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.