A VERY BUSY WEEKEND!

Whew, what a busy weekend!  We had lots of fun but I am sure am glad it is over!  It started with the Halloween parties at school  on Friday.

On Saturday we collected canned goods for a local charity.

Afterwards we headed off to a Super Bowl football game for middle monster's tackle football team.  They didn't win but it was a great game and he was super excited about the trophy/plaque he received.  I am so proud of him.  Way to go BUCS!!!

 Saturday evening my middle monster celebrated his 8th birthday with his friends by having a sleepover.  Boy am I happy to only have 3 kiddos and not 8!  Actually, the boys were all very well behaved.  It probably helped that we kept them busy with lots of food, games and a movie.

Today, we hosted a Chiefs party for my family (wow, what a win!!!).  It was a great time spent with some of my favorite people and lots of good food :)  Tonight, we went trick-or-treating with the boys while my parents graciously handed out candy to the 167 trick-or-treaters that came to our house (thanks for the tally, Jamie!).   We were quite the group!

Needless to say, I am totally exhausted and ready for bed.  I hope everyone had a fun and safe Halloween!!!

Smiles
~Beth

I am participating in the BQF~Bloggers Quilt Festival!

I am so excited to be participating in my first Bloggers Quilt Festival!  To be honest, the BQF is one of the reasons I even started a blog, thanks Amy (from Amy's Creative Side)!  I love looking at all of the beautiful and unique quilts that my fellow bloggers have created.  There is such inspiration to be seen and interesting stories to be read! 

I have decided to enter the quilt I made for Cole, one of the little boys I care for.  It was his "welcome into the world!" gift.  I originally bought the Riley Blake fabric for my youngest son (I love Riley Blake fabrics!).  Unfortunately, while trying to make a few changes to this zigzag quilt tutorial, I messed the whole thing up.  I was devastated at first.  Then I came up with this...

My big mistake ended up resulting into one of my favorite quilts!  Since I messed up all of the cuts, I had to really figure out a way to utilize the fabric I had (which is why I have corner squares in the border and a pieced backing, which I now LOVE!).  I think that is one of the reasons why I love quilting so much.  If you make a mistake you are usually the only one that knows about it.  I have learned not to worry so much about the negative little things and use my creative side more. 

In case you are wondering, I ordered more of the Riley Blake All Star fabric and will be finishing that zigzag quilt for my youngest son very soon...hopefully!

Thanks so much for stopping by.  Please feel free to comment (comments always put a smile on my face :).  And, if you haven't already, go over to Amy's Creative Side to see everyone else's quilts and cheer them on!

Smiles
~Beth

Pumpkin Carving

We carved our pumpkins last night.  I can't believe how big the boys are getting.  They all drew their own pumpkin face and then carved them out (with a little help from Daddy, of course).

I LOVE the way they turned out! 

Well, I am off to finish up the middle monster's mummy costume.  Happy carving!!

RACHEL'S TOTE BAG

A couple of weeks ago I made a tote bag for my SIL, Rachel, for her birthday.  She picked out the fabric...

I based the tote bag off of this free download from allpeoplequilt.com.  Of course, I couldn't just make it the way it was intended.  I made it quite a bit larger (to fit Rachel's needs), added pockets inside & also included a magnetic snap.  I am pleased with the way it turned out (and so was she!).

I may just have to make one for myself!

I linked to this post on...

http://sumossweetstuff.blogspot.com/

Smiles

~Beth

One Thing, One Week Challenge: 4~Complete!!

  So, as mentioned before, Amy (from Amy's Creative Side) challenged her readers to pick 1 thing to start/work on/complete in 1 week.  I rose to the challenge and completed my nephew's monster shirt (HaPpY 8th BiRtHdAy, Kyle!)

This monster is based off of The Beholder, a D & D character

I also made him a reversible cape (based off of this tutorial).  The other side is green with crossed swords.

The binding on the baby quilt has also been finished...finally!!  Hopefully it will find a good home at the silent auction, Rally for Riley fundraiser.  (message me for more information about Riley's cause)

Sorry, I couldn't figure out how to rotate this pic.
View a slightly better pic here 

A big THANK YOU to my SIL, Rachel, and to Karen for taking the photos for me.  I don't know where my head was this week!!!  Oh, and also to Amy for keeping me on track with my projects.  I look forward to the One Thing, One Week Challenge every month!

Have a splendid day!  Smiles...

Happy Birthday!

8 years ago today we were blessed with our second son :).  Today we celebrate 8 years of the joy, love and laughter the he has brought to our lives.  HaPpY BiRtHdAy!!!  Mommy loves you so very much.  And, no matter how old you get you will always be my Sunshine ;o).

Oh, how I love that face!

A Winner!!

Yesterday I encouraged my facebook friends to "follow" me.  I was pleasantly surprised to reach my goal of 20 followers (actually 22!) in just a couple of hours.  Thank you!!!  As promised, I am giving something away to one of my faithful followers.  We wrote down all of your names and put them in a hat....

And the winner is....

my trusty name puller...isn't he cute?!

SHAWN!!! (in case you can't read that tiny piece of paper).  Congrats!  Oh, I bet you are wondering what you have won.  It's a fabric trash bag for you car!  Now you can just as tidy cool as your wife ;o).  Let me know in the comments if you have any fabric suggestions and I'll try to accomodate. 

Smiles...

An opportunity to help

A couple of months back I told my loving hubby, Jason, that I wanted to donate some pillowcases and/or small quilts to our local Children's Hospital.  I contacted our local chapter to see what I could do to help.  I left several messages and never received a response.  It seems that there were others that needed me more.  Since then I have had the opportunity to donate fabric (from Denyse Schmidt's Hope Valley line) to a friend that was making a quilt for a co-worker with cancer.  I have also commited myself to donating a baby quilt to a silent auction trying to raise $ for an 8-year girl with cancer (and her family).  And today I am mailing off 3 large double-sided blankets and 6 new onesies to Amy @ My Spring Pea and Me.  You can learn more about her cause here.

