I got an Award!!

OMG, I can't believe it!! Pam over at Antique or Not gave me an award for being a follower of her blog. I guess I need to pay more attention to my comments LOL!! So, anywho, here's the rules:



1. Please put the Marie Antoinette picture on your blog.
2. Place a link to the person from whom you received the award.
3. Nominate at least 7 or more blogs.
4. Put the links of those blogs on your blog.
5. Leave a message on their blogs to tell them.

Okey dokey, so there's Marie's pretty pic - check. Already put a link to Pam at the beginning of the post - check. Nominate 7 or more blogs - ok, big breath, here goes nuttin' -

Heidi at Hen and Chicks
Heather at Trends and Traditions
Karen at My Yellow Farmhouse
Libby at A Simple Girl
Judy at Quilting with Ragdolls
Tammy at Ginger Patches
Carol at Brown Quilts

There's a whole lot more where those came from - it seems my list of blog faves keeps growing. But these gals ought to keep any blog lover busy for a while. So the links are here - check. Now I just need to go leave them a message. I'll do that as soon as I'm done here.

Ok, now I did promise some decorating pics.

This is the Christmas tree in our living room. This is supposed to be the nice, color coordinated tree that everyone ohhs and ahhs over when they visit. And they pretty much do. Of course, this year, I just told the kids to decorate it any old way, so they did. Hence the glob of beads and ribbon in about the middle. But hey, all I had to do was put the thing up and get the lights on, so I'm thinking they did a pretty nice job.

Well, my wonderful middle kidlet (who turns 11 day after tomorrow) is sitting here decreeing that I need to get off the computer so she can get on to do "homework" (yeah, sure, looking at YouTube is homework LOL) so I better leave for now. Have a great day!

Snow fun

Wow!! Two posts in two days, I think that's a new record for me. This morning my youngest kidlet came and asked if he could borrow a carrot for the nose of his snowman. I said sure, thinking that one cute snowman in the front yard would be fun. Well, I ended up with six (yep, count 'em, six) snowmen in my front yard.

I know it's not the greatest pic, and it's kind of hard to see the one on the far left, but there are six of them - one for each of us and the dog (who, ironically, is supposed to be the biggest one on the far right. I say ironically because we have a corgi, who while somewhat overweight, is still very, shall we say, vertically challenged LOL!!) You can even see the carrot nose on the snowman on the far right if you look closely. I just had to share these guys cuz I think they are so darned cute.

I was going to share some pics of the Christmas decorations here, but since blogger and my pictures are not playing nice (might have something to do with the weather too), I'll just save those for another day. Hope everyone stays warm!

My New Stocking!!

First off, Happy Birthday to me!! I know it's a day late, but I was really busy yesterday. We aren't celebrating birthdays officially until next Sunday, the 21st, since I'm not the only birthday girl this month (DS turned 13 last Tuesday, DD will turn 11 next Thursday, and my youngest DS will turn 8 on Jan. 8). So I wanted to have something to open on my birthday. Enter, the stocking swap from one of the best groups on the internet, primitivefolkartquilting. My package from my buddy arrived earlier this week, so I showed ALOT of restraint and saved it to open on my birthday.

Here's a pic of all the wonderful goodies Debbie sent me. I just love the stocking and the little punch needle mittens are too cute - they even feature cows!! I can't think of a better way to start out my birthday than to open such a fabulous package. Thank you to Debbie!

The rest of the day was busy, as usual, but DH did take me to a movie - Australia. What a stunning movie! The scenery was just beautiful, it had cattle, and there was plenty of eye candy (I kept mopping up my drool over Hugh Jackman's character - WOW!) So, it was pretty nice day. Hope everyone else had a great day.

So Sad

Hi everyone. Sorry I've been non-existant for a while. It's just that our computer crashed - as in REALLY, REALLY crashed. It's been in the computer hospital since Monday (and it happened last Saturday) and I was just informed that my hard drive is locked up tighter than a drum. The only option is to send it to a company in the Cities and for $1500 - $1800 they will retrieve what they can. OH BOY (insert big sigh and lots of tears here). The biggest thing I want off that hard drive is my pictures. I just downloaded a ton of them last week in anticipation of my middle kidlet's trip with her grandparents. SOOOO, now they're all gone - every last one. Hubs and I are still talking about it - but I just don't think we can justify the cost. So, folks, the moral of the story here is back up, back up, back up EVERYTHING!!! I know I've heard others say this and thought I'll do it next week or whatever. Well, guess what, now I don't have next week. So go do it now!!

On a lighter note, we're starting to get ready to go to a cattle show next weekend. Since this particular show is 4 days long and it's not during a fair, there's very limited food available (read one over-priced vendor!), so us moms make lots of different yummy things to bring along to warm up in our crockpots or fry in the portable fry pan. Right now I'm making a party mix recipe that is new to me (found it in the Primitive Christmas book by Primitive Gatherings). I'll let you know if it's good or not.

Also, since my 'puter was in the hospital this week, it left all sorts of time for quilting. I actually finished a wall size (48x60) quilt for Christmas. Of course, I can't share pics right now since a) I don't have a 'puter (I'm borrowing hubs' laptop right now) and b) middle kidlet has my camera somewhere between Denver and Santa Fe at the moment. Sooo, when I get my camera back, and my computer back, and I'm actually home and not at a cattle show, I'll share some pics. I think it turned out really great.

