Nothing says time, love and tradition like a quilt. I’ve heard it said that blankets may wrap one with warmth, but quilts envelop you in love.

I’m in love with quilts. I wish I had a dozen more in my home to cherish and display. Shown here, in my bedroom, are three of mine. The pink postage stamp one at the foot of my bed was quilted by my great-aunts on my mom’s side. Mom will hopefully share more of its history in comments. I was honored to receive it for a wedding gift in 1993.

The blue and cream double wedding ring was a gift from my mom, a wall hanging she worked on while traveling one summer. It’s my keepsake especially associated with the birth of my firstborn. Mom let me pick out all the contrasting fabrics and choose the style. I’ve always loved the double wedding ring pattern, and this one is my absolute favorite. I have it hanging in the living room usually.

The quilt on my bed is simply a Target special…they sure have some pretty ones available, as my 7 yo will attest. She chose a lavender and tan Target quilt with satin ribbon work for her bed last year. Two other heirloom quilts I keep packed away…one is a crazy quilt passed down from my maternal grandma. The satins and velvets are cracking and unraveling, but the overall condition is what you’d expect for it being an early 1900’s quilt. I want to unpack it and take a picture for you guys. It has a “Ladies Aid Society” bookmark embroidered into the rest of the fabrics, kind of adds to its sense of community. My other quilt belonged to dh’s great-grandma. Other than a huge discoloration in one corner, it’s in great shape with whites, tangerine-oranges and light greens blending together.

My own quilting experience has been limited to one autumn leaf wall-hanging (pictured rolled up in a basket in my header) which I LOVED making, and three baby quilts. If I had a sewing room…I’d make more!

I love how women throughout the ages have found ways to meet and share life. Quilting bees, socials, baby showers, Bible studies, coffee at Starbucks and over the kitchen tables across this land, or behind computer screens…blogging. In the quilt of my life, each of you own a special square.

Here are some quotes for the quilters out there, may they brighten your day as they did mine!

• May all of your ups and downs in life be with a needle and thread.
• Friends are like fabric - you can never have enough!
• When life goes to pieces - Try Quilting!
• I am a quilter and my house is in pieces.
• I am a material girl. Wanna see my fabric collection?
• Blessed are the piecemakers.
• Blessed are the children of the piecemakers for they shall inherit the quilts!
  

Sugar cookies and chocolate chip cookies are packed up, ready to go, and I just got all my baking sheets washed and cooling racks in the dishwasher–it’s time to wake up my 3 year old and get a move on. But first, I wanted to get a quick post up to tell you all Happy May Day!

I told my girls a sure fire way to get company to drop in is for me to get outside and make a mess of myself scraping the house! I’m working on the exterior of our back porch and was covered with paint flecks when my sister and her kids showed up yesterday…then this morning, it was a good homeschooling

friend and her family sneaking by to drop off a May Day basket!

What a treat, and it caught on! I’m so ditzy these days that when I flipped the calendar to this new month last night, I actually looked at the date and tried to remember what was special about May 1st. You see, I used to leave baskets at people’s houses every May Day, but kind of lost the tradition. Our Mom’s group even got together on May Day, bringing baskets and any little neat things we had around the house to use as fillers. Stick some home-made cookies or mini-loaves in a small basket lined with a dishtowel or bright tissue paper, tuck a few flowers from the green house in the middle and a devo book or a candle and you’ve got a good excuse to go bless your neighbors! Get your children involved, they can make the Happy May Day cards…

Your neighbors will be astounded, and what a great opportunity it is to reach out to those around us!

It’s not too late in the day, either! I’ve got to get a move on, we’ve got goodies to deliver!

Yesterday evening my two youngest and I met hubby’s truck and horse trailer down on the green across the gravel road and down from our front yard. Ten year old daughter and dh had been working at the ranch all day, whilst we three at home had been lazily grogging around after two of our busiest weeks so far this year. In fact, I’d been salivating over the very dream of having time to waste…and when I finally received an afternoon “off”, I slept it away! Couldn’t keep my eyes open…

Hubby unloaded two horses–Legend, a gray gelding, and Baby Lena, a bay. Both gentle, wonderful stock, still saddled and bridled, so our three girls spent the next half hour riding them around and around, giggling and just hurrahing the stillness of early evening.

For two weeks, we’ve had bursting full afternoons and evenings, places to be and meetings to attend, drop in company. Lots of rushing and late, late bedtimes. To simply stand there, arms wrapped around myself, comfy in my old navy sweatshirt and wind pants, mesmerized by my silly offspring’s love of country life–did you hear that pure sigh of contentment? Exactly what my spirit needed.

