Attack of the munchkins!

What a fun weekend we have had here! Daughter Erin and son in law Ryan drove up from Oklahoma City with our cutie pie Grandsons. William is 2 and Alexander 4. It is always so much fun having them here, the boys are changing so quickly at these ages and they are a riot!
Lucky for us we had beautiful weather, low 80s and we were able to be outside most of the time. Yesterday we spent the morning at the Deanna Rose Children's Farmstead. We are so lucky to have this wonderful children's park here in Overland Park. Free for all families to enjoy, the 12 acre park was built to preserve the disappearing charm of farm life. They have farm animals to see and pet, a one room school house, dairy farm, pony rides, fishing, and much much more!

The chickens here are really cool, I call them fancy chickens, they are all different colors and have neat "hair-doos". Here's William checking this one out.

Next we are off to feed and pet the baby goats. I can tell you, these goats never seem to get tired of eating. I went in with a handful of goat food, boy oh boy was that a mistake! They were all over me, I left with hoof prints all over my shorts. It was those two big ones on the left!

Here we are in the one room school house. William is ready, he LOVES school! Alex doesn't seem quite as excited. I think that's because he spied his NANA heading towards the front of the class room. Good thing they are too young to be embarrassed by their Nana yet because....

here I am playing TEACHER! I have to admit, I do have tunnel vision. As soon as I saw that desk I just had to hop up in the teachers chair and play pretend school. I NEVER even saw the real teacher, or the rules that said no one should mess with the teachers desk yet alone sit in it. I am soooo embarrassed LOL! Lucky for me the teacher was very nice and didn't make me go sit in the dunce chair or any thing. PHEW. Here's my Alex, right by my side, he must be thinking that Nana sure is in trouble.

This morning Grandpa made his big breakfast send off for the kids. And lickety split off they went. Gee, it sure is way quiet here now. But look what my pumpkin Alex picked for me before he left, flowers for Nana. Other than hugs and kisses it just doesn't get any better than that! Oh gosh, I am getting watery eyes.
Happy Labor Day weekend and thanks for stopping by!

And the new Bachlorette is........

BARBIE JO!

Oh well, I didn't have an every day pic ready to download, so I used this pic of me at my Last Quilt Market. Something I am long overdue to do again, for various reasons. But this is an example of my booth set up.
Anyways back to the bachlorette thing. You guessed it, Jerry is away on business this week. Remember he was worried about the Bruce concert getting out late and having to get up at
4 am? He did, and I heard him, I think he was making a lot of noise getting ready on purpose.
Of course baby boy is here, but here is mostly not here. So Cleo and I are living the life LOL.
Last night we went up stairs and I jumped up and down on the bed a few times before settling in and watching TV in bed, something I never get to do. And Cleo slept on Jerrys side of the bed
LOL Jerry! We slept in, but that is not unusual. Then we had cokes and Dove bars for breakfast,
and lunch. I did run around cleaning all day, but didn't have to stop and make dinner so I ran to Burger King. Tonight I sat in the big comfy chair and watched TV and was able to be in control of programing, I mean I was actually in charge of the remote! We munched on Jerrys hidden stash of peanuts. LOL LOL. No seriously, we really miss you Jerry. Come home soon before we really get out of control here ROFLOL!

backing up to Saturday......

My eyes are a wee bit red this morning! You can tell you're getting older when you get home after midnight and are worried about the time. Poor Jerry, I know he was clock watching, he had to get up at 4 am this morning to catch the first flight out. But I'll say it again, Bruce was sure worth it! Okay, after all the anticipation of the concert last night I skipped over Saturday!
Saturday afternoon DH and I hopped over the state line to Parkville Mo.
Parkville is a quaint little town along the Missouri River. You can easily wile away a few hours
browsing through all the antique shops, cute specialty stores and then grab a bite to eat at one of several restaurants.

My 1st stop on the list was Peddlers Wagon. Cute little quilt shop with tons of patterns, samples and books. A sign on the door stated cameras were not allowed due to copyrighted material, so no pics for you there.

Now this was my absolute favorite shop, I didn't even catch the name, but would you just look at these darling outfits!!! Believe you me if I felt their was the slightest chance I would look cute in the red one I would have bought and worn it to last nights concert LOL! I do know my limits however (big sigh of relief from my family), so I passed.

Our last stop was a bench along the Missouri river. So calming and peaceful to sit and watch the water rushing by.
The rest of my week will be full blast. Only 4 more days and the Munchkins are coming. the Munchkins are coming!

My Ears Are Ringing!

My ears are ringing and this picture should tell you why!


Jerry and I just returned from the Bruce Springsteen concert at the Sprint Center. This was an early Birthday gift from my DH. My family well knows that I have been a fan of "The Boss" since his 1st LP "Born To Run", yep that is LP and not CD. They've heard it enough, I played that album OVER and OVER and OVER. When Bruce came to Buffalo New York in 1978 Jerry bought tickets for my birthday. And now 30 years later I got to see him here in KC. 3 hours of non stop music, the man does not disappoint. He has a special rapport with his crowd and if you have ever seen one of his shows you know what I mean. I was so overwhelmed by the last set my eyes started to water up a little bit! Geeze Barbie Jo, get a grip! And heavens to betsey, its after 1 am and I better get some shut eye. Until tomorrow!

The cupcake fairy arrived!

What a fun Wednesday. It is always fun when you get a package from the postman and its not even your birthday! Yipeeeeeee, look what my swap partner Jana sent me! And in case you are wondering, Jana is my partner for the Cupcake swap hosted by Sharon of Red Geranium Cottage. I would link that for you, but, I don't know how LOL. Now that is a problem, one I hope my daughter can help me out with when she arrives next week. Lots to learn about this blogging stuff! Right now I feel pretty smart just being able to add pictures.

