Ninja Mantis!

My son found a praying mantis (not in his underwear drawer this time- read HERE if you missed that one!) and it was pretty feisty! It looked like a ninja mantis, so enjoy the cool pics I took! So, wouldn't knowing that hundreds of these nasty, fanged things were all over your house creep YOU out?!?

The First Egg!

Our chickens laid their first egg! Well, one of them did, anyway. It is a slightly-blue-ish green color. Our chickens are Araucanas so they will lay colored eggs- each hen lays her own individual color- one might lay blue while another lays green or brown or even (rarely) pink or purple. They call them "Easter egg chickens" and we can't wait to be surprised by the color of eggs we will be getting! YAY for eggs! :)

Mommy's Got a Brand New Bag!

...in fall colors! She like the first one so much I guess that she wanted another. She picked out the fabric- pretty close to the brown version of what she already had. I made the pockets on a whim, sewing them however I felt like it at the time. She filled them up perfectly- pen, checkbook, cell phone, glasses case, etc.
I am still tweaking it as I go, but it is a down-sized version of Amy Butlers Birdie Sling bag. Thanks to Pinterest, though, I plan on trying a new design soon!

Changing Pad

Just a quick show-off here...
I took the scrap pieces leftover from Grace's baby quilt, threw in a few more, and put together a changing pad. It is really just a little quilt. The back uses the striped fabric like my bag (which I am using as a diaper bag these days) and it all coordinates so nicely!

Now, let's just hope she doesn't mess it up! :)

Crafty Bits Sneak Peek Friday

OK. Enough weather and kid posts already, right? Where are the crafts? Yes, I have been crafting, when I am not doing things like freezing 400 ears of sweet corn with Mom or making 14 gallons of applesauce with my sister-in-law. Out of the kitchen, I have been doing a little bit of everything lately when it comes to crafts. Dabbling, I guess.

Fixing a cheerleading skirt and making zebra hair bows for my sister's squad.

CUTE!

I have LOTS of new stitcheries!

Stocking up on ornaments...

...and creating some new designs, too!

OK, I just HAVE to squeeze some cute kid pictures in here!

Such a nice big sister!

Grace is SUCH a good baby! REALLY! And she smiles sooooo big!

I am hoping to link up over at StudioJRU!

A GIVEAWAY and PRETTY QUILTS

My good friend, Anita is having a fantastic giveaway over HERE! You know you want to enter!!! I DID! It is for a qulting book that looks like it has a lot of great projects to try.

Oh, and she has two BEAUTIFUL quilts for sale in her etsy shop, too! This is the one that inspired me to create a baby pinwheel quilt for Grace.

And this one even has a tote bag to go with it!

I can personally attest to the fact that she is a very talented quilter! Click on the pics to go check them out! :)

Weather Part 2

When I show you these pics you will think I am crazy...

Camping in the garage?

No. In my last blog post, I showed a picture of thunderstorms rolling in at dusk. Well, that rained out our camping and it didn't stop raining for quite some time it seemed. I finally got my tent set up to dry a week later, only for dark clouds to roll in.

And remember that bridge? Well, we had to pull them and now we have 2 bridges to nowhere and they didn't cost us taxpayers anything!A terrible downpour came down Friday night after the initial flooding. Our little stream overflowed on the road between the yellow arrows I drew on there. Crazy stuff!My sunroom got wet, and we had some of the road washed out and relocated...

But we are soooooo fortunate! We used to live HERE

(Source and more pictures HERE and the story of what they went through HERE.)

Little creeks that become raging rapids with very little warning also bring a lot of destruction and a lot of ROCKS! Flash flooding in the middle of the night is terrifying- we experienced that, but not nearly to this degree. It just as easily could have been us...

A friend of mine pointed out this Scripture the other day and it really sums up what I am feeling and seeing around here:

God is our refuge and strenghth,

A very present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear,

Even though the earth be removed,

And though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;

Though its waters roar and be troubled,

Thought the mountains shake with its swelling. Psalms 46:1-3

Weather

The seasons are changing, and so is the weather around here. Enjoy some random pics we have taken lately...

fog in the distance at dawn

a storm rolling in at dusk

cows grazing in the sun

an unexpected dam

Evening and morning and at noon

I will pray, and cry aloud,

And He shall hear my voice. Psalm 55:17

First Sewing Lesson- A Twirly Skirt

My daughter wanted me to make a "First Day of School" dress again this year. I didn't feel like it. So, as a compromise, I let her help sew a skirt! She has been begging to learn to sew all summer.

I started out with one yard of a cute fabric and decided to make do with that.So I cut it in half selvage to selvage. And she posed.I was too lazy to get my overlock machine back out since I had just put it away so we pinned the selvage edges together.

And she sewed her very first seam. Kind of. She sat on my lap and I helped guide and I did the pedal part cause it is too easy to have a lead foot and go crazy! Here she is, so proud of her first seams!Then I did the dangerous iron thing and we made an elastic casing for the top. She tried to push the elastic through, but she mostly WHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNED! It was pretty hard because it was at this point that I realized there was about 90 inches of fabric there! Two-for-one: a lesson in patience as well!I hemmed it for her and TA DA! A poofy, twirly skirt! Could have been longer, but this is what I had and we made it work. Very nice for a first sew!

P.S. In case you saw my previous post and were wondering, she wore it for the 2nd day of school cause I couldn't find her white shirt.