Gosh It's Been Awhile!

Gosh, I didn't realize it's been three weeks since I actually posted anything here to my blog! Sometimes it just doesn't feel like there's much of anything of great importance to blog about. Do any of you feel like that at times?

This is what we woke up to around here in Iowa this morning. It started snowing HUGE flakes about 3 P.M. yesterday afternoon and was pretty slick out by rush hour.

This is looking out our front door. We got about three inches of snow, our first measureable one for this year.

It's really pretty but I'm not big on snow anymore. Maybe cause I'm getting older. Maybe cause I dread the thought of having to go out in it and shoveling the stuff. Not really looking forward to winter this year.

But, we have WONDERFUL neighbors. When I looked out his morning, one of our neighbors had snowblown our driveway and front sidewalk. All I will have to clear is the short walk going to our front door and the stoop. I'm sure the neighbors realize it's difficult for Dan and I to clear the snow with our health problems, and they just jump right in and are more than kind enough to do it for us without us even asking for their help. You just can't ask for better neighbors than that! We are so very thankful for them.

As you can see, the queen and king of the house aren't too concerned about the snow storm we had, lol. Holding down the love seat for their morning nap as usual.

This is just a simple preemie Christmas blanket I put together for our God's Tiny Angels group. We are having an emergency blanket blitz right now. We didn't have enough blankets made for Christmas to take care of all of our NICU's we donate to so we are all frantically trying to get enough blankets made for them. I have another one on the hook right now(Marie Anne, it's your rectangle granny blanket pattern!) and am trying to get it done in time to ship both of them off by Monday. I have about 5 more rounds to go and it will be done. The original pattern starts out with chaining 18 then following the pattern for a regular sized blanket but I started out with 12 chains then followed the pattern and I should end up with a nice 18 inch by 21 inch size for a preemie. Here's the link for the pattern if any of you want to try it, it works up pretty fast!  Rectangle Granny Square Blanket  Some of our other group members are using this pattern too and we really like it!

Here is  the rectangle preemie blanket so far.

Well folks, I guess that's about it for now. I will try to get back to posting on a regular schedule again. I DO follow all of you regularly and sure enjoy reading about what you are up to.

GTA Donations November 2010

November is the month we do our drive for Christmas items for the babies.

Most of these Santa hats were made by a lady that works with my daughter.

This is a preemie blanket I made with a matching diaper shirt.

 This cute little quilt was made from vintage Christmas Precious Moments fabric. This is one of my thrifty creations because I found the PM fabric last summer at a yard sale and paid a whopping $1.45 for it. I had the batting and red backing.

 Here is a closeup of the Precious Moments fabric. Isn't it cute?

I bought some Bear Claw pattern "cheater" quilt tops quite some time ago off of Ebay and just now got around to making up one of them.

I found this cute little fleecy soft baby blanket at our local Goodwill. It has pretty little cars embroidered on one corner of the binding.

Here's a closer look at the binding.

Just a couple of baby blue hats I made for the babies.

I found this bright circus quilt top at our local DAV. That's like a Goodwill shop for those of you that don't know, but the proceeds go to help veterans. I paid a whole 95 cents for the top, such a deal!

I had just a little bit of this skein of yarn left so I made a pair of booties out of it.

 Another smaller blanket made from a granny square out of lavender, yellow and white yarns.

I didn't have a full skein of this yarn either so I ended up making a little dress.





That's it for this time. I didn't get anywhere near as much made this time as I would have liked to  but Peyton's rocking chair and history book took up a lot of my time this time. Plus I was trying to get a head start on Christmas presents. Hopefully I can concentrate more on making things for the babies now, because we can use everything we can get! Every little bit helps, but I sure want to make more!

A Veteran's Day Salute

LOUIS LLOYD POOL

                                            Born 8-29-1920 Died 9-25-1944

This post has been created to honor my maternal uncle who was killed in action over Normandy, France during World War II. 415th Infantry Regiment, 104th Infantry Division

Most of my information is supplied by newspaper clippings that were saved from the DeWitt Observer by my mother, Elva C. Reiman (deceased) who was Lloyd's sister. Some information has been gathered from family members who knew Lloyd.

