Schools out for Summer!

My girls were both so happy for the last week of school.  Me as a mom, looking ahead to eight long weeks of bored children cooped up inside from the summer heat, who play together the first two hours of the day but spend the next ten hours fighting like, well like sisters.....sigh it's gonna be a long summer! I love the extra time with the girls and normally we do at least one fun summer vacation and a few weekend road trips/camping trips. But with the new baby I'm not sure how much we will get to do this summer. 

Above is my start on Prairie Schooler's "Trick or Treat", stitched on 28 ct WDW Guacamole linen. I love the color, so fitting for a Halloween piece. I think I am only going to stitch this part of the design, since the trick or treaters are my favorite part, so this one should be done soon. I want to stitch the cat's skeleton in glow in the dark white thread (my favorite thread for ghosts/skeletons and anything else Halloween). 

And below is my Pinterest project of the week (one of only a handful that actually got finished). I made this out of stakes from Home Depot and some wooden stars from Jo-Anns. My patient husband helped me with the eye-hooks for the bottom. I love how it turned out. I don't have my summer seasonal wall put together on the inside of our house yet, but at least the outside of our house looks patriotic!

Dogs

They say dogs don't have the emotional intelligence to hold a grudge, but I don't think that is true. I trade off on which dog I take running with me, because if I take both they think it is the Idatrod sled race. This morning I took our border collie, and left the shepherd at home. The shepherd is actually a better companion in that she is older/calmer and runs more my pace. The border collie has no use for the word heel, and can shave a full minute off my pace. But now since we got home from said run, the shepherd has taken every opportunity to nip and growl at the border collie. They will work it out I'm sure, but in the mean time it is pretty funny. Above is our sweet poodle Zeppelin, who never gets to go on runs with me due to his short little legs. Yes he is a mutt, we think mixed with schnauzer, but we'll never know. I do love his beard when he is all groomed. We got all of our dogs from the pound or rescue, he was on doggie death row at the pound. He had pushed his little nose up against the cage so much we had made it bleed, and the pound couldn't adopt a white dog with a bloody muzzle I guess (well they sold him to us and we have loved him ever since).

Not much stitching progress this week, but I did manage to buy new stash. This is of course Prairie Schooler's "Trick or Treat". I love the 3 little trick or treaters at the bottom and think I may only sew that part of it. Is it too early to start stitching for Halloween?

And this is one of the new threads  I got, WDW "beehive" I thought it perfect for sewing a little bumble bee with, so I went right to Pinterest to search for a free chart. You can find this one on crossstitch.about.com, or under my Pinterest profile bluestarstitchr. I am debating whether to do his wings in white or continue on with the beehive thread. 

Mothers are Amazing

"Of all the gifts life has to offer, a loving mother is the greatest of them all"

I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day. I was blessed to spend mine with my children and my own mother. 

This was my new start of the week. Remember I posted this a few weeks back? It was my reward for losing 10 pounds, and now I finally got to start it. It is a Cricket Collection chart, I love their pumpkins. I kitted it all up, and hand dyed my fabric for it and then it sat waiting for me to "earn" it for nine whole weeks.

 That's right it took me nine weeks to lost 10 pounds. While I am proud of my progress, I have decided to step up my weight loss efforts. My ultimate goal is to lose 100 pounds before Calvin turns 1 year old. I have already lost 60 pounds of that (I lost 40 pounds before leaving the hospital after having him which was mostly water weight). So to help me along I have joined weight watchers. Yesterday was my first weigh in after joining, and I have already lost 3.4 pounds. Not much, but way better than I was doing on my own. So wish me luck and health and willpower! I know a lot of other bloggers are also on weight loss journeys, some even doing Weight Watchers like me, so it's nice to know I am not alone in this. 

Here is a picture of our Mother's Day lunch. The girls made cards for my mother, and we got her some pretty pink "mums" for the occasion. Though I read somewhere that white carnations are the traditional mother's day flower. My DH also got me a beautiful bracelet with the children's birthstones and names engraved on it. I love it!

On a sadder note my mother-in-law passed away two days before Mother's Day, and three days after her 60th birthday. She had a long battle with cancer, but still was so active and full of love even in the last weeks of her illness. She was such a light in our family's lives. I have only been a part of my husband's family for a few years now, and I know how sad I am over her passing, I can't imagine the grief they are going through. I am so sad Calvin only got to know her for a few months of his life, and that he won't have his own memories of her. She was truly every good thing you could ever say about a grandmother, and everything a mother aspires to be.

"Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, Love leaves a memory no one can steal."

"If love could have saved you, you would have lived forever"

Peep Peep

"Easter Peep" With Thy Needle and Thread Designs

Just finished this last week. I was thinking the whole time I was stitching this that I was going to use the two fabrics above to finish it into a pillow. But today when I pulled them out and put them against Mr. Peep I realized that the tulips in the stitching are more of an orangey-red vs. the pink of the tulips on the fabric. So now I am left with the dilemma of "how much is this going to bother me if my tulips don't match?"

And this is my weeks progress on Mirabilia's Santa. It has been a little bit since I posted an update photo on this one, and it looks like a lot of progress in the photo, but I feel like I am falling behind on getting this one done. It is for a friend of mine, in barter for tutoring my daughter in math. If it was for me I wouldn't care how long it took done, but I feel like I am under a deadline since it is for someone else. 

What I am Reading This Week: The God of Small Things, The Bookstore (why is this book taking me so long!), and I just started "Savannah Blues"

What I am Watching This Week: Hope Springs (I liked this more than I thought I would), The Awakening, Dexter, Robot and Frank (I loved this movie! definitely one of my new favorites), also Frozen and the new Tinkerbell movie with my girls.