halloween octopalooza

Lily and Lexi made and hung these decorations in the middle of the night Wednesday
so we'd wake up to them on Halloween.
There were also little ghosties in our coffee cups. Sweet, sweet girls 💗

Jeremiah, Josiah, and Lily dressed up for Octopalooza

at church on Sunday.

Jeremiah went as The Invisible Man

Josiah was Flat Stanley

interestingly, the invisible man cast a very visible shadow ;-)

and Lily (who made her entire costume herself!) 

dressed up as Maleficent.

(Daddy surprised her and Lexi 

and took them to see the first showing

of the movie on the night it was released 💗)

She made the horns by shaping tinfoil, then adding paper mache'
Taylee sweetly came over and did Lil's makeup

the cape she made from a fitted sheet, and the skirt from a matching pillowcase

 Here she is with Jeremiah

heehee

For the Fall Festival, 

Lexi was a Pop Star

(we'd ordered rainbow-striped over-the-knee socks

that matched her ukulele case candy bag,

but they still haven't arrived😠

She made the earrings after Dad freaked out about her first choice of large hoop earrings.
Then she decided that they were way better than the hoops :-)

 

the jacket was a 50% thrift shop find, and we added some clearance (and a few not on clearance) sparkly patches

Lily was (obviously) a scarecrow,

Lily made this costume by herself, too
except for the 5 hr cornrows straw hair - that was my contribution ;-)

Josiah was a tourist from the nineties

and Jeremiah was

-well-

I'm not entirely sure 😂

Tyler dressed as he's dressed for Halloween

for the past several years,

a farmer.

I do love that man!!              

Brandon and Taylee

were Flynn Rider and Rapunzel

I made his vest out of a $4 long-sleeved turtleneck shirt
and buckles that he made with a 3D printer,
and his bag from a $2 and 50 cent vinyl remnant from JoAnns

The annual buy back the candy Halloween Candy Sale

is already set up

and we've made plans to go to Scott and Jackie's next year.

XO

windows and wall arts

For my birthday a few weeks ago,

Tyler put up window trim in the dining and living rooms

(He did such a good job)

I love it!!

We still need to caulk and paint the final coat,

but it looks sooo much nicer.

(Ignore the mess in that little nook. We do...
It will one day be a desk and shelves)

I'd been waiting for trim to hang anything on the walls.

(had to make sure everything would be perfectly centered,

 ya know)

Now it feels even more like home

💗

hiking cedar falls

So.

I might have been a tad hasty

in saying that it was already winter.

We did have a couple of cold days,

but we've also had some really lovely autumn days too,

and Friday was one of them.

Tyler was going to be off work,

so I had suggested maybe we take a short trip out to Natural Dam

for some nature therapy,

but we decided to drive 2 hours

east to Petite Jean instead,

and hike down to the base of Cedar Falls.

We've had a decent amount of rain lately,

so I figured the water would be flowing pretty good.

It wasn't.

But 

it was still worth the hike down.

(The hike back up liked to kill me though)

Everyone was sore 

by the time we made it back up the huge mountain

but it was good to spend a day together out in God's beautiful creation.

And it truly was 

a perfect fall day.

what fall?

9 days ago, 

I was in the pool.

Last night

it dropped below 40.

We seemed to have skipped Fall entirely

and gone straight to winter.

~

Josiah and Lily both grew a few inches during the summer

(Josiah is a smidge taller than me now,

and Lily is already over 5 ft)
and have no pants that fit.
zero.
nada.
none

like mother; like daughter

We were playing six dice,

and when it wasn't her turn,

Lily stayed busy

 making a fluffy jacket for her Barbie doll.

Tyler mentioned that Lexi plays just like him,

and Lily said, "I play like Mom"

which I thought was odd -

because she takes more risks than I do,

and has been known to say,

"It's only a game"
and we all know 

I'm just a tad too competitive to say that.

"How do you figure?" 

I asked.

"I sew while I play."

As Andrina would say,

Touche'

significant dates

So.

Yesterday, I felt off and out of sorts

for no good reason.

Sure,

life's been busy lately,

and
I've got some hard deadlines looming

(one of which is to turn in 

Intent to Homeschool forms - today!)

but 

nothing that should be causing

the severe grouchiness

and heaviness in my chest.

I snapped at kids,

and deep sighed

(not the good kind of deep sighing,

like when you get to the ocean).

