Greetings

Dear friends, funny how quickly time is flying when you have things to keep you busy.  Chloe is growing by leaps and bounds and has been such a pleasure to have as an addition to our family.  one week down and she has learned her name, understands what "outside" means and of course has discovered the pantry where we keep their food.  I think she understands that "no no bad dog" is not her name.
I was able to finish a few things yesterday, I can't show you 2 of them as they are for Exchanges but I will show you a quick one; a lovely design by  Brown House studio.  It's so cheerful, the designer gives you ideas for the tulip, I chose Yellow thinking I would put it in my laundry room.  I love how pretty it is, but not in the laundry room, yellow overkill.

Still have not been able to sit down and stitch as I had hoped, though I have carried a LHN project with me everywhere, It didn't make it out of the bag.  We took a drive up to Dayton to say goodbye to my DH uncle Chuck, he was released from the Hospice hospital last Tues, he has terminal cancer, and everything is shutting down, It's hard to see someone we love suffer, he sleeps 23 hours a day now with little alertness, 65 is just to young...Anyways, please say a prayer for him to go peacefully, he hasn't eaten in over a week now and is still hanging on.  So that is has taken an emotional toll on our family.
Sat and Sun we had a soccer tournament, u17 boys lost both games sat but sunday they did fantastic and were back in sync, at least they ended on a positive note.
this week dh leaves for a golf trip in south carolina, it will give me a few days of complete stitching bliss, that is if uncle chuck doesn't pass.
Yesterday I was a busy girl, running Chloe outside just about every half hour, but it was an accident free day so i was more relaxed, i also did some finishes, made big bakery style chocolate chip cookies for the kids, i'll include the recipe and a picture below.  took dogs on several walks, keeping her tired has helped decrease the accidents too.  lol.
Enjoy your week!

Brown House studio- Spring

Chloe

Duncan and Chloe

Bakery style chocolate chip cookies- 3 inches round!

Recipe- Thick and chewy chocolate chip cookies

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
12 Tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 large egg plus 1 egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup chocolate chips

1.  Adjust oven racks to the upper and lower middle positions, heat oven to 325 degrees.  Line 2 large baking she eps with parchment or spray them with nonstick cooking spray.  ( i skipped that- they slid right off my sheets)

2.  Whisk the flour, baking soda, and the salt together in a medium bowl. set aside.

3.  either by hand or electric mixer, mix the butter and sugars until thoroughly blended.  Beat in the egg, yolk, vanilla until combined.  add the dry ingredients and beat at low speed just until combined.  stir in the chips to taste.

4.  roll a scant 1/4 cup of the dough into a ball.  split in half.  place the dough on prepared sheets 2 1/2 inches apart.

5.  Bake until the cookies are light golden brown and the outer edges start to harden yet the centers are still soft and puffy, 15-18 minutes.  Rotate sheets front to back halfway through baking.  Cool cookies on sheets.  best served warm.

****Recipe from www.browneyedbaker.com****

New puppy

Well I was hoping to make some progress stitching but I have an unexpected family member and I'll be chasing her for awhile and teaching her to stay out of mommas stitching stuff.

Well, it all started with a Sat soccer game and a very sweet puppy, my sons teammate had just gotten a golden Friday night and she was the sweetest little ball of fluff. Then the conversation started, where did you get her, are there anymore, do you have their phone number....then the texts to the DH while he as work, how's your day, how you feeling today, can we go look at a puppy? Then I called the folks that had the pup, there was only 1 left, yes a female ( what I wanted), only problem that someone from Toledo was supposed to come see her, expressed some interest in her, will call me back tomorrow. Fast forward to Sunday, I couldn't wait for the call, I called in the afternoon and expressed more interest. He called back and said the Toledo guy bailed and we could come see her tonight, and we did, and she came home.

