Oh Christmas Tree Oh Christmas Tree

I'd sing the rest of that song to you, but I don't actually know the words except the oh Christmas tree parts.

Is there anyone who doesn't love a Christmas tree? Well if there is, they can just go on to another blog because I wanted to share some pictures of our trees.

We have a lot of vintage mercury ornaments that I just love. A lot of them are from my parents stash of ornaments and many more are from Jim's grandmas trees.

The pine cones in different colors are some of my favorites.

I can remember hanging them on every tree we had when I was growing up. Well, there was the one year without a Christmas tree........... no, not even as cute as the TV special. One year my mother decided we didn't need a real tree, she would just put little lights and plastic oranges on her citrus tree. She thought it was ingenious and refreshing. I thought it was embarrassing and dumb, but since Santa was coming I didn't mention that!

This one isn't mercury, and it's not expensive, but it could be termed vintage!This is my all time favorite ornament. It's been hung by it's points so many times that it now has to be clipped on the tree with a clothespin! On the back my mother in laws handwriting says "Jim kindg. 1967" How special is that? Jim would not hang it up each year, but I do!

Here is our second tree, we take turns decorating it each year in the dining room.

It seems to have a Santa hat as a topper this year...........

hmmm is it going to be a Santa theme tree?

ummmmmmmm, no. It seems at some point in the past 365 days we have somehow misplaced the top portion of this tree! I have no idea how this happened since it has it's own box and all the Christmas stuff goes in ONE closet!!! How do these things happen????

Second Colleg graduate in the family!!!

Our second college graduate in the family! Dad was the first a few years ago and I was incredibly proud of him for that.

This weekend Melissa our daughter number 2 graduated Magna Cum Laude, with a degree in secondary education, English.

Here she is with proud Gramma!
We are all so PROUD of her!

This is one of those things that makes it all worth it!!! All the parenting, all the work hours to keep them in school! All worth it!

Now we have daddy with 3 of his girls. Good times!!

Gosh it's so important to have these times with family isn't it?

Here we all are at breakfast before the ceremony.

Dad, Becky -daughter #3, her boyfriend Ben (he's my BFF Rose, but that's another story!), Lissa the honored one!, grandma, the lovely Miss V, and me. I was so proud I'm surprised there are buttons left on my jacket!

Here are daughters #2 and #3, Becky (in orange) will graduate next spring and I'll be bursting with pride again! Anyway, here they are showing off the bags that my super friend, and the officer in charge of coffee made for them! Aren't they awesome? The girls obviously LOVE those very special bags!

The Last (I think) of the Gingerbread Houses!

Here are the last of the gingerbread houses!

This is almost-daughter Kim making her Kayak Cottage!

She couldn't come for the big shin dig at Thanksgiving since she had to work so I saved one for her.

Wouldn't you kill for that gorgeous red hair?

Kim took Miss V to a kayak demonstration and fun time at a local pool in the morning.

Then she came by and played with the gingerbread house fixings and spent some time with me.

Love that kid!

Here is her gummy bear kayaker!

Isn't he the cutest thing???

and her blue and green river?

She had to make do with what was left of the blue candies, and there wasn't much!

Meanwhile Miss V worked on some homework and then she finished off the last house! After doing her bright bright rainbow bright house last time, she decided to go for a subtler approach.

Totally adorable! and the house is cute too! Now I'm going to pack away the gingerbread house tools til next year! (maybe...)

More Gingerbread Houses!

The lovely Miss V turns sweet sweet 16 tomorrow, so for her party this year we hosted some of her friends for a gingerbread house-party





Building and talking and laughing.

think there is enough candy here?





After the girls were done, I got to decorate a couple of houses also............

This one has coffee beans on the sides, so it will travel to my favorite coffee shop.




And my gingerbread cottage. I love the roof!!!

Total fun!

Only 3 more to go. Another kid who missed out on gingerbread-ing is stopping by next Saturday and she and I will decorate some MORE!!!!

Some SWEEET building going on!

Miss V and her cousin Brianna working on a house together

Rachel who is one teeny month younger than V working on her house........

Kayla, who is a teeny 11 months younger than Miss V working on her house.

Cayleigh the cheesey working on getting her picture taken, instead of working on her house.

Some nice roofing going on here............

Becky and Ben practicing for when they go on their Habitat for Humanity trip.

Ben getting serious about his house.

Smallest builder of all, Emily. We decided she got the prize for most sugar involved. Once she was done putting every kind of candy on, she sprinkled sugar on top too.

Lissa and Rachel, very serious builders

Once again, fun was had by everyone!

If I can find Jim's pictures there will be a end shot of all the finished houses, since once again my camera died part way through all the fun stuff.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!

My favorite holiday of the year.

Two little chickies are home, and two more are on the way in the next few days. I hope everyone has a wonderful warm happy holiday.

After the feast I have to gear up and get all my gingerbread houses built so the niece's and daughters and any nephews etc can play with the decorations and create masterpieces.

There will be pictures after Saturday when the massive gingerbread-ing is done~

Marching Band Last Blast

Another great weekend back at college!

Here is the gang that got to go, just missing one kid! Hopefully we'll all get together at Thanksgiving and do some more family pictures.

And the lovely Becky

The senior band members were recognized at the Last Blast concert.

Becky and her boyfriend Ben.

The seniors presenting the director with a neat collage of band pictures and such.

What a fun weekend!!!! A half time show, a band concert AND a choir concert! Does she know how to entertain us or what?

too bad I didn't get any pictures at the brunch she hosted for all of us!

Left overs and a cat

Here's a little Halloween runner I made from some leftovers from Miss V's first Halloween quilt.

