Autumn Leaf

Every year, my hometown has a festival called Autumn Leaf Festival. The dates of the festival coincide with the Local University's Homecoming Football Game. Some of the highlights of the festival are a craft show on Friday and the big parade on Saturday. This year I was able to attend the craft show (with no kids!) and the rest of the family came up for the parade on Saturday. The photo above is of the craft show. They close down main street and vendors set up on both sides of the street for many blocks. As you can see it gets very crowded and since the weather was beautiful (even though it was a little hot) the crowds were larger.

On Saturday, they have a parade. The girls really enjoyed the parade because they throw candy along the route to all the children. We came prepared with bags to hold all the candy. E. was very funny because she was very particular on what kind of candy she kept. If she didn't like it, she would lay it back on the street or put it in M's bag. It was too cute.

Below are other various shots of the girls enjoying the parade.

Red Thread Quilter's Charity Quilt

This quilt is a collaboration of many people from the Red Thread Quilters Yahoo Group. Members donated all the blocks, which are 6 inch finished squares. Barbara P. designed and sewed the top together. I did the machine quilting and sewed on the binding. I quilted it with little meandering flowers all over. The quilt will be donated to Love Without Boundaries Art Auction in the 2008.

Closeups of the center of the quilt.

First Field Trip

E. had her first field trip yesterday. Her preschool class went to a local Apple Orchard. They learned all about apples and how they made apple cider. E. can now tell you about all the different parts of an apple. E. had a great time and for the most part was a good girl and listened and participated. She did have one episode where she went up to her teacher's 14 month old baby at the play area and gave her a little shove when she tried to enter one of the houses. She didn't want the baby to come into "her" house. We had a little talk about pushing after that!

Another One Hundred Good Wishes Quilt (OHGW) that I finished for a customer. She picked out this very cute Asian girl border in pink and I chose the other colors for the sashing and cornerstones. The backing is a lt pink flannel which matches the lt pink in the border. I did an allover meandering quilting with little loops. I finished sewing on the binding yesterday evening. I now am going to start the machine quilting on the Red Thread Quilter's (RTQ) charity quilt.

Salt Dough

In the kids meal of one of our favorite fast food restaurants, Chick-fil-a, there was a book with all kinds of fun activities to do on a rainy day. Well it wasn't raining yesterday but making salt dough was something the girls really wanted to do. So I made some salt dough for them and they had fun making snakes, pandas and other shapes. Here is the recipe:

SALT DOUGH

3 cups flour

1 cup water

1 cup salt

2 tsp oil

mix together. Roll out and make shapes. Put them on a cookie sheet.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes

When cool, have fun painting them with poster paint or acrylic paint.

All the shapes on the cookie sheet

E. painting her snake

The finished works of art!

Busy

I haven't forgotten about the blog. I've just been busy being a single parent these last few weeks. There also hasn't been too much of anything exciting going on to even write about. I have had some time to sew but no time to take pictures. I've been working on a quilt for a customer and I am now ready to sew on the binding. Finished quilting it yesterday. I'm also working on another quilt for my second cousin. For her High school graduation, I made quilt blocks and she had all her friends sign them. Now I'm putting all those blocks into a quilt. My Aunt would really love to give her the finished quilt for Christmas which means I need to start now. There is also another quilt in the waiting that needs to be machine quilted. This one is a charity quilt that someone else put together from my Yahoo group, Red Thread Quilters. We all donated 6 inch blocks and she sewed this beautiful top and I volunteered to machine quilt it. Other than that, I'm just busy driving the girls to all of their activities and sitting/watching them while they have fun and get in shape. I probably sit close to 5 1/2 hours a week watching M. at gymnastics and Chinese dance and E. at gymnastics and just regular dance class. They get in shape and I just add the pounds :)

1st Day of Preschool

Today was E.'s first day of Preschool. She is going to a 3 year old program through our Park District two days a week. This is the same Preschool that M. attended for 2 years. E. was so excited to finally be able to go to school (she is my scholar and just thrives on learning). E. wanted to go this morning but she had to wait all day to go in the afternoon. This week they split the class up and have each group only go for one hour to class to get used to being in School so we had some time to kill before her class. So what does my little scholar want to do for an hour, but go to the Library and work on the computer learning her phonics and letters at the website Starfall.com (she is able to do everything on this site by herself). When it was time for class, I walked her to her room and she walked right in and didn't look back. I don't think I even got a "Bye Mom". When I picked her up, she was just as happy so I guess everything went ok. My goal for her this year is to learn to interact better with other children, something that she definitely needs to work on. They probably won't teach her anything that she doesn't already know but that is ok. She's there for the socialization part.