Louis Lloyd Pool was born August 29, 1920 in De Witt, Clinton County, Iowa to Charles Newton Pool and Bridgett Mary (Lizzie) Elizabeth Feldpausch.

He was always referred to as Lloyd, he never went by his first name of Louis.

Lloyd attended St Joseph's School in De Witt, Clinton county, Iowa.

                                   Here is Lloyd's High School Portrait

 

After high school, Lloyd worked at Paper Products Factory in DeWitt, IA, and Nichols Wire and Steele Company in Davenport, IA. He was working at Frank and Sons Lumber Company, DeWitt, IA when he was called into armed services on November 19, 1942.

He trained at Camp Adair, OR for a year, spent a month in Arizona on maneuvers, and was then transferred to Camp Carson, CO for five months. He then was tranferred to New York where he was deployed to France.


According to newspaper clippings I have, Lloyd's mother received a telegram from the War Department stating that Lloyd was missing in action in France. She then received a telegram on October 16, 1944 stating he was killed in action in southern France on September 25, 1944. (I have been receiving additional info from kind readers telling me about the unit Lloyd was in and what battle, etc he may have been involved in at the time of his death.).

A memorial service was held for him on Monday, March 26, 1945 at St. Joseph's Catholic Church, DeWitt, IA. Rev. John Moriarty conducted the services.

Lloyd is buried in the American Cemetery in Normandy France.

The DeWitt, IA Community Club did it's patriotic thing by giving out certificates to all men and women who served their country during World War II.

Here is a copy of Lloyd's certificate.

Here's a picture of a souvenir from Lloyd's first furlough home.

Looks like one of his buddies printed this on one of those old paper pill cups they had back in the 1940's. (Maybe it's a beer cup, hard to say).

I am proud to display these pictures of Uncle Lloyd's Purple Heart.

NOTES: Lloyd was killed 4 months AFTER the invasion of Normandy.



WIP Wednesday-Brites Babyghan and GW Score

 Here is my progress on my "Brites" babyghan. I looked back and saw I had 4 colors done this time last week, so I've gotten to where I have just about doubled my work since then.

Just starting on my eighth color. I don't seem to crochet all that fast I guess but I keep plodding along.

I think I have hit the bottom of my brights color selection so after this orange stripe is done I'm going to having to go back and reuse all my colors again.

 Now on to some other fun stuff. Yesterday I needed to go to the grocery store but decided I'd pitstop at our local Goodwill first and see if anything there would scream out to me "buy me! buy me!".
Look what screamed at me!

The first picture is what I bought. I got a whole box of ALL......THIS.......YARN.....for the grand sum of $3.38! WooooHooo!

The rest of the pictures are just closeups of what was in there so you can see what all there is.

I ALMOST didn't stop at GW, sure glad now that I did. But I won't do it again on a Tuesday.

I didn't realize it, but our local GW has 25 cent day on Tuesdays. This week, anything that had a blue tag was 25 cents.

I should have realized when it took me 2 trips around the parking lot to get a parking space that something was up.

I'm telling you, it was wall to wall people in there. I've never seen so many people in there at one time. They had all their checkout lanes open but every one had at least 10 people in line. Except one lane, where one lady had her cart so full of clothes that it looked like a miniature mountain, seriously. Obviously, no one got in line behind her!

