OOPs I forgot to brag about Josh and his soccer team. They were undefeated all season and in the playoffs and brought home the Championship Trophy. We are so proud of all the boys.

How can it be October 16 already? I keep meaning to write and have been so busy that it somehow never gets done.

James has his mission call! He is going to Puerto Rico, San Juan West Mission. He leaves on Jan 2, 2008. He is sooo excited about this. He will spend 3 weeks in the Provo, Utah Mission Training Center and then go to the MTC in the Dominican Republic for his language training and to learn about the culture -- he will be there 6 weeks. We have applied for his passport and he has been to the Temple-- what a wonderful day that was. We have purchased his shirts and still have socks, shoes and slacks to go. He will only need one suit and he already has that as it is too hot to wear a suit all the time there. He will travel in his suit to and from his mission and will wear it while in the Prov MTC. He got his luggage for a Christmas present last year. All his immunizations are finished and he is busy working to earn the last of his money to pay for this wonderful adventure.

I am busy making t shirt quilts for four of my grandkids for their Dad to give them for Christmas. T shirt quilts are a new adventure and I am enjoying learning about this method of quilting. Bob has saved all their tshirts from track and ski meets for years now and brought them to me before they moved back East and asked me if I could make quilts from them.

My kitchen has needed redecorating for a few years now and we have started on that. I never think I have enough kitchen cabinets but when I started painting them I may have changed my mind-- 23 cabinet doors and 14 drawer fronts is ALOT of painting. I am doing them a few at a time-- one section at a time. The cabinets are a deep reddish brown color and so far I just love them. They were white and 12 years has made a toll on them. We won't do the new counters until after the first of the first of the year-- maybe in Feb or March.

It will soon be time to start putting up the Christmas Villages for the Holidays. It takes several weeks. James built me cupboards with wide counters around three sides of our family room. During the Holidays we display our Christmas Villages on the counters and during the remainer of the year they and all our Christmas decorations are stored under the counters. My husband started the Villages and we have continued them over the years.

It has been awhile since I have written on this blog. I have been very busy with many things. I am working on five quilts right now. One is the quilt that I make each year for the Collie Health Foundation that will be auctioned off at the annual auction that takes place at the Collie CLub of AMerica National in March.

The other four are quilts for 4 of my grandkids. Their dad has saved all their t shirts from every meet for cross country skiing and track they have ever gotten and has asked me to make quilts for all four of them. I have cut out all the things on the jerseys now and have most of them reinforced with iron on sizing. Next I will have to lay them out and decide how to make them look the most attractive. I will use different fabric for the sashings on each quilt. Michael is working on a farm near where they now live-- helping with the cows and haying etc. I have some fabulous fabric with holstein cows on it for the sashing on his quilt. I have not decided what I am going to use for the others but one of them will be navy blue with little tulips on it. So when I am finished with this project, I will have blended my grandchildren garden with my quilt garden.

This is a quilt I made from a kit I purchased a few years ago. I love all the various colors in this quilt. It will be a bedspread for my daughters bed.

Liza is grown. She is careering while she waits for Mr Right to come along. When she comes home at the end of a long day at work she likes to collapse on her bed and spend time with her collie Corrie. At one time she had a lovely white duvet cover that had embroidered flowers on it. It turned out to be VERY impractical. This will be much more servicable and won't show smudges like the white one did. And at the same time be pretty. She and Corie will be much happier with this.

My Garden of Grandkids

I have been blessed with 20 grandkids. They are all wonderful people. Here are some snaps of some of them cross country skiing.

Josh & his quilts

Josh and his quilts. Josh loves the quilts and especially his. He takes his quillow everywhere he goes and loves to rollin his big quilt. Josh did all the photography of my quilts for me. He is a wonderful young man who excells in school and in the many things he undertakes.

Christmas Quilts

CHRISTMAS is an exciting time of year at our house. We are all Christmas fanatics. I have made many quilted items for our home to use during the Christmas Season. Several years ago I decided to make a Christmas Quilt each year. Here are some of them.

This is the 2006 quilt-- I havenot quiltedit as yet.

The quilt to the right I made two of. One for my sister and one for myself for Christmas 2000.