those colors just seemed to tie all the random blocks together and the lime green flannel added a great "wow" factor. I tied the quilt but then I also did some machine quilting within the individual blocks to stablize the cotton
tee shirts. I used flannel on the back and as the inside batting so it would be warm and cuddly for him.

I got the best thank you emails from Colton and Heidi and I was so pleased that it was a hit when it arrived.

Here is my fun neighborhood quilt group and the quilt that we made last Weds. We have a woman in our neighborhood who has been battling cancer for 12 years! It just breaks our hearts. So we decided that we wanted to make her a little something to let her know we care and are still thinking about her. This is just one of those quick, rag-type quilts. We put this all together in about 2 hours. We hope she can feel our love and concern for her as she snuggles under these cheery squares this holiday season!

Button, Button... the next generation

I have always needed to spend some time in my sewing room as often as possible and back when I had little kids I had to find clever ways to keep them occupied so that I could accommadate this indulgence. One of their favorite activities was to string buttons.

One by one as my grandkids have gotten old enough to be trusted with a needle in their precious little hands, I have introduced them to this new skill. Aspen just joined the ranks of the button stringers and she loved it! Now, before you start to panic and assume that I am a careless grandma, I do have a blunt needle that I give them. I have a huge jar of buttons that I have amassed over the years and it is a huge thrill for the kids to dump it over and see the buttons fly everywhere.

It was so fascinating to watch Aspen as she sorted through the buttons and carefully selected just the right ones she wanted to add to her collection. She was a quick learner on how to manipulate the needle through the hole and get the button to drop down the string. When she had filled up the string, we tied it off and she got to take it home. I saw her the next day and Katie had tied the ends together to make Aspen's string of buttons into a bracelet which she was still wearing (along with the blue hula skirt we brought her from Hawaii).

I remember stringing buttons when I would go and visit my grandma and now it is so fun to see this little tradition continue to the next generation.

Last week -- this week

Hawaii was wonderful... except for the price of gas and food! This was the price of gas just 10 days ago when we were on the island of Molokai. Ouch! It was quite as high on Maui. When we first arrived, we paid $3.88 a gallon and by the time we left 2 weeks later the price had dropped to $3.55. Still very pricey!

No, this isn't an old photo. I actually bought gas at Sam's Club yesterday and this is what I paid! Of course, I went for the unleaded gas! I can not remember the last time I paid less than $2 a gallon. It only cost me $42 to fill up my tank. Not too long ago it was costing me almost $100 when I would fill up. As much as we talked about how wonderful it would be to live in Hawaii with it's idealic climate, delightful sea breezes and laidback lifestyle, I think financially we're better off here.