My frenchie Duncan is not happy about this, did some snapping and some aggression for the first hour, but I expected it, he has been king cheese for 4 years now. Today is better, they are playing a lot and I've been trying to give him and her lots of love. It can only get better right? Well, she was barking when she went into the crate last night, so my son slept with her, he's in love. And we were all up at 4:30 this morning. I left her in the crate while i took the kids to school, it hurts but she needs to get accustomed to being alone. Duncan, is definitely the alpha dog, I will keep working with him, I know its hard for him too.

So this leads me back to not having gotten much stitching done and doubtful much more will over the next few days, but I will try.

I love puppy breathe :)

My slow progress

All is quiet

Well, Phew, Easter came in with family visits and running around, kids are back to school, and I can finally sit down and stitch again! Yippee! My ex - SIL and family came to visit us for the holiday from Pittsburgh. The kid cousins were thrilled to spend some time catching up, they are all in their early teenagers and my SIL doesn't consider me an OUT-LAW ;) all is good. We got to enjoy some shopping, some swimming at their hotel and lots of eating. Pulled out the corn hole game and relaxed in the beautiful Spring sunshine. Easter Sunday was at my MIL's for dinner which is always yummy. Humm, Yesterday was back to school grind for the kids and my son's first soccer game of the spring season, unfortunately it got ugly and even one of the grandparents made a threat to the ref and was ordered to leave the pitch. I just don't understand sometimes, this is supposed to be fun, it's already competitive as the boys are 15-17, there is plenty of testosterone out on the field without the ugliness. Anyways, we lost but it's all good.

Today was a good stitching day, I had to sit up at the car dealership for my gas tank sensor to be repaired, and the good news aside from 3 hours of uninterrupted stitching was that it was half covered by GM! Gotta love that! I am working on LHN- Home of a Needleworker Too. Then I spent an hour in Jo Ann's looking for the perfect material and embellishments to make 3 finishes, it's supposed to rain later this week so that will be a good day to be in the basement and sew.

My dining room smells awesome- I had 16 boxes from Yankee Candle delivered Friday morning for the high school fundraiser, finally went through the paperwork last night, now I need to load them in the car and find a date that parents can come pick them up. After I got to smell all these beautiful scents, I am witting that I had bought more! UGH, always the case.

I hope everyone had a fantastic holiday!

Dawn

Something finished, a start, a finish, and lots of ripping...

Hello friends, I don't know where the time has gone this past week, the weather has been so nice that the kids and I have been out working in the yard, while I've enjoyed the time with them, they seem less then pleased that God forbid, they help out a bit. I suppose I was that way too...

I am so very excited to show you my MIL birthday present, all framed up, she is so beautiful. I cannot wait to give it to her next week. MY LNS has done a fantastic job framing her! I'm thinking of doing one of the other in the series but this time I will keep her :) I just love the colors.

I finished a little seasonal piece for a exchange so I can't show you pictures yet. I'm halfway done with LHN Bee sampler, and then I miscounted somewhere and did some ripping out this morning, so frustrated at the lost time, but it was a thread miscount so it catches up and the mistake is obvious, sigh.

So when i picked up my piece yesterday from LNS, I grabbed the CC needed to do LHN's Home of a Needleworker too! and I just started that about an hour ago. I feel like I made some progress. You'll have to forgive me with the photos being out of order, I seem to have no idea how to make them nice and neat.

We had a Yankee Candle fundraiser for the high school soccer team and I was the chairperson for that, rah! lol. I managed to stay sane but was uncomfortable having several thousand dollars in checks in my possession so I ran them over to the treasurer this morning and feel like a weight has been lifted my shoulders, she is going to have fun endorsing them for the deposit. Better her than me. Now that I know what I'm doing, I'm sure the fall fundraiser will be even better. Some parents and their requests are...interesting, and they chose to have kids, I'm a bit worried :) just some fun humor. The way some Ohioins do things baffles me.

Well, I don't suppose I'll be getting much done this weekend, tomorrow is DH birthday and I have his folks coming to visit, then I've got company coming in from Pittsburgh for a few days, and and and, oh it'll be Easter on Sunday. I hope everyone has a safe and wonderful Easter Holiday.

Dawn