Spring Has Finally Sprung! Guess the visitors we've had!!

What a winter we had, and finally the flowers and trees are blooming.  The fresh smell of spring and rain.  Although it doesn't bother me, also comes along are the allergies.  Both of my children severely suffer with allergies.  My son is on a year round prescription and we have had to add two over-the-counter meds plus another prescription for eye drops.

Well, enough of that.  I wanted to share an interesting tale.  I had suffered with a very severe flu right before spring break and from that developed vertigo.  My sister came to my house to take me to the doctor.  Boy was she surprised to open our storm door to find a possum wedged between the two doors.  It was a baby, but not happy by any stretch of the word.  The below picture shows the possum in a wreath that had fallen off the wall of our porch.  Look close - he is in the wreath from where I ran him out of the door.

Well, this was quite a shock.  But the better surprise was the baby duck that decided to get caught in our garage.  Have no idea how either creature landed where they did.  The possum had to go but the duck was a little easier to handle.  Here is his first review:

Now who couldn't love this little guy???  We bought a heat lamp, a kiddy pool, duckling food, a water bottle, and wood shavings for the little fella.  He is growing and doing well.  We will be releasing him soon.  His pool sits inside our garden tub, for now.  He is very messy but we love watching him swim.  He is very fascinating and quick.

The next few pictures are of some of our spring tulips and flowering trees.  They are beautiful.

Happy Easter!

It's close to being over - but today was Easter and it was a beautiful day.  I appreciated the fact that Easter was a little later in the date this year.  It gave our winter an opportunity to be over and help spring.

We got up this morning, got dressed, and wore nice pastels for church.  My hubby and son wore peach pin striped shirts.  Hubby had a light green tie with a faint white design and our son wore the same green in a T under his shirt.  I had a white dress with a scattered peach floral design and elbow length peach sweater and our daughter had a white dress with pink and lavender and a lavender elbow sweater.  I think it all went very well together. 

Our church had an Easter egg hunt for two age groups which consisted of 11,000+ eggs.  As we were leaving the kids seemed to really be enjoying themselves.

Well, gotta put some pictures in.  I gave both my kids (and dogs) an Easter basket.

 

Our daughter's basket

Our son's basket

Scottie's basket

Baylee's basket

Here was the real surprise in the Easter baskets:

#52 Clay Matthews jersey's - both were happy with these.

Now just some fun stuff that was around the house for decorating.

...and what is Easter without decorating a few eggs?

These were the easiest eggs ever.  Instead of boiling water.  Using a hard-boiled egg just simply pour vinegar over the egg, using a strainer, then pour the color over that.  It is amazing how well the color sticks.  More vibrant than I have ever had.

Hope you and yours had a fabulous Easter celebration and like the Christmas Season, took a few moments to focus on what the true meaning is all about.

Spring Break

Who goes North for spring break?  We'll we do of course! We went north to Wisconsin to visit family and see my father-in-law's new home.  While there they had an open house for us and an uncle and aunt who was visiting from Colorado.  It was nice to have everyone congregate at one place instead of having to run all over the place trying to visit different family members.  This is about a six hour drive.  We made one stop for gas, food and a beverage (and of course the bathroom).  So, our arrival time was great.  We left around 10:00 and arrived just a little after 3:30.  Great timing.  This is one of the best welcome signs I've seen.

 

 

 

Just in case you were wondering, yes we did see snow on the ground.  But most of it was melted - thank God.  We've seen enough of our own snow this year. 

So hubby got to see aunts, uncles, grandmother, and cousins.  We arrived on Friday and spent the evening at the house and ordeedr pizza.  On Saturday we got up had breakfast and then did some shopping.  We always enjoy going to their Kohls, Penney's and K-Mart for Greenbay Packer items.  We didn't have a lot of luck with that since football season is over but we still managed to get a jersey for our son at a ridiculous price because the Penney's there is closing.  We also got a packer frame and light switch cover for our son's room which, of course, is all Greenbay Packer.  We grabbed some pretzel covered mini hot dogs and the food court from Wetzels Pretzels.  Didn't even know they had those because I hadn't been to Wetzels in a long time.  They were great.  This was a little snack until we got lunch.  Later our dinner was at Applebees.  The day was pretty full and I was wore out.  Especially since just getting over the flu the previous two weeks.  Sunday arrived and we got up and helped dust, run the sweeper, and cleaned bathrooms for the other guests that would be arriving and then started putting out the spread of finger foods.  Nothing too exciting there - and nothing hot.  Everything was cold.  Sausage and cheese, crackers, fruit tray, pickle tray, and chips and salsa.  Oh, and cookies and one aunt made lemon bars and some sort of apple tart.