Now that she is doing a second one, I have another pile of cute little scraps to play with.

And the cat.

Mr. Big Bones. He seems to need to get up at 3:00 am to go downstairs to have a snack to keep up his strength.

This wouldn't be much of a deal, except now that cold weather is here and the heat is on, we keep the stair door closed. No matter, he just tromps downstairs and bangs on it, which causes loud rattling to echo all over the house. This is what happens when you have a 17 lb cat and old doors.

Random Photo of the Day

Sputnik Cow!!!!

Warning!!! This post is totally UN P-C!!!

I received this in my email earlier in the week, and since I am pretty much NOT PC, (more of a laptop kinda gal) I thought it was funny.
If you are the type to be easily offended, do not read this. There, you have been warned!



A Powerful Message from Stevie Wonder on Michael Jacksons Death
..... .. ... ...... .... . ..... ... ...... ... .. . . ... .
.... .... ... ... ... ... ...... . ........ .. . ...... .. .
... . .... .. . .. . .... . ... .. ... . ..... .. ... ... ... . .. ........
. . ... . . . ..... . ..... ... . .... .. ... .. . .... ....
... ... . ...... .. ... .... .. .. .. ..... .. . ... .... .. .... ..

Deep stuff huh?
It brought a little tear to my eye when he said
"... .. . ..... ... .. ..... .. . .. ....... . . .. . ..... "

UW Platteville Marchin Pioneers take Lambeau Field

If you are one of the lucky people who get to see half time shows when your stations show football games, the UW Platteville Marching Pioneers are doing half time at the Packer Viking game today!!




I'm a bit bummed because the Beautiful Becky will be performing there, just a hop (not even a skip and a jump) away from home and we won't get to see her. sad face.
Our local stations don't show the halftime stuff, and I have already attempted to drive through Green Bay on a Packer Sunday and I vowed NEVER EVER to try THAT again. We have been through rush hour in Washington DC, and I think I would take that over game day traffic here!

If you get to see it, this is what she looks like up close.
With a trumpet in her hands...........
and that smile always on her face.

This was homecoming last year, just had to remind myself that we got to see her in person that time............

and we are going down to campus later this month for the last blast show. More pictures!!!!

Have a great Sunday everybody and

GO VIKINGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Progress on the design wall

Here is grumpy Cassie with my work in progress.

Such a look she can give!!

I did finish the top tonight and have a horrible picture to show for it. I tried to adjust the color when I downloaded the pictures, but I had very limited success.

sigh.

Still getting used to the new camera.

but if you sort of squint and tilt your head a bit, and then try not to let the overwhelming yellowness make you nauseous.......

well, you get the idea.

Then, of course, there were blocks I didn't use........... and more blocks sitting in the box.......... and they were awfully lonely.....

so of course, sigh, I have yet another work in progress.

I could just put it all back in the box and start one of the bazillion quilts that I have on this years list.

But, then would I feel guilty? hmm, I might but there might be something to help me get over that...............

yup,

I'm over it!

On my Design Wall

Look what I found in a box under my cutting table!

I had forgotten that I put some blocks in there that I never finished.

More of some scrappy fall colors.

I'm going to fill in the blanks with some more spare blocks I found.

and here is the big black cat napping near the new quilt since he can't actually nap on it yet. Zeller's nap surface is TWO full cases of batting.

Yes, TWO FULL CASES!!

A local quilt shop is going out of business, and I got them on sale. One is for me and one is for my favorite cousin who does quilting for me whenever I ask! now I need to get it to her................

I've thought about taking it on an airplane for a visit, but it's so big I'd probably have to buy it a ticket!

getting ready for Halloween

Please! excuse the quality of the picture!!! You would not believe what a person has to go through sometimes to get a picture on here! I have a lovely new camera which seems to be missing the patch cord to download the pictures to my laptop. so I took this one with my cell phone and sent it to the OCC (see guild notes at right) and sweet Flori emailed it back to me!!! the witch is more travelled than I am!!

The panel was a sweet gift from Kim... http://kimsbigquiltingadventure.blogspot.com/ for finishing 3 or more UFOs last month. sadly I have not done that well this month. I ended up taking a break from my overcrowded quilt rack to work on baby quilts. then this cute thing came so I thought I should get it quilted and hung and well, you know how it goes!

Do you journal?

Back when I was in grade school, someone gave me a diary, it had a flowered cover and a tiny little lock with a tiny little key. It could be more easily opened with the end of a nail file however. ;-) At that time I was told to name my diary, and write in it daily, something like "Dear Debbie Diary". Even at age 8 I thought this was a bit lame.

I couldn't understand putting something personal in a diary that could be opened and read by just anyone! I mean, think of the private things that happen to an 8 year old! GASP!

So of course I wrote occasionally and changed the names to protect the innocent.

Still, that cute little book with the pretty cover had a place in my mind.

since then I have had several notebooks that I jotted things down in. The first picture shows three of them, the second is my favorite.

I can take this journal anywhere and be entertained. Not by the secret stories, but by the quotes and pictures and thoughts and ideas and such that I put in it.

I thought I'd share some of my the pages with you, it's more of an inspiration notebook than journal, but here and there are some journal entries too.

Lots of quilt ideas.......

I cut out pictures that inspire me to make quilts or paintings or bags or really anything that catches my eye.

If a particular quote or passage in a book intrigues me, that goes in a journal too.

I know that if it caught my eye once, there must be a reason and I'll probably want to do something with it someday.

I like these smaller journal type notebooks because the pages are a bit thicker than normal and when I glue things onto them they don't tend to wrinkle.

Here we have some table runner ideas.............

I love this pottery, it could translate into a wallhanging, or a table runner or a bag or maybe a painting.....