Anyhoo, just look at this darling package. My gifts were all wrapped in this cute cupcake fabric and tied with pretty POLKA DOT ribbon!

Now lookie inside. This pillow Jana made me is cuteness in itself! She also included a yummy book of cupcake recipes and a cupcake display stand to show them off. I am going to have to make up a batch for my little munchkins visit, I am sure they will need as little extra sugar while they are here. AND then there is a cupcake fizzy for a nice relaxing bath which I will enjoy when the munchkins leave. Thank you sooooo much Jana!

And last but not least, Cleo is all excited looking out the window making little chattering noises, must be a nice big fat squirrel or bird near by teasing her. Shes wearing a pretty bow from that pink polka dot ribbon, she loves pink, it's so girlie!
I am so glad you stopped by, have a wonderful week!

Marching through August

Well sheesh, its after midnight and I have been trying to download pictures for hours now. Seems like I was having some blogger download issues, but were off and running now.
Hard to believe we are well into the month of August already. The kids are back to school in my neck of the woods and I know there are some pretty happy Mommys out there! And the weather, it has been so perfect here, low 80's, cooling down at night, who could ask for more.
Now that my cupcake swap partner Jana received her goodies I can show you what I made, although this item was not cupcake themed. LOL, who would have guessed it!
It is a sewing needle case or pouch. I just love this fabric with its cute Asian kittens. The kitty in the middle is a pin cushion. It will be available in pattern form in the near future.

The rest of my week will be spent putting patterns to paper. And cleaning. Trying to get my house in order for the kids visit over Labor Day weekend. Ug, I think it will take that long. Would somebody please send in the Merry Maids?!
Have a great week!

Its all about me!

My past 2 days have been a lot of fun, they were all about me! Meaning I have been out and about enjoying myself. Not hanging out in my "studio" staring at the nursery wallpaper and sewing! Yes that bunny wall paper border is still up, don't know if I am ever going to have a real grown up studio/nursery.
Last night was Bunco night! Always a fun girls night out. I had the last Bunco and won a whopping big 6 dollars, Woooo Hoooo!
Today my little friend Margaret from Hallmark picked me up for a lunch/nails date.

We went to a Chinese restaurant called One Bite, so yummy, here's what I had.

And here is cute little Margaret showing off her lunch, we both had the same thing.

And next we got our nails done. Guess which ones are mine, I'll give you a clue, they are not the striped ones LOL. We had a really fun time. Spending a few hours with a young person is so invigorating, I feel renewed! They are non stop busy. Now I'm home and back to reality. Which is good, I am ready to get back to some stitching. Just no scrubbing pots and pans for me tonight, I can't ruin my pretty nails!

They make me laugh!

Can you believe it's Monday, again! I was so thrilled to get my cupcake swap partners gifts in the mail today. I was running close to the deadline of the 18th, phew! Done and gone. I can't show you what I made Jana yet, but I will after she gets her gifts and opens them, I sure hope she likes them.
Cleos blogging life is none too exciting this week. I hated to post another picture of my partner (Cleo) not my DH, LOL, lying around the house. So instead I swiped two pictures off my daughters blog. Those of you who visit me via Melissa's Doublestoller blog are familiar with my Texas Twinado munchkins.

You know how kids fight over the same toy, in this case it's the Red Coupe. Their brilliant Mommy decided she would solve this problem by buying a second car. Somehow she didnt get it quite put together yet and tries to convince Aiden it is a convertable.

Of course Aiden isnt buying any of that and it looks like they are back to square one LOL!
I sure do miss my munchkins! XXXs and OOOOOs boys.

Heat wave!

Boy, its been nearly a week since my last post! The days are flying by and summer is slipping away. Hard to tell by the heat index this past week though, we finally hit the 100 degree mark and with the humidity level we Kansas Cityans were one cranky whining bunch of people.
Which reminds me of a remark a little old lady made to me while I was leaving Target the other day, she hollered over to me "it sure is one hot a-- day!" I just smiled at her and said it sure is!
I snickered on my way out to the car, you know it just caught me by surprise. So needless to say with the heat thing going on I've been spending as much time as possible indoors.

I finished this wool felt on wool runner. It is really hard to take a picture of something long and also try to show closeup detail. My picture does not do justice here, the colors are really rich and the bells have some pretty hand embroidery detail on them. I also have to say the only reason why Cleo is not lying smack dab in the middle of this picture batting balls and greenery everywhere is due to her advancing middle age and a few too many treats. She has lost her ability to jump up on my side board without the aid of a chair or something close by to use as a launching pad. Doesn't mean she didn't think about it though!

While in Target the other day I bought this book to read and a bag of Dove candy to fill my candy dish that sits beside the computer. One of Jons friends noticed my dish overflowing with wrappers last week and said geeze Jon, does your Mom eat all those? DUH. Does a cow give milk? Boys, they just don't get it. Well anyways, back to the book. I am 96 pages into it and struggling . :( I read 10 pages and then put it down, read another 10 and set it aside. This is supposed to be a sweeping epic of Russia during the 30s. Ho hummmmmm. But I'll tell you, for $15.00 a paperback, yes paperback prices seem to have gone up too, I AM going to finish this.

I guess I'll leave you with a Cleo pic for the week. I have interupted her fascination with the floor. This is one of her special spots, on a chair under the kitchen table where she stares at the floor for hours. I mean really, its kind of weird. Is she looking at the pattern on the rug or what in the world is down there?
As for me I'll be computer bound pounding out that runner pattern this week end. And tackling lots of housework. Daughter #2 is coming to visit for Labor Day weekend! Which means my munchkins will be here and I better start munchkin proofing the house. I am soooo excited!
I'm glad you stopped by, have a wonderful weekend!