Monday and it's time to hit the road.  We didn't really leave as early as I would have liked especially since we were scheduled to leave on Sunday but because of the open house we were asked to stay until Monday.  That was okay but I really wasn't wanting to spend another day there.  I wanted to get home to get things done, so I lost a day.  Today is Tuesday and I kept thinking it was Monday.  Now tomorrow is Wednesday and where has the week gone??

Well, nothing like "back home again in Indiana".  I don't care who doesn't like Indiana.  It's my home and I wanted to be home to sleep in my bed and see my dogs and . . . . . . . . . .  (you get the idea).

Microwave Bowl Mitt

So I've been a little busy sewing again.  I made several of these at Christmas and gave to my mom, 2 sisters, a niece, and a few friends.  These are great helpers in preventing your fingers from getting burnt when taking a bowl out of the microwave.


This is the three I made today.  The two are a dog print on one side with bones on the other.  These can be inverted.  The third one I just Christmas print I had.  The second picture is showing them stack with a bowl inside.  As you can see the little corners are what you hold on to when removing from the microwave.

This shows the instructions with the mitt and bowl.  This is really a cute idea and a very useful project.  I purchased the instructions from "The Back Door" in Greenwood located on Meridian.

I just gave a fourth one away to one of Caleb's friends.  Being in college I'm sure he uses microwaves a lot so when he saw what I was making he was thrilled to receive one. 

If Only I Could Draw

My daughter has ability that I will never master.  She must have gotten this talent from her father.  He too is pretty artistic when it comes to putting drawings on paper.  I've got my own talents but I've never been able to draw.  I am not the partner you want to play Pictionary or win, lose or draw with.  I just can't seem to get on the page what I see.  On the other hand, although they are not mine, I'm posting some pictures that my daughter has recently done.  I think they are pretty good.

 

 

 

 

She just finished this today for a friend who is moving away.  She likes Ariel from the Disney movie so if you look real close you can see the mermaid tail in the water. 

 

This is from a line of song and she was just doodling.

 

 

 
 

 

 

I think she enjoys the lighthouses because they are calming and peaceful.  Just wanted to brag on her.  Hope you found them pleasant too.

 

 

 

 

February is almost over!

So, here we are into the second month of the year and in just a few days, it is March.  What a winter this has been, and threat of yet more snow and blizzard conditions loom over us again for the weekend.  Better run out and get your milk, bread, and eggs.  Why are these the three main items everyone feels they need to get?  Well, the bread is an obvious and perhaps even the milk (sandwiches and cereal) but eggs?  I personally don't use eggs that often.  But, they are certainly nice to have on hand for the occasional pancake, sweets, French toast.  I can't imagine being locked in longer than 1-2 days.  Most everyone would have enough to get along for a couple of days.  Even if it's scratching the bottom of the barrel and maybe not your favorite foods.  But, if there in the pantry, must of like it some - right?!  Well, I did pick up a few things today too but not really in preparing for another blast of ol' Jack Frost.  Just picking up things we were out of.  A typical grocery run.

Well, we're coming up on a weekend and I find myself almost being bored.  It seems everyone has plans but me.  We've been trying really hard to not spend unnecessarily so that does limit some things.  Just running out to go shopping isn't so fun if you purposely do not want to spend dollars designated for other things.  We're thinking Spring.  We have a few minor and a couple major home repairs so in focusing on those, just don't want the temptation by going shopping.

Well, nothing much really going on, but I just wanted to drop a blog since I hadn't done so in awhile.  I've been spending a lot of time on Pinterest.   That is fun.

Whimsical Flower

So here is a cute little flower pin I found from Jennifer Jangles blog.  Since I am in the Indianapolis Chapter Sewing Guild, we were given a challenge.  This is one of several that was available.  I thought this looked fairly fun, didn't need to really purchase anything, and easy.  I actually sewed it once and then took it all apart because I didn't like how the flower pedals looked.  I like the second attempt much better.  The pedals are more separated like I wanted.  I am going to end up giving this one to my sister for a bag that I made her.  The bag is the darker blue with the white for the handles and inside lining.  Just hot glue a pin on the back and there you have a little decoration on your bag.