a full, fun father's day weekend . . .

It started out Friday evening with a surprise call from Kim, wanting to know if I wanted to get in some "Sawyer time" that night. Are you kidding me?! Of course! I suggested they bring Sawyer over for a sleepover, so they did! I love Sawyer sleepovers!

We had pizza for dinner. As you can plainly see, Sawyer likes pizza . . .

I know it looks bad, but he cleaned up very nicely! He sure can cram some pizza into his little mouth.

After dinner, Sawyer and I went out for a ride on the golf cart. He *loves* to ride around the camp. We went down the low road and saw this . . .

At first I was very startled, but then I remembered that we had the Christian Southern Archers coming out on Saturday for an event, and they'd already set up their targets. Sawyer didn't know the difference, though, and for the rest of our sixty-minute ride, he growled at every animal we came upon.

Especially this big ol' guy, up in the upper meadow. Even when we got close enough to touch it, Sawyer just growled and growled. It's very funny to listen to and even funnier when you know that he's actually mimicking his Aunt Jocelyn's cat, Leia (who growls at most everyone).

Sawyer even growled at this fellow . . .

Can you see the little Frog Prince in the center of the photo? Every time he jumped, so did Sawyer.

And I couldn't get a smile out of him for the life of me -- he was too intent on all the animals. He was hard-pressed to look away from them long enough for him to look at me!

Back at the RV, I turned on our happy lights and he amused himself walking up and down the stairs about a million times.

And once we were cleaned up and in our "escape proof" pj's, he still wanted to go outside!

We had a good night's sleep and his mommy and daddy picked him up early, to go visit Kim's dad. After checking on the archery group that was already up at the camp, I headed to the grocery store. It was a relatively quiet day, with Todd working down on the dock, and me doing domestic things and working on the ministry's newsletter, when a violent storm popped up and passed through the camp.

It took with it a couple of trees, including this one which came down over the main road *and* the road into the main camping area.

And yes, if you look closely enough, those are power lines and we were (once again) without power. I've never been so thankful for my husband's foresight than when he purchased that generator!

Saturday night we went to sleep lulled by the sounds of the cranked generator. We got up Sunday morning for a happy Father's Day breakfast of french toast and bacon -- Todd's favorite!

A quick call to Huntsville Utilities confirmed they did still have our repair ticket and that they'd get to us when they could. *sigh*

Sunday was a hot, hot day. Our raccoon visitor stopped by and took a little dip.

He really is very cute!

Later that afternoon, everyone came up for a little Father's Day get-together. We celebrated with Todd's favorite; a Carvel ice cream cake. I think it may be Sawyer's too.

Just take a look at the blue from the ice cream frosting, around his mouth!

Then Todd got down to business and opened presents!

He was very pleased and surprised by the Kindle! Yay!

And I couldn't post it on my blog on Friday, but this was actually the first Kindle holder I made! One for my dear man's new toy. :)

Sawyer makes himself right at home. I found my old cell phone for him to play with. He loves to carry around cell phones and remotes!

And here are the hers and his Kindle cases! We'll always be able to tell our Kindles apart.

And this morning, I played around just a little bit with quilted postcards.

This is definitely something I'm going to need to play around with more and get in lots of practice. I did two different techniques for securing them (mainly because I wasn't real pleased with how the first one turned out), but the second one did better. This will be a fun past time when I feel the urgent need to create. I even got them in today's mail!

Whew. I need a week to rest from the weekend!

:)

design within reach . . .

Saturday evening I returned home from a long day out and about, and decided I needed to put away the red and pink and white quilted heart that had been adorning my table since February, and work on a more "summery" design.

In less than three hours, this is what I'd come up with!

Even with a cute little back -- I could probably reverse it if I ever felt so inclined! I'm so infatuated with orange right now. It's my color of choice. Why is that?!?

Ta dah! I love what I can accomplish if I put my mind to it. And what's even nicer is that this is an original Design by Denise. LOL! :)

My BOM's are what's on the design table cloth right now. First, here are the two blocks I completed just in the nick of time on Saturday, for a turn in win! (I'm determined to NOT use my Ooops! card this go 'round!)

So now there are ten blocks completed, six to go. I have two sashed and quilted and I need to audition the rest. Well, first I have to decide whether I'm going to do the four corners in the purple, or do the whole thing in the orange (like I'd originally planned). I just think the four corners in the purple would create eye interest.

I do believe that if I go with the purple corner, this block that I finished this weekend will be a purple candidate:

While the other block I finished this weekend will definitely go orange!

Head over to Judy Laquidara's Patchwork Times to see what other creative genius is flowing in the quilting world!

Last week I watched Sawyer on Thursday, so Kim could run some errands.

