Our hike

So today we went on a hike along the Consumnes River Preserve. It was a great hike and here are some pictures.

Been a long time

So, it apparently has been a long time since I have posted anything on my blog. I hope that maybe I might be able to keep it up more. I have almost finished a quilt top today. The quilt is called Vintage Valentine. I have been working on it for 2 1/2 years now. All it needs is an outside border, but that requires me going to the quilt store (aw darn!) to find just the right border fabric. So here is a picture of it.

CureJM Recycling Fundraiser

Just an update, made a trip to the recycling place today and we received $26.00 for our efforts so far. I could not fit everything in the van, so I will be making another trip in the next week or so. Thank you to everyone who has contributed recycling to our project.

Amanda's Community Service Recycling Project

Amanda started a Community Service Recycling Project to help raise money for CureJM www.curejm.com this is a foundation that raises money for research for finding a cure for Juvenile Myositis. We asked family and friends to collect cans/plastic/glass for recycling and the money received from the recycling center will be donated to CureJM. We are hoping to raise at least $500.00. Amanda's school is also helping by bringing in recycling. We have already seperated 5 30gallaon trash bags of recyclables.

This project is rewarding in that we are raising money to help find a cure for Juvenile Dermatomyositis (Amanda's Disease) and in the same time we are bringing attention to this rare disease.

Next weekend we will make our first run to the recycling center. Stay tuned for $$ raised!

Halloween 2007

The girls had a lot of fun trick-or-treating last night. They came home with lots of candy! This was Mckenna's first year trick-or-treating.

My Dutch Treat Quilt

Here is some of my dutch treat blocks. It is a quilt by Judy Garden that has blocks that are all reverse applique. I have been working on it lately and have 115 blocks done.

My Redwork Disney Quilt

I finished the top for my redwork Disney quilt. It turned out great and I will start to quilt it soon. I really loved to doing redwork and will eventually do another redwork project but I have other things I want to finish first.

So here is a piccture of it.

Amanda's 9th Birthday

October 4th was Amanda's 9th Birthday. We had a birthday party for her at Chuck E. Cheese. She really enjoyed herself and loved being with all her friends from school. Here are some pics.

Amanda's Piano Recital

This is a video of Amanda at her piano recital on Oct. 6 2007. She is playing with her piano teacher Mary Allen. She did a wonderful job and we are proud of her.

My first Redwork Project

I started to do redwork, which is embroidery in red thread. I love it and it is easy to do. I made this for a friend of mine who has a collie.

Make-a-Wish and Disneyland

We got home from Disneyland two weeks ago and it already seems like a long time ago. Make-a-Wish did a great job of organizing this trip for us. It was hard from me to let someone else take care of the details of our trip. It all started with a limo ride to the airport. Amanda has been on a plane before, so it wasn't much of a big deal. Kendra was a ball of nerves getting on the plane. She enjoyed the plane ride, with the exception of when the plane turned to land and she saw all those houses getting closer. She shut the shades on the windows of the plane. It was funny and you had to be there to appreciate the humor. Our hotel was great and the week in Disneyland was awesome. NO WAITING IN LINES!!! With Make-a-wish, we received a pass that allowed us to go to the front of the lines. I am thankful that my mom and Grant went with us. It really helped with the three girls. They enjoyed themselves too and the time they spent with the girls. So anyway here are some pics from disneyland and there are more on my webshots page also (link to the right of the page)

Disneyland Here We Come

We leave on Monday for Disneyland. The girls are excited. Of course so am I. Thanks to Make-A-Wish for making this happen!

Amanda is now off all her medication. We will have to be careful in Disneyland and make sure that she has sunscreen on at all times and wears a hat. I would really hate to see her have a flare in her JDMS when we get home because of sun exposure.

Hiking

We have been doing a lot of hiking lately. It has been a lot of fun. Part of our objective was to see if we could increase Amanda's endurance a little bit. Also we wanted to test out some trails for the Hiking 4H project we will lead this fall. It has been a lot of fun. We saw a lot of deer and wild turkeys on our hikes. Most of our hikes have been about two miles. I am posting a few pictures from our hikes.

DOW-Diamond of the Week

I have been busy the last few weeks and didn't get much done on the Diamond of the Week from the DJRetreats Yahoo list. So this last week I caught up and did the last three DOW. I am happy with them and glad about the extra motivation the DOW gives me to finish at least one diamond a week. It is the jump start I need to get these finished. Anyway, here are the pictures of my diamonds. The pictures really don't do the diamonds justice. I scanned them on my scanner. I couldn't find the digital camera.

Our new family member

Here he/she is: Spike our new Bearded Dragon. The girls have been fascinated with him ever since we brought him home yesterday. He has eaten well and seems to have adjusted well. He doesn't shy away from me or is agressive when I go to put him in a seperate tank to feed him.

When Amanda and I went to the pet store to get Spike, we stood there and watched the two bearded dragons they had. One didn't give us the time of day and pretty much ignored us. Spike looked us up and down then came to the window where Amanda was standing and looked at her. That is when I knew the Spike was the one going home with us. He is pretty active and I saw him doing the arm waving thing earlier today.

Amanda and Kendra are not too thrilled about the crickets and Mckenna thinks they are bees. Of course any bug is a bee to Mckenna right now. They do like to watch him eat. They think its neat to watch him catch the crickets. I say "him" but I don't really know if it is a female or male dragon. I want to say that from nose to tip of tail he is about 4.5-5inches long. I haven't handled him much yet. I am waiting for him to get a little more comfortable in his new environment.