Driving around this week...

My DH got off a few days this week, and since it's been too cold to do much we decided to drive around, it was alot of fun. Not sure if we'll get anymore snow, Virginia's had it's share of snow and freezing temps this winter. Spring will soon be upon us. We just felt like driving and driving and we did it for a couple of days during the day. :D

We saw eagles and their nest, a possum that didn't want it's photo taken, trains, snowy tracks, the airport, and old bridge in Manassas, horses, old barns, snowy fields, and foothills in Warrenton. We went to Barnes and Nobles in Springfield, thru Alexandria, (don't like the city), Krispy Kreme and Roy Rogers near there, (haven't been to a Roy Rogers in forever), then down towards Mount Vernon to the entrance, past Washington's Gristmill and back out past the old red and white barn at the now Grist Mill Park. How in the world do those people afford those big expensive houses in there? It's crazy, give me a little farm anytime. We spent the most time in the bookstore, hello, it's a bookstore. :))

I can't wait till Spring to go back to Mount Vernon, one of my favorite places to go. Anyway, it was all fun and interesting. Notice I didn't put photos up of Alexandria, we are NOT city folk and  just wanted out of all that traffic mess. ~shaking head~ Those people drive crazy, they need to put the phone texting down. >.<

Why did the chicken cross the road? :)

Snowday!!!!

It's snowing outside, not just snowing, but it's cold and single digit cold, Brrrrrrr!!! What do you do on a cold snowday? I'm knitting in bed snuggled up in a quilt and we're watching Unconditional, really good movie. Let it snow, just don't lose power is the word of the day. I'm picking back up on an afghan I had started earlier.  

 

  My DIL got me the teapot and cups below, which I definitely used today, but for coffee instead of tea. 

While I'm putting up photos, here's an antique pitcher my daughter got me for Christmas below.

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That was yesterday, today is Wednesday, bitter cold outside. It's a day where I keep my housecoat over my clothes and wear my bunny foo foo slippers. It's not cold in here, just a bit of a chill, which I don't like, at all. I like to be warm. This is an older house, so I put up quilts over the living room and one of the bedroom window curtains, because the wind is blowing so hard.

With bitter cold temps you can feel the wind a little around some of the front and back doors, so I lined duct tape around the side and bottom. Hey, it works and it makes a big difference on that little temp control box in the living room, yep.  In the 20 and 30's it's still nice and warm in here, but 7 degrees last night and in the teens today and the wind, Wooeeee!

In the olden days they would put a long piece of fabric filled with stuffing along the bottom of the door, kind of like a long thin pillow. I think I'll work on a couple of those and maybe embroider something on it, they can even work along the bottom of window sills, same concept.
 
I couldn't make up my mind what I wanted to work on last night, because I'm wanting to get done what I've put off. So I decided to work on two projects at once. Yeah, that's how I roll, so I knitted for awhile and worked on patching up an old quilt.

January

Wow, I can't believe it's January already, the holidays are over, love them, but Whew! People can actually start saving some money again. :D We have a grandson to be born in February, just had the baby shower, love those, so much fun. I made the two baby blankets and some little things, along with a baby book that has a little boy looking like my son as a baby.

I love this card making free online thing, it's http://www.blyberg.net/card-generator/  You just write it up and it comes up for an image to save that looks like a library card.

 

Christmas in our house...

I've been so busy I forgot to post photos here. Between decorating the house, which takes a long time with the tree lights and ornaments, Christmas village and nativities, buying and wrapping presents, plus cookies, candy and food for tomorrow, I'm exhausted. It's a wonderful exhaustion, :) my favorite time of year. Here's some random photos from this month.

My daughter and I made our powdered sugar cookies, peanut butter and chocolate cookies. She decorated the sugar cookies. The Santa hat, minus the beard, is crocheted from a pattern here... http://www.redheart.co.uk/filesT/patterns/pdf/LW3878EN.pdf
The chocolate covered pretzels, peanuts and m&m mix is something we make every year and here's where I put the directions... http://soundinthemulberrytrees.blogspot.com/2012/12/christmas-pretzel-mix.html
The Christmas powdered sugar cookies is also made every year and they're found here... http://soundinthemulberrytrees.blogspot.com/2009/12/christmas-cookies.html

I made this tutu with two strips of ribbon from a roll, cheap at Joannes and the width is 7/8" for more stability to the waist. I also got the tulle at Joannes, cut the tulle strips 36" long and 5" wide for a length of about 16" when tied to the waist in half. She's four, waist of about 22", so I put the knots between 22" in middle of the ribbon, making sure I have plenty of ribbon to tie in the back and you can adjust to sizes up by taking out knots and moving strips over, reknotting to where you want the size. You can add to it at any time as they grow. The one I made in May had alot longer strips, pretty, but if they want to play in it, it needs to be shorter.
My older daughter just started painting the younger one's nails and came up with candy cane and penguins, so cute.