3 Years ago...

today in the Shenandoah Valley of VA, we received the news that we had another daughter. Referrals were starting to be posted to the March 04 Yahoo DTC site on Sep 7 but we didn't receive a call from our Agency. We left very early in the morning of the 8th for a vacation to Williamsburg, VA with friends that was planned many months before. I had a feeling that we would hear something that day. Later in the afternoon when we stopped at the P. Buckley Moss Museum in Waynesboro, VA a call was placed to our cell phone that we had left in the car. We called back the number and that's when we heard all about Qiu Li Ge (Beautiful Song) better known as E. She was born on Feb 20, 2004 and was living at the Yangxi SWI in the Guangdong Province. We would have to wait 2 more weeks to see her picture for the first time due to our Agency having the referral paperwork translated before they let you see the picture. They do this so you can make an informed decision about accepting the referral by having all of her medical and developmentally history rather than falling in love with a photo.

In honor of her 3 years with us, I've made a little slide show. It starts from the time we first see her referral and ends with recent photos.

Give Me the Strength...

that I'll need to be a "good" single parent for 30 days. DH is out of town for work for 30 days so all the parenting will be up to me! The girls for the most part are really good but they are 3 and 5 and have their "moments". It's those times that I'll need the stength to deal with it because there won't be anyone else to help. At least the girls are busy with school, gymnastics, dance classes and Chinese Language class so I can get out of the house for a little while and break up the monotony. I also have my hobby of quilting to help me relax. I just hope the girls give me time to sew! After this 30 days, I will have more understanding and admiration for all those Single parents out there!!

Weekend Projects

I had lots of time to sew this weekend so I took advantage of it. I don't know why, but for some reason, I've been interested in making purses. I'm not really a purse person (don't even carry one) but have enjoyed making something different instead of just sewing a quilt. I got so into it this weekend that I made 2 purses and have a 3rd one half way completed. I am planning on donating one of the purses to the upcoming Half The Sky Auction in October. The other two might be some Christmas gifts. I was also able to start on another One Hundred Good Wishes Quilt for a customer. All in all a very productive sewing weekend!!

Purse #1-This is made from a pattern from Tammy Tadd Designs called The Zippy Convert-Able! My plan for this purse is to donate it to the Half the Sky Auction in October.

Purse #2-I had so much fun sewing the first purse that I went out and bought fabric and supplies to make a few more. This one may be a Christmas gift for someone special or it could just take up room in my closet :)

Purse #3-The one with the bright polka dots. I didn't quite finish this one. The outer purse is complete but I need to make the inner liner. I decided to make the larger purse this time.

Beginnings of the One Hundred Good Wishes Quilt. I was able to cut out all the pieces for this quilt and then sew one row together. I needed imput from my customer before I continued and that is why I started to make the purses and kind of got carried away!

First Day of Kindergarten

Today was M.'s big day, her first day of Kindergarten! She was so excited all day and couldn't wait until I drove her to school. First thing today was her 1 1/2 hour long Gymnastics class and then we had some lunch. She was very excited to wear her new clothes, have her hair curled a little and wear her new "Cheetah" backpack. It was so cute when we dropped her off and she leaned over and gave her little sister a kiss on the check. She then started to walk towards her classroom with no problem. Her life is now entering a new phase of school and new friends. She's no longer that little baby who wanter her Mama to hold her all the time, but is now a brave young lady.