Off to the north, dark storm clouds built, heading our way. Lightning flashes and rumbles of thunder promised that the horsing around would soon come to an abrupt, possibly wet end. The trees started shaking their limbs at us, the wind grew cool and fierce. Finally, after putting it off as long as we dared, sporadic wet splats of rain chased us to the barn chores and eventually to the house.

We’re probably headed into the flooding, rainy season but I’m thinking I needed a good excuse to stick close to home (we live in a flood plain). I’m not ecstatic about mud, but the fresh cleansing of air, green grass and the filling up of all our favorite water holes sounds like a fair exchange. Awana is over for another year, we have one last square dancing class and then our homeschooling co-op will call it quits for summer break. One more Bible study session left with our small group. Four more Sunday School classes to teach. Don’t get me wrong, I love all these things, but I’m growing weary of trying to fit all the pieces together with homeschooling, etc. Anyway, I’m looking at a relatively quiet couple of weeks before things start filling up again. Graduations, weddings, Vacation Bible School, and camping trips.

By the way, our chicks are growing! Haven’t lost a one, yet. They are hopping flying out of their box, bad little things, and it’s perpetual springtime here with chirping birdies around every corner. We now have two Aldi boxes in the mud room/back porch, and a dishwasher box (Yes–I got a new dishwasher!) in the laundry room with five new baby Araucanas we just picked up this weekend. Yes, that’s three heat lamps, lots of feeders and waterers and plenty of fluffball handling going on at our house! (follow the Araucana link to see why these birds are called the Easter Egg Chickens!)

Well, anyway, I wish you all plenty of calm and no storms. But if they come anyway, just remember that sunshine is sure to follow…

God bless!

Mary

I was spooning the last of the Swiss Miss cocoa mix into my 7 year old’s mug when we laughed to ourselves that this year rates as a THREE hot chocolate winter. Normally one family-sized cannister of Swiss Miss sees us through the cold months, but we’re on probably the third or fourth cannister–can’t remember.

**

My hubby heard that there was a chance for snow in the forecast last weekend and promptly began fantasizing his revenge. He says he’ll build a huge snowman and take it apart with a baseball bat. Or a stick of dynamite. Or run over it with his truck. And let the neighbors pay to take their own turns…

Oh please be kind. Remember my husband has to work out in the stuff from 6 A.M. on day in, day out. And he does know that God sends the white stuff…he just enjoys shocking me with his dark side.

**

We decided not to buy more corn for our corn stove…after all, spring is coming, right? So we’re burning wood in our fireplace, which has an insert with vents to blow out the heat. The living room temperature went from forty-seven Sunday morning (before wood) to eighty-four degrees Sunday night . Just like summer in here. I’m even wearing shorts.

What are your musings about this past winter?

MInTheGap, most influential to my blogging beginnings, also runs the Weekend Kindness site. I encourage you all to check it out regularly, subscribe to it, etc. He’s recruited many great contributors and during the month of February the topic line-up has included: date ideas, special ways to show love to your spouse, showing love to kids, and passion and purity.

Tomorrow I’ll be posting there, with a post titled, “Ten Easy Ways to Savor Life With Your Kids”.

Hope you stop by and get acquainted with the great folks over there!

Not sure if it was my Texas upbringing that grew me into a Mexican food lover, but this enchilada recipe definitely sprouted from my Austin roots. Every New Year’s Eve our church would have a potluck and pray in the New Year together…and every year we all looked forward to Hugh’s Enchiladas…I’ve still never tasted better, and am so glad he shared the recipe with the church family…

It’s one of those recipes that is just as easy to double (or triple for large groups), it freezes well, and I just finished stashing two 9×13″ panfuls in my refrigerator for tomorrow night! Y’all be sure to try it sometime!

Hugh’s New Year’s Eve Enchiladas

Meat filling:

• 1 lb ground chuck
• 1 tsp cumin, ground
• 2 clove garlic, minced
• 1 tsp salt, if desired
• pepper to taste
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 small tomato, chopped fine
• 2 TB water (to keep meat moist)
• 10 oz grated cheddar cheese

Put the meat, garlic and onion in a skillet with no oil. Cook over high heat till meat loses color…do not brown…Turn heat to low, drain grease. Add remaining seasonings, and tomato and 2 TB water. Cook covered, over very low heat 20 minutes. Be sure meat stays moist. Add more water if needed.

Sauce:

• 4 TB flour
• 1/4 cup cooking oil
• 2 TB chili powder
• 2 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 1/4 cups hot water plus one 8 oz can of tomato sauce

Place the flour in a cake pan and brown in a 350*F oven, shaking occasionally, till golden brown.

In large pan, put oil, flour, chili powder, cumin, garlic and salt. Blend well.

On low heat gradually add water and tomato sauce. Stir constantly so it won’t lump. If lumps appear, remove from heat and stir until lumps are gone. Keep stirring. Simmer about an hour.

