Trip to Iowa and Back

Here are some of the scenery pics I took on our trip last week:
Lots of farm land.

The pic below is a frozen river or lake in Nebraska.

This picture below is of the Missouri River with chunks of ice all over it.  I think this one was in Omaha, Nebraska.

The silos below are in Omaha with things painted on the different ones.

When we were ready to leave there was a little snow on everything.  This is their back yard with our grand daughters car and ours.

On the trip home, in Northern Missouri we saw a ton of geese.  From horizon to horizon they were flying in v-formation.  I have never seen so many geese at one time.  It was quite a sight.

Iowa Fun

We just returned from a trip from Iowa to see our kids and grand kids there.

The pic above is what we saw a lot of while we were traveling--Mr. Peabody's Coal Train--as my hubby called them.  He has his own name for everything--not kidding.

This train was in Mid Nebraska where we went to watch our grand son, Cyle, play basketball.  That was a lot of fun.  He's the tall #2 waiting to get the rebound.  Cyle's team won--I think the score was 55 to 39 or something like that.  I enjoy watching him play--Go Cyle!

We sat on the bleachers, and here are Papa, and our beautiful grand daughter, Brittany.

Here are two of our beautiful daughters, Erin, and Jennifer. 

The blue purse is mine and I managed to dump some of it's contents underneath the bleachers--the perils of Jerri--I always have to have lots of junk with me.

This day happened to be my birthday, when we got home from the game, Our daughters made a nice meal with Brownies and Ice cream for dessert--Yum! 

Cole entertained us with Chino, the dog's antics--He (Chino) is somethin' else.  We were disappointed that Cole's basketball game was canceled the next day--BOO-HISS!  Jen tells me he's an aggressive guard and I would have loved to see him play, too.

Chino was a lot of fun--never ending excitement.  Can I say, HYPER?

FUN, FUN, FUN!

January Excitement

My sister, Alice, gave me a really nice Birthday present.  I am so glad God gave me sisters--we've been through a lot together, and Sisters are special.

I have started a new Bible Study--Deuteronomy--the most quoted book by Jesus.  New insights into who God is.  The Bible is so rich, and God reveals new insights every time.

We will study Numbers next time, and then we will have completed the Torah--the first five books of the Bible, the Books of the Law, or the Books of Moses, The Pentateuch--I'm not sure I spelled that last one right, but you get the idea.  It has been quite a study so far, and I'm sure it will continue to be.

Snow and Apple Cores

A cold front moved in last night and brought us a skiff of snow.

My poinsettia is still looking good and cheery--(that's why my hubby bought it back in December).  He wanted more color around here, and now we have color. 

On another note, I'm finished piecing my never-ending-apple-cores,  Yeah!  I just need to join the last two big sections together, which won't take long.

This is a long, and pretty wide table runner.  Next I will iron it, and then baste it to batting and backing to get it ready for quilting on the machine.

I see some cores I would like to move, but they are staying where they are.  Period.  You don't really notice it except in a picture--Why is that?

I have enough pieces left for a flag wall quilt, and something else small--Wow, they are never-ending!

Apron Pickyness

Here's the sewing project I made for our daughter.  Although it turned out okay, I'm not real pleased with the pattern.

I wanted the apron to wrap around more, and not be so long--it's just not what I had in mind.  Of course you never know about a pattern until you make it for the first time.  This one needs adjustments made to it.

You can't really tell from looking at the pattern front about these potential problems.  I had to make adjustments to the pattern piece of the body of the apron.  If you look real close, the piece extends past the edge of the material.

I had to put a pleat in the pattern to get it to fit on the material, as you can see below.

I need to make a note of this on the front of the pattern envelope for future reference.  It might have fit on some other fabric--this fabric just happened not to be wide enough.

You can also see I had to piece the apron's ties. 

I made a card for our daughter's birthday. 

Here she is wearing the apron, and she liked it, but I am going to make another one anyway--I have it cut out, and I've made this one before, so I know it will be more to my liking.  She likes this one just fine, but it wasn't what I had in mind.

It was a combination birthday party for our daughter and her son--our seven year old grandson.  His older sisters made the Lego cake for him, and we went together with another daughter, and got him remote control trucks that shoot lasers at each other--that was a big hit, as was the box.  They put their barky little dog inside the box, and he could see out through the cellophane and mostly just sat inside the box and looked out.  He didn't seem to mind either--it was pretty funny to see him just setting their before they let him out.

I liked the cake--so cute.

Apothecary Cuteness

I've been trying to freshen up my counter tops.  I received some really cute apothecary jars for Christmas.  On Pinterest I've pinned several kinds of things to do with them--now I'm rearranging things to see what I think.

There are no guarantees that it will remain this way.

Here's the jars--ain't they cute? 

I like the little birds on top; so sweet.

Which leads to more moving things around. 

I like the quote below.  Not everyone enjoy's my opinions.

I moved my herbs and spices.  They were in a merry-go-round type of contraption that collected a lot of dust, and was hard to clean.  It's gone now.  The herbs and spices are lined up on the back of the buffet part of my hutch.

I can still find them, and hopefully they won't catch as much dust.

We had a New Year's Get-together here yesterday with 31 guests.  I was afraid my house wouldn't hold them all, but it worked out nicely.  Of course we didn't eat until 2 pm because of Church.  I had a Jr. Burger on the way home to hold me until then.  We cleaned up this morning before breakfast. 

I love, love, love a clean house.