Whirlwind Weekend!

We had a wonderful, whirlwind of a weekend with our two youngest grandchildren. We celebrated Pawpaw's birthday in grand style with his favorite dessert: homemade apple pie. There was also some cookie decorating, a nap or two, box stacking/tower building*, creative arts, ice cream and many, many games of Otrio. This game is a new twist on Tic Tac Toe. Mr. Goodneedle and I were amazed at how quickly the children took to the game and marveled at their strategic skills; even at their ages they were quite adept at defensive moves. This is a great family game, check it out if you haven't heard of it.    

On Quiltkeemosabe's recommendation we all watched The Star on Sunday afternoon. This is a sweet movie of the first Christmas told from the animals' point of view. It is just precious, we all loved it. All too soon the weekend was over and our house grew quiet once again. And yet, reminders remain.

Last evening, after dinner, we were moving upstairs to settle down and watch TV in our converted attic space/entertainment area. It was then that I spotted this pinned to a quilt that hangs in the hallway outside the room. Gregory likes to announce what's playing in "the theaters"! Sigh. 

Yes, it's quiet around here today, New Year's Day.

I look forward to more whirlwind weekends and memory making in 2019! 

Wishing you peace, joy and fulfillment on this day and every day in the new year to come.

Life is Good!

* We have amassed an excessive amount of corrugated cardboard shipping boxes this year. I believe that I will invest in cardboard stock. This seems ridiculously wasteful to me. Mr. Goodneedle is looking at these as future fire-starters now that we have switched to a wood burning fireplace. I believe we have enough for a very long time!😉

It's A Wrap!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

So, where has December flown to? Seriously. Yeah, I know, I say the same thing month after month but has someone tweaked the speed button this year? It seems as though the days are passing like lightning. If you think that's a stretch look at these babies above. They're growing up at supersonic speed! This month, in particular, has passed in the blink of an eye. It seems as though yesterday was Thanksgiving and I was beginning to decorate the house for Christmas, now the day is here! Come, stroll through the house with me in the quiet early morning before this day has zipped past.

"Sing, choirs of angels..." Joining my vintage white angel this year are the three on the right, I inherited these from my MIL. These angels are at least fifty years old. They now have formed an angel band on the buffet in our breakfast area to herald in this Christmas morning.

 Our tree stands guard in the space between our family room and kitchen. A few weeks back I baked gingerbread people, filling the space with their aromatic goodness.

Our family room is filled with many Santas, these are among a few I have made over the years.

This Santa quilt resides under glass in our coffee table, this is another "vintage" piece: circa 1992. I taught this Santa Star quilt class all those years ago at a local quilt shop, such happy memories this piece evokes.

This sleepy Santa rests on a chair next to our fireplace with a quilt of his own, it's been a long night!

A grouping of Jim Shore Santas joins the mix: three of these were likewise inherited in this past year, they've made themselves quite at home here.

"Santa's" basement workshop was a busy place in December. This Maple bed for our youngest grandchild will be delivered today. It features sixteen dovetailed drawers for storage.

That wasn't the only bed to come out of the workshop this year-- this triple bed for our oldest granddaughter 's American Girl dolls stopped in by my sewing space long enough to get outfitted with sheets and pillows before it made a trip to the Capital City yesterday! Hannes wonders where his bed is. 

Yep, just like that-- it's a wrap! Thanks for stopping by today. From our home to yours, I wish you special joy and abundant blessings on this holy day. Let us take time to reflect and remember why we celebrate today and carry true Christmas love in our hearts each and every day of the new year to come.

So, what's been going on this month at your house? 

Merry Christmas!

Life is GRAND!

Gregory (7), Mason (9), Lucy Ann (7), Lynnleigh (4)

Turning Sunflowers Into Fireworks

I've been looking at my cookie cutters creatively. How could I use that sunflower cutter in other ways?


I could add fireworks for the 4th! Wishing you all a safe and happy celebration today.

Happy Independence Day!

Life is Good!

