MONDAY'S CATCH UP

I know I say this at the beginning of every post, but it's just soo true.  Time just WHIPS past and here we are mid May already.  I hope all you mom's had a nice day yesterday.  Or if you are like me with multiple kids, a nice week-end, haha. We had to divide up the celebrations to accommodate everyone's schedules, and hey it works for me just fine.  The Saturday before Mother's Day was the day that I had celebrated with my mom for years and years and years it seems.  Coming from a family of 6 children my mom always had plenty of visitors on Mother's Day so I felt like I could celebrate her on the Saturday before so that it left me to celebrate with my kids on Sun.  It worked for both mom and I well.  It gave me the whole day to devote to her.  Hubby and I would arrive at their house at 11 or so with flowers and a card (my mother loved to get both!) and then we'd take them out to lunch to wherever she had chosen for us to go.  She loved deliberating over this choice, lol.  Then often we'd go to a movie as well.  They didn't go often to the movies, but they liked to go with us.  After that we'd go back to their house and play our favorite card game of Hand and Foot for several hours.  How I miss this game now. Then eventually we'd think about getting some dinner together and mom usually had some dessert ready (or I'd frequently bring along her favorite...Oatmeal cake).  I will admit I KNEW that Saturday would be my hard day to get through as that was just "her" day for me, but it ended up going very well.

HUBBY INSISTED ON TAKING THIS PIC, HAHA

 Hubby took me to my favorite Sushi restaurant, and then we spent a few hours shopping and running errands.  It kept me busy and occupied just fine.  After we finished with that we headed over to my oldest son's house where they had prepared me one of my favorite meals.  Salmon and rice and yummy veggies.  We visited the rest of the afternoon and evening away with them and enjoyed every minute of it.  I actually played a video game with my grandson Jeffie.  He has asked me before to play with him, but I never have as I really don't work those things well, haha.  I am not sure how the kids today it seems begin working all these electronic things so well at such young ages.  But he picked a "simple one Grandma" and much to his total giggling delight watched me "try" to play it.  I know the memory of this will stick with us both.  Sunday found us driving down to San Diego to church as always and afterwards to my youngest son's house for ANOTHER delicious meal prepared totally by my son.  We had steak (which was soo good!) and garlic potatoes and broccoli.  Soo good.  We spent the next several hours visiting and enjoying all of them.  I understand now why my mom would sometimes opt for dividing up the families and doing separate celebrations.  With soo many of us when we are all together it is hard to REALLY visit with any of them very well.  Obviously, it is nice when we all get together too, but this worked really well.  I got cards, video's, and calls from them all.  All in all a VERY nice Mother's Day celebration and I hope all of the rest of you felt equally celebrated and loved.

I got a few things taken care of that I needed to before we leave for New Mexico next week, and I have a few more to handle this week.  I made Luke's birthday shirt which I will show you in a minute.  Melody is doing a cow theme for him and wanted just a simple tee-shirt with ONE spelling out in cow print on it. Sounds simple enough right?  Ah yeah...not so much, lol.  First of all I couldn't find any cow print fabric though goodness knows I have seen it a million times before at Joannes.  I found zebra print, giraffe print, BROWN cow print (a big NO way on that, lol) and that's about it.  So I headed to the computer and ordered some from online.  But like soo many other things that I do online like that, the fabric that came was not quite what I was needing or expecting.  The print was just larger than I thought and the black and white was spread out if you know what I mean, so cutting a piece that would show some black and some white in each letter was WAY more difficult then it needed to be.  But  I fussed and fiddled around with it until I got three pieces that worked pretty well.  And then I did up a 4th of July shirt for Luke only to have BOTH Melody and I remember after I did it that it is NOT Luke's first 4th of July, lol.  Good thing it is Vinny's as I can just give it to him.  I intended to work on their shirts AFTER getting back from Melody's.  I want to bring along anything I am making for them as shipping things is expensive and not something I really enjoy doing, lol.  After finishing up both of these appliques, I have decided I may not do a lot more combination applique and embroidery work with my machine.  So far they have been too fiddly and time consuming for me.  Though, they do turn out REALLY cute.  I will tell you this....ONLY for my grandkids that's for sure, lol.  Let me show you the shirts...