He's gotten so big -- he hardly looks like a baby anymore!

He was all about holding that spoon while he ate, too. He held it in his right hand, and ate with his left hand. I wonder if he'll be a lefty or a righty?!?

He loves, loves, *loves* his books! My favorite thing is to sit in the rocker in his room and have him bring me a book and climb into my lap!

Without a doubt -- Neesey heaven.

:)

keeping it cool . . .

Where else? By the pool!

Sawyer, Kim & I headed over to Jocelyn's yesterday afternoon. Joc's community has a nice little pool, and she was gracious enough to invite us over for a swim. With the temperature hitting 100 degrees yesterday (not including the heat index) getting relief by a dip in the pool sounded heavenly!

Sawyer was ready to make the trek over there. He's so darling in his little hats -- and he's so good about keeping them on his head!

We got over there and found that we pretty much had the pool to ourselves. There was one other group of four, but they left not too long after we got there. It was like a little private oasis!

This was Sawyer's first dip in a big pool since last summer. He didn't want to have anything to do with sitting in his floaty, but he was perfectly content to swim around with mom holding him. And he got a big kick out of splashing Aunt Jocelyn!

BUT . . . what he *really* wanted to do was ROAM!

Yeah -- he walked every inch of the pool area.

And explored the landscaping.

Gave the mulch a taste test.


Enjoyed a swing in the big wicker porch swing.


Enjoyed a strawberries and juice break.


Went through Neesey's purse (now *that's* dangerous)!


And managed to successfully open Aunt Jocelyn's water bottle and get a drink from it, too.

I'm willing to bet that little man slept like a ROCK last night!

And so did his mama and his Neesey!

:)

welcome june!

I'm linking up with The Simple Woman's Daybook today, for the month of JUNE! Can you believe it's already June?!? The older I get, the faster the time flies, which makes me older faster! Yikes!

FOR TODAY

Outside my window . . . the squirrels, chipmunks, and birds are about, *flittering* (or in the case of the squirrels and chipmunks, scrambling and romping) from tree to tree! The deer aren't quite at ease with the new tree arrangement, so they've been real tentative when they come up. Todd knocked a good portion of the tangled tree mess out, but not all of it. We're supposed to have someone from the National Weather Service in Huntsville come out and survey our damage.

I am thinking . . . about Psalm 126 and the promise it contains for joy (thanks to Beth Moore and the Stepping Up Bible study I'm doing!)

I am thankful for . . . so many exquisite things, not the least of which are my faith in my Savior, my husband's love, and my precious family.

From the kitchen . . . the Keurig is gearing up for my second and final cup of coffee of the morning.

I am creating . . . a doll quilt for my niece, for her birthday.

I am going . . . to make a visit to the creek and then the pond today. I love to feed the fish!

I am reading . . . several things; the Bible, my current Tea Time magazine, and on my Kindle, I'm going back and forth between David Platt's Radical, and on the lighter (fiction) side, Jennifer Allee's The Pastor's Wife. Plus lots of lovely blogs!

I am hoping . . . that some decisions outside of my control will be made soon.

I am hearing . . . birds and cicadas. Lots and LOTS of cicadas. The swell of the cicada hum can be rather overwhelming at times!

Around the house . . . make that, "Around the RV" . . . quiet and calm; Todd's running errands and the TV isn't on. The A/C is already working and dishes are drying on the counter. Bed is made and everything's tidy.

One of my favorite things . . . Italian ice. I don't know why I thought of that, but there you have it. Oh I know -- perhaps because it's supposed to be, with the heat index, over 100 degrees here today!

A few plans for the rest of the week . . . friends here for fishing and a picnic; a pool afternoon with family; a little ministry work; grocery shopping; and blogging here, blogging there, blogging everywhere!

Here is a picture I am sharing . . .

Sawyer sure enjoyed his overnight visit here with me over the weekend. He especially enjoys taking a ride around the camp on the golf cart! And he loves his Paw-paw, too. I love 'em both.

:)

on the board . . .

I have never heard the cicadas so loud before! And so early in the season, too. Is this the year of the cicada or something? Does it herald some big event on down the line? What does it mean? LOL! I guess it means there's lots of cicadas this year!

Actually, this is the year of the cicada, at least it is in Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama -- the thirteen-year cicada, to be exact. And mostly they are heard; when they're seen, for the most part, it's in their empty shell form . . .

The last time they made their presence known was in 1998. Since then, they've been burrowed underground. Now they've made their way topside, and the males make that incessant humming noise, looking for the perfect mate. I have to admit, I like the sound -- it brings back lovely memories of childhood summers; playing in the sprinklers, games of tag and hide-and-seek, catching lightning bugs as dusk settled in . . . ah, such sweet times!

