This is what our garden looked like a week ago. We had an early morning sleet that did not damage the Spring flowers. And today it is in the 80s. What happened to Spring!?
White Trillium (Trillium grandiflorum)
Toadshade Trillium (Trillium sessile)
budding White Trillium
Celandine Poppy
Dutchman’s-Breeches
Photos taken by my son, Noel.
ends with daughter turning 21! We Schutts have 7 birthdays between Febuary 23 and April 13th. We celebrated our daughter Janelle’s birthday Monday night, a day early, as she had plans with friends the evening of her 21st birthday. Here are just a few pictures of the celebration.
Sorry to friends and family that a cropped out of this picture! I just wanted to zoom in on the birthday girl with her goofy smile!
Yummy Ginger ShortCake with fresh fruit and candles.
The blowing out of candles. (The picture singing was just too goofy to show!) We have here boy friend Luke B. Hall, sister Anna, friend Joel, Mom, Dad, and sister Charis round the birthday girl. Brothers Luke and Noel are present but not in picture.
There are also many of our extented family members celebrating in Feb – April. I think I have counted at least nine more of us celebrating birthdays during this time! So Happy Birthday to all of you!
I have a big ZERO completed for March for the One Project a Month. Oh well. But I have been working on other projects. That means sometime this year I’ll have several completed quilts. Maybe I should just plan a few small projects a month so as to have something completed to show when the end of the month rolls around!
The is a sneak peak of an idea I’m playing with for a quilt challenge. Three Creative Studios: Passage.
The are a few of the many blocks my daughter has sewn for a bed size quilt she is working on. She is being very diligent!
Of the seven Schutts there are 5 birthdays in March! 5 of us! Plus one in February and one in April! Tis busier around here now than at Christmas time! And we are a goofy bunch. So here are some pictures from my hubby’s birthday and mine.
The lighting of many candles for Hubby’s cake! It took four kids – with me on the side line giving instructions! And the eldest snapping the photos.
Goofy Hubby and the five kids behind him. Me snapping the photo this time. DH said you should have felt the heat coming off of all those candles!
Look at all that smoke coming off of those candles! Happy Birthday John! (March 4th)
And now my birthday – today – March 7th!
The goofiest of all photos! That’s me – who is very un-photogenic, but actually looking pretty good here! Sorry to the rest of the family who are looking …. well … poor.
And here I am (not so photogenic here) holding one of my wonderful gifts! This is a collage by Sarah Wyman, as seen in the Jan/Feb 2010 issue of Cloth Paper Scissors Magazine. I love that magazine and LOVE Sarah’s art! I made up an Etsy wish list and DH bought this for me!
My middle daughter planned a wonderful meal for me using the cookbook Food to Live By, by Myra Goodman. She pulled some of her siblings in to help prepare the meal. We had Tuscan White Bean Stew, Spicy Chicken Lettuce Wraps, and Creamy Shells & Three Cheeses. Dessert was a chocolate cake from Whole Foods for the Whole Family. YUM!
After lunch we headed to a county park for some pre-spring walking. Lovely day to be outside! Son #1 was on the look out for a sign of Spring – and he found it in one of the first plants to stick it’s leafy head up through the ground with snow still on the ground in NE Indiana – - Skunk Cabbage!
The girls actually found several in a valley on the banks of a stream. Here we are in the great out-of-doors. Goofiness!
Me with youngest daughter, Charis.
Me with daughter, Anna.
Me with daughter, Janelle. That is snow in the background!!! (Wish you could see all the goofiness going on between each photo! We would need a video camera for that!)
Dear Husband, John.
Me with John.
Son, Noel. And once again son Luke has evaded the camera! (But Luke is in the photos at the top of the post, with sibling behind the parents!)
On New Year’s Day my two teen daughters woke up with the question, “What are we doing today?” I answered that they had the go-ahead to swap rooms. Youngest gets the room left vacant by an older sibling moving out. Next-in-line gets to move into the spare bedroom we have set up as a library/sewing room. Library moves into the room the girls are leaving, called the bunkbed room. It has two sets of built in bunkbeds, two built in desks and a built in dresser. Three closets, one a walk-in. I get just over half of the space in the bunkbed room as my sewing room! Should I call it my quilting studio?! The upside for me is my former sewing space was 6′ x 6′ in a 10′ x 16′ room, and it will be a 13′ x 13′ space in a room that is 13′ x 24′. True it does have the disadvantage of two sets of built in bunkbeds. But hmmm. That could be more storage space, right?
