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.

Bearded Dragon

Amanda has always loved things like snakes, lizzards and turtles. We have decided to get a bearded dragon. This is a lizzard. I included a picture. A friend of mine at the Sacramento Bee gave me a 50 gallon tank and I am in the process of getting all the supplies and making sure we have everything we need. I hope to get the dragon in the next couple of weeks. I really want to make sure we have the set up right since they do not do very well if they do not have the right lighting and heat.

Quilted Diamonds

On the Yahoo DJRetreats list Linda Franz author of Quilted Diamonds and Quilted Diamonds 2 is restarting a DOW or Diamond of the Week. This weeks diamond from Quilted Diamonds 1 is #144. I did it today. I have not worked on my Quilted Diamonds in a long time and am hoping the the DOW will get me going. I also included a picture of my diamond medallion (center of the quilt).
I hope to maybe work on this quilt some this summer while it is too hot to have a quilt on your lap and be hand quilting. I forgot how many diamonds I have done, but I think it is close to 100.

Arthritis Walk

On Saturday we participated in the Arthritis Walk in Sacramento. It was a great event. I organized a group of 12 walkers and we managed to raise $1300.00 for the Arthritis Foundation. The walk was 3 miles and we were glad to see that Amanda made it the whole 3 miles. She even ran some of it. She had a great time, but was a little sore in the afternoon. That was to be expected and some ibuprofen took care of the pain. A lot of charity organizations are having their fundraising walks at this time of year. The Make-a-Wish foundation is having one later in the month too. I am not sure we will walk in that one, we will have to see.

Welcome to my first entry in my blog. Here I will let everyone know what is going on with the family and also talk a little about my passion for quilting. The picture with this blog entry is my oldest daughter, Amanda. She is now 8 years old

So to start things off, I will update everyone on what is going on with Make-A-Wish and Amanda. Amanda is being granted a wish from the Make-A-Wish Foundation. This is exciting for us. A few weeks ago they came out and talked with Amanda and she told them her wish was to go to Disneyland and ride the roller coasters. She also wants to get there by train. They said that sometime this summer Amanda's wish will come true.

On to Amanda's health. She is doing well. Amanda is finally off Prednisone and only on Methotrexate once a week. The Dr. might stop that at the end of the month. Her Juvenile Dermatomyositis might actually be in remission this time. She still has a few problems with her muscles in her legs and her hip rotation. She will most likely get xrays/ultrasound to see if there is damage that can/can not be repaired. She has calcinosis in her left thigh that might be limiting the ability of the muscle to stretch much. She has also lost a few pounds in the last few weeks, that has us a little concerned since it is so hard to put weight on her. Her weight is very much below average for her age (not necessarily a bad thing). She eats plenty, so I don't think that is the problem, I have a feeling that because she has no fat for energy, her body is using most of what she eats for energy and not much left over to put some weight on her. It may be a matter of upping her caloric intake with nutrition shakes like pediasure.

That's all for now....Mckenna is awfully quiet, so she is probably into something she shouldn't be.