Somebunny Finish

I finished this little cutie last night. It's the free kit from Issue #154 of The World of Cross Stitching magazine that I received on Tuesday.

It will go out with my next mailing to WOCS. I have a clear plastic pouch that I collect these small items in and when it's full, it's time for David to make a trip to the Post Office.

Lost and Found

I didn't know it was lost. In fact, I'd forgotten all about it. I stitched it earlier this year for WOCS second challenge. But, I came home tonight and found it sitting on our printer. I guess it had slipped down behind it and David found it while looking for something else that really was lost.

This is the Hedgehog ornament from the Little Critter Collection by NMI. It's now sitting in my donation bag waiting for enough ornaments, cards, bookmarks, etc. to make mailing worthwhile.

Banana Split

I stitched a lot this afternoon in between cleaning the microwave and stove, sweeping all the non-carpeted floors and doing laundry. This is the result. Doesn't it look good enough to eat?

This is another from Mill Hill's Spring Bouquet Collection. I fell in love with this one when I first saw it, but had to order it from my LNS. It came in last week so I picked it up Saturday morning along with Rootbeer Float and Lemonade.

Unfortunately, it took longer than it should have, because I got the yellows mixed up and had to rip out all of the ice cream. I added a magnet and it's joined Popcorn on my refrigerator.

First Sleepover

Kyleigh spent last night with us, her first time away from her parents overnight. We were supposed to go to the Angels game, but Bob wasn't feeling well, so we stayed home instead. We ate dinner and she took a bath in the sink (and loved it!) and then we played with the big piggy bank, read stories, watched the game on TV and pretended to talk on the phone.

Kyleigh loves the telephone. She'll grab one off it's charger, push a couple of buttons, put it up to her ear and carry on a long conversation (with pauses for responses from the other party) and then give me the phone to put it back on the charger.

She also communicates really well, although she still doesn't "speak" English. She does a lot of pointing, gesturing, etc. She's also started to call me "mam" as opposed to "mom" which is what she calls Janice most of the time. She does have a few words -- hot, hi, eyes, etc. and meows perfectly when shown a picture of a cat. She also can follow simple instructions.

I did have trouble putting her to bed. She'd finally get settled in and the phone would ring so she'd climb out and we'd have to start over. I finally pretended to go to bed, too and that did the trick.

This morning we went to breakfast and then to pick up an item I'd ordered at my LNS and then to Target to look for a toy broom. We also stopped at a couple of garage sales and David bought Kyleigh a Fisher Price snail that sings the ABC song for a quarter. I turned it on and Kyleigh played the song over and over and over and over and sang right along with it.

Janice picked us up about noon to go to a birthday party for the son of one of the men she works with. We had a great lunch, but didn't stay very long because Kyleigh wasn't being very cooperative. The final straw was when she discovered the stairs and insisted on climbing them over and over and over and over until she wore Janice out.

On the way home we stopped at Babies R Us to return some furniture straps and crib rail protectors that she didn't need and then took the store credit to Toys R Us where we bought that toy broom I'd been looking for. The reason for the broom is that Kyleigh keeps stealing Janice's full size broom and it's just a little big for her.

The brooms were in the same aisle as this feather boa and while Kyleigh loved the feathers and also likes to put things around her neck, she really wasn't too crazy about the feathers being around her neck.

Rose for Cancer Quilt

Today is Janice and Chad's fifth anniversary so I'm babysitting tonight. It's been a busy evening, but Kyleigh is now in bed and asleep.

So, I finally had a chance to stitch and finished this rose for a quilt for a lady with cancer. The quilt is being made by a member of WOCS and she provided the fabric. I think it's a damask aida and although you can't see them, there are embossed roses in the border surrounding the aida square. The chart came from Cross Stitch Card Shop #61.

This is the first time I stitched on this fabric and I didn't really enjoy it, because was too soft and hard to keep taut. I also had trouble seeing the holes.

No more crib

Kyleigh has learned to climb out of her crib! She started by climbing out of the porta crib at the babysitters on Thursday. She was so excited and proud of herself! Needless to say, the babysitter wasn't quite so happy. On Friday she borrowed Janice's porta crib because the sides are taller, but she managed to get out of that as well.

Today we went shopping and then went to Claim Jumper to celebrate David's 60th birthday. (Kyleigh really likes red velvet cake. She was sitting on my lap and we were sharing a spoon--I was feeding her a spoonful and me a spoonful. All of a sudden she got ahold of a spoon and started trying to do the same thing.)