That's all for me today. Just wanted to give a shout out and let everyone know that I hadn't fallen off the face of the earth, just into a huge hole :-)

Hugs,
Amy

Busted!!

Hi all! I got outed by Karen. I was giving her a bad time about not posting, but shame on me, I'm even worse than she was LOL!! Anyhow, she inspired me to do some cleaning and tweaking of my fall decorating so I could share with all of you.

The first picture is of the beautiful cupboard I have in my living room. I purchased this at our annual Gold Rush antique show quite a number of years ago. I remember seeing and wanting it so bad, but it was over $1000. I walked away, but called DH and after some wrangling, he ok'd it and I practically ran back to the booth. No sooner had I told the dealer I would take it, than someone else walked in and wanted to buy it. Talk about a close call!!! The second picture is taken at the foot of my steps, in my entry way. The crock is brand new (to me) - I just bought it about a week and a half ago at Gold Rush. Same dealer as the cupboard, in fact! They actually had a 6 gallon crock just like it, but again, I walked away and thought about it. By the time I came back, that one was gone. I still bought this little beauty, though. Like I told my friend that day, my theory when it comes to antiquing is, if it's meant to be, it'll be there when I get back. I just gotta see lots of stuff before I decide for sure what I want.

A close up of my new crock - I just love it!!

This particular little grouping is in my living room right by the bottom of the steps. I would like to find some flowers for the pitcher, but other than that I'm good with it.

These two pics are of the piano in my living room, all decked out for fall.

Well, now that you've all keeled over in shock that I've actually posted, I'll let you go on your merry way (and I promise to post more!! LOL)

Have a great fall day!

What I've Been Doing All Summer

OK- so if you've visited my blog lately, you've seen that I haven't posted in a veeerrrryyy looonngg time!! LOL I'm such a bad blogger!! I guess you could say I've kind of been busy. So, here, in a very brief nutshell, I will catch you up with what I've been doing.

First off, in June our mare FINALLY had her foal - the cutest little filly you ever did see. Of course, we had been watching her and watching her. I would even walk down to the barn in the middle of the night and check on her. NOTHING!! I was getting ready to take the two older kidlets to a cattle show in Iowa, so hubs decided that she should go out to pasture since we'd be gone. Well, guess what, the morning we woke up to leave, hubs looks out the window and yells "There's a baby out there!!". That big stinker had her baby out in the pasture. I think she was just waiting until she could go outside and have it - anyhow, every thing was fine and Chloe is now a new member of the herd (which numbers 7 now - but we won't talk about that LOL!!)

So after all that excitement, I took the two older kidlets to Iowa for the North Central Regional Simmental Show. Fun was had by all and the oldest kidlet actually placed sixth in the jr (under 15 yo) public speaking contest - cool!! Then middle kidlet and I booked home for the wedding of two dear friends. So glad to see them finally tie the knot!

A couple weeks later we headed up north for the summer show for the state Charolais association (do you see a theme here?? cattle show after cattle show - no wonder the summer streaked by!!) As always, a really great time catching up with old friends and meeting new ones - here are some pics of the day:

This is middle kidlet showing her heifer, Tasha. She's come a long way in her showing skills just this summer and is really starting to have fun.

Here's hubs and oldest kidlet mugging for the photographer!!

Here's youngest kidlet showing for one of his first times. He was so thrilled to finally be out there and he even won his very own show stick!! He's so proud of it!

This is Murph. As you can see, I think we tired him out LOL!! Poor calf was just wiped out by the end of the day, kind of like the kidlets!!

And our great white chariot!! You can see some of the cattle in the background - thanks goodness it was a nice day since we were all outside.

Shortly after our fun weekend, it was time for county fair and then time for state fair. I'll share more pics of those fun (but exhausting weeks) shortly - then it will be on to our regulary scheduled program of quilting, decorating (for fall!!) and with farm life and cattle peppered in. Thanks for visiting!

Quilt Give-Away

Hi All!
Go check out Old Red Barn Co - she's giving away a fantastic quilt. Sign up and say I referred you - she will give out extra entries for me (and add her info to your blog - then you get extra entries too!!)

Have a great day!
Amy

TA DA!!

Bet you've all been wondering what I've been working on - then again, maybe you haven't - but I've been busy sewing up a storm. Back in early February I swapped out a ton of nine patch blocks from a swap on the Jo Morton list. I was trying to figure out what I would do with my blocks. I counted them - there were 75 3" finished nine patches. What to do? Then one evening I was browsing through one of Kim Diehl's books, Simple Traditions. (I love Kim's books - check them out if you've never seen them!!) Her Garden Patch pattern caught my eye - it uses nine patches, and I thought it would be easy enough to alter the pattern to use my size of nine patches. Well, serendipity, it uses 3" finished nine patches. Yahoo!! So I started counting how many I would need. Serendipity again - it uses exactly 75 nine patches, which was how many I had (Of course, I have since learned that I can't count and have 77 nine patches, but I will use the two extras on the label on the back.) So here's a couple pictures of the completed center of the quilt - now I need to add the inner border, and then start on the applique border. I'm just so happy with how this quilt is turning out - and I'm using all Jo Morton's fabrics, so they just all blend so wonderfully!!
Well, I need to go - hope you enjoy seeing what I've been up to!
Cheers!

Hello from the great white north

Hi! I decided to give this blogging thing a whirl - now I just have to figure it out, so bear with me. Right now I'm going to go sew some more and as soon as my more technologically savvy kids get home, I'll post some pics of what I'm working on right now.