Enjoying the eagles....

If you are not familiar with the Live Eagle Cam at Decorah, Iowa, mom has laid her first egg for this year.  The last two years she has had three eggs and successfully raised them.  I warn you--it is adddicting.  You can find it here:  http://www.ustream.tv/decoraheagles

Have fun!
Love,
Marie

Christmas Memories 2011...

We had a wonderful Christmas with our son, his wife, and our newest grandson, Noah. It would have been even more special if our daughter and her family could have been with us too. They came last year from Oklahoma and were not able to come this year. We don't do Christmas with lots of shopping and gifts. Our Christmas is based around family and fun and the real meaning of Christmas.
This is meeting our grandson for the first time at the airport. His PawPaw had been talking to and seeing him via I-Pad2 and saying "buden, buden"?. As soon as they saw each other, PawPaw said "buden, buden" to Noah and he came right to him. PawPaw put him on his lap and they rolled around the airport having fun while our son got luggage ready to go. This child had come on the re-eye flight from San Francisco.



This is our son getting a head of cabbage from his dad's cabbage patch. We were having some North Carolina barbecue. I had made homemade buns and baked French fries and my sister made slaw out of part of this beautiful head of cabbage. You just cannot beat North Carolina barbecue!

This is Noah sitting in the big cabbage leaves. We had planned to just have him in his diaper sitting in the middle of it but the leaves flopped before we had a chance to take the pictures. Well, we can call him a cabbage patch kid anyway!

Our son has a friend whose dad collects and restores peddle cars, trikes, tractors, etc. This is a 1948 Pontiac that he would let Noah touch. Ha!

On Thursday, before they left on Friday, we went to the mall.


This is a tradition in our family--we go to see the sights and sounds and eat at Chick-Fil-A. These are pictures taken with Noah and his dad riding the Christmas train in the mall. I think dad and son enjoyed it!

















Our son and his wife did surprise us with a special gift. After Noah was born, I asked if they had a Sears near by that they could take him to and have a picture made like the one I had made of his dad. I had not thought any more about it. Noah was born on June 16 and his dad was born on June 28 and the pictures are at the same age.

I hope you have enjoyed a glimpse of our time together. I hope yours was as wonderful as ours. I wish you the best for the New Year.
Love,
Marie

In Memory of my internet friend............

Kathi, Christmas 2010

I wanted to share my memories of my great internet
friend, Kathi. We met via the computer in 1998.
Our son had talked us into buying his computer so that
he could upgrade his. I was still in a great
deal of pain from major back surgeries, but my son fixed
my chair with pillows so that I would be comfortable.
It was not long after getting on the internet that I made some
great friends, Kathi, Carol, Pat, etc. There was
Geocities and they offered free websites with a person
to guide you on making your pages. Kathi was also
creating her pages and she was neat with hers--
she had a great gift of words. No matter if you were
emailing, doing Aim, etc., she ran circles around me.
We became close friends, but never met in
person. We shared our life experiences together.

I wanted to do this memorial to her at Christmas because
this was her favorite time of the year. Kathi decorated her
house inside and out and it was beautiful. She loved
shopping, buying, wrapping gifts for the two important
men in her life, her husband Jerry and her son Steve.
We miss you Kathi, but you fought a rough battle
always with a smile and that wonderful laugh of yours.
Thanks for the memories!
Love always,
Marie

Some Finishes...........

I saw the pattern for the hat and really liked it. It is a free pattern and you can find it here. The hat is knitted in the round and once you get the pattern in your mind, it is easy. I then made a scarf to go with it and it is not knit in the round so I had to turn the rows and at first I found it easier to write down what I needed to do. After doing a few patterns, I was able to move on fast. I did knit two sections of 30 inches and then used the Kitchener or grafting stitch to join the two pieces.




I found the pattern for this crochet snowman here.

It is a gift card cozy, but I made it as a fridge magnet. I did candlewick knots for the nose, mouth, and buttons. I had some some pom poms in different colors. Thank goodness there was orange in the group. I pull it apart and took a little white glue and rolled it in my fingers to form it into a nose. After it dried, I hot glued it on the face. I had some flat magnet sheets and I cut a piece to glue on the head and body.







Love,
Marie

Merry little snowmen...........

My husband tried to grow gourds this summer
but it was too hot and dry. I was able to get these
and decided to turn them into snowmen. I cleaned
them with bleach and sanded and dried them. I then
dabbed two goats of paint on and then drew the
features with a black marker. We sprayed a sealer to
protect them. I then knitted the hats and scarves. I made
the grapevine wreaths for them to stand in for balance.
A right cute mom and three children--I think!

Scenes from around our home this Fall...

End of the summer flowers. The cool nights and warm days have kept them blooming.














You can't see the wreath on the front door because of the glare. I took a 12-inch foam wreath and cut 3-inch squares of fabric and punched them into the foam until it was covered and then I made a bow out of one of the fabrics. I used three different fabrics with yellow and orange in them. I made it the same way that I made the one I used for the 4th of July.




















We took a ride out into the country and there is a farmer
who makes designs out of rolled bales of hay. I think they
are neat.

♥Love,♥
Marie

More knitting and crocheting....

Three different knit dishcloth patterns. I find most of my patterns free online by using Google. There are tons of great patterns to be found. I don't use anything but a knitted cloth.

This is another prayer shawl I am knitting for the ministry. I decided to do two rows at the beginning and end with some fun fur added. I did this to get away from using fringe.

These are a couple of vintage potholders I made. I had seen these on another blog and loved them. I looked and looked and finally found the pattern at Annie's Attic. They are made using number 10 crochet cotton and size 7 crochet hook. There are other patterns that come with this, but this is my favorite.

♥Love,♥
Marie

Knitting with a prayer...

