Is Anybody Still There??

Happy 2014!  A year has come and gone and life is ever changing!

My life has been so different this last year with a full house again and watching my grand babies grow and learn and become little social beings.  They bring us much joy!  It is so much fun to watch them interact with one another.  The girls being a year and a half older have taken their little boy cousin under their wings and he loves them dearly, even when they lead him around by the hand and try to make him do what they say to do.  He goes along at first but only for so long before he makes his independence known to them.  He is a boy after all!

I have not put needle to thread for a year now.  Having a 17 month old in the house makes it difficult to get any stitching time.  His little fingers just love to help!  LOL!  Take my word for it, his help is not always helpful!  When knitting or crocheting the skeins of yarn are just so enticing.  He loves to grab the yarn and run away with it.  And I know better than to try to cross stitch with him in the room.   But I really, really need my stitching time, it has been sorely missed.  So, my New Years resolution was to make myself a little spot in the house where I could set up my stitching lamp and be able to block the room to my little helper in the evenings when his mama is home to take care of him.  My bedroom now has a baby gate at the door and my stitching lamp is by my by my bed (there was no room for a chair in my room so the bed has to do for now).  The arrangement is not perfect but I can stitch to my hearts content in the evenings and even during little man's nap time if I want.  What joy to be able to relax with my stitching again!

My stitching time has been productive this new year.  I have started working on a Christmas afghan for myself.  A prayer shawl for the sick at my church has been completed.  (Sorry no pictures of either of those projects.)  And I have finished two WIP from my cross stitch stash which are pictured below!

"He's A Flake" LHN
32 ct gray linen scrap
DMC threads

PS Book No 149 "November"
14 ct fiddlers Lt
DMC threads

"November" was from my UFO pile and "He's A Flake" was from my 2011 Crazy Challenge WIP.  It felt so good to finish these two pieces!  Oh no, just realized I forgot to stitch the buttons on my snowman!! Good thing I was posting about him!  I am going to stitch those three little stitches as soon as I wrap up this post.

I hope that all of you are having a good start to your new year and I wish you all many blessings and much happiness in the coming year!

Until next time!

Hello...It's Been Awhile!

Wow, time really does fly by!  Hope everyone is having a good 2013!  Thought I would catch you up on what has been happening in my world!

Remember way back in November I told you that my daughter and her family were moving close to us, well actually they moved in with us!  They are hoping to save enough money for a down payment on a house over the next year.  The transition has gone well!  We are enjoying having them with us and boy do we enjoy having our precious grandson living with us!  He is really ruling the roost! LOL!

I am his babysitter while his parents are at work and boy had I forgotten how demanding a job that is. I'm not complaining though because I am having so much fun taking care of him and watching him grow.  He is such a good baby!  And he has his grandma wrapped completely around his little finger!

Needless to say there has been no stitching to report on since my empty nest became a full nest again.  I don't even have any current pictures to post of my little grandson or granddaughters, so there will be no pictures in this post.  

Life has been very busy and full for me and free time is at a premium.  I miss my stitching time but my stitching will be there for me as time allows in the future.  Until then, I will stop by your blogs when I can and update my blog when I can.  Just know that I can't always post comments on your blogs but I am keeping up as best as I can.  I hope you will hang in there with me these next few months until life gets back to normal again.  Until then, I will visit and enjoy your stitching updates!

Blessings to you and Happy Stitching!

It's a beautiful Christmas Day!

Merry Christmas!  It is truly a beautiful sunny day here in Virginia!  The presents have all been opened and much food and family time has been enjoyed!  I feel truly blessed!

Wishing all of my followers a most Blessed Christmastide!

Blessings!

God does answer...

Well, here it has been weeks again since a post...thought it was time to update about what is going on in my little piece of the world.

My beautiful, oldest daughter graduated in May from Blue Ridge Community College with her Vet Tech Certification degree.  We are all so proud of her for her 3 years of hard work all the while working full time along with taking classes part time to accomplish this.  The last several months of school were especially hard since she was pregnant and had morning sickness for the whole pregnancy.

Then with her LVT in hand she knew that it was time to find a job closer to home. You see she lives across the state from us and we don't get to visit as much as we would like and when we do it is only for a day or two.  She delivered her son in August and those visits are even more important now and needed.  Babies grow and change so fast and it is hard to try to raise a child with no other family around to help out as needed.

Now on to the point of this post.  I have been praying for months that God would bless my daughter and her little family, bring them many blessings according to his will.  I asked that he help her make her dream of moving closer to us possible by providing a job opening in her field of LVT, one in large animal not small.  There are only a dozen of so equine vet clinics in our state so there are never very many openings for the job she wanted.  Well God does hear our prayers and he answers in his time.

Two weeks after having her son, a job opening was listed for a LVT position at an equine vet hospital, not just any equine vet hospital but the one I use for my horses.  This clinic is less than 10 minutes from my house!  Well she applied for the job, came in for two in house interviews and was offered the job!  Not only that, last week her husband was offered a transfer of his job with the company he works for even though there were no openings listed!  Praise God!  He is so generous and loving!

So as of November 25th, all my living children and their families will all be located within a 45 minute drive of us!  And guess what!  This grandma will be babysitting her cute little grandson while his parents work!

Can you tell I'm excited!  There's more to the story but I will save it for my next post.

Blessings!

Finally A Stitching Update!!

It has been quite a few weeks, even months, since I have done any cross stitching. My mojo must have been on vacation, lol!  Well, I am happy to report that my mojo has made a return and I have managed to get some real stitching time in this past week.

This is one of my 2011 Crazy January Challenge starts. I don't think that I have worked on it since January of 2011. I stopped with only the birds head outlined, part of the wings outlined and a couple of rows of the bird's breast completed.  Wish I had thought to take a before picture of this but I didn't.

Here it is after this week's stitching progress!

Feather Your Nest
With Thy Needle and Thread
32 ct linen; DMC threads; stitched over 2

I am pleased with my progress. There wasn't much time for stitching but any progress made is good.  With some dedication, I should be able to get this one finished this year!

Blessings and Happy Stitching!

Great Family Weekend!

It was such a great weekend!  We all got together to attend the State Fair on Saturday...what a beautiful and fun day it was!

What should we see first?

There was a great petting barn for the children to have a chance to touch and feed the sheep, goats and pigs and other farm animals...The grand-daughters really loved this area...grandma really did too!

Owen and Elyssa...can we take it home grandma!?!

Elyssa and Owen...beautiful girls!

Owen and grandma!

There were some chickens and bunnies to see in the animal pavilion...

Elyssa loved the chickens

Elyssa loved the rabbits

And of course there were tractors to see...

Owen wants to drive a tractor!

All in all it was a fun day filled with memories to cherish!

Riley, 6 weeks old!

My Family!

Hope your weekend was fun too! Bye for now!

Blessings!

Grandma Again!

A big hello to anyone out there still following my little blog!  I see I have lost a few followers in my absence So glad the rest of you stayed around!

Life has been busy these last few months and I have been in a cross-stitch slump...On the other hand, I have crocheted several baby blankets...there seems to be a population explosion in my neck of the woods with several new baby boys born to friends of my children and myself and one precious little girl born just yesterday.

One very special little boy born on August 20 belongs to my beautiful daughter!

He looks just like his daddy! What a sweet baby he is!  I spent 3 weeks staying with my daughter and her husband to help out and of course to spoil this little one rotten!!  Grandma sure enjoyed the time spent with this little fellow!

I hope to get back to stitching soon...I have one more baby blanket to finish crocheting and then I plan to pick up my needle and thread once again.


Blessings to you....