In a skillet in a tiny amount of oil, heat, one at a time, 10 flour tortillas. Turn and remove and keep warm in a pan. (I skip the “keep warm in a pan” part and work quickly, throwing one tortilla in the pan to heat as I take another and add filling ingredients, roll and place in baking dish)

In each tortilla put: 2 TB meat filling mixture and 2 TB cheese (or just enough to cover the meat, no need to be precise!). Roll and put in baking dish, seam side down. Pour any leftover meat mixture on top along with sauce. Top with more cheese.

Bake at 350*F for 15-20 minutes. Done when sauce starts bubbling all around. Be sure they don’t dry out as they bake. (Generally, if all the tortillas are covered in sauce prior to baking, they don’t dry out.)

Besides enchiladas, we’re sure to have a slew of snack foods handy for the evening’s duration…stuff like puppy chow, poppyseed bread, chips-veggies-dips, jerky etc…

Movie Recommendations

We always spend NYE at my b&sil’s house playing games and watching movies. This year I have three top-notch family movies to recommend…

1. Facing the Giants~This tops the list!  What I took away from this movie is that when our hurts and hardships overwhelm us, if we open our hearts to God, He is free to work amazingly in our lives and in the lives of those around us. We laughed and cried and LOVED this movie–all of us, even 3 year old! It’s been out a long time, and after asking around, we discovered that none of dh’s extended family had even heard of the movie! So don’t be shy about recommending it to people, or loaning out your copy. It’s hugely inspiring!
2. Amazing Grace~The true story of “anti-slavery pioneer” Wilber Wilberforce, the man who took on slavery in England’s House of Commons more than a hundred years before we Americans abolished it on our soil. He was inspired by his contemporary, John Newton (writer of Amazing Grace)…this is a must-see movie, but we chose to watch it without our children, as some of the slavery parts are a bit hard to take. (FYI, we are way more careful than most parents–and I think my 10 yo could have handled it all right, but definitely not my tender-hearted 7 yo)
3. The Christmas Card~I recently watched this Hallmark movie with one of my sisters, and promptly fell in love with the captivating cast, the storyline–and the military theme left me patriotically inspired from beginning to end. A great movie, despite all the kissing! My favorite Hallmark movie ever! (Don’t let the “kissing” comment automatically rate this as a chick flick, I think even my dh might like this one!)
4. The ‘07 Cutting Horse Futurity~my dh stopped by as I was writing this and suggested I add it to the “must-see” family-approved list…I’m telling you, if we had cable and the RFD channel, he’d never leave the house! His dad taped this event for him this year and sent it over…we have definitely NOT been TV or movie free this past week!

What NYE traditions do you embrace? Got any movies to recommend? Don’t forget, wherever you are, to pray the New Year in, something we all should do as we reflect on the blessings of the past year, and open our hearts to God’s will for us in 2008.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!

Want a FUN project to do with the kiddos? You’ve come to the right place~

Thanks to Martha Stewart’s basic instructions, we tackled about 12 snow globes the Friday before Christmas…and learned a LOT in the process. Like there really is a reason to use epoxy glue…and oil-based enamel paint…hee. But overall, we’re extremely happy with how our domes of snow turned out!

Here’s what you’ll need:

• Jars and lids in varying sizes. You can use baby food jars but our faves were pimiento jars and diced garlic jars. They’re rounder as you can see in the picture at right. Martha Stewart also recommended those tall skinny olive jars, but we went with what we had on hand!
• Oil-based enamel paint (for the lids). We used sage green (it looks minty in the pictures, but it’s really sage. Really.).
• Sand paper–to roughen inside of lid before gluing ornaments
• Clear-drying epoxy glue (we cheated and used hot glue guns. By day 4 more than “flakes” were floating around in our globes!) Use epoxy glue!!!
• Plastic or ceramic figurines (not metal–too prone to rust). I raided the Christmas supplies in our attic, specifically a box of miniature resin Christmas ornaments! We also used a couple of synthetic evergreen tips for mini-Christmas trees, available at floral supply shops (or robbed from other Christmas decor around your house).
• Distilled water, glitter (again, we went with what we had on hand–red and silver), and liquid Glycerin (available at pharmacies/drug stores).

Sand the insides of your lids, paint the outsides, and while the paint is drying, gather all your ornaments. My girls also made a globe with a plastic toy horse as the showpiece. So think outside the box. I had a miniature collection of resin nativity ornaments, and we even used some small wooden ones (I sprayed them with acrylic sealant) that never make it on the tree.

My oldest came up with the idea of gluing a “platform” to the lids and then gluing the ornaments to the platform…so that the “pretty” is up past the neck of the jar, and more visible. For platforms we used dice, vitamin bottle lids, water bottle lids…etc. It worked great, and you can’t even see them as they are beneath the ornament.

