Swap Goodies!!!

I organized a fat quarter swap, which I have been horribly neglecting because of recent happenings. They have all been wonderful and patient! I received what was supposed to be 6 fat quarters yesterday, and it was SOOO much more!
Here is a group shot of all the wonderful goodies she sent! You see the 6 Moda!!! fat quarters in the middle. A gorgeous nest pin on the left. 2 sets of handpainted candles! A very touching card. And that cute pink purse on the right is for my niece Jorden!





As you can see Jorden loves it! She slept with it last night, she keeps her treasures in there, and has a picture of her sisters and mommy in there. The girl loves to accessorize! Thank you so much sewinglori!!!

Sick Kids

Well, after the funeral, everyone got sick. Alia & her step brother Austin have strep throat. Alyssa has an infection, my niece Ambrosia has pneumonia, and so does Alia and Alyssa's Step-mother Tiffany. Lore has diarrhea. I don't know what Jorden has but she has been sleeping alot today and she's had loose poops and just not herself. I really hope that she'll be feeling better soon. She was supposed to have a visit with her dad tonight, and I feel really bad that she won't be able to go. She's very confused, and misses her mommy very much. I'm very glad that she has been able to come stay with us. She lived here for awhile and is quite comfortable with our family and our house. She thinks of the boys as brothers (almost.) I love to see how happy she is when she's here. She's been a little apprehensive everywhere else. There have been so many people at the funeral home and the church for the funeral, it is really great to just see her smile when she feels safe and comfortable here.

My little sister passed away yesterday.

Candace, age 26, died yesterday. She fell in the bathroom and broke her neck. It shouldn't have happened, however, it did. She has 3 young daughters. 2 will be living with their father and his wife, both wonderful people. The other used to live with me for awhile, and hopefully will again. She hardly knows her father. There is a lot of other stuff surrounding her placement, I expect it to get quite messy and ugly. Can't really think about it yet, still thinking about the funeral and other stuff. One of the girls is staying with us tonight. It's surreal. We really never got along, but the last few months were good ones. She was trying so hard to get her life together. The last thing I told her, the last time I spoke to her, was that I was proud of her.....

Edited to add: the coroner's report says she did not break her neck. She has had epilepsy for some time and had landed in a coma about 2 years ago. We didn't think there was any way for her to survive that. She did though, but her body never fully recovered. We believe that she had another huge seizure and passed away because of her body being unable to take it.

Alyssa's Birthday

Well, I don't know how happy I am with what I'm doing for Alyssa's birthday gift, but the boys helped me decide. And I realized that if they would like them, then the girls might too. So they talked me into a birthday crown with her name on it. We bought her a jewelry making kit (that I hope she will be able to make.) I'd like to make her something else too, but I'm not quite sure what.

I'm a terrible aunty!

My niece Alyssa is turning 7 in just one week. Somehow with being sick and the cold, and DI, and other things, this had simply left my mind. Now I'm in a mad hurry to craft something for her, and I am having crafters block!!! I have no idea what to make for her. She's wonderful and spunky and likes red, and I still have nothing!

I considered either a pillow or a reading pillow (with straps to hold down a book.) But they don't seem right. I'm super stuck. Anyone out there in blogger land have any ideas I would be so grateful to hear them!

Christmas Gifts

I didn't do the greatest at taking pictures of the gifts I made for everyone this year. However, I did manage a few shots, so here they are.

This is an Amish puzzle ball that I made for my new baby nephew Evan. He's only about 2 months old, so he didn't care a whole lot. It has flannel dinosaur fabric on the outside and red on the inside.

For my 2 youngest nieces I made monkey finger puppets. So they could act out the 5 little monkeys jumping on the bed. Here they are all together.

Here is Jorden posing with 2 of her monkeys. She didn't really care for her picture being taken.

Here is Ambrosia with her favorite monkey. Her favorite color is orange, so her favorite monkey was the one with the orange bow in her hair. They played with them all night together, it was really cute!

Ambrosia's mom, Terri, is my sister-in-law. I made her this scarf. I caught a quick picture of it right before I wrapped it. It is rolled up tight around some wool socks, some iron-close teabags, and some fabulous lipchap! She loved it. It looks similar to Neapolitan Ice cream.

These next 2 I didn't make, but I had creative packaging, so I thought I should share. My mom's boyfriend asks for beer every year, so that's what he gets, but since it's the same thing, I feel I have to be creative with the wrapping. It's 2 of Santa's toy bags in the sleigh, which are being pulled by 8 tiny ReinBeer. It took about 15 minutes before we went to my mom's house.

A close up of the ReinBeer Antlers

The last picture I remembered to grab was a scarf for my grandpa. He wanted a scarf for dress, and church, so I came up with this one. This is rolled up around Old Spice (His choice not mine,) some lottery tickets, lip chap and some grenadiers (cigars that he likes.)

Girls Visit!

Here are a couple of pictures from when the girls visited.
Here they are in the backyard. Alia is the taller one, she's just turned 9. Alyssa is the one with pigtails, she is almost 7.


Here is the bunny in a hole that Alyssa embroidered! Didn't she do a GREAT job. It is a picture from Shel Silverstein's Runny Babbit book. She did it on and off in about 3 hours. We made it into a little round cushion pillow. The other side is embroidered with her name and year. She was so proud, and she should be. Alia did a turtle from the same book. I haven't gotten her picture taken yet, since we haven't finished the pillow yet. She just finished the embroidery when it was time to leave, so I have to finish the pillow and get it to her at one of the soccer games.

Girls Girls Girls!!

Well, 2 of my cousins have now had baby girls in the last few days, and our best friends also had another girl! It's just baby girls everywhere!

Also, 2 of my wonderful nieces are visiting us today, they stayed over last night and enjoyed a heck of a storm. Now they are playing outside with my boys. The youngest one, Alyssa, has asked to learn to embroider, so that is probably what we will do later on, since it is supposed to storm this afternoon too. I will try to post pictures of their creations either tonight or tomorrow.