Happy New Year Everyone!

2009 has been a year of many exciting things. I bought my house in March and have loved every second of it so far!




Trevor and I took a great trip to Vancouver to visit our friends Dennis and Lauren who I have to say were AMAZING hosts! We can't thank you enough for your kind hospitality and the enjoyment we shared with you both!






The summer gave us many sunny and warm days on our patio deck where we enjoyed our bit of patio gardening and sipping frozen margaritas while catching a few rays!





We took in some great camping excursions with friends to LaManche Provincial Park with our friends Lisa and Justin




and to Northern Bay Sands.


And the big thing of all, we have a little baby boy to look forward to in April! I can't believe I am 6 months preggy already! Where has the time gone???



Tonight we are hosting our 2nd Annual New Year's Eve Fondue Night! I am spending the hours beforehand cleaning and tidying up the house and getting all the food prepped for tonight's festivities. Trevor and I both love to entertain our friends and share with them our food and our home!

At this time I want to wish one and all out there in Blogland a very Happy and Healthy 2010 to you and your family! May the new year give us all we hope for, that we reach our goals (I don't believe in resolutions LOL), and of course for all us sewers and quilters out there many many wonderful hours of quilting and creating!

Quiltingly Yours
Andrea

Merry Christmas To All!!!

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!!!!!!!


Wow can you believe Christmas is here again??? Where has the year gone at all?? Last Christmas doesn't seem that long ago, and yet here we are again!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