Car's puzzle with Lightenin' McQueen and Mater from our neighbors Rob, Leanne and JAC. Thanks for the gifts! Charmie loves them! 

Uncle Colin, Aunty Janet, Janeen and Jason snuck an Elmo phone into the bag as a sibling gift for Mardie. How thoughtful and sweet. He really likes playing with it and saying, "hello???" 

One of Charmie's birthday cards had a driver's license. I'll have to get a photo of him onto it and laminate it for him. This is another one and it had cool racing stickers! Here DJ is asking for a sticker and Charmie is telling me which one to give him. My little boy is sharing! 

I think at this point the birthday boy was a little overwhelmed. 

Lego Fun Zoo from Uncle Colin, Aunty Janet and cousins Janeen and Jason. This fits in with our lego collection and Charmie and Mardie both love the animals. Thanks CJJJ+1!!! 

Gram and Grand Ray visit!

Grandma and Grandpa, ie Gram and Grand Ray came to visit on Sunday to celebrate Charmie's birthday, they also planned to go to the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at Discovery Place, however the exhibit was sold out. I was not feeling well so I didn't go along but they did get to see some other displays. Here's one where Rocky is holding Charmie up to the mouth of an Allosourus I believe. (sorry if I misspelled it). After they left the museum they drove home via the Speedway and got to see all of the mele surrounding this weekend's race, ick! They ended up at the creamery in downtown Concord for some icecream, YUM! 

Charmie in the footprint, I'd hate for one of these things to come after me!!! 

Mardie saying HI, and Grand Ray relaxing. 

Grandma and Grandpa Ray came to visit on Sunday. They wanted to see their 3 year old grandson, give him his gifts and see the Dead Sea Scrolls at Discovery Place. Here Gram is helping Charmie open the first of 3 gifts they got for him, a golf set. You can see the second one of them in the following pictures. The 3rd gift is a Feature Films for Family video Tiny Heroes. Charmie loves heroes right now! 

After Charmie got his golf club and ball and hippo as the 2nd one was being removed from it's packaging and being handed to him he said, "here, this one's for Mar!"
What a great big brother to share his birthday gifts with his baby! 

Testing the hippo to make sure the ball really is in there and see how it works! 

Rocky is helping Charmie open his fishing set that will be great for bath/pool time. It has 2 fish and a seahorse that you can catch with the windable fishing pole and extra hooks.
Thanks Gram and Grand Ray! 

Baby-Kenny

Here's my new baby (3/4 sized) Kenmore for whenever I can find classes to take. Model 158.10400. I searched for a while and was looking at all kinds of 3/4 machines but I fell in love with this one.
It's commonly called a Kenmore Featherweight.
It's small but powerful with it's all metal construction inside and out and functional as well with straight, zigzag, stretch, 3 step zz, blind hem, and 3 step button hole stitch functions as well as drop feed dogs!
It's pretty quiet and stable too for such a small machine.

Here's the pretty rose embossed carrying case. 

Here you can see the extra sewing space you get when you fold out the end piece and accessory box. Pretty neato design I think!
Other vintage machine collectors say that this machine and it's maker Jaguar-Maruzen were way ahead of their time for the sleekness and features of this machine's design. 

Here's the accessory box on the front that folds out to give a larger work area. It was chock full of accessories. Needles, needle threader, straight stitch, blind hem and zipper presser feet, 5 button hole templates, and a few things I can't remember.
A few weeks ago I received a Kenmore accessory box with 18 pieces and all of those will interchange with this and my other machines so I've got plenty to keep me busy for a while with this machine. 

Charmie's girlfriend's birthday

It's on Monday this year ya'll! We're having Charmie's birthday party tomorrow so I whipped up this little number to send back with S&J for T.
This is my first attempt at freehand quilting. I learned some lessons on this project, mainly you can have too much basting spray!
I hope that she likes this. I am going to make some other smaller gifts but those will have to be sent later. 

Here's a back view with my hangtag. 

Speed Street

After nap Rocky packed up the boys and took them to Speed Street. I didn't go for a couple of reasons, but mainly I had some errands to run. . .
Here is what I saw when he brought the boys in. They were wearing all of this stuff! I had to take a picture. I think they really had a great time with daddy! 

My Friendship Square

This is my friendship square. I made 3 other identical ones. I used photo fabric to transfer one of my favorite photos of us all and then sewed denim scraps around it in Log Cabin fashion. I chose to leave one of them larger for embroidery and embroidered the verse Proverbs 18:24. I have one of the 3 other squares and should have the other two within days. I am excited to construct the wallhanging to combine all of our efforts.
I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to do this. I guess I'll need to go fabric shopping :D.
Maybe I have something in my stash. . .