Sweet times ahead, too, I hope! I agreed to take on our guild's newsletter for our 2011-2012 guild year. I'm really excited - and a little anxious, too! The woman who's currently doing it has done a *marvelous* job, and it'll be tough filling her shoes!

Right now we're in transition. The new guild year starts September 1, but there's so much to the newsletter and the other "communication" duties, we've already started overlapping. I went to my first board meeting on Monday night. I really enjoyed being a part of it! We have such a big guild, and so many committees, that the board is pretty large -- there were seventeen of us there, and several key folks were missing! Discussion was interesting. I'm sure you can imagine, with seventeen women expressing their opinions . . . it was not a short meeting! LOL!

I am looking forward to being more involved in the guild and its workings, and making new friends.

Finally, wanted to share this darling photo Sawyer's mommy captured of him . . .

Just a happy little fellow, hanging out in the yard! I'm so amazed he kept his hat and sunglasses on for as long as he did!

And this is from last evening . . .

Not the greatest of photos, but one thing is clear; father and son sure do love each other!

Happy Wednesday!

:)

guild meeting fun . . .

Thursday night was a guild meeting I'd been waiting for, for a long time! Our guest speaker was Quiltville's Quips & Snips', Bonnie Hunter! She was also doing workshops yesterday and today, and as much as I would have liked to have taken one, I just wasn't able. But I *so* enjoyed sitting on the front row and listening to her program, and seeing quilt after beautiful quilt!

She started with this display, that shows how she organizes her scraps. "Just fifteen minutes a day!" she said over and over again! I had to laugh to myself -- I thought I'd have all the time in the world for quilting, once I no longer worked outside the home ... WRONG! Do you know how much time I've devoted to quilting since then? With the exception of some handwork that I did when our Stitcher's group met last week, I've done N-O-N-E! Unless you count the trip to Patches & Stitches that I made to pick up my BOM. Which I don't. (But it was an item on my to-do list!) Fifteen minutes a day sounded like a great place to start!

Anyway, she has an elaborate (yet simple) means of organizing her scraps. And from that, she makes the most marvelous, scrappy quilts. And she said that she makes her quilts to be utility quilts! I loved it!

I took pictures of all the quilts she displayed, but halfway through the program, the battery died in my camera, and I had to switch over to my phone -- which will explain the lack of quality in some of them. I wanted to share a few of my favorites here . . .

This leaders & enders quilt was fabulous. I did a close-up inspection of this quilt and it's fascinating to look at -- all the different, wonderful (and some not-so-wonderful, but it's cut so small you can't tell) fabrics! I think this was the Friday workshop. This is one I'd really have liked to have done!

I really liked this web quilt, too.

And all her quilts were huge! But she did mention that the more scraps she used up, the better she felt about buying new fabrics. Well, yeah!

If you're familiar with Bonnie (and her blog), you might recognize this quilt -- it's the Roll Roll, Cotton Boll mystery quilt that she did online! In fact, one of the members of our Stitcher's Group -- Jackie -- brought hers in for show & tell. It blows my mind that this is a scrappy quilt!

One of the funniest moments of the evening came about when Bonnie had the lovely volunteers who were holding up her display quilts, put on some cotton shirts to show where great fabric prints could be gotten from, at relatively great prices.

The laughs came when she had this one lady turn around to show off all the fabric on the back of the shirt. Bonnie said, "And you can see, this is bigger than a fat quarter!" The volunteer said, "Hey!!" and made it clear that her back side was not a fat quarter! We all laughed and laughed! It made it all the funnier that the volunteer was a little, bitty thing -- no fat there!

And yes, in case you're wondering, that is a lovely hospital gown that Bonnie's wearing. It had pretty snowflakes on it!

This last quilt was my absolute favorite of the evening ... I wish I could remember what it was called. Wait -- Goose in a Puddle? I think so. I love the block pattern. And I love the red, white, and blues. And again, a scrappy quilt! Except for the reds that she used as sashing.

Something about scrappy quilts gives them an automatic vintage look. Especially with this one -- it makes me think--oh, the word's right on the tip of my tongue--Americana. Anyway, I had such a blast that evening, and if you've not visited Bonnie's website, it's really worth the visit. She's real, down-to-earth, and has a passion for quilting. And she's *loads* of fun!

Speaking of loads of fun, I spend some time with Sawyer Graham yesterday afternoon! It's been a while since I share photos, so I thought I'd include some from our walk . . .

He's getting, "Sooooooo big!"

Just sitting back, enjoying the breeze!

Please give me my sippy cup!!!!

Happy as a bug-in-a-rug! I love how he sits with his feet crossed. Too cute!

:)