Piping To The Tunes

We had a chance to attend another Home Free concert on Tuesday evening, this time they were performing in Greensboro and it was a short drive over there to grab a quick dinner and then sit back and enjoy the extraordinary vocal talents of this group. If you've been a reader for a while you already know how much I love this a cappela group. Mr. Goodneedle and I have been following them since they won NBC's The Sing Off in 2013. Have a listen using the link here.  The group has changed, slightly, since the last time we heard them live. There is a new band member, Adam Chance (far left), who replaced one of the founding members, Chris Rupp. There was, absolutely, no change in the sound however. Their rendition of How Great Thou Art (click) to close out the show was so incredibly beautiful I felt a tiny tear escape before I could choke it back.

We had awesome seats this time. See me? You don't? I am waving both arms!!😉

This morning I cranked up the music good and loud in the kitchen and sang along to some of the same songs performed on Tuesday evening. I piped while I sang, icing up a bouquet of spring tulips. I am eager to improve my cookie decorating skills and, naturally, there's only one way to do that. Practice, practice, practice. I have been adjusting the cookie recipe too, this one has a lemon essence, it's yummy. How many other hobbies allow one to eat their mistakes? 😋  So, practice I shall!

Life is Good!

Easter Remembrances

I spent the morning decorating for Easter; decorating cookies that is, there are personalized ones this time too, my first attempt at writing with the piping bag. It's been a long time since I worked on cookies like this, at least three months, I could tell that my skills were a bit rusty; it felt good nonetheless. These cookies will be especially sweet, they were rolled out with my mother-in-law's wooden rolling pin. My husband has memories of sweet-treats-to-come when she would bring her rolling pin out of the cupboard; she always kept it wrapped in the same cotton towel for storage, that's just the way I carried it home a few weeks ago and the way I will keep it here. There's no way of calculating how many perfect pie crusts she rolled out with this pin over the years, she tried to teach me her secret but I never quite measured up. I will keep at it though, Mom would be proud; and in the meantime, we'll eat cookies.

Happy Easter! 

Corralling the Cutter Clutter

Baking and decorating cookies takes time and practice, I'm okay with that. I am completely dedicated to the learning curve and all that entails. Naturally, a new hobby includes lots of new tools; collecting them is the fun part: cookie cutters, specialty gel colors for the icing, icing bags, bag ties, tips, couplers, flooding bottles, sanding sugars, rolling pin spacers, spatulas and the list goes on.  I dedicated a kitchen drawer to the ever-growing collection and quickly learned that organizing all of the tools was going to be the bane of my excitement, each time I opened the drawer for "cookie day" I sighed-- and wrestled out what I needed before quickly closing the drawer again; the tools and equipment were all piled on top of each other in one huge mess. I felt defeated before I began. Well, enough was enough! I knew what I needed, dividers in the drawer! The space seemed sufficient, the drawer is big: 19.5" square and 7.5" deep, the problem was, as I saw it: no way to confine certain tools to their own area-- every time I opened the drawer the motion itself contributed to creating a disheveled heap. I mentioned this to Mr. Goodneedle after I took everything out of the drawer and laid it out on the counter top so that he could see what I was dealing with. He perused the "pile" and suggested "laying out the drawer space" as I envisioned it with dividers. The real problem was the cookie cutters; they refused to comply with space restraints. "Oh, wait" I thought; "I have some storage bins that might just work". (Actually, one of them was holding a UFO that needed to be released into the light of day so that I could work on it. But then, that's another story for another day!) As fate would have it, those two bins, stacked, fit perfectly in the front of the drawer and held all of my cutters nicely! Who knew? In no time at all the cutter clutter had been corralled. Mr. Goodneedle suggested I live with this drawer arrangement for a little while and if it made sense after using it a time or two then he would, indeed, install custom dividers to the space. That makes sense to me. What doesn't is the fact that I put up with this messy, disorganized drawer for months. What seemed to be a HUGE problem for me was easily and rapidly managed. Hmmmm.... what other mountains are looming that can be reduced to mole hills this efficiently? I know I won't have to look far. In the meantime, I am enjoying the happy solution to my formerly "overwhelming" cutter clutter problem!

Life is Good!

Sweet Alliteration

Butterflies, Blossoms and Berries~

Life is Good!

Overrun With Rabbits!

It all began innocently enough. Last week I thought it would be a fun idea to decorate some Easter cookies for friends and loved ones. I mixed up some cookie dough and some royal icing and one thing led to another...

I piped. I flooded... and, right before my eyes...

rabbits happened! 

And, they multiplied!  The kitchen was over-run.

