Sunday at Grandma's House

Kyleigh came home with us after church today so her parents could go to a movie. We really like having her visit and it gives Chad and Janice freedom to do adult things. We purchased the Port-A-Crib at a neighbor's garage sale and bought a few toys and a high chair so we're all set for our little visitor.

The outfit she's modeling is the one I got for free a couple of weeks ago. It was on sale for 50% off and I had a $10 coupon on anything over $10. The final total was a negative one cent so we had to combine it with Janice's purchases (she bought the shoes Kyleigh's wearing).

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving with Janice and her inlaws at her condo. I went over early to cook the turkey and attend church with Janice and Kyleigh. I love the Thanksgiving services--the pastor reads the President's proclamation and we sing hymns that are only sung on Thanksgiving.

Since this was also Chad's birthday and he wanted ham, his mom brought over a ham. The food was delicious and everyone had a good time with the extended family. There were a lot of pictures taken and David even took a couple of movies with my camera, but I decided to just share this series of Kyleigh playing with her Entertainer in a new and different way.

Miscellaneous Cards for WOCS

Over the past couple of months, I've been stitching cards using the free kits that come with the Cross Stitch Card Shop magazines. I like these because they're small and self contained and are easy to travel with. All of these have been donated to WOCS and most have been sent to the Arkansas Children's Hospital.

This jolly skating reindeer is from Issue 62.

This is an All Our Yesterdays design from Issue 61.

Candy Floss is from Issue 55.

This pretty bouquet is from Issue 58.

Tom Mouse was from Issue 54.

Dancing Snoopy came from Issue 59 and will be used as the card for the Cartoon themed quilt.

This racing themed card is from the March 2008 issue of Cross Stitch Crazy, one of the hobby motifs.

A Day with Kyleigh

I babysat Kyleigh this afternoon. A neighbor sold us a porta crib so we'd have a place to corral her for play and naptime and as you can see, she really enjoys it. She has her own set of toys at Grandma's. The shoes are courtesy of her daddy!

Here she is practicing standing. She'll press against the sides for assistance in getting into a standing position.

She had her holiday pictures taken today so before I changed her, I took a couple of pictures in her holiday outfit. Janice is afraid it won't still fit on Christmas, though.

Friday night after work, we ran errands (the bank, pharmacy, gas station and grocery store) and also ate dinner out. We got home a little after 7:00 and after I did stuff like put groceries away etc., I participated in my first SAT (Stitchalong) for Let's Stitch Too. I'm stitching Kyleigh's birth sampler. I was almost 3/4 done when I put it aside in early June to do some deadline stitching, but since I joined Lets Stitch Too, I've decided to work on this every Friday, Saturday and Sunday evening.

Before:

After:

I completed two more motifs in the border, the outside border and some backstitching. I've since completed the entire border, but I haven't taken a picture of that yet.

Card Happy Dance

I stitched the card to go with Marley's card last night. I started at the top and aligned it without taking into account the stem of the top note and it also turned out smaller than I anticipated, so I added the border. Because this was a card and not a quilt square, I went ahead and used the light effects. I found the red card loose in my stash of card stock this morning--I have no idea what it was supposed to be used for.

I restarted a bouquet of flowers for another card yesterday at lunch. I'm enjoying stitching it, but I discovered they gave me the wrong green. I was too far along to rip it out though.

Janice called last night and she's trying to train Kyleigh to fall asleep on her own and she was trying to ignore the screaming. It took about 20 minutes for her to fall asleep, but Janice didn't give in. Saturday is picture day!

Music Square Happy Dance

The drum set took several days, but the guitar, music and saying only took a couple of hours. I took three motifs from 50 Great Gift Ideas (Hobbies) in the March 2008 issue of Cross Stitch Crazy and put them together. I changed the music notes to be single crosses and tightened up the lines. Unfortunately, I discovered that it was not centered so I added the I (heart) Music. I also realigned some of the backstitch and substituted 676 for the gold light effects.

This square is for a young man named Marley in Wales who likes bright colors and music. I'm also doing the card using another one of these motifs.

Quilt Delivered

I recently had the privilege of stitching squares for a quilt for a special online friend. Jeneen was going through a rough time and since she does so much for others, it was a pleasure to stitch something for her. I stitched two squares. Since the quilt has now been delivered, I can show the squares I stitched. The first is a Margaret Sherry design from the UK Cross Stitcher magazine. I stitched one of a group of coffee mugs with kittens in them. I substituted DMC variations for the red flosses.

The second one is Cat-o-Lantern from I think, Bent Creek, but I'm not sure. I switched out all the flosses since it was supposed to be stitched with either GAST or Weeks and I didn't really like the colors.

After work tonight, we met Janice and Kyleigh for dinner at Olive Garden. David was hoping for their never-ending pasta bowl, but unfortunately it was a special that had been discontinued. Kyleigh ate supper (rice cereal and apples) while we were waiting for ours.

After supper,

David and I voted on the way home. We only had to wait a few minutes for an open booth. The funny thing was when we got there, there were three voting booths and each had two persons in it--I thought it was one person per booth!