CUTE AND SIMPLE

LOVE THIS

So this week I need to do Luke and Sam's 4th of July shirts, and my gift for Melody's friends baby and I am going to make some patriotic jammies for Sam and Luke as well.  Melody had found some DARLING jammies at a little boutique by her house.  They are done by some exclusive designer and quite frankly they wanted an arm and a leg for these jammies!  36 dollars a pair if you can believe that! (WHO would pay that? though she says she knows they will sell them all!)  She asked me if it was something I might be able to make.  She sent me to their website where I looked at the jammies (I was expected ones that lit up for that price, lol) and I saw that they were a very simple short and little shirt set done in red and white stripes and navy with white stars prints.  I found a pattern (on the 99 cents day!) and the EXACT fabric (I kid you not!) and will be able to make BOTH boys a pair of these for around 8 dollars a pair.  MUCH more reasonable, lol.  And! they are simple, quick, and easy....my favorite kind of project.  Makes me realize that for babies and toddlers especially, "designer" and "exclusive" are pretty easy to copy, lol.  The only problem I have got right now is that the fabric is "on the way" and I am afraid I won't get it before Friday which means I won't have but a day or so to get them done.  Hopefully, it will get here in time.

Other than these projects, I need to get my hair addressed this week, and these pitiful nails, lol.  My hair has NOT been done for almost 12 weeks now!  I usually get the roots touched and the hair trimmed every six weeks.  But if you recall my hairdresser is my niece, and I was scheduled to have my hair done the week she had her baby....a little early.  So it didn't get done.  And then, of course, I have been waiting the 6 weeks she was taking off before I could do it.  Well, the six weeks are up and I am looking kind of shabby, lol.  She charges me almost nothing to do my hair and I have become quite spoiled by this.  Plopping down the money it would have taken someone else to do my hair is simply out of the question anymore.  How did I ever pay those prices?  lol.  Anyway, I am REALLY looking forward to Thursday!  She is only working a few days a week now so she can spend most of her time with her new baby, so I will have to be diligent about setting my appointments. It is a good thing my hair is soo blonde now as it hides these grey roots pretty well!  OH! and speaking of hair, I need to tell you this story too.  I cut my hubby's hair on Sat!  I think I have mentioned before that I am a definite "wanna be" hairdresser, lol.  It just kills both of us that they want 40 dollars (unless you go to a super cut, and then that is what it looks like! lol) to do his limited amount of hair. Too many time conflicts to go my niece, so he doesn't get the cut rate.  Anyway, on top of that his hair gets messed up pretty easy.  It is slightly curly, (and I mean slightly) he has some cow licks, and it is thin, receding, and what isn't grey is light, light blonde.  So maybe all these things make it difficult to cut, or maybe they just don't take their time, but he has had more then his fair share of bad cuts.  I figured how much worse could I be? haha Well!  let me just say this....I could go pro, lol.  It was amazingly fun to do, and it looks the best it has looked in quite a while if I do say so myself.  Maybe it's because I know his problem areas etc, and worked accordingly around them.  Hubby was thrilled I will tell you that.  Sooo all this to say, I think this will be my job from now on.  And NO I have NOT taken a picture (keep forgetting!) but I intend to for sure.

I will leave you as always with a few darling grandkid pics and then I need to get busy on this day. Unfortunately, we So Californian's are getting ready for ANOTHER heat wave.  Boo!  I don't know if I can bear it but it is the old it is what it is.  It is suppose to be 104 on Wednesday!  Yuck!  So hopefully this air conditioner holds out for me, or melting might be a definite possibility for me.  Enjoy your weeks!  Blessings to you all!  Debbie

DONATELLA HAS SUFFERED FROM A PEANUT ALLERGY SINCE SHE WAS A BABY.  HAD TO CARRY AROUND AN EPI PEN IN CASE SHE ACCIDENTALLY GOT ONE ETC.  WELL...SHE WENT TO HER ALLERGIST SPECIALIST ON FRIDAY AND FOUND OUT SHE NO LONGER HAS THIS ALLERGY (GUESS YOU CAN FREQUENTLY OUT GROW THEM) AND SO TO CELEBRATE SHE PASSED OUT REESES PEANUT BUTTER CUPS TO HER NEIGHBORHOOD FRIENDS TO CELEBRATE, LOL.  SHE HAS WANTED TO TRY THIS CANDY FOR SOME TIME NOW SO SHE WAS REALLY EXCITED.   SOO FUN AND HAPPY FOR HER!

JUST LOVED THIS PICTURE OF SAM AND HIS LITTLE COUSIN.  THEY WERE AT A PARTY TOGETHER ON SAT.  SOO GLAD THEY HAVE SOME FAMILY OUT THERE CLOSE ENOUGH TO GET TOGETHER WITH OCCASIONALLY 

SAME COUSIN