Night of Excellence with Jane Austen

Abby had an opportunity in school to choose someone famous on which to do a very in depth report.

She was having a hard time choosing and so I mentioned the possibility of doing Jane Austen.

She liked the idea and so did I until I realized I would need to come up with a costume for her :)

A couple of weeks before her presentation I got down to business and ordered a pattern online.

Abby chose the fabric and my mom helped me get started on the sewing.

I was quite scared since every time I made a 4-H sewing project I would end up in tears.

With Mom's help with the bodice, it ended up not being too bad.  No tears!

Abby loved it and was so excited to wear it for the "Night of Excellence".

   I thought this was pretty cute...especially since just a couple of weeks before this event, we found                               out that Pocahontas is my direct ancestor...12 great grandmas ago!

All the kids did a little celebrity walk around the audience first...

...and then they stood and recited a biographical poem that they had written about their person.

Abby was just beaming the whole night :)

Afterward, everyone had a chance to walk around and ask the kids questions about their person.

This was for a select group of students from different schools around the area.

This is Abby's cute teacher for the SEM (Schoolwide Enrichment Model) program.

She truly made a lovely, little Jane Austen!

So proud of her!

A Birthday Post of Sorts

I didn't document my birthday very well but it was a very pleasant day :)

Breakfast was brought to me in bed.  Andy is always very good about making sure I have something different and yummy on my special days.

I spent the rest of the day doing exactly what I wanted to do...mostly reading.

I also did some quilting and playing of instruments

One funny thing happened on my birthday.  In the afternoon we got word from our city that we were not to use our culinary water for any reason except to flush the toilets.

Our water source had been contaminated.

Andy ran to the store to get bottled water for the next several days.

It was an adventure and made me think a little more about what I need to do to get our family in shape for an emergency.

For Christmas I had given Andy tickets to Brian Regan.

It was two days after my birthday so it seemed to be part of my birthday celebration.

That guy is hilarious and Andy and I had such a fantastic time!

When we came out of the venue it was dumping buckets of rain.

If you know me, you know I wouldn't have had it any other way :)

A perfect night!

Baby Lambs

Just a Sunday evening out at the farm...

Ben wasn't very interested...as usual.

Mini Happy Quilt

This is a mini my mom made that has special meaning.

Her mother is a quilter from way back.  She always pieces one quilt a year and hand quilts it.

She has declared that this year's quilt is her last.  She calls it her happy quilt.  Go here (my mom's quilt blog) to see my cute Grandma and her quilt.

Mom used the scraps from Grandma's happy quilt to make these minis...one for me and one for my sister.

I copied this excerpt from my mom's blog:

"The backing, bindings, even the batting are from the leftovers of Mom's quilt. I also tried to replicate the quilting motifs Mom has used in her own quilt--and I hand quilted them. Now my daughters will have a little memory quilt of their grandma's Happy Quilt, and I have enough pieces to make one for myself."

I posted about this birdbath watercolor quilt that Grandma made back here.

I think this is a good little spot for the mini.

Something that I did not mention in the other post is that while it was in storage, unbeknownst to me, part of it was exposed in our unfinished basement...hence no window coverings.  I was sick when I pulled it out to hang and saw the top right portion of the black border had faded :(  I wish there was something I could do to fix it!

Mom's mini helps cover up that unfortunate spot now.

A close up of the hand stitching...

...just as tiny and neat as Grandma's :)

Thank you Mom and Grandma for a beautiful heritage of quilting.

I hope I can live up to it!

Angie's Long Distance Shower

My cute sister and her husband were informed back in November that a birth mother had chosen them to adopt her baby!  We have been so excited around here :)

I wanted to throw a long distance shower for her so with her input we came up with a fairly simple plan.  I ordered a cute bunch of woodland animal images from Etsy and came up with a card with instructions, a poem (politely asking for gifts to be in the form of money), and a card for the "guests" to write advice for Angie.  I included an envelope and stamp to make it easy.

(a copy of the poem)

Little Maggie Fe is scheduled (c-section) to be born tomorrow!

Can't wait to see this sweetheart :)

I had the opportunity to make another card for another mother recently.

An aide in Abby's orchestra class lost a baby to SIDS and so the class wanted to do something for her.  I cut out a bunch of notes with my silhouette and sent them to class with Abby and had all the students sign them with silver sharpies.  I didn't even think of marking the front and back of the notes somehow...I guess I just figured that even amateur musicians would know the difference :)

Oh well, I just had to put some of them on the staff backwards.

I made the card, another mother picked up a gift basket from Great Harvest and we, along with the kids, presented them to her at their last concert.

Matt's Pinewood Derby

Matt had his pinewood derby in early April.

Andy helped him with his Baymax car.

I was home with Ben but apparently they had a lot of fun.

Look at all those Baymaxes lined up!

I guess they had paper and markers there for the spectators to make signs to cheer on their favorite car.  Matt had a large fan base.

Way to go Matt!

Easter 2015

Once again, I am woefully behind here!  I shall try and catch up with mostly pictures and a few words...

Easter egg hunt on Saturday

We have tried to involve Ben in these kinds of things before and he is always very disinterested and we end up giving up so we didn't even try this time.

Easter Sunday...

we had a hard time keeping Ben in the picture

...and keeping him on the bench

Our very own easter bunny!