Really?

I was just browsing through oldnavy.com and came upon this poor dog.

I'm speechless.

Mom and Char's visit

All the girls. We almost outnumbered the boys...but not quite.

We took Grandma to the park.

Well, we really went for Sam, but Grandma enjoyed the swings...

...until it was time to get out!

"We" made these quilted bags.

(We all started them, and mom finished them up)

and the boys played lots of Star Wars.

Thanks for coming, Mom and Char! I'm sorry I was so busy with

the Pinewood Derby and my business blog. We'll have to do this

again sometime. Maybe in a place with stores...

Pinewood Derby

Brayden had his first Pinewood Derby last Thursday night, and boy am I glad it's over!

I was in charge of the "Kid Zone" where we had tables set up with coloring, playdough, car-painting, a car mat, and noodle collages. It worked great...we managed to avoid the chaos from bored siblings (and even scouts) running around the gym.

Brayden designed the car himself...down to every color.

Todd used a pattern from a book that Brayden got for Christmas to cut it out.

We were so proud of Brayden. His car lost EVERY race, and he handled it so well. During one of the races, his car and the other car crashed at the bottom, and the other car lost a wheel. He said, "My car isn't good at winning, but it's good at crashing!"

One of the wheels on his car was crooked, due to the cut in the block of wood he got. Todd looked up the rules and found that you HAVE to use the original cut, so they did. I'm just glad that Brayden was okay with the results.

Some of the competition:

Thank You!

Thank you to everyone who helped me last week in getting my quilting blog up and running.

Thanks to Charlotte for making the header and background.

Thanks to both my Mom and Char for being patient when I had to take some of their visit time to work on my posts.

Thanks to everyone who sent pictures of quilts for the slideshow. I wish I had taken pictures of all the quilts I've done! I think I've quilted close to 500 quilts, and I only have pictures of about 60 of them.

Thanks to Vanessa for posting a link on Moda Bake Shop.

Thanks to everyone who left such nice comments.

And a special thanks to Todd, who listened to me cry the night before it got linked on Moda, and who read through my posts for me, in the middle of the night, to make sure I didn't say anything too stupid.

Yeah, I cried. It's been a hard thing for me. I love to quilt, but I want to be a Mom first, and I was SO scared of being bombarded with business. So far I've only had one e-mail asking questions, and I'm fine with that. My machine is paid for, so I really just want enough quilts to keep it running a few times a month, and to keep myself involved in the quilting world. I think the quilts will come...in time. Actually, I have three right now and a couple lined up, so I've still NEVER been without a quilt since I started quilting in 2003, but I've also never had so few in line.

It has been fun to check my stats to see where all the visitors are coming from. In less than 48 hours, I've gotten close to 400 hits. They've come from 40 different states, as well as Canada, Portugal, Switzerland, Spain, United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Finland, Netherlands, Hungary, Italy, Belgium, Germany, and Japan. Wow!

At the end of May, my Quilting blog will be featured on Little Birdie Secrets, and there will be a quilting giveaway, so watch for that!

My business blog

Thanks to my sister and her amazing talents, I finally have a decent blog banner on my business blog! Thanks, Char!

It's been a fun week with Mom and Char and now they're getting ready to head North :o(

Hopefully Charlotte got some good pictures this week, 'cause I'm not sure if I used my camera at all.

I survived the pinewood derby last night...whew! I'm so glad it's over. It took way too much of my time this week that I'd rather have been spending with my mom and sis, but oh well.

I need your help!

Dear family and friends,

Next week, my business blog is going to be mentioned on Moda Bake Shop. (The blog owned by my all time favorite fabric company).

If you've ever checked my Quilting Bee blog, you'll know that it's not quite ready for the traffic it's about to receive. I have my work cut out for me in the next three days.

This is where you come in:

I would like to post a slideshow of quilts that I've quilted. Unfortunately, in going through my picture files, I do not have pictures of even a fraction of all the quilts I've done. If I have ever quilted a quilt for you, could you please e-mail me a picture (or two) of the quilt, and maybe a close up of some of the quilting? (sometimes it helps to turn the flash off, or take the picture at an angle).

Send any pictures you have to thequiltingbee2003@yahoo.com

Thank you for any help you can give!!!

Love,
Felicia

* I just made a list off the top of my head of quilts that I've done for people who read my blog and I came up with 48! And of those 48, I actually pieced (or helped piece) 22 of them. That makes it sound like I actually do something other than improve my solitaire score and talk on the phone...who woulda thunk??

the one with the flowered shirt

With all the bathroom finishing we've been doing, I haven't been able to do laundry for a little over a week. (today's gonna be a fun day, let me tell you...)

Todd went back to work yesterday wearing a shirt that he used to wear in Logan. Back in those days, he, and the other guys he worked with, were all about hawaiian shirts, khaki's, and in the summer he was even known to do therapy in sandals (closed toe, of course).

Everything went fine, yesterday, until lunchtime, when one of the teenage girls on his team stood up and said:

"Attention lunchroom! I would like direct your attention [to the center ring] to Todd, who is wearing FLOWERS and BUTTERFLIES on his shirt."

It wasn't entirely true...there are NO butterflies on this shirt...but it does fit into the hawaiian category in my opinion.

It was officially the last day for "the shirt".

So, this morning he got up and dressed *right*...in his boots, buckle, and snap shirt with western pockets.

Did I mention that my sister dressed her son like THIS for halloween?