Susan's Apple Quilt

Sometimes you see a quilt and you immediately know who should have one just like it.

This apple quilt was that quilt.

My DIL, Susan, needed this quilt so I made one for her birthday.  This is how it looked before quilting and binding.

I included a special label on the scrappy back.

The apples are a variety of reds with a green a several yellow ones thrown in for interest. The backgrounds and sashing are a variety of shirting prints.

The backing is red . . .

with a green stripe  down the center.

This is a cozy quilt.  Once again, I machine quilted it as I continue to practice.  It's not perfect but it is okay.

It has a scrappy green binding including the left over fabric from the leaves.  All the leaves and stems were hand appliqued onto the apples.  I really like the half square outer border which is a mix of apple fabrics and background and sashing fabrics.

I think she liked it.  Doesn't it just look like it belongs to her in her home?  This was a very fun and satisfying project.

Our Christmas week

It's been a DELIGHTFUL seven days of family and fun.

I got to watch Julianna dance at her Christmas recital.

She love wearing her swishing, swirling, sparkling red dance dress.

Hubby and I went to see the lights at the Mesa Temple.

Always a treat.

We also enjoyed listening to the Mountain View High School Chorale.  They sang beautifully and we enjoyed music for the season which honored the birth of our Savior.

My son let me honor his birthday before heading north to spend Christmas with the in-laws.

His girls helped him blow out his lone candle.

He's a very lucky man to have these sweet daughters in his life.

It was a busy Christmas week so I didn't bake a cake but I did make him one of his favorites for dinner, homemade noodles with chicken over mashed potatoes.  The cupcakes came from Sassy's.

I already posted about our annual doughnut day, but didn't include these shots of Julianna entertaining grandpa while he was outside frying.

She's a high flyer.  It was a gorgeous Arizona day with a high of 71 degrees.  A perfect doughnut day.

Grandma, did you get me in the air?

On Sunday, I fixed the annual ham Christmas dinner and we also celebrated DIL Susan's birthday.

They provided the cake and tried to make it somewhat healthy as there were lots of walnuts and carrots.

Julianna was happy for her momma.

She was also happy to finally join the stocking brigade on the fireplace.  Sister Heather decorated a stocking for her as we watched the movie "Christmas Oranges."  She did a great job.  Glen's mother started this tradition of red felt stocking with toes.  Whenever I had a new baby, I would receive a plain stocking in the mail to decorate.  She never sent them decorated.  I have offered the plain stockings as well for grandchildren if wanted but they are in charge of decorating them.  Heather finally came through for Julianna.  Isn't it cute?

On Christmas Eve we grilled pizzas outside, the grand kids' choice, and ate in front of the outside fireplace.  We had just our oldest son's family as all the others were with in-laws or out of state.

There was a smaller cast for out nativity, but still enough to tell the story.

I had to pull out my bathrobe for Joseph as TJ is now over six feet tall.  Those babies are growing right out of our costume box!

Cutest brother/sister shepherds.

Christmas Day we headed to their house for Christmas breakfast and to see what Santa brought and their gifts.  A skate board and helmet.

New clothes from Nate and Nichelle.

She loved her new clothes and thought they went well with her new necklace.

And BB guns.  Not my favorite but their dad and grandpa had fun telling them about their first BB gun.  Notice the eye wear.  Don't shoot your eye out!

Of course my favorite gift was the sewing machine Heather received from Santa.  She has been taking sewing lessons and I think we have another confirmed sewer.  I went over things in the instruction manual with her and helped her get it set up.  When we finally went home, she had already cut out a skirt for her American girl doll and was ready to roll.

We ended the day and the week by finally going to see the movie, "Lincoln," and visiting with the missing children on the telephone.  I hope your week was as merry.

Birthday week and Christmas

The week before Christmas, there is always this juxtaposition of Christmas decorations and birthdays. We celebrate two birthdays during the week before Christmas. We celebrated early with a cake and presents on Sunday. Susan and David have always shared their birthday time during the week that we also celebrate the birth of the Savior.

Before birthday clapping and birthday cake and ice cream, we watched this Christmas video, and I passed out this year's Christmas book, A Christmas Goodnight. We also colored, cut-out, and made these puppets and a puppet theater which I printed off from the book illustrator, Sarah Jane Wright's, web site.

I'm sure that Susan's mother would agree with me that a new baby born at Christmas time is a special gift. I still remember well my feelings as I snuggled a precious new born David at Christmas time.

Family Trip, Day 3

Friday morning, the first day of July found us decorating the townhouse for the weekend.

We have a box of 4th of July decor stored in the garage which comes out the years we happen to be in town.

Colorful flowers which have replaced the tulips near the Museum

This day, we were headed north to Salt Lake City. After an all you can eat French toast breakfast at Kneaders, our destinations were the Church Art and History Museum and Liberty Park. The museum had recently opened a new hands-on children's section and a quilt exhibit. The hands-on section was quickly taken over by a couple of large family reunion groups and wasn't all that enjoyable.

But the quilts were.

There was a great variety.

And a Piecing Wall for Julianna from which she could not be drawn away.

Her goal; empty the wooden box of all its pieces.

Great-aunt Lynette decided to help her. It was fortunate that Julianna enjoyed "piecing" so much thus missing the crowd in the next exhibit space.

After venturing downstairs for the children's artwork exhibit, we moved on to Liberty Park.

They loved the water feature which mimics the canyon streams of the Salt Lake Valley flowing to the Jordan River and on to the Great Salt Lake.

They soon moved on to dam building with their bodies which created flash floods and very wet clothes. Fortunately, we had brought towels but not dry clothes.

Our final Salt Lake stop was The King's English bookstore at 15th East and 1500 South not far from the park.

It is a delight of strung together rooms each with books of a different genre. Of course, we bought books and a game for later and grandpa style bookmarks. This stop was especially for Susan.

After eating and resting at the townhouse, Eric and family hit the streets of Provo for Colonial Days and the Festival of booths on the Courthouse lawn. Glen, Lynette, and I went to the Sundance resort for a patriotic concert provided by the Utah Symphony in the outdoor amphitheater. It was wonderful!

We may all have been dragging a bit after an eventful day but that didn't keep us from Provo Canyon the next morning. Stay tuned!