Well, naturally, these are rabbits after all~

Life is Good!

One Word Wednesday

~ Anticipation~

Life is Good!

Cookie Time... Again!

I've been back at it! Well, Christmas time is cookie time after all, right? I wanted to try my hand at some snowmen (love those 3-D 'carrot' noses!) and snowflakes. 
I packaged them up... two to a bag for gift giving.  Just add hot cocoa! These are the whimsical cookies. I wanted to try a simple, elegant cookie style too.

Wreaths... waiting to be "berried" ~

...mission accomplished! I can see many more of these in my future!

I recently saw this Hallmark (click link for action) item advertised on TV; 

it's called "time for cookies", I may need one; hey, it even has a begging Hannes!

Life is Good!

This Week's Cookie Is Brought To You By...

Sesame Street used to have the number and the letter of the day, do you remember that? Well, in that spirit, today's post is brought to you by the number 5. Our favorite red-headed grandson's birthday was yesterday, his 5th! Gregory requested cookies for his class party from Nana; "anything you want to do" my daughter-in-law told me, "you decide". I thought for a while and consulted some cookie blogs before settling on a Number 5 theme.  These cookies allowed me the opportunity to try something new: royal icing transfers. I baked 3.5" plain, round, cookies and prepared waxed paper on the countertop with sheets of paper printed with a series of #5s underneath to receive the transfers-to-be. I piped the colored icing directly onto the waxed paper and let the numbers dry for twenty-four hours. You'd better believe that I prayed for a smooth release of those numbers!
Learning my lesson from the week before, I  s-l-o-w-l-y paddled the color into the icing and let it sit for a few hours before piping the shapes to eliminate any surface bubbles. It worked! Progress!! The prayers worked too, I was able to lift the 5's off of the paper smoothly and cleanly with just one break... I had made plenty of them to allow for breakage.

I flooded the cookies with white icing and dropped a #5 onto the surface of each iced cookie while they were still wet, one at a time, and gently pushed the number down for this dimensional effect. these cookies sat, untouched, for another twenty-four hours before being wrapped and stacked for the birthday boy and his class. I believe they were a big hit. They were grandson approved, and that's all that mattered to me. His smile is all the affirmation I need.

Life is Good!

And Suddenly...

...just like that, it's NOVEMBER! Wha-a-a-a-at? I know, right? Today I am busily trying to catch up on my Bible Study blocks, this one (the buggy block, left) is representative of my efforts to get myself back on track. The sewing machine has been gathering dust as the cookie adventure has accelerated. Stay tuned to see what's new in that arena for this week coming up , my plans are exciting!  In the meantime, I'm humming along in the sewing room... making up for lost time. Looking back, I did accomplish a lot this past month, but was woefully negligent about blog posting; sorry about that! A few weeks ago I had several items to machine embroider for the grandchildren only to learn that the security key which allows access to the software program (on my laptop) had become corrupt!?! Thank goodness, my LQS was super helpful in contacting Bernina for me and getting that key replaced, for a moderate fee, without my having to upgrade to the new version which would have been a considerable chunk of change! I'm perfectly happy with the older version (it takes one to know one!), since it was still available, and was able to complete the task to the happy delight of both Nana and the little ones. Whew, crisis averted!

October saw personalized aprons for Lucy Ann's art party...

... four special Halloween pillowcases for four precious grandchildren...

...four pumpkin placemats for our own dining table... (Framed Seasons pattern by QP Quilts & Co)

...Snowbird and I teamed up to quilt this black and white beauty for a friend...

...and last, but certainly not least, the ongoing upholstery project that Mr. Goodneedle and I are working on together. When we started this we asked ourselves "how hard could upholstery be?"; now we know, it's hard. But, we're nothing if we're not determined and tenacious. This project will be  completed!

 On Friday this past week we took the youngest grandchildren and visited a friend whose daughter's horse had welcomed a new little one only six days earlier!

It was a beautiful day to create a totem pole!

And, one last parting picture to bid adieu to October. Lynnleigh (with her minion jack o'lantern) last evening dressed as Milli from Team UmiZoomi. Have you ever seen anything cuter? I know I'm prejudiced, but really... have you? I didn't think so. Now, it's time to finish adjusting the clocks back an hour. Yes, suddenly it's November! Bring it on...

Life is Good!