Stitching: I finished the drum finally and started on the guitar. My placement didn't work, because the guitar would have run into the leg of the drumset (which was so light I couldn't see it). So, I moved the guitar up a few rows and I'll shorten the music portion and move it over. I just realized that the lines don't match up with the squares, so I'm going to modify that as well.

While I was stitching, I had to dig the scissors out from under the cat who was sitting beside me. I also reached over her to retrieve the remote control which she'd knocked off the seat. At that point, she decided to attack me with one claw, straight to the face. She made contact in four places, but it could have been a lot worse. They bled a little and today they're hardly noticeable.

Mickey's Nose Tastes Good!

Kyleigh took her first trip to Disney World during the month of September. Her family attended a character breakfast which included a visit from Mickey Mouse. Her mom thought she might be afraid of him, but as you can see from the photo, that wasn't the case. She actually tried to eat his nose and did get her mouth on it.

Stitching: I stitched some more on the drum set--I'm working on the biggest drum. For being such a small chart, this is taking a long time and isn't a lot of fun.

Sunday

The time changed today so I was up at 5:30. I spent the extra hour uploading some of the stitching I've done recently.

I then helped hand out leftover homeless bags at church. These are ziploc type plastic bags with four quarters, $5.00 in McDonald's script, a small cross, a Bible verse and a resource card prepared by the Social Ministry Board. They're meant to be kept in your glove compartment or purse and given to the persons asking for handouts.

I attended church with Janice and her cute little wiggle worm. Kyleigh was so full of energy that I took her to the nursery during the message.

Kyleigh's much easier to bottle feed now if she's hungry. You show her the bottle and she opens her mouth and reaches for it. She still needs help holding it and she takes a lot of breaks but she's getting there. Before, it was a struggle to get the bottle into her mouth. She's also teething again so she's not real crazy about having a spoon shoved in her mouth.

The rest of the day was relatively uneventful, except that Janice called and said they're not having turkey for Thanksgiving because it's also Chad's birthday and he wants either ham or bacon wrapped filets. Unfortunately, to both David and me, Thanksgiving isn't Thanksgiving without turkey. She called later and said they'd cook a small turkey, but . . .

The picture is a Cuddle Kitten square I did for a quilt being raffled off to help pay the expenses of a young lady with Ewing's Sarcoma. It's from an older Cross Stitcher (US) magazine, but I don't remember which one right now. I finished it sometime in early October.

I did very little stitching today, but did make a start on the drum set on Marley's square.

Shopping and a Finish

I had an appointment to get my haircut yesterday morning so Janice and Kyleigh met me at Penneys. We had a couple of $10 off coupons, but didn't realize they were having a mega sale also. Janice found the perfect winter jacket for Kyleigh and at 60% off, she could afford it. With her $10 coupon, the jacket only cost $6.40. I did even better! I found a cute outfit (pants, top and headband) that was 50% off and with my $10 coupon, it was free!

We also went to Babies R Us to look at carseats (Kyleigh's outgrowing hers) and bought her a holiday dress including shoes, socks and headband for her first professional pictures which they're planning to have taken next week. Everything we purchased was on sale!

As if that wasn't enough shopping, we went to a Christmas Boutique and purchased several small ornament type items and had lunch at the mall. Kyleigh fell asleep on the way home and both Janice and I needed naps.

Last night, I finished this freebie card kit from Card Shop Magazine. It will go with a quilt made up of cross stitched flower squares (charts provided by Mary Ann) for WOCS (World of Charity Stitching).

I also spent some time combining three charts into one for a square for a young man named Marley. He likes music and bright colors so I combined a red guitar, some drums and music into one chart.

Happy Halloween

Instead of taking Kyleigh to her babysitter this morning, Janice brought her to me at work and I spent the morning sharing her with the people I work with. We also took a drive down to see her mommy and daddy at their work and shared her with the people they work with. After that I took her trick or treating with the kids at the children's center - we handed out candy instead of participating in the parade. Kyleigh was named the "cutest pumpkin ever" by several people and received a write in vote at the costume contest for cutest costume at the potluck we attended later. I dropped her off at the babysitter about 1:00 and went back to work.

This is the only picture I have of her in costume; I should have taken more pictures, but didn't. I cropped it as best I could to eliminate the other people in the picture.


She was getting hot in the pumpkin outfit so I changed her into another Halloween outfit. This is an orange striped onesie with a ghost and BOO on the front. Daddy bought her first pair of shoes, but Kyleigh thinks they're really toys for her feet. She spent a lot of time with one of them in her mouth! On the way home, she managed to untie one even though I'd used a double knot.

Kyleigh only took a couple of short naps so she was exhausted when she finally got home, but she gamely donned the pumpkin costume again and went trick or treating around her condo complex with her parents and great-grandfather.

I was also exhausted when I got home, so David went out and brought back Chinese food while we waited for the trick or treaters. The first one didn't arrive until almost 8:00 and we only had about 25. I can remember when the first ones came about 6:00 and we turned the light off at 8:00.

I realize that it's been almost two months since I last posted, but I'm hoping to post more this month. I do have several pictures that I want to share, so I'll try to post those on the "boring" days when I don't have a lot to say.