G is for.......

.......Garden.

"It all began in a Garden"

This morning I spent a couple of hours pulling weeds, raking, washing chairs and tables and just doing general cleaning in my "secret" garden
 in preparation for my kiddos coming over to color Easter eggs.

I love this time of year because it is such a beautiful time to spend outside.

However today when it was time to color eggs it was too stinkin' hot

to be outside to do it!  All three of the tables I had set up were in the sun!

So instead we had to color eggs inside.  

and we had to be ever so much more careful that we

would have had to be outside!

You just can never count on the weather!

I made this fun flower pot tower several years ago,

but last year I took it all apart and painted the pots

in funky patterns and colors.

I've seen several of these flower pot towers on Pinterest lately.

The top photo shows Mia and I planting some strawberries about a month ago.
Here she is today checking
to see if she has any ripe strawberries.
AMAZING!
She ALWAYS has a strawberry to pick!
Sometimes we help Mother Nature a little by "planting" a strawberry for her to find.

As it got a little later and it got a little cooler,
we played a little knock the colored water bottles
down with the beanbags.

We also played a little badminton.

This is a picture of the quilt I didn't get photographed YESTERDAY!

My heart is so filled with gratitude for all the blessings that God has given me.

He is my constant companion and strength.  I am truly blessed.

Easter Blessing to you all.

tammy

Oh MAN! 250 blog posts!

As Easter day is slipping away
I take time to count my blessings.

I am so blessed to have my children live in the same town.
Here we are just after Easter dinner.

Don't I have a beautiful family? 
And have I mentioned lately that my family is growing?
Mia is pictured here at 27 weeks. No you can't see her yet,
she's still got a little bit of growing to do before she comes
out to greet the world. 

26 years ago on this day MY family grew when

Brian was born.

Here he is sharing his birthday cake with a

nephew and niece.

Birthdays are always more fun when you can share it with a child or two!

Saturday night we celebrated Brian's birthday with family.

Dinner at home and then off to the Coyote's game.

While at the game I came across a TRUE FAN!

Look at this sweet little face posing behind a Coyote's cutout player.

But THIS is the funny part:

A pint sized fan!  What a cutie!

It's been awhile since I've written...........

so I have lots of stuff to write about now!

We celebrated Brian's 25th birthday by going to a wine tasting at Bacchus. I made Mint brownies to share with the group.

The picture below was AFTER we did the tasting! See how

all of our faces are a little flushed? See how RED my face and neck are? I can't ever have a drink without getting super red! Oh! and it gets that way after only ONE drink!

What a lightweight!

The night before Easter Mike and I had all of the kids over to celebrate.

We did the traditional Ham dinner.

And while the boys watched TV and drank wine............

The girls colored Easter eggs.

We started a new tradition.

Actually it is a tradition that Ed used to do.

He always colored the very last egg and it was an

Everything Egg.

He dunked the egg into every single dye bath color.

You never knew quite what color the egg would end up.

But that mystery was part of the fun.

Jen finished sewing the last bit of binding on the baby quilt she was making.

Here is the finished product:

Jen learned how to do piecing and applique on this quilt.

She also quilted it on the longarm and applied a piped binding by machine, but finished it up by hand sewing it in place and hand sewing a label.

She really learned alot and is ready for the next project!

We started out our Easter Sunday by going to a sunrise service, taking a carload of stuff over to the new house, having a scrumptious breakfast outside in the beautiful weather, taking another load over, searching for Easter eggs and then going over to Darcy's to have Easter dinner with the extended family.

Tammy, Jenny, Rafael, Jen
Mike & Brian

Easter Sunday April 2009

What a beautiful family!

I am so lucky!

Don't you agree?

We ended the day by moving the last load over to the kids' new house. The kids spent the first night in thier new house on Easter Sunday.

Here are the proud homeowners:

My last post said that we had a case of chicken pox in the house. Well, the Urgent care doc was wrong. After a couple of days of the anti-viral meds Rafael's rash did NOT get any better.......it got WORSE. So I got him into our regular doc and it was diagnosed as another type of rash. He seems to be getting better now. We think it might have come from contact with a rug he was taking out of his NEW HOUSE!

I've been doing alot of quilting lately, but have not taken pictures as of yet. This quilt pictured below is one of a series of three that this quilter has made. The quilt top is made from Route 66 fabric and the quiltmaker wanted me to quilt things on this top that would represent things seen on the road, like cactus, sun, mountains, etc. I added a palm tree, cars, road signs, clouds, birds, a hot air balloon and a couple of "big rigs". Unfortunately on the picture below you cannot see these details.

But here is a detail shot of the back of the quilt:

I have been really monitoring my quilting time.

I finally got word back from my doctor and it seems that I have some disc problems in my neck and back and he wants me to see a specialist.

Reluctantly I made the appointment, but also got on the internet and got more information about this condition.

Looks like the next step is shots and then surgery.

Since I"m not wild about either of these options,

I have been trying to follow some steps to "heal" this bulging disc problem.

I found a site where this chiropractic doctor lists specific steps to do this.

The first being to ice the area frequently.

(I'm icing as I write this post!)

So I have been faithfully icing about 3-4 times a day!

and doing one of the exercises he recommends.

It has made a difference! I quilt for awhile, then ice for 20 minutes, quilt some more, ice some more.

Since I can't see the specialist for another 2 weeks I figure that I have nothing to lose by trying these steps!

AND since I've had to spend a chunk of time sitting and icing.........I READ! A win-win situation in my book! I just finished up the 3rd in the "Twilight" series. I think it might be time to go to the library and get the last of the series!

Phew, I guess I'm done for now!