A Trip to New England

Last Sunday we went to Molly's baptism in Brooklyn.  She was pretty good only protesting once.  Then we left for the New England coast. I could have stayed at Hampton Beach forever. The water was too cold for swimming but the beach was fantastic. We managed to drive through all the New England states.  The weather was perfect and Hubby and I really enjoyed ourselves.

The Dress is Finished

I finished Molly's Christening dress.  I only had to clean up one blood spot. As many pins as I used to keep everything from sliding, it is a wonder the dress wasn't pink. I cut up the rest of the wedding dress, washed it and put it away. If she has a boy sometime and has him baptized at 6 months, I will make him a little suit. This dress is just too girly for a 6 month old boy.

Morning in the Garden

Every morning Hubby and I have breakfast on the deck.  We watch the birds and Arnold with his leash trailing behind hunts chipmunks. This morning we sat out there for over two hours as the weather was perfect and after all we are retired and it is Saturday. In that time frame we saw sparrows, goldfinches, nuthatches, downy woodpeckers, a ladder back woodpecker, cardinals, a Baltimore Oriole, a humming bird, chickadees, robins, red wing blackbird, purple grackle and a mourning dove. Arnold didn't catch anything although he gave a couple of chipmunks a good chase.  So far this year he has caught 1 chipmunk, 4 moles and a red squirrel. He is not interested in birds, thank goodness.

Making a Christening Dress

We have had company for the last two weeks.  It was great to see the kids and have the grandchildren visit, but the quiet feels good too. Gretel asked me to make Molly's Christening gown for her and upon my Mom's suggestion I am making it out of Gretel's wedding gown. After the initial bout of courage to cut up a wedding gown, I have begun. The dress will be a sheer material on top of a silky material. Everything slips and slides! I waited until everyone was gone to start it and now I have the bodice and the front pleats done, so I think I will take a break.

Out of Control

My life is out of control! The garden is beautiful.  This morning I planted a flat of Marigolds just to fill in the rock garden. It has been so dry here that Hubby had to add water to the water garden and the rain barrel (just to keep the goldfish alive.)(Perhaps I didn't tell you. Hubby uses a trash can to collect rain water from the downspout.  He noticed he had mosquito larvae growing in it , so he bought some feeder goldfish.  They ate all the larvae but he worried they didn't have enough oxygen, so he bought an aerator for them. Now he worries they don't have enough to eat so he feeds them every day.  When we had a power failure he bought an inverter to run the aerator from the car battery.)
     Tonight Gretel is coming with The Tummy and Molly to spend a week. Next Thursday, John is coming in with his family and Mary is coming up with Sofie.  Then a week from tomorrow Amy is coming with her kids.  I have Jury duty on Tuesday. What if I get assigned a jury with all this company in my house?( I did arrange for Gretel to take Mom out to lunch on Tuesday and take care of her medications.)
      Last Thursday I went to my first board meeting for the quilters guild I belong to. I had gone to the potluck, a week earlier, (I HATE POTLUCKS!) and got elected to Member at Large of the board.  So for the first meeting they said "Bring a dish to pass."  (Argh!)
     We have signed up to raise a Leader Dog Puppy and went to our first training class last Saturday.  It was very informative and we are excited.  We have asked for a Golden Retriever Puppy but we don't know when it is coming. Only 15% of the dogs they use are goldens, mostly labs.
    My craft room is a disaster.  I have done a lot of sewing for the babies but somehow I just accumulate more cloth.  It is in piles around the room and won't fit in all the storage boxes. I have Sammy's quilt half way assembled.(I made an Excel spreadsheet for it so that I can get it done before winter.)  Dorothy's quilt is ready for the quilt frame.  (That is waiting for Hubby to finish fixing the family room ceiling where the upstairs shower leaked through.) My Star Spangled quilt will be quilted by machine but there is no hurry on that. I have to get busy on the applique for my brother's quilt but I am hoping when Amy comes she can help me draw the birds.

    This is out of control. ( Oh, and I got Poison Ivy from weeding the garden)

Sofie Came to Visit

Sofie came to visit and so did her mommy, by the way. We had so much fun.  This baby smiles all the time.  We did a lot of shopping, visited great grandma and sewed a lot of baby clothes.  It was a wonderful week. Even Arnold enjoyed the visit. He kept nudging Sofie to ask her to pet him and he didn't seem to mind when she grabbed his whiskers.We spent one day at Greenfield village, where Mary and I tried on hats at Mrs. Cohen's millinery shop.

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Busy, Busy, Busy

I haven't been blogging because nothing has been happening, it's that too much has been happening. We have been volunteering at Greenfield Village twice a week. (This week we packaged and handed out seedlings.  We had the benefit dinner for Beaumont Hospital's Silent Children( they work with children with speech problems, mostly autism) We went to the Master Gardner award dinner. (Hubby got an award for 250 hours of volunteer experience. ( He puts out their newsletter and does some work on their maple syrup project.) Mary came up with Sofie and Hubby babysat while we went to the opera. This was his post on Facebook (Yay! I'm babysitting little Sofie tonight. Bedtime. Need to change diaper. Haven't done that in 35 years. Oh, good... just wet. HEY, close the floodgates! Her mom told me she would do that. Everything is wet. Can't reach paper towels. Maybe if I use about 5 of these baby wipes. Visions of Larry , Moe, and Curly flash before me. All thumbs. No replacement onesie. New PJ's will have to do. All's well that ends well.)