little trip home

We went home last weekend to visit my family.     It was a tough weekend due to the circumstances but my mom is doing better and my dad is on the road to recovery. 

Here are the kids with mom.  She is still so beautiful, people find it hard to believe she is in her 80's!

in mom's new room

outside enjoying the beautiful weather...after participating in a walk to end Alzheimer's.

 Daddy is on his way to recovery.  It will be a long haul and a tough one.  He is severely underweight....but his appetite is better and he is a tough old pilot so he won't be down for long.
I'll post some photos next time around.  He would not approve of me posting a photo of him while he is ill...and neither would mom!

My sisters gave me a surprise.  Knowing I love ladybugs...and that they bring good luck, they presented me with this one:

Her name is Lucy...and she is much prettier in person!   Thank you to my two sweet sisters, I love you!!!!

"To us, family means putting your arms around each other and being there."
  ~Barbara Bush

Magical fruit....

"I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion."-Henry David Thoreau

Each weekend, I make pumpkin bread muffins for our church to sell during the annual Pumpkin Patch.  The house smells so wonderful while baking that we have to snag a few for ourselves...

the piano pumpkin patch is over growing it's space.....

Forget beans, I think pumpkins are the most magical of fruit (or veg).    Think of all the things you can do with them:

carve them for Halloween
scoop the flesh and use it in recipes
use the shell as a tureen
make them into candle holders or other decoration
and in fairy tales, they were turned into houses and carriages!  
Which is exactly why I made one for my YOE tree.  (The stem was a cast off from a jack be little pumpkin at the pumpkin patch.  I snatched it up for this project.)

 

a little dust of glitter makes even this humble little pumpkin look special.

Annual Ornament Swap!

photo via

It is time for my annual Christmas ornament swap!  As always, this swap is for handcrafted ornaments so put on your thinking caps.  The theme is Christmas!

This year we are doing a 5 for 5 swap.  What this means is that you will be sending 5 ornaments in and receiving a variety of 5 ornaments back. 

To sign up, send me an email at (valpowery(at)yahoo(dot)com) with your name, mailing address and blog or flickr link/info.
Sign ups will close Oct 28th  .
This will be USA only this time around.

Please create something you would love to receive and be sure to package your ornaments in a nice, re-usable box so I can mail your new ornaments back to you in it. Try to keep your ornaments light in weight.

Shipping: Please send in $5.00 minimum to cover the cost of sending ornaments back to you and to cover tracking.    If your ornaments are a bit on the heavy side, please send in an additional $1 or $2 to cover that.
Ship in time for me to receive them by Thanksgiving.  I would suggest November 9th.  This will give them 1-2 weeks to reach me.  That way, I can get them in time to mail them out by the first week of December.  Sadly, I can't guarantee you getting an exchange box if your ornaments do not reach me in time.  (If that happens, I'll gladly return your own ornaments to you using the money you sent for shipping.)  
Shipping funds are important!  If you forget to include shipping, your ornaments can't be sent/returned until you have sent me the funds to send/return them to you.

If you finish your ornaments early, feel free to send them to me early so I can start organizing them.

If time gets away from you and you need to back out, no big deal, just drop me an email and I'll remove you from the list.  

I'm asking all participants to post about the swap on Dec 22nd to show off the lovely ornaments they received!  I will link to everyone so no one has to hunt for people's blogs.  Just stop by mine and link hop from there!

Grab the badge to put on your own blog to spread the word!

Make It Monthly

With this being such a busy month, I made this month's Christmas gift early.      I was thinking about 2 little people and how hard it is to keep them happy while waiting in line for dinner or the doctor, etc.  Running errands with mommy can be hard on little ones.    I used to take a little bag filled with activites for my own kids and wanted to make something similar.

I  carefully painted an expanding tax file folder front (under the flap) with chalk board paint so it wouldn't warp.  This covered up the big IRS on it and makes it a fun space too.  Once dry, I used stencils on the flap to label it.
I then carefully removed half the partitions in it to make room for the activities.
I made a few activities and bought a few and filled up several zipper bags.
I used 3 ring zipper bags (in case they want to put them in a binder instead) and then simply popped them into the folder file.

 

The nice thing about this, is it can stay in the car, ready to go!

we have a winner!

lucky number 7!   


Lindsay Ann!!!! you won the skeleton hair band.....please send me your mailing address and this scary guy will be in the mail to you next week!

rainy weather...

I love rainy weather....it gives me a chance to bake and craft without feeling guilty.  After all, you don't want to clean the floor when you KNOW it is just going to get dirty again, right?    At least, that is what I tell Dean!

It rained all weekend so after doing some laundry, I decorated the house for October.   

Then I started on some more sweater pumpkins for my piano pumpkin patch.  I have to wait until the rain stops to go hunt for branches to make into stems.  

Suki decided the squishy pumpkins made the perfect cat cave and snuggled down for a little nap amongst them...using poor Frankie as a bed.

Dean has been REALLY missing The Corner Bakery Cafe since moving here.  Their muffins had these incredible tops on them.   We bought some crown muffin pans...and oh my goodness, they were Amazing.   They are mainly "top" with just a small amount of bottom...sheer perfection.

And those squirrels that moved into our old bird box?  Yep, they had 4 babies and now the whole family comes out and runs all over the yard....so cute.  They move too fast for me so I've not taken any photos of them but when I do, I'll be sure to post them.

Spooky giveaway!!

October is HERE!

Time for some creepy giveaways!

This week, I'm giving away a skeleton hair band.  

 

 Just leave me a comment and I'll draw a winner on Saturday, October 6th.  

Spread the word and leave me a comment letting me know you did, and I'll put your name in the hat twice!

Don't forget to leave me a way to contact you!!!!