Lia's Baby Shower

Aren't these the cutest bibs...

.....and YES, don't tell anyone, but I broke down and bought PU outfits!!!!


This past Sunday was Gretchen and Lia's baby shower, hosted by her dear friend Kelly and her mom Becky. It was such a nice event, and the presents were glorious as any baby shower should be. Mommy Gretchen glowed, and Lia was quite pleased with all her presents if some of the uncomfortableness Gretchen kept experiencing with her ribs were any indication!!






Here's Gretchen with the quilt I made for Lia as well as the slide show of pictures from the shower...

Rest In Peace My Friends..

It's been a sad week for friends of mine, and I hope you will keep each of them and their families in your prayers....

The week started out with my friend Donna calling to tell me her Busia (Grandmother), who she was very close to, passed away at the age of 95! What a wonderful life this woman has left, and what great gifts Donna has taken from her!

The Tuesday night a call came fom my friend Tina, who lost her Dad, who had just been taken to the University of Chicago Hospital for testing, and found to have some lung diseases. He went very peacefully also, and my heart goes out to Tina also, knowing how hard it is to lose a Dad!!

Heaven is filled with wonderful new angels this week, and we all must find ways to find peace with that!!

Clay Balls

A man was exploring caves by the Seashore. In one of the caves he found a canvas bag with a bunch of hardened clay balls. It was like someone had rolled clay balls and left them out in the sun to bake. They didn't look like much, but they intrigued the man, so he took the bag out of the cave with him. As he strolled along the beach, he would throw the clay balls one at a time out into the ocean as far as he could.
He thought little about it, until he dropped one of the clay balls and it cracked open on a rock .
Inside was a beautiful, precious stone!
Excited, the man started breaking open the remaining clay balls. Each contained a similar treasure. He found thousands of dollars worth of jewels in the 20 or so clay balls he had left.
Then it struck him. He had been on the beach a long time. He had thrown maybe 50 or 60 of the clay balls with their hidden treasure into the ocean waves. Instead of thousands of dollars in treasure, he could have taken home tens of thousands, but he had just thrown it away!
It's like that with people. We look at someone, maybe even ourselves, and we see the external clay vessel. It doesn't look like much from the outside. It isn't always beautiful or sparkling, so we discount it...We see that person as less important than someone more beautiful or stylish or well known or wealthy. But we have not taken the time to find the treasure hidden inside that person.
There is a treasure in each and every one of us. If we take the time to get to know that person, and if we ask God to show us that person the way He sees them, then the clay begins to peel away and the brilliant gem begins to shine forth.
May we not come to the end of our lives and find out that we have thrown away a fortune in friendships because the gems were hidden in bits of clay. May we see the people in our world as God sees them.
I am so blessed by the gems of friendship I have with you. Thank you for looking beyond my clay vessel.

RORIE'S 7TH BIRTHDAY PARTY

Tonight we celebrated Rorie's 7th birthday with dinner, family and cake at her favorite restaurant Hacienda! Here is a slide show of the event tonight! I really enjoy the pictures of AJ practicing his "Daddy" skills with his new cousin Chance!

Savannah Baby Shower for Karla

Had the opportunity to fly out to Savannah this past weekend to attend the baby shower for Karla that her friends put on for her! We had an awesome time! Thought I'd share some photos from the shower for all to enjoy!!

BOAT SHOW MICHIGAN CITY

IT WAS a cold morning up on Lake Michigan today, where we ventured out to visit the Michigan City Annual Boat show! You can tell by the clouds in the sky, it wasn't a pleasant morning with temps hoovering around the mid 50's. We still enjoyed the boat show though!

While venturing through all the booths set up at the boat show, we came across the cool hats that have "surfer hair" attached to the top of the visor, and of course, both Greg and Mike had to model them for us!! But neither one of them found the hat to be a "must have"!

This picture is of the Coast Guard boat venturing out of the harbor, and let me tell you (since the picture doesn't really show you), I would not have wanted to be out in that water today, even if someone had offered me the $975,000 boat I fell in love with!!! This boat was rocking and rolling so much, I swear it was ready to capsize!!

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JAZZ Attack in Michigan City, IN

Mike and I were given a pair of tickets to the Smooth Jazz at South Shore last night which is down at Washington Park, on Lake Michigan in Michigan City! On the way there I found the Jazz station on his Siris station, and we looked at one another and said "Do we really want to go sit out in this chilly weather and listen to this?" Well, since the tickets were given to us, and the face value on them were $40 a ticket, we thought it would be the right thing to do!! And WE ARE BOTH GLAD WE DID!! What an amazing concert this turned out to be! And what a beautiful place the Guy Foreman Amphitheater on the South Shore of Lake Michigan is! Above is Jonathan Butler from South Africa, an excellent artist with the nylon string instruments and wonderful voice!

These two guys, Rick Braun and Richard Elliot, are absolutely incredible musicians, and know how to play to the crowd!

The two artists...oops...these aren't artists, this is Jay and Donna, our friends who were enjoying the concert with us!

I Am Still A Quilting....