Although I was not able to donate items to our local Children's Hospital, I feel good about being able to help in other ways.  Sewing is very enjoyable to me helps to keep me sane.  Being able to help others in the process is just an added bonus.  Try not to pass up an opportunity to help.  You never know how good it can make you feel until you try.  And putting a smile on someone else's face is priceless.

Smiles...

A Challenge

Amy from Amy's Creative Side has challenged her readers to pick one project to start/work on/complete in just one week.  She calls it the One Thing, One Week Challenge and I love the idea!  This is her fourth challenge. You can read more about it here.

I have played along in all of the challenges.  You can view my One Thing, One Week projects on flickr.  This time around I have committed myself to making my nephew's birthday monster shirt and to finishing the binding on the baby quilt I have been working on (yes, I know I was supposed to have it done over a week ago...oops!).  I am keeping my fingers crossed that I might be lucky enough to be the winner of all of those lovely Fandango fabric pieces.  Oh, how I love that Fandango fabric.  You can purchase your own, on sale, at Burgandy Buttons.

Are you going to challenge yourself this week?  If so, I would love to here about it.  And, be sure to go over to Amy's blog and check out what everyone else is up to.

Until next time, smiles...

Goals for the weekend

It's Friday...yippee! 

The Dodd household will be very busy this weekend with football practice, a football game, a baseball tournament and a birthday party but I have still set a couple of goals for myself (it's the only way I will get any "quiet" time!).  I probably should have put laundry down as my #1 goal for this weekend but that is no fun.  Instead I am going to get my SIL's birthday present made and hopefully put the binding on a baby quilt.  I will be donating the baby quilt to a silent auction that is helping raise $ for an old high school acquaintance.  Kelly* & her family recently found out that their 8 year old daughter has cancer.   They are having to make weekly visits to New York for her treatment.  Hopefully this quilt will help them raise a little money.  I think I should be able to get a good portion of the binding on during football practice tonight and all of the down time between games this weekend.  Wish me luck!

Anything exciting going on in your house this weekend?

Smiles...


Baby Quilt




Fabric for my SIL's bag

*If you would like more information about Kelly & her daughter or the silent auction, please let me know and I will forward it on to you.  

Where does the time go?

I am not sure about you but I know I always feel like there is so much to do and not nearly enough time to get it all done.  I was really looking forward to getting some things crossed off my list today.  Especially since I had the day off from watching the extra little ones and it was a preschool day for Adam.  Unfortunately, I have a very long list and only 1 thing got finished....the littlest monster's Halloween shirt.  I truly don't know where the day went.  Oh well, there is always tomorrow :o).

What did you do today?

Smiles....

he was very proud of his pose :)

The Pumpkin Patch & an unexpected SURPRISE!

We went on our annual Family Pumpkin Patch Adventure at Johnson Farms yesterday.  Our crew included: myself, Jason and our 3 little things, my sister (Laurie) and her family (hubby (Ben) & their 3 boys), my brother (Chris) and his family (wife (Rachel) & their 2 sons) and my parents (Mike & Diane).  In case you lost count, that's 8 boys!!!  Beautiful weather and spending time with family made for the perfect day.

 

What a sight!

Our adventure started with some basic fun with the boys...mazes, swings, slides & pumpkin launching.





Never too old to enjoy swinging :)

      

 

The 3 Amigos







The lil' guys being silly



After that we headed up to the Pumpkin Patch to search for our perfect pumpkins.  We hitched a ride on the way.  Hayrides are so much fun!



All my boys (aren't they a handsome group)



With much excitement, the boys found their pumpkins (and some gourds too). 



Such beautiful colors

 Oh, I bet you are wondering what the big surprise is.  On the way out we noticed that there were some dogs and puppies there from Happy Dog Rescue.  We went over to see the pups and you guessed it, we adopted a puppy!  Her given name was Mouse but the boys renamed her Rally.  She is the PERFECT addition to our family.  Sometimes surprises are also a blessing. 

Enjoy the rest of your Monday!  Smiles...

A beautiful Saturday & a finished bag

It's a gorgeous day here, despite the wind.  I am happy that I got to spend some of the day outside enjoying it.  I also got to enjoy watching some of my favorite people play what they love...sports.  My littlest monster had a soccer game and my middle monster had a tackle football game.  Littlest monster's team is still too young to keep score but he figured out on his own that they lost.  That's ok, he had a great time and got a snack (that's the best part, right?).  The middle monster's team won....woot woot!  Way to go Bucs!

I finished the messenger bag for my biggest monster's "friend"*.  Good thing since the party is tonight.  This will be his first boy/girl party since he was in 1st grade.  I have a feeling that things have changed quite a bit since then.  He is growing up way too fast!  I digress.  A little birdie told me that she (biggest monster's "friend"*) loves peace signs right now.  Hope she likes the bag!

As I mentioned before, I followed this tutorial by Larissa Holland over at mmmcrafts.  This is the second messenger bag** I have made using her tutorial.  The instructions are easy to follow & her pictures are clear (thanks, Larissa!).  I changed a couple little things but nothing major.  You probably wouldn't even notice.  I think I may just have to make one for myself next time :). 

Thanks for stopping by.  Hope you have an enjoyable weekend!

Smiles,
Beth

*"friend"~this really means girlfriend.  I am just not quite ready for that yet though.  Don't worry, they have known eachother since preschool and she is a very sweet & darling little girl young lady. 

                                                           ** My first messenger bag.