I have been busy this summer freezing corn, okra, and peaches. Being disabled, I have to do what I call "piddle" and then rest. I am proud of what I was able to get put away for the winter. Now, I have time to get to other things. Above is a prayer shawl for the ministry at our church. The thread is purchased and prayed over before it is delivered to me to knit or crochet into a shawl. I like this pattern because it is neat but easy to do.
You cast on 63 stitches and knit 10 rows. Then you do a row 1: knit3, purl 3, 2: knit the next row. Repeat these two rows until you have 10 rows. Then knit 10 rows again and them repeat the two rows of pattern. You end with knit 10 rows and add fringe. You will be able to see how the pattern forms.
I pray the shawl will bring comfort to whoever receives it. We are not told who gets it and they do not know who the knitter was.

♥Love,♥
Marie

Peach Season....

We placed the bushel of Windblow variety peaches on our kitchen table to ripen. I froze 7 quarts of them this morning and am going to finish them as they are ready. I like getting them like this and that way I don't have to process them all at the same time. I plan to use some of them to make the peach trifle shown below


Peach Trifle
1 (3 1/2-ounce) package instant vanilla pudding mix
2 cups milk
6 large fresh peaches, peeled and sliced
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 (20-ounce) package pound cake
1/3 cup bourbon
1 cup whipping cream
2 tablespoons powdered sugar
1/2 cup sliced almonds, toasted
Preparation
Prepare pudding mix according to package directions, using 2 cups milk. Cover and chill 5 minutes. Toss sliced peaches with granulated sugar. Cut pound cake into 1/2-inch slices. Place half of cake slices on bottom of a trifle dish or deep bowl, drizzle evenly with half of bourbon. Spoon half of peach mixture evenly over cake slices. Spread half of pudding over peaches. Repeat with remaining cake slices, bourbon, peach mixture, and pudding. Cover and chill at least 2 hours.
Enjoy!

♥Love,♥
Marie

My New Book................

I had my second book printed from my blog. I have had both of my books printed by
Blog2Print . I am very satisfied with their quality and service. I ordered it and received it in less than a week's time. My book is half the size of last year due to the fact of my husband's relapse of MS, my fall, and getting ready for the birth of our latest grandchild. Above is the cover of the book and below are the first and last pages.





If you try them, I hope you will be as happy with the results as I am.
Love,
Marie

Quilt made with love...

When our son was born, a fellow co-worker made a Sunbonnet Andy Quilt as a gift for him. This quilt became Jonathan's favorite thing and we didn't go anywhere without it. He dragged it around until there was nothing left but scraps. I decided that I wanted to make Jonathan's new baby a replica of that quilt and hope that he enjoys it as much as his dad did his. I found the pattern by a Google search. I appliqued the blocks and then it came to cutting the sashing and borders. I am not able to stand for very long at a time and cutting the sashing and borders became a problem for me. A wonderful lady, Lillian, who lives in a retirement village and teaches quilting, offered to do that part for me. Her husband also has MS so we had a lot in common. After she did that cutting for me, I put the blocks together and sandwiched the top, batting, and bottom together. I then quilted by stitch in the ditch and quilting around the little boy. For the border, I decided to download coloring book shapes of farm animals and quilted these shapes. I had chosen a striped material for the back of the quilt. To make the quilt look nice, I needed to cut the binding on the bias. My husband and I watched a You Tube over and over again to figure out how to cut the binding. We decided to try cutting it knowing that I could buy more material if needed. WOW! We did it in one try! I sewed the strips together and because I ha made the quilt all by hand, I thought the binding needed to be sewn on by machine. I called my new friend, Lillian, and she was more than happy to sew it on for me. She said it would take me a while to do it by hand. After she sewed the binding on, I whip stitched it to the back. I then designed a quilt label on the computer and ironed it onto fabric and slip stitched it to the back. When baby, Noah was born on June 16, I got the quilt into the mail to CA. When our son and daughter-in-law received the quilt, they called and were pleased by the surprise. Our son did not remember what his original quilt looked like because all he remembered was the scrap that was left.
Below are some pictures of Noah and his quilt.

Love,
Marie (Mawre)

Mother's Day....

Thank goodness for today's new gadgets. When our first grandchild was born 15 years ago, I didn't have the wonderful I-Pad 2. There were videos made but we waited until there was enough footage on it and then it was mailed to us in North Carolina from Oklahoma. It was wonderful to get these tapes and enjoy seeing each baby grow(all three). Now, here in 2011, we can see everything as it is happening.

The other Sunday night, our son called and wanted me to call them on the I-Pad. A friend of theirs had given them three boxes of baby boy clothes. They wanted me to watch them open up the boxes and see each thing as they took it out. Wow! That was wonderful. They were blessed with the nicest clothes that looked like new and some had not been worn. They also gave me a tour of the nursery.

Last week they went for a 3D/4D ultrasound and were given an invitation to come back today for a free session. They took Linh's mom with them and called us on the I-Pad so that we could see it as it was being done. This was a Mother's Day gift for me and Elaine. Of course we thought the baby was beautiful. He didn't want to wake up but we got to see his face and his hands crossed on his tummy. We thought he looked like his dad. Well, June 26 will be here soon and then we can see him in person again via I-Pad. Because of our physical problems, we will not be able to go to California to see him in person but the I-Pad is the next best thing.

I want to wish all of you a wonderful Mother's Day.

♥Love,♥

Marie

April Showers bring May flowers....

Hope you enjoyed your visit.
Love, Marie

Happy Easter...........

Spring and Easter at Melville Hill

I hope you enjoyed your visit outside and inside our home. It is a beautiful season with everything coming to life. I wish I could add the sounds of the many birds in our yard.
♥Love ♥
Marie