Well, finally finished the top of the quilt for Lyla Ann, who is due December 1st!! The baby shower in Savannah is in two weeks, so I think I am leaving myself enough time to get down to work on the sewing machine and quilt it, and finish the binding! I LOVE THESE COLORS!! And can only hope Shawn and Karla and Lyla will love it too! (Shawn if you read this, cuz you're probably the only one who does....NO spilling the secret to Karla!!) Then once this one is finished, I'll have a month to do the next granddaughter quilt for Lia...must start thinking of ideas for hers!!

A Moms Proudest Moments.....

Every time a major milestone happens in Shawn and AJ's lives, I truely believe it is the most PROUDEST moment a mother can have. When they got married, I never thought I would be more proud of them than at that time, finding a wonderful woman to spend the rest of their lives with!Well, I was PROVED WRONG once again!! Seeing the joy in my sons faces and hearts when they talk about becoming fathers beats anything that has happened thus far! They absolutely GLOW....now I know...it's the pregnant mother that glows too...but my heart jumps everytime I listen to them talk about their children to be!! And I know they will make the GREATEST DADS in the whole world!! I love them so much, and I will continue to thank God every day that they have turned out to be such wonderful young men, and know that one day, they will look back and realize that a parent can't love their children enough!

Presents for Lyla and Lia from Grandpa Mike

As soon as Mike heard he was going to be gifted with granddaughters, you all know the second comment to come from him was "Call the Bookstore and order cheerleading outfits"!! The first words were "They aren't allowed to date until they are 31!" He's pretty excited to be a Grandfather, and has high hopes of having them all at the same time one week every summer, so that he can introduce them and teach them to "GOLF & FISH"!

So here are pictures of both Shawn and AJ opening not only their cheerleading outfits, but little IU booties to wear home, and "Somebody at IU loves you" Grandpaw teddy bears!

It's A non traditional baby shower

A surprise baby shower was held Friday night for Shawn and Karla (unfortunately Karla couldn't be here) and here are some pictures from our fun night~~ Shawn came back to his home town for a recruiting trip, and knowing this would be the last time he'd be here before baby Lyla arrives, and knowing that Karla can't make it back before then also, family and friends gathered to welcome Shawn and Karla into parenthood!!

18 Years of Marriage, and still going...

WOW! Mike and I celebrate 18 years of marriage today, the 12th! It doesn't seem like it's been 18 years, but I'm happy to announce that I LOVE him lots more than I did 18 years ago! I wanted to do something for the two of us, so that we have another 18 years together, and came up with the idea of new bikes, so that the two of us could spend a little more time together, and help us to become a little healthier! Next step is to get Mike some better "riding" clothes, as I don't think he'll be very comfortable in his suit pants and dress shirt and tie riding the trails!

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY MIKE! I LOVE YOU!!

Announcing......

A Baby Quilt for Chase

My latest quilt to finish, is this Winnie the Pooh quilt for my newest GREAT NEPHEW to arrive mid August! CHASE will be the son of my niece Nichole (pictured here with yours truely!!) and the first grandchild to my sister April, who will beat me with the title "GRANDMA" by just short of 4 months!! Here is April's sister-in-law, yours truely, and my sister April, at the baby shower that we gave for Nichole!

A Tribute to DAD!

Look at that smile! It's one I'll always have with me for the rest of my life!! God rest his weary soul, my father passed away May 13th, 2009, the day after his 74th birthday, of a blood clot to his heart! I visited my father that afternoon, I just had a few extra minutes that I took to stop and say hello, at the nursing home where he was undergoing some physical therapy for a broken femur, from a fall a few weeks earlier. I AM SO GLAD I DID~~~ I will never forget the smile on his face when I walked in his room, and he said "HEY..what are you doing here, you're not suppose to be here until tonight!". Knowing that my stopping in made him smile, will always change my heart, about taking time to do the things that matter the most, for you see that evening we were all going to the nursing home that night to take him Barnaby's Pizza and have a birthday celebration with him, but at 4:30 that afternoon, the nursing home called to tell us that he had quit breathing, and they couldn't revive him. So I do feel so fortunate for taking a few extra minutes that day to stop by, and say hello, and give him one last hug!
My Dad loved to smile, and to dance in his younger years, before he started having so many problems with his legs, knees and feet. He loved life, loved his children, his grandchildren, and great grandchildren, and was looking forward to the birth of 3 additional great granchildren later this year. He loved to travel, loved to gamble at the casino's, and always accepted an invitation to any party or family get together that was had. Dad may have looked like the tough guy, but down deep he was a softy! I once avoided my Dad for a whole week when I was a teenager, afraid to see him face to face, because I was pregnant and only a teen, and mom finally made me go down to the family room to see him, and all I did was crawl on his lap, and cry with him, while he told me everything would be alright!! There was never any looking back he said, just looking forward and making the best of it! He was the ultimate provider for our family, always making sure all 5 of us kids and my mother had what we needed, letting my mother be a stay at home mom and be there for us, while he worked hard for the telephone company in the day that they had to climb those poles to make sure all service was working. Then he'd come home, and there were always the "family dinners"...seven of us (and many a time alot more than that) where we would all talk about our day. After prayers were said, Dad many many a time added "Good Bread, Good Food, Good God let's eat"!! we always got such a chuckle out of that!!

He didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it. ~Clarence Budington Kelland

So as fathers day approaches, I salute my dad! The one who I've looked up to all my life, the one who never judged, who always told me you can't look back, look forward and do your best! You're my hero Dad, and I miss you more than words can say! Now when I find the lost pennies and see the butterflies fluttering around me, I'll know you're still there! I love you!

The greatest gift I ever had Came from God; I call him Dad!~Author Unknown

"DOUBLE TROUBLE" and Baby makes 3 again!!

Isn't that a catchy title???? And I know you're just asking the question .. Is it twins??? Nope...not twins, but 2 grandbabies are coming our way for sure!!! A Doctors appointment on Tuesday confirmed that my youngest son AJ and my daughter-in-law Gretchen are expecting a new bundle of joy December 11th!! I am so proud!! YEAH!!!! GRAMMIE strikes again!! This is going to be the greatest Christmas present ever...2 grandchildren! I better get busy on those baby quilts...anyone have ideas????

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY EVERYONE!! Especially to those "mothers to be"!!

ROLES REVERSED!!

Wow...the roles in my life the past week have reversed! I've heard the stories about children all of a sudden taking care of parents, and always hoped that would never have to happen to us! But lo and behold this last week has been a stressful one!

A call last Saturday morning at 5:30 am my time proved to be my sister informing me she just got a call from dad, who tripped coming out of his bathroom, and couldn't get up, for sure he had broke somthing! Okay, so we'll meet at the ER and get whatevers broke fixed! Yep, that's what's happing alright!! Dad proved to have some very fragile bones, and actually ended up breaking his left leg femur from Hip to Knee!! OUCH!!! What pain!! Saturday was spent in the ER till late afternoon, when we finally got word that he would be admitted and surgery with an orthopedic was scheduled for 7:30 am on Sunday to insert a rod into the middle of the break and pin it in! What was originally scheduled for an hour to hour and a half surgery took well of 3 hours, basically due to Dads weight and health issues. When surgery was finished and they took him to Recovery, we expected him to be back in his room within an hour or two, and we could all see him, and check in. No problem...everyone left, but hubby and me, because we wanted to make sure all was fine and wait until he was settled. Well about 3-1/2 hours later, a nurse came out to tell us that they couldn't get Dads blood pressure up, his sugar level down, his heart to beat right, and he went into renal failure, so they were moving him to ICU immediately where he ended up staying until Wednesday, when all was as good as they were going to get it, and all organs were back to working. So now he's been back on the cardiac floor and the pt floor, and tomorrow he is visiting a Rehab facility for as long as it takes to get him to be self sufficient again! After a visit to his apartment today, to grab clothes, and such for his newfound temporary home, I'm wondering if moving in with one of his daughters, or a assisted living facility woulnd't be a good idea!! My heart to heart talks with him are NOT getting me anywhere, but emotionally drained!! So all...keep your fingers crossed, your prayers said, and maybe, just maybe this was the straw that broke, to make him realize he HAS to take care of himself!! When he sees his cupboards and refrigerator cleaned out when he gets home from ALL the sweets (that a diabetic isn't suppose to even think about!!) gone, I'm sure I'll hear all about it!!

AVE MARIA UNIVERSITY HAS THEIR VERY FIRST BASEBALL COACH!!!

My son Shawn is making history!! He is officially now the 1st Baseball Coach for Ave Maria University! (www.avemaria.edu) Ave Maria University is a Catholic University started by Thomas Monaghan, the founder of Domino's Pizza, and former owner of the Detroit Tigers, and opened their doors just a few years ago in August 2003. This is an excellent opportunity for Shawn to come in on the ground floor, and be so involved in not just the baseball and campus life, but a part of the Catholic community of Ave Maria, Florida! It will be a busy few months, as Karla will stay in Savannah finishing out her job, working on getting her Florida license, and putting the house up for sale!! Anyone need a beautiful new home in the Savannah area??? I'm sure things will go very smoothly for them, I have alot of confidence and faith!! oh yeah...on top of all this, we must remember that she is going to be a MOMMY at the beginning of December (I am projecting a December 10th birth date, which would be my MOMs 70th birthday if she were still here with us!) and is going through all the "morning sickness" of the early stages! So we really need to keep our prayers happening for her too! I had someone make the remark a few days ago that they don't understand why they call it "morning" sickness, because it happens at all hours of the day!

BLUE SWAP DONE......

I have finally finished my blue swap blocks, and have them officially in the mail to the Swap leader. Our next one will be using our green scraps, and should tie in very nicely with the blues and purples we've already done! When I receive the greens, I should have enough to create and KEEP my very own (and YES!!!!! I'll finally keep a quilt I finish). This is turning out to be a fun project, and the more I sew these blocks, the more I like them!!!