Once you have everything glued and ready to go, fill the jar almost to the top with water, shake a few drops of Glycerin in and add glitter. The Glycerin, according to Ms. Stewart, keeps the glitter from falling too quickly. Don’t put too much, she warns, or the glitter will stick to the ornaments and the bottom of the jar. (Mm-hm. It will.) Then screw on your lid and shake ferociously. Ooh, it’s sooooo pretty!!!

Survived yesterday’s “blizzarding”…just barely! Final snow totals were around 12 inches, with the high winds leaving drifts that were “rib” high on us people and white stuff to the truck beds and fencetops! We were at my sister-in-law’s for Christmas celebrations when it hit, and had to blaze our own trail home on the buried country roads. Where’s a sleigh when ya need one?

This morning we girls played till our fingers and cheeks hurt…sadly, the snow isn’t wet enough yet to make snow balls-forts-people etc. But we still had a blast! So did the pups!

My parents stayed with us from Monday to Thursday, and got in on an all day Wednesday Christmas party here at our house with my friend Deborah and her children. Thankfully all our friends and family now have their power up and buzzing. We thank you for all your prayers!

Here are a few pictures for you of what we’ve been busily doing since Friday…

My lil helper, pounding away at graham cracker crumbs for cheesecake #5! We took several laundry breaks, during which I almost lost her in the dryer…

Then we made and decorated 7 dozen Christmas cookies to take to neighbors and family gatherings…more peanut brittle and 12 or so homemade snow globes!

Today, besides freezing our hinies off outside, we’ve played Clue five times (a Christmas gift oldest received yesterday at sister-in-law’s), made “snowstorm soup” and are about to head over to grandma’s to drop the chillens off so daddy and I can go finish up our Christmas shopping!

And to those of you who sent cards and packages…you filled my heart up to overflowing, honestly! To have friends like you, means so so much–thank you all!

What will you remember the most about this year’s Christmas doings?

(Soon I’ll post my “snowstorm soup” recipe and also a tutorial on home-made snow globes!)

Well, we have five pups left out of the “Magnificent Seven” litter. Two sold by word of mouth (no advertisement!) before we even had them fully weaned, which helped bunches to keep the dog food flowing and also to cover all the ads we needed to place around. These are my ten year old’s puppies. Kind of a nice little hobby-income she’s had the past two years now.

Tuesday morning, in addition to rushing through math worksheets, history homework, and meal prep for a friend who recently had her fifth girl (!)…we somehow managed to bathe two of the eight-week-old pups in the kitchen sink without total chaos! They were lil dumplin’s…so good sitting there like little drowned rats in the process and like spiky half-wet owlets in the drying off aftermath! Each girl sat in front of the fireplace for a half hour afterwards making sure they were good and dry. I would have taken pics but my digital camera batteries had run down! All this because we were taking them for show and tell at our homeschool co-op. Need I say…Very Big Hit?

The picture above is of “Frog”, an older pup, up next to one of the newer ones shortly after they were born. This one is our youngest daughter with “Frog”–her favorite. Frog’s first sound was a croak, thus the moniker, and we’ve encouraged their relationship, as Frog will be sticking around.

But as for the rest of them…wish us luck…may they sell before they eat us out of house and home!

P.S. We called this litter the “Magnificent Seven” because dh told oldest about the movie (it’s one of his favorite westerns–if you’ve seen it…yeah, I know…) and she named the two males after the two main characters in the movie: Chris and Vince.

I love our children’s library!

We bustled into it last night, deposited our customary 30-odd books from last week, and checked out the Christmas book displays. Momentary guilt hounds me if I take more than two or three of the featured holiday stories, but several titles snagged my attention…so I figured, it’s only for the next week!

Three year old daughter trotted over to the bird cage to say hello to “Alpha” (”Bet” died last year, and poor Alpha stands alone) and I thumbed through a sweet story…First Grade Elves by Joanne Ryder. Had a fleeting thought that this book might spark a new family tradition and tucked it into my canvas tote. I soon forgot all about it.

Today my two oldest daughters devoured most of the books we’d checked out, and I came from the laundry room to find them snipping out delicate snowflakes. You see, the first grade elves in Mrs. Lee’s classroom had the great idea to plant nice surprises for each other during the month of December…in celebration of Christmas, Kwanzaa and Hanukkah. With the secret surprise, they also left a small paper snowflake…to show that the Christmas Elves were behind the treat.

So, I guess my girls and I think alike…and we now have a new secret “angel” (they preferred that over elves) December tradition. A fat stack of 4″ diameter snowflakes rests on the corner of one of my end tables…

I thought I’d share it here, because it would be a lovely tradition for anyone, especially those of you with many children. You could assign names or just bless randomly as we’re going to do.

I’d love to know what Christmas traditions you’ve got in the works…