Returning to normal

I hope everyone had a nice Christmas.  Ours was perfect, although I don't have photo documentation - I tend to forget to bring out the camera when there is too much going on around me!   Everyone of our dinner guests made it and dinner was divine.  The kids were all happy with their gifts and the house is at peace once again.

We did finally get 2 quilts hung in our entryway before our Christmas party - they certainly add some fun color to the plain, white walls!

Best of all, the snow has finally melted and I can finally leave the house and get back into my regular routine.  I went to work!  I went to the chiropractor!   Oh, the little things...  I now hope that UPS will get to delivering their backlog of packages that got stuck in the distribution center because of our weather.   I have a package from the Fat Quarter Shop that's been sitting there since December 22.   Don't they know I want my fabric???

Snowbound!

This picture shows the house across the street - that's a lot of snow!  I've now been stuck at home for a week.  We usually do not get this much snow in the Seattle area, but boy we have been blasted this year.  We have about 15 inches and more is coming later today.  I don't remember the last time we had a white Christmas.  It's pretty to look at, but not so much fun if you have *anywhere* you need to be.  Lucky for me, I can work from home, I have all my Christmas shopping, wrapping and food shopping finished, and I have plenty of sewing projects to keep me busy without having to leave the house.

We may not make it to my brother's in Marysville for our Christmas Eve festivities.   I am hosting Christmas dinner again this year for 13 and hopefully everyone will be able to make it.  If not, we will have a LOT of food.

I used my "free time" to make my Simply Sophisticated blocks for this month.  I'm still a month behind, but at least this gets me in the December drawing!   I love the 9-patch blocks!

Good, clean fun!

I'm sorry that my blog has been absent of anything quilt-related - our entire family has been immersed in making soap for a school project for most of November and December.  Our elementary has a Sixth Grade Marketplace every year where each student creates their own business to sell goodies to their classmates and parents to raise money for a 2-day Urban Adventure field trip in May.   We decided on handmade soap for our project, and making 116 bars of soap truly was a family effort!

Sadly, the weather interfered with Marketplace and instead of having 2 days to pitch and sell their products, my boys only had one day due to snow closing school the last 3 days before winter break.  They didn't sell as many as we had hoped, sadly.  But they looked awfully cute while doing it.  Here are my 2 boys (yes, they really are twins!) and you can see our handmade soaps hanging from the tree and on the table.

Looks like everyone I know will be getting soap for Christmas!   VBG.

Busy weekend

It's that busy time of year for everyone, I'm sure.  But I feel like I got a lot accomplished this weekend - most of my Christmas shopping, attending 2 parties, and even some sewing!  My quilt shop Thursday night partner, Liz, gave me the leftovers of this cute Christmas kitty fabric, so I whipped up a new tablerunner.  I used the Atkinson Designs pattern Waffle Time and had this done in just a couple of hours!

I didn't start my decorating, but maybe I'll pull some things out tonight and decorate a little bit each day this week.  I can't believe how close we are to the Big Day!

Thanks to everyone for your interest in my recipes.  I hope you will give Tastebook a try.  I can't wait to get a real, published book with all my favorite recipes in one place!

My new friend

I recently replaced a vital piece of kitchen equipment - my crockpot.  The previous version had given up the ghost - it was no longer cooking properly.  A pretty inexpensive replacement, we got a new crockpot and all is well again.

While we had a truly marvelous family Thanksgiving dinner, it was not at my house and I missed out on any leftovers.  So Sunday morning I threw my Mexican Beef Stew in the crockpot and drove my family crazy with the amazing smell all day while I went to work at the quilt shop.  But then I was able to come home to this delicious meal!

My MIL and I have talked for years about creating a family cookbook of all our favorite recipes.  I have a pile of loose recipes and I'm constantly digging through them, searching for this one or that one.  I went searching online and found several websites that help you create and publish your own cookbook, so I'm trying Tastebook to create a recipe book for my family and perhaps a couple more for gifts.

If you are interested in seeing my family recipes, comment here and I will send you a Tastebook invite.  It's free to join and allows you to share recipes with friends and family.   You can also order a published cookbook, but that's entirely up to you, no obligation!   I hope you don't feel like I'm promoting this website - I really have no personal stake in it at all, I just thought it would be a fun thing to do and I would love to hear any of your family favorites - I am always on the lookout for yummy new foods to try!