Friday, December 28, 2012

Christmas

I have been so busy finishing up the last of my Christmas projects that I haven't really even opened up my laptop, let alone posting anything!

We had a nice Christmas with lots of family and friends, and good food too!  Unfortunately, I stayed quite busy and didn't really get any pictures taken.  This was about the only one I got, a tuckered out Kayla!




I hope to be back to posting more frequently now that I can slow down my pace some.

I hope everyone had a nice Christmas, and has a wonderful new year.

Friday, December 7, 2012

More Las Vegas Pictures

As promised, a few more pictures of our Las Vegas weekend.  In no particular order!








Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Marathon In Las Vegas

While I have still been busy working on Christmas projects, I have taken a little time out for some play.

On Friday we traveled to Las Vegas where we met up with son Kevin, and family.  We spent three days visiting and running around to all the different casinos.  Saturday night we drove over to Fremont Street.  We spent some time wandering around, listening to the live music, checking out a few of the casinos, enjoying the light shows, and browsing the display carts.

While wandering around Fremont St, grandson Levi had fun meeting up with spiderman.


 Later in the evening it started getting very crowded!


As always, the light show was lots of fun, though it's kinda hard to see here.


On Sunday Las Vegas Blvd was shut down while approximately 35 thousand runners headed out on either a 26 mile marathon, or a 13 mile half-marathon.  I've never seen Las Vegas Blvd without any traffic.  Pretty strange looking, don't ya think?


 It was quite different with thousands of people running down the road instead!


Kevin ran the half-marathon with a pretty good time, even though the weather was windy and slowed down all of the runners.

Heading out for the starting gate
Returning from the run
I didn't think I would get this return picture but I managed to find Kevin in the sea of finishing runners!

Well, enough for today.  I'll post a few more of my Las Vegas pictures in the next few days.  Meantime I have to get back to my Christmas projects!

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Busy Times

Yikes, here it is almost the end of November and I have only one post for the month.  I haven't purposely been neglecting my blog, I have just been quite busy.

Christmas is coming quickly and I have been busy working on gifts.  Here are two that I have completed.




I actually have quite a few gifts finished, including several of these cute, ruffley scarves. I also have several projects that I am in the middle of working on.  So, all of this has been keeping me fairly busy.  Christmas is coming up quickly, I have to work fast!

Meantime we had a houseful for Thanksgiving, with family visiting from Utah. I was busy visiting and cooking, and didn't even get my camera out, so I only have one picture of the girls together on Thanksgiving day.


They got all dressed up for the shot!  They all had a really good time visiting with each other, with fun sleepovers most every night!

Next stop, Christmas!

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Birthday Wishes

A birthday is coming up quickly and I found a card that I just couldn't resist.  I got it sent off to Utah today, well, technically yesterday since this isn't being posted until after midnight!  Hope he enjoys it.  I know it's not what he expected!  But it's cute anyway!


For my youngest.  Does it matter that he's turning 31?

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Halloween

The ghosts and goblins have come and gone, Halloween all finished for this year.  I was worried that I wouldn't have enough candy, but my worries were definitely unfounded.  It seems every year we get fewer trick-or-treaters.  This year was really quiet.  We did have some intermittent groups and I did pass out about half of the candy that I had available. That's way down from years past.  I don't know where all of the trick-or-treaters are going, but they seem to have found other places to get their goodies.  Or maybe Halloween just isn't as popular as it used to be.

Among the trick-or-treat groups who did come to our door there were some really cute costumes, though.  Lots of little princesses, Darth Vader's, Spidermen, and even a jailbird or two.

Kayla and Marissa went out trick-or-treating in the neighborhood and came back with quite a haul.  They were dressed up nicely as a cat and a witch - a cute witch of course.


All the rest of the grandkids in Utah got together at Kevin & Jesi's house.  I received a picture of them all together after their trick-or-treating.  I enjoy the pictures, but I sure do miss them all being here for the evening :(   Here they are all dressed up.  I tried to get the quality a little better, but cell phone pictures just aren't that great.  Quite the variety of costumes!


Notice the "Halloween tree" in the background.  Jesi just loves to decorate for every holiday!  Cute idea.

And of course Schultz was ready for the evening!  He waited patiently for the trick-or-treaters to show up.


Another month comes to a close, I can't believe tomorrow starts november!

Another One Finished

Today just a short post to share a picture of the most recent project that I've finished.  I have one more bag put together for the granddaughters for Christmas.  I'm slowly getting them done.  I like the flowers on this one.