Here is my former space.
There is usually a love-seat in front of the bookshelves full of fabric – but it moved with elder child moving out. So I just counted the 6′ x 6′ square of space of the white cabinet and desk that my sewing machine sits on.
Here is half of the vacant bunkbed room waiting for all the library stuff and my quilting stash!
There is a built-in dresser to the left of the desk and then the room is a mirror image of this photo. You are looking into the room from the doorway. At first I thought I’d set up the quilting in this right half of the room. But sons want this half for the computer desk. I get the other side of the room. I’m not showing my new space in all its disarray right now, but I will show the new set up once it is organized!
Recent road trip to a park with lovely waterfalls.
Daughter needs to use a loo – you know, the ladies room, rest room, r n’ r, powder room, lavatory, commode, privy, outhouse.
We find a clean little two seater with running water and all.
Daughter emerged laughing saying we must be in a high security area ….
TP is under lock and key!!
We could not resist ….
We nabbed some!!!
Checking – coast is clear …..
Mad dash to get-a-way vehicle!!!
… so I’m just a little late with this announcement, BUT, my son’s widget, Padlock, for Mac OS X was the staff’s Number ONE widget pick just a few days ago!
He creates widgets for Dashboard OS X and also he writes applications for the iPhone. His latest iPhone game, Haunted Mirror Maze, is currently on sale for just $1.00 as a Halloween special!
Way to go Luke! Love ya! Mom
The quilt tops I pieced for my parents should be returning to me soon from the longarm quilter. I’ve been making flower yo-yos with this nifty little gadget. I appliqued a vine on the quilt for my Mom and will add leaves, traditional yo-yos, and the flower ones as well. This is one of those acts of love – as yo-yos are not really my style, but something my Mom will most definitely love.
I did see a really cool use of yo-yos on Calamity Kim’s website. Check out her purse! Hmm! Maybe yo-yos are my style after all!
Here are fabrics for my next quilt. Fairies! I purchased the fairy fabric from Engine House Quilt Shop. And the blues and greens come from Pieced Together Quilt Shop. Both are lovely shops here in Indiana. Fun owners!
While in Knoxville last week, I solicited the help of my 8 year old friend Ruthie to help with the wrecking. She was more than happy to help out! Actually, rather gleeful! Wish I had a picture to show her in action! She is a very special and sweet child with Down Syndrome. Her name is Ruth Rachel, but by the end of our playing, I was calling her Ruth Rascal, which her mother said was very fitting! I showed Ruth my journal while her Mom had to run some errands and asked if she would like to do some ‘art’ with me. “YES!” she replied! So I turned to a blank page and asked her to write her name, which she did with no problems. Then I ripped out the page and crumpled it up so we could play Journal Golf. She was very good at kicking the paper ball through the ‘tent’ but the book is getting so full that I had to mostly hold it up.
Next I traced her hand and then she drew in her fingernails. She is so cute giggling as she colored away!
Then I turned to the color out side the lines pages and Ruthie did her thing!
By this time the markers are falling on the floor so I bent down to pick them up and Ruthie is just giggling and coloring away! BUT as I sit back up, Ruthie has turned to the pencil poke page and is adding her signature art work to that page! At first I thought “OH no! this page is just like I like it!” But the very next thought was “this is a wreck this journal venture” so I picked up a marker and joined in coloring in the circles on the page. And thus I started calling her Ruth Rascal.
The last page for last week was glueing in a newspaper page. I found the job fair page and glued it in as a hint to my hubby! He had applied to a job west of Knoxville, but had not heard anything back from them. I wanted him to call while in the area. He wasn’t feeling well by this time – picked up some virus or bacteria on our trip – coughing, sore throat, headache. Anyway the page is in and the good news is he does now have a one year position starting this week at a local state university in our home town! So thank you to all who have shared kind thoughts and encouragement in response to my post about the need for a job back in Week 2 of the Wrecking! This gives us some breathing space as his search for a full time position will continue. …. Thanks again for the well wishes during this time!
Sorry I have been so long in posting. I have lots to share and will start with this picture of these pretty ladies on their way to “Moonlit Morocco” Prom 2009.
Charis and Anna
