B is Three!

Today was my baby B's third birthday! Her name is Beverly Jeane, but we call her Betsy. Last night we had her "birthday party" which actually consisted of really good food & family (Des and her kids came down too), plus some pirate decorations and red-frosted cupcakes. She was very happy.

Following are some pics of B throughout this past year, and at her party last night. Couldn't put them all up because she's in her underwear (always it seems) (don't want the childp-rn ppl to steal her pics). Notice she ALWAYS has something on her face! LOL!

Wordless Wednesday

Beverly didn't feel well today.

It's Been a WEEK?!?

Where did the time go? What do I have to show for it?

Well, I don't have a new motorcycle. We looked into getting a 900 v-twin last weekend but someone just beat us to it. His buddy might have a 650 Honda, will get back to us. Hmmm.

Beverly has done some more Photography. Again, from a 2 yr. old's eye view, here is An Evening In With Mom. Also titled, B's Eye View 2. Wow, dust on the laptop. Who would think?

I have 5 loads of laundry in my living room to fold. We are in the throes of the Weird and Ugly Fabric Challenge #15 deadline-approach. It is actually tonight at midnight. So not much else is getting done right now.

That isn't the only reason things are really piling up. We decided to open a shop at Etsy for fleece, carded fiber batts, and handspun yarns and let 14 yod Diantha run it as part of her high school curriculum. So we have spent the last several days washing raw fleece, dyeing, carding, spinning, etc. Her shop is up and running, with over a dozen shop hearts, item hearts, and one sale already... in 3 days. She applied and was accepted to SHEteam... but we haven't heard back from Etsyknitters. Stop on over and take a look... Fluff4Ewe.etsy.com.

On the left just above here you can see one of the handspun yarns we put up in the shop... Candylicious! This is 100% Montadale lamb that we processed from raw fleece. We dyed it and spun it into a lumpy, bumpy, fun self-striping yarn with just a tiny trace of the lanolin still in it.

On the right is her first sale... a carded batt of hand dyed pink Corriedale, black Alpaca, and green Merino, called What A Melon. Yum!

We've managed to nab a couple Treasury Wests, including this one on the left from Richard's Rossoaps shop, called Leather Up, Guys! and featuring all leather items. Most were made by men on Etsy. I think a lot of people think of Etsy as a ladies' marketplace, but that isn't necessarily so. Once in a while it is nice for the guys to have the spotlight.

Diantha got a T West right off the bat (savvy, or what?) She called hers Fluff n Stuff, in honor of her new shop.

She is, at this writing, in THREE treasuries that our own family did not make: Isn't SHE lovely (with the Candylicious yarn above), and SHE is Diverse and SHE Loves Her Jeans, both featuring her Oceana yarn.

My My7kids shop is an alternate in the SHE Loves Her Jeans treasury, and my HeartFeltFun shop has an item in a T called Song Sung Blue.

I have been in an incredible lot of pain with a kidney stone that seems to not want to pass. Almost 3 weeks now, and it is wearing me down. Well maybe tomorrow will be a better day!

Happy Birthday B

Lots of pics again tonight. First off, today our Bradford Pears decided to bloom. Yesterday there weren't any flowers on them, and today there are. This is Beverly with a sprig of the flowers in her hair. I hate the way the flowers smell, it is something too sweet and slightly like decay... and as of today, our area will be Sinus Hell for a while. But they sure are purty to look at. LoL.

It was a beautiful day. The kids played in the yard. In fact, here is Beverly with her hero and big brother Artemas, who is "sunbathing." Sure.

For about an hour this afternoon I sat in the sun with my feet up and knitted a little something I am working on for my HeartFeltFun Boutique at Etsy. I could tell you what it is, but then I'd have to... oh nevermind. To the left, you will see my afternoon view. Boy I love to go barefoot.

We did quilt blocks today too. We were a day behind, so we both did one for yesterday. The block was called Wagon Wheel. Diantha, being a sensible child, did hers in such calm colors, as seen on the right.

And since my block is going in my Ranger quilt for the Bumbling Bounty Hunters Mini Quilt Challenge, I called it Probably Hot Wheels and did it in very Ranger-y colors, as seen here to the left. LoL.

Then we did today's block, which was called Road to Oklahama. Again, Diantha selected a more conservative palate, as seen here to the right. I just LOVE her choices in layouts. (And the bubbles! Gotta love the bubbles!)

And once again, I called mine something different, since mine is for my Edna (Grandma) Mazur quilt in the above-mentioned challenge. In the Stephanie Plum Novels (Hot Six) Grandma Mazur once decided to get a driver's license. She practiced and practiced, took the test 6 times and passed. And then in ONE week, accumulated enough points in speeding tickets to lose her license for life. So mine is not Road to Oklahoma, it is Road Hazard. As you can see, I tweaked the 4-patches accordingly.

Alrighty, today is (was, oh dear, I am posting SO late again!) Beverly Jeane's Birthday!!! Yippee!! She is TWO years old! So I am giving the world a little tiny peek at the blessing that has been Beverly Jeane "Betsy" Ross for the past 2 years.

Here is little baby Betsy at a week old... doing bilirubin light therapy in her bassinet at home. See the bruises? She was born in only an hour, and she was born face first, then turned. Her entire face from the hairline, across the brow, and down the center of the front was bruised from the fast trip past the pubic bone. By a week the bruises had settled around her eyes, so she only looked like we beat her instead of just run over her with the car. See how peacefully she is sleeping though!

We skip to 8 weeks old, and what do ya know, she is SLEEPING again! Wonder she could do that at all in a small house with 7 other people. But she was a peaceful baby, which is a blessing.

I LOVE this picture, wrapped snugly up in the beautiful quilt made for her by her big sister Desiree. We had refrigerator magnets made from this print, and sent one to my Aunt Bev down in Florida, so she could see her little namesake great niece (and kept one for us, since it was so cute!).

Fast forward to the first birthday. We had to go to Florida to retrieve some dental records on a couple of the kids, and just happened to be there over the baby's birthday. So we went to Venice to visit Aunt Bev. Spent the day wandering the town and going to the beach (little B did NOT like the sand, like her mama). All the kids got wet in the surf, despite grave warnings to the contrary.

I could have taken them all to Walmart or Target to get dry clothes on the way out to dinner, but I told my cousin, if a person is going to get their clothes wet when they know they are going to dinner, they should have to get an outfit from the Goodwill. The Goodwill there has a warehouse on the back where they dump all the donated and unsorted clothing in bins and you pay $1 a pound for them! So we all went and dug, dug, dug through bins until every member of the family had "new" clothes to go out to eat in. My cousin said she had never done anything like this before and it was FUN!! I paid $4.70 for 6 people worth of clothing, and we went to dinner (and on to have cake) in style. LoL! This is a picture of the elder and younger Beverlies and the birthday cake.

One more... I took this one last night. Betsy had a walkie-talkie headset on and was walking around the house "taking orders" like they do at fast food places. She kept saying "Fee Fies" and bring me pretend milkshakes. What fun.

I am so thankful that God has blessed us with this one more child. I am thankful for her cleverness, her brightness, her gentleness, and her humor (because yes, right from the beginning, she has a sense of humor). I am thankful for this, another opportunity to win a soul to the Lord and nurture a person who can make, however small, a difference.

And I thank YOU for letting me share her!