In between making the bags, I am working on some crochet projects - also for Christmas. Pictures of those will come later, when they're finished and you can tell what they are!

I'm also working on a knitting project but I'm not sure how far I will get with it.  I'm a fairly new knitter and I wouldn't say the project is the easiest for a beginner, so it may be set aside for continued learning after Christmas!

Monday, October 29, 2012

Pumpkin Patch

Halloween is almost here, and we finally got the girls over to the pumpkin patch for a fun time.  We headed over after dinner in the middle of the week.  We picked a weekday hoping it wouldn't be too crowded, and we were right.  It worked out well, with no long waiting for any of the fun activities.  It was a cold, crisp night, which made all the decorations feel just right.



Somehow I missed this one and you can't tell that Marissa is supposed to be a scarecrow! It's the only picture I took, though.  Don't know how I missed it.  Just zooming in on her cute face I guess!


The girls enjoyed going in the bounce houses, and especially enjoyed their trips down the slide. They went on it several times!


I think, though, that their favorite activity was going into the petting zoo.  They really had fun feeding all the animals. They really enjoyed picking up and petting the bunnies, and watching the little goats' (pygmies, I think) antics.



They really didn't want to leave and we pretty much closed the place down!

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Halloween Will Be Here Soon

Today the weather is back to - much - cooler, and fall-like.  I think, this time though, that fall might actually be settling in.  In fact, there is talk of cold windy rain during the week. This sounds about right, as usually by the time Halloween night arrives, it's nice and cold for all the little trick-or-treaters who are outside collecting all their goodies!

Last Halloween I made all of the grandkids candy bags, which are posted here.  They were fun to make and I would have enjoyed making another project for this year, however, I didn't really find anything that I thought would work.  So instead I put together some goodie bags filled with candy, pencils, cute erasers, pumpkin straws and more, to give them. I didn't have nearly as much fun putting them together, but I'm sure the grandkids will have fun opening them up!  I got them sent off yesterday.

Tomorrow I'm going to take granddaughters Kayla & Marissa to the local pumpkin patch, always a fun place to visit.  Then when we get back from the pumpkin patch I'll give them their goodie bags to take home.  They will be back over for trick-or-treating on Halloween so I can get pictures of them in their costumes.

Meantime, since the weather has been so nice and cool I wanted to make some more soup for dinner tonight.  I decided on something a little different, though really good (at least I think so).  It's my version of the Olive Garden italian sausage soup. I have worked on the recipe over the years and have learned how to put together a fairly tasty soup.  Looks good, doesn't it?


I can't help it, when the weather turns cold and cloudy, I just have to make soup!


Monday, October 15, 2012

Fall

A few days ago I got busy and made applesauce from the rest of the apples that we picked. They produced a fairly large pot of applesauce and I got a few jars canned, though they probably won't last long because it came out quite tasty!


There was a little bit left over - not enough for another jar - it was better the next day when it was nice and chilled.


Because the weather has been much cooler and fall-like I've been ready to make a big pot of soup!  To me, that's just what fall is all about.  So I decided to make some taco soup and it turned out really tasty, just right for the cool weather.


I also brought out all of my fall decorations and put them up.  I thought everything looked so nice and festive, ready for the season.  After all, it is the middle of October!

Then today the temperature decided to head back up and we ended up in the mid-eighties! Not exactly my idea of fall!

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Staying Busy

Lots of activities have been going on and I have been staying busy.  As a result, my posts have been scarce.  There have been church rummage sales, apple picking outings, doctor appointments, sewing projects and more.

I do have some pictures taken during a few of these activities, so I thought I would just post some of them to show what I've been up to.

I've been working on purses for the granddaughters.


I found this great iron skillet for four dollars at the church rummage sale!  I love how deep it is.  I've made several really good dinners in it, including this chicken pot pie.  It turned out really good.


Apple picking was lots of fun, though we did miss Tara & Katie :(




We didn't take a ride but the girls had fun petting these huge horses and finding out lots of interesting information about them, including their very un-horselike names, Dick & Dan! No they aren't Clydesdales....they are Belgians.


Waiting in line to order lunch we had some good entertainment.


At home I got busy with some of the apples and put together some individual apple pies. Yummy!


I'll be making applesauce and canning it tomorrow.

And just for something different, we even went into the new Super Walmart to check it out.


And our approaching storm.


Just a few things that have been keeping me busy lately.