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Ready for School

My baby is going to be starting Kindergarten next week. Last night M. had Kindergarten Orientation at her school, Connoquenessing Valley Elementary (CVE for short). She was able to meet her teacher, see her classroom and also sit at her assigned table. M.'s teacher seemed very nice and I'm sure M. will just love her. Many of the children (including M.) will be riding a bus to and from school so they had a bus available for the kids to climb in and check it out. Something as little as sitting on a bus was very exciting to M. Even her little sister had to sit on the bus.

I'm excited for M. to be going to school and have the opportunity to learn and also to make new friends. Of course, I will be a little sad because my baby is growing up. Thinking of how far she has come from the tiny, crying baby that we first met almost 5 years ago and now how she has grown into this beautiful, not afraid, bright, outgoing young lady will probably make me cry.

Quilt top 22

This is a totally scrap quilt using light and medium/dark fabrics. Unfortunately I can't remember what book or pattern that I used because it's been so long since I sewed the top. It too is a larger quilt (queen/double).

Quilt Top 21

This quilt is from a book called Colorwash Trip Around the World. I made it by using varying shades of pinks to burgandy floral fabrics. It's probably about a Queen or lge Double quilt.

Charm Party Tote

After someone posted a photo of a charm purse that they made on my Red Thread Quilters Yahoo Group, I decided to try it myself. I have been trading fall type 6x6 square prints with a local quilt group (SewBroke Quilters) and I had enough of those squares to make the purse. The pattern that I used is called Charm Party from the August 2007 issue of McCall's Quilting Magazine. I think the pattern is available to purchase separately or you can order a back issue of the magazine for a little less money and not only receive this pattern but many more. It really was very easy to make and now I have plans to make more (possible Christmas gifts). My next tote is a dance themed one for M. so she has a stylish tote to put all of her dance shoes and other"stuff" when she goes to class.

Close up of the back of the purse.

Weekend of Fun

(Ohiopyle State Park)

Last weekend we had our last guests visit from out of town before School Starts in a couple of weeks. The girls's Papa from IL, Aunt K. and Cousin L. all came for a visit over the weekend. They had lots of fun seeing some sights around the area. Here are a few shots of some of the places they visited.

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The girls and their cousin at Falling Water (designed byFrank Lloyd Wright)

They also had to have a little fun. Their cousin did their hair in a crazy way and then it was photo time. A few good photos and then the silly ones....

I just had to share one of our favorite photos of M. taken while we were in China. She was just a couple weeks shy of being 1 year old and it was taken about a a week after she was placed with us. Two of her best features are highlighted in this photo, her eyes and that beautiful smile.

I thought this picture was lost forever on our old computer but I finally figured out a way to save it. My new computer wasn't able to read any of the photos that I had saved on disks (I'm not a computer whiz so I couldn't figure it out) even though the old one could read the disk. I thought all my photos were gone until today. I tried downloading the photos onto my digital camera and it worked. Now I will be busy transferring the photos from the old disks to my camera and then to the new computer to save again on Cd's.

Blue Morpho Butterfly

Would you know what kind of Butterfly this was if you saw it? I didn't (nor did her dad and the two other adults with us) but my 3 year old did. At the Butterfly Conservatory, she was the only one who said "That's a Blue Morpho Butterfly" and she was right. I found out today how she knew about the Blue Morpho. She loves Go Diego Go and the show today was all about the Blue Morpho Butterfly. Maybe I should be watching Diego a little more so I can be as knowledgeable about animals as much as E.

Vacation Fun

We spent the last week on vacation with good friends of ours. This family traveled with us on both of our trips to China to adopt our girls. Their children are also from the same Institutes as my girls. We try to get together as often as we can. This year we met up with each other in Niagara Falls, Canada and spent a few days seeing the falls, playing at the hotel's indoor waterpark and seeing other sites around the area. Then on Wednesday, we crossed the border back into the U.S. and went to Erie, PA. We spent a day at the beach on Presque Isle State Park. We also went to the zoo and a few other sites around Erie. Instead of posting lots of photos here, I made up an album on my webshots account. As you can see by the photos, the girls had a blast and were very sad to say goodbye. We are looking forward to our next vacation together.

To see the Vacation Photos, click here