After lunch everyone went home to take naps because we were all exhausted. Janice put Kyleigh in her crib and went to lie down, but almost immediately heard the pitter patter of little feet running down the hallway.

They've now turned the crib into a toddler bed, about six months earlier than planned.

A couple of finishes!

I've temporarily put Boo Club aside, because it looks like I'm not going to have enough room for the final block so I'm not giving it the attention it deserves. I'll pick it up again soon I hope.

I picked up several Mill Hill food type magnet kits back in June so I decided to stitch one of them. This, of course, is popcorn and it's now sitting on my refrigerator.

The day I finished this, I received Issue 67 of Cross Stitch Card Shop in the mail. Since I was too lazy to kit up something new, I decided to stitch the cover kit, Summer Poppies Card.

I think the kit was packed wrong because I had three hanks of red and only two of orange and I needed the opposite, but I managed to find a comparable substitute. I made it into the card and set it aside for now. I'm not sure of it's destination at the moment.

Fourth of July - Busy Day

This morning we watched the prolog (stage 1) of the Tour de France and I stitched and finished Eek!. I accidentally started it one square lower than it should have been, but by the time I discovered it, I was too far along to want to rip it out. I almost made the K one row taller to compensate, but decided to leave it alone.

About five minutes after I finished Eek!, we took off to Chad's grandparents to celebrate the 4th of July and some birthdays.

Kyleigh is excited because she has a strawberry in her hand. The dog is Amber's hearing ear dog.
Now she's excited because Nonni is tossing the ball so the dog can chase it and it bounced near her.

Yelling at and chasing the dog was hot work, so it was necessary to cool off. She has a mesh teether filled with ice chips that she's rubbing on her leg. (She's sitting on Nonni's lap.)

And, here are the birthday threesome. Angela and her dad were both born on the 4th of July and her mom was born on the 5th.

After cake (or pie) and ice cream, David and I brought Kyleigh home with us while Chad and Janice went to the Angels game. David dropped Kyleigh and me off at the house and then he went, too.

Kyleigh had a fun evening rearranging furniture, discovering that the planter outside is the right height to sit on and play in the dirt, eating dinner, taking a bath in the sink, bringing grandma all the phones in the house and climbing on everything. Oh yeah, we also played with some toys and tried to sleep through all the fireworks (illegal in our city) going off in the streets outside.

Once I'd finished cleaning up after Kyleigh the hurricane, I finished another ornament and watched the Angels game myself. Since she was having such a tough time staying asleep, I held her for awhile (the best part of the evening!)

Shopping and Spiders

Janice and Kyleigh met us for breakfast this morning and I gave Kyleigh the rally monkey and Janice the tickets for tomorrow night's game. Then we went shopping.

First we went to Needlepoints Ltd so I could get another packet of the tiny buttons used on Boo Club and then to Walmart where I picked up a couple of Sharps Containers and Kyleigh got a new top with watermelons on it. Janice also bought her a red tank top and a mesh teether -- she has four teeth coming in!

Our next stop was JoAnn's so I could replenish some of the floss that I needed to finish Boo Club. (I'm doing it in DMC instead of the overdyeds called for.) JoAnn's didn't have one of the ones I needed so we also went to Michaels where I also picked up some Winnie the Pooh bookmarks.

Last night I finished Spiders. I'm now 1/4 of the way done with this banner.

Ornaments Finish and a Monkey

I went to the Angels vs. Orioles game tonight because I wanted the promotional item -- an Uncle Sam Rally Monkey. Isn't he cute! Bob brought his young neighbor, James with him and since we had an extra ticket, James went through the turnstile twice, so Kyleigh has one too.

It was a really good game and I'm glad I went. They started off by having parachutists land on the field during the national anthem and then went on to win 5-2. If Kyleigh's not going to be at the game, I usually take something to stitch to keep me from getting bored. Tonight I ornamentified a couple of ornaments. These were donated to WOCS by Donna and all I had to do was make them into little pillows with hangers.

Kyleigh has a Cousin and Black Cat

Theodore James Imel was born on July 1, 2009 to Chad's sister Wendy and her husband, so Kyleigh has a cousin exactly 15 months younger than her.

I also finished Black Cat tonight. I'm almost done with Spiders as well, but I need to add a few more spiders.