Playing Catch-up

So much has been going on and I feel like time is flying by so quickly! That's great when we are going through a deployment but horrible if youre trying to keep up with house work and a blog! :-)

I finally finished my fall quilt before Thanksgiving! I took it to the local quilt shop and they did an overall leaf pattern which came out really nice! Finally... a quilt for myself! I already have another quilt near completion (hand quilting this time) that I started about 4 years ago! Anyhow, this is the picture of the quilt that I saw in a magazine... This is my version of that quilt!

Halloween came and went and we actually had decent weather, for Kansas that is!
I find a lot of inspiration and ideas from some of the fantastic quilt/craft bloggers... At Cornbreadandbeansquilting, Melissa had a great tutorial on a table runner. I didnt have any wintery fabrics on hand but I did have some left over charm packs from this fall (which I like in my home year round) so I gave it a try... I LOVE IT! Thanks Melissa!Another blogger, Vanessa from V and Co. did a great tutorial on Moda Bake Shop on fabric tomatoes... I made them into my own version of pumpkins (although Vanessa's are really cute) and gave them out to friends and lots of teachers as a Thank you gift.I found a poem for the season that I liked and printed them onto some regular paper that I had stained with some "Distress It" (basically tea stain in a bottle... Thanks again to Melissa for that info!) and then also spritzed it with some Bluberry muffin oil and then dried it with my hair dryer (I was too impatient to use my oven). Once dried I ran it through my printer and the rest you can probably figure out! They were a hit and smelled awesome!I love celebrating Veterans Day at a parade in the midwest! There is nothing better than a hometown type of Red, White and Blue parade that honors its vets! We had beautiful weather, a few military jets fly over head and lots of patriotism (without all the political mayhem I might add!). After the parade I took the kids on post to the Ft. Leavenworth National Cemetary and we walked around and talked about who was buried there. I feel it's important to not only understand why their daddy is a soldier but to know that he is part of a military lineage in our family and our country's history and to remind them how proud I am that they serve too! Veterans day is more than a fun parade!Another thing I love about the midwest... the fall season!
Fall also took us to the Red Barn in Weston MO. Lots of fun to be had there! We went as a family and then Tyler was able to go with his preschool.
Cal also had his 2nd grade musical and he was one of the 'big bad squirrels'! The musical was 'Nuts' and they did a great job!

We had a terrific Thanksgiving at the home of some great friends and were even lucky enough to hear from Chris in Afghanistan! We were extra thankful that he was safe (some scarry things went on the past few days) and hopefully we'll get to talk to him again soon! Now we're off to get ready for Calvin's 8th birthday tomorrow and Lydia's 6th birthday on Wednesday! We might even get the tree out and decorated! Enjoy your weekend!