I wanted to lay in bed and kick my feet

and have a big ol' fit

(thankfully I stopped short of that one).

I tried to cry,

because maybe then I'd feel better.

What the heck was my problem?!

I went through the calendar.

No, it's not the 19th (date Dad had the accident)

It's not the 27th (date he died)

It's the 13th for goodness sake.

I have no issues with the 13th.

And then it hit me.

Gramma.

Gramma Joyce died one month ago yesterday.

I don't know why my body and heart

are so affected by significant dates,

even when my mind isn't aware of them,

but that's how I'm wired.

Once I recognized the occasion

and grieved my loss (again)

I was fine.

I love you, Gramma!

I'm so happy you are in heaven now

💗

It's been awhile

I never meant to stay away so long.

one of the many blurry photos I snap and send to Tyler of a new bird at the feeder
(this one is a house finch)

The thing about being away

for a long time

is

it's hard to come back.

There's all this pressure....

Well,

I'm just going to ignore the pressure,

forget about trying to play any sort of catch up

(as if I could even remember...)

and leave it with:

It's been a long (rather rough) year,

but we are here,

and we are well.

And,

I'm sorry if you pop in here regularly

only to find,

yet again,

nothing new.

I'll try to do better;

but no promises.

As always,

you can find me here, 

on the Instagram.

💙

everyone, meet Lucy.

I'm not a big wanter,

but when I want things,

they're big.

It's no secret that I've hoped for a longarm

for years.

And Tyler has wanted one for me

for even longer.

But - longarms cost lots of money

(and take up lots of space)

so I was fine with the knowledge

that it was going to be quite some time

before I got one.

Even so,

for well over a year now,

I've regularly popped in on sites that sell used longarms

and occasionally do a 'quilting' search

in Facebook sales groups

and Craigslist.

Which is how,

2 weeks ago tomorrow,

I came to be the owner 

of a 28-year-old

no frills

Gammill 24" longarm quilting machine

on a 14-foot steel frame.

Everyone,

meet Lucy:

I can still hardly believe she's mine.

Thanks, Love!

all of February

Wow.

That went by in a whoosh, didn't it?!

I ordered this from Charlie and Ella, and it arrived on Valentines Day. I love it so much!!

Let's see.

There was Groundhog Day.

Brandon joined us for the festivities :-)

~

And the Super Bowl.

(Which for us really just means 

snacks.)

~

Some friends gave us tickets

- enough for all of us! - 

to go to a Razorback basketball game.

That was fun,

but I realized I should explained 

some of the rules of the game to them beforehand.

~

I worked my fingers to the bone

trying to finish

Terry Frey's butterfly quilt

so I could enter it in the upcoming NWA quilt show.

When I still had about 50 hrs of work left

and only 2 weeks to do it in,

I knew I had to give up.

It's kinda bummy,

because

if Instagram is any indication,

it would have been really well received,

and I feel like my chance at a ribbon was pretty good.

Ah well.

Speaking of Instagram,

I hit 500 followers a few weeks ago.

It's humbling that that many people 

feel like I have something to offer in this crafty community.

It sure isn't my glamorous, well-styled photography 😆

~

Tyler has continued work on the porch railings

as he's had time

and the weather's been cooperative.

It looks so nice when I drive up!

(It'll really look nice when we paint / stain them!)

~

The girls went to SuperStart

and we babysat kidsat for some friends.

~

The biggest news of the month

is

I went to Quilt Con!!

Long story short,

about a week and half before the trip,

one of my good blogging friends

messaged me to say that

God told her husband 

that he was supposed to send us to Quilt Con.

It was rather humbling to be on the receiving end 

of  such an extravagant gift,

but who am I to get in the way of someone obeying God??

We met in Nashville -

her coming from Arizona, and me from Arkansas.

She was exactly what I expected 

and we pretty much talked non-stop the whole weekend.

We saw hundreds of quilts,

this was my favorite -  made by Wendy Hill

and met a few other quilters.

I tried out some longarms.

We had icecream for dinner.

(yum)

I wish I'd have been more 'myself'

because I feel like I wasn't really much fun.

All in all though, it was a very nice trip

and I'm so grateful for her and her husband's generosity,

and that my man was willing to let me go off 

for a weekend with a 'stranger'.

And I'm grateful that God uses technology

to bring people together.