I don't know how they do it at other Goodwills, but at ours the people stocking shelves have a two shelf cart with totes on them that they bring the stuff out from the back on to put on the shelfs. The golden rule is that you can't take anything off of that cart, you have to wait til they put the items out or they can hand you something off of the cart.
I saw this box of yarn waiting to be put out on the cart. Well, I patiently waited right by that box of yarn until the gentlman stocking came back and asked him if I could please have the box of yarn on the cart. No way was I going to let someone else get it! So I thanked him profusely and almost skipped up to the checkout counters.
I'm happy I got this great buy, but at the same time, it's kind of sad to think someone actually gave yarn away! Do people REALLY part with their yarn???
I'm guessing someone passed away and the family just didn't have any use for the yarn so they donated it to Goodwill. Sad. Much of it is fairly old, but yarn doesn't get old, right? Most of the baby Jamie yarn has tags on them that say Michaels 1996. It all smells good, so it was probably part of someone's stash.
Lucky for me, my hubby is good about not griping when I come hauling more yarn home, especially when I get such a good bargain as this!
He knows I'm a yaranaholic and he's totally supportive of my crocheting for needy babies.
Well, that's my week, how has yours been?
Click the logo below to see what everyone else has been up to.

WIP Wednesday - Brites Crochet Babyghan

Now that Peyton's rocking chair is done, I'm trying to concentrate more on working on crocheting baby items for the charity I belong to, God's Tiny Angels. So this week I am working on a "brites" baby afghan.

You see that Mr. Rocky had to supervise my picture taking, as usual. NOTHING gets done around here without his assistance.

I went through my yarn stash and dug out all of the bright yarns I could find. The majority of what I found was Red Heart Super Saver yarn with a few Caron One Pound skeins thrown into the mix.

They say babies like to focus on bright items and I really enjoy working with the bright yarns, so this seemed like the perfect project for me.
Just so you wouldn't be blinded by all the brightness lol, I decided to use white for a dividing color in between the colored stripes.
It's a no brainer pattern I used, pretty simple. I made a chain of 113 stitches for my start then everything else is all double crochets. Three rows of each color. Can't get much simpler than that!
I will probably edge it in single crochet for the first round then scalloped shells to finish it off.

I just had to show you this cute picture I got of Rocky and Baby. I call it the double decker cat bunk bed nap time :)
Obviously Rocky likes my new cushions I made for MY rocking chairs, and Baby seems to prefer sleeping on the cushion I put on the floor for her under the chair. She likes little cubbyhole places so under the chair is her preferred spot.

Poor Peyton has had quite the time of it since her birthday on October 27th.She tripped running and smacked the corner of her eye on a wooden bench. She got a nice goose egg and quite the shiner out of that. Then on her birthday she had to go into the hospital for awhile. Poor thing was vomiting and had diarrhea bad enough that she got pretty dehydrated and had to have an IV put in to get her re-hydrated. She DID get to go home that night though. She is just now starting to keep solids foods down. Seems like it's going around. The cultures aren't back yet but they think she probably has rota virus. I hadn't heard of that before but did some research and found out it's a pretty contagious virus that irritates your intestines. Seems it's pretty common for kids her age to get it, and you can catch it from other kids usually that are in a child care setting (which one of her little friends is).  You get it from oral contact with fecal matter. So if someone doesn't wash their hands well after changing a diaper from someone who has it, or going to the bathroom that has it, it's easy to pick up the germ.Or in the case of a young child, chewing on something that has been in contact with the virus.
And to top it all off, her two top front teeth are coming in. 
So all in all, poor little Miss Peyton has not had a good week.
How has YOUR week been and what are you working on?
Click the logo below and we can go see what everyone else has been up to.

WIP Wednesday-Chair DONE and Birthday Is Today

HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY to my grand daughter Peyton today!
The rocking chair got done with time to spare for her birthday party on Sunday.
The first picture is taken inside after everyone was gone and the party was over. She had lost her hair bows and shoes by then, lol. 

Some of the pics are a bit blurry and the color is a bit wonky, but you can see how it went. She LOVES her rocking chair!
She's rocking away here.







  

Having a good time kicking and rocking.

And of course there's the traditional first birthday cake and having a good time getting all messy.

Daddy's holding her while she tells all of us "all gone!"

Happy baby clapping and having a good time, wearing her birthday tutu.

