Big Apple

I'm off with The Hubby to visit and enjoy New Your City this week. We are meeting our middle child and her little family for a great summer visit and we are going to have fun.  The Hubby will be in Boston for a day, but the rest of the time we will have him close by and ready to go to a play, baseball game, museum, boat ride, or whatever else we all come up with.

Here we come.

Baby Blankets

 My lastest craze is putting the babies name on my gifts for baby showers. I guess my new sewing machine has made me more aware of monogramming and so it is now my standard operating procedure when going to a shower. This particular blanket is out of the flannel that is in the Moda line called "Bliss" that I made all my grandchild Easter dresses out of.  I just love it.
The embroidery is done in an applique style where just the edge of the design is sewn around a fabric letter.

 I edged this blanket in matching satin blanket binding, which I like but I can't always match.

This blanket is done in red Minky fabric (that's the really soft stuff you want to keep petting 'cause it feels like my Abby dogs ears)  on one side and red t-shirt knit fabric on the back. It is embellished with different cotton quilting fabrics around the edge and so it looks more like a typical quilt.

 Here is one where I just got a new applique font from Planet Applique I think they have a lot of cute designs. I used this old bug fabric and lower case letters. two of the letters are just zig zagged around which is the first step in the process and then I moved on to the next letter.

 I also added some looped ribbons for baby to play with on this one.

The back is again done in minky fabric, which I love for soft little babies.

Tangent time:
When Abby was a new puppy, our son Jonathan was the one who got to pick her out and help name her. Jonathan was 10 years old and he loved her ears because they felt like velvet. She was from our neighbors litter and their last name was Abbot. So our black lab/retriever mix was named Abbot Velvet Hodgman.  Now you know the rest of the story.

Garden (really)

Okay, I started talking about my new little vegetable garden last week, but got off on a treehouse tangent. So now I'll show off my new garden in a sunny spot where 40 foot trees used to shade and root away.
It's been a few years now, and so I'm slowly incorporating a few more goodies into the soil in this little back yard spot so that more and more things will grow, and less and less roots will be fought off.

My expanding vegetable list now includes chard, celery, and onions.

 In addition to the tomatoes, squash of the summer as well as winter varieties, eggplant, and basil that I also planted last year.

 These two pictures above and below caption were just taken (15th June), whereas the previous 2 pictures was on the 10th.

 How quickly things grow.
I chopped down some boxwood bushes (2nd photo) before we went out of town for the weekend just so the sprinklers could water my precious garden. They were beautiful bushes, but we are removing them at the end of the summer for a backyard redo project. Stay tuned.

Now in the front yard is this.

Which has been very prolific in providing us with these.

Aren't I quite the little farmer?

Changing Hair Style

I'm unsure if you've been paying attention to (or if you care about) Michael's hair style evolution the past few months, but I'll just show a few pictures of the ever changing boy/man at our house and let you judge, or snicker for yourself.
First, here is a picture of the Michael we came to know and love the last 2 or 3 years of high school. I (along with the Hubby) was always bugging him to grow it out a little bit, especially on top, so he could have a bit of fashion to it, but he never wanted to. Just kept it buzzed every 3 or 4 weeks.

He seemed to keep this style as he started college last year and during the b-ball season as well, but then decided to change things up a bit in the spring.
By doing NOTHING at all.

When I picked him up after his freshman year in college he looked like this.

After he got his mission call he was instructed to have his picture taken for his missionary VISA, so he   asked me to cut it for that. Now we were bugging him to cut it shorter. He felt like we were just never satisfied with the way our son looked.

He was going to the temple next, so a little trim around the ears and neck and even if Dad wasn't thrilled with it, the hair could pass.

Nice bowl cut.

 Then Michael reverted back to 2nd or 3rd grade for a couple days.

Luke's hair is just right.

And finally the fauxhawk type cut.  This is where we are stuck right now.

The barber could do a better rendition of it, but alas MM is a little too cheap, so I, Mom, am the designated clipper. I am assuming that he will cut buzz his own hair while he serves a mission, but we shall see.

2011 Garden - AKA - Our TreeHouse

Last year I planted about 6 plants in my vegetable garden plot. It is a relatively new spot for a garden and used to have 2 very large Monterey Pine trees with a terrific tree house above the now sunny area.

I guess I'll tell that story now.

When our family moved to this little Town of Los Gatos in 1994, the big kids started plotting and planning to make the little kids a great tree house. This double decker house was to be located in 2 very large pine trees that were located in the back northeast corner of our property. David enlisted the help of Jonathan and Dad and within the year the treehouse was built.

1995    Kathryn (9), Stephanie (7), David (13)

The first year of the houses existence there was a 2 x 12 leading up into the branches. We had a couple of mishaps during that period of time making the mother of this little family insist on some safety rules.
One accident happened because there were nails sticking out of the ramp, and Kathryn's derrière was injured as she was sliding down.
Another problem was that this loving mother couldn't see the side back yard from my kitchen window. For some reason I thought that my children were more intelligent than other peoples kids, but I soon started to catch these very smart kids jumping from a different 2 x 12 between the the branches of the two trees down onto our trampoline below. They would move the trampoline across the lawn just so they could jump from the tree above (probably 15-20 feet or so) and land right in its center, bouncing them back into the heavens. We were lucky to not have any broken bones. I realized fun and smart don't always go together.

Eventually, we had 3 levels of a tree house. The first level being a short 9 foot distance up a ladder from the ground and a resting place for the way up.
There was a nice window in the main level of the house, as well as a balcony off of that same level. This level was big enough to put down five or six sleeping bags. Stephanie made a trap door to cover the hole into the room so that no sleeping child would fall through. The kids also carpeted this level and put in some draperies, and everything but electricity.
The top level was a rooftop deck and had fencing all around.
In this picture taken in 2005, the dead trees are ready to be cut down and we are beginning our mourning of the loss of our beloved tree house.  (Normally, when the trees were healthy they covered much of the house better than these pictures show.)
Our neighbors Fran and Bruce would talk to the kids from their driveway which was down below the side of the trees, just on the other side of the fence.

The shed down below was added to the yard in about 1998.  Jonathan had replaced the fence in 1995, but had to do the side fence over again after we destroyed it for the placement of the shed.

 Michael would like everyone to know it was the best tree house on planet earth.

The lousy bark beetles killed the trees, just as they have been doing all over this Santa Clara Valley, and within just a few weeks they turned almost completely brown. They had to come down, and with them our beloved tree house.

I'll actually post about the garden later.

Our Latest Graduate

I better hurry and post this most important family event before tomorrow, or else I will be wrong in my headline.
Yes, tomorrow our 1st granddaughter graduates from preschool...... but I digress.
Last weekend we watched our 2nd baby boy receive his MA. He was given his Masters Degree in Geography with an emphasis in G.I.S.

YAY David!!
Woo Hoo!
Good Job!
He has been able to accomplish this task while working at Men's Wearhouse and being married for 7 years and having 3 children during it all. Kinda crazy, but all done is all done.

Just look at his accomplishments!! Aren't they cute?!?

The proud parental units,

and supportive little brother participated in the festivities.

Nice hood in the Cal State colors.

Now, we are all praying for a specific job he has in mind.  They'd be lucky to get him.

Decoration Day

Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time, testify to the present or to the coming generations, that we have forgotten, as a people, the cost of a free and undivided Republic. - John A. Logan

Grand Army of the Republic Commander-in-Chief John A. Logan
General Order No. 11, May 5, 1868, mandating Memorial (Decoration) Day
www.jalc.edu/loganmemorial.php

We forget what this day is all about. Thanks to all who serve(d).