I'm on the run!
I don't think that child slowed down or stopped for a minute the whole time Sunday. It was hard to get good pictures because just about the time you thought you could snap her picture, off she went and you ended up snapping a pink blur.She most definitely is enjoying being able to walk and run. I know she wears her momma out by the end of the day! 

I know this is supposed to be a WIP Wednesday project, but this was a looooooong WIP and I just wanted to show the end results. Everyone thought the history book of the rocking chair was pretty cool, and I wrapped the chair with the purple crocheted bunny sitting in it.
All in all, the projects were a lot of fun and I would do it all again.

Let's go see what everyone else is working on this week! Click the link below to see.

WIP Wednesday - Rocking Chair THIS Close To Done

 Here is the infamous rocking chair for Peyton with the first coat of stain on it. I actually am working on the second coat now so it's coming right along.
I am using the MinWax One Step Stain and Finish on it.
I decided on using Pecan in a satin finish. Gives it a nice sheen without being glaringly glossy.

Just found out this afternoon the birthday party is Sunday afternoon so cutting it close here, lol. Just like I said it would be.
I have been working on this in the garage which is unheated. The temps at night have been dropping down into the low to mid 30's. I've had to wait until early afternoon for the garage to warm up to actually stain this , otherwise it's still just a bit too chilly in the garage for the stain to dry properly.

Also, I've had to do each coat in stages, because it has so many little nooks and crannies and I need to be able to hang onto some part of it that's still dry so that I can turn it where I need it to be to coat each area.
It's been a lot trickier little project than I ever thought it would be, but I'm really, really pleased with the way it's turning out.
If I have enough time, I'm going to put a third coat on it, just to make darn sure it's good a solidly coated. Hopefully that way it will make it through another 50 plus years!
Thanks for your patience following my many posts on the rocking chair, history book of it, and the purple rabbit.
Oh yeah, been working on the lap quilt and cushions in between waiting for coats of stain to dry. Lap quilt is done, both seat cushions are done, and working on the back cushions for the rocking chairs now. Too tired to take pictures of those right now, maybe I can get those posted later in the week.
What are all the rest of you working on this week?

Fall Saturday In The Midwest

What a beautiful sunny spectacular day it has been here in Iowa today. We made sure we took advantage of it because these kind of days are getting fewer and fewer.

Our grandsons spent Friday night with us because their dad had to be at work before the butt crack of dawn.So Dan and I got to spend some one on one time with each of them.
 The big story for today is that Grandpa Dan took our oldest grandson Chase (who is 10) on his first squirrel hunt. I'm not sure which one of them were more excited about that!
They got up at 2:00 A.M. so they could make the 4 hour drive to our property in Missouri. Chase was so excited he had a hard time getting to sleep and it was after 11:30 before he passed out, lol.
He was real good about getting up at 2:00 A.M. though for me.
It is now 7:00 P.M. and they are on their way back to Iowa. Last report I got was that they got 2 squirrels so I am glad about that for Chase. I bet grandpa forgot to take pics of Chase with the squirrels before they cleaned them.
The main thing is Grandpa and Chase got to go hunting together for the first time.

Well, that meant Landon had to stay home with Grandma. (He is 7 years old). I guess he didn't mind that cause we got to spend some one on one time together. Usually it's both boys together and we don't really get much individual time.
This worked out great though.

 




I told Landon since it was soooo very nice out I wanted to work on the yard. His first question was "Do you have a rake that's my size?" Well, by gosh I did, lol. Here it is. I originally bought this short adjustable rake to be able to get to the back of the flower gardens and under bushes, but it sure fit the bill for Landon to keep him happy raking leaves for me. He picked up all the twigs and branches first that had fallen from the maple trees then got to work raking while I broke the branches into smaller pieces.

 He was a really good helper, until Dad showed up to pick him up, darn it, lost my help too soon!






We got to spend a nice time outdoors together. When I thanked him he told "that's ok, that's what Boy Scouts do".

 And look who was sitting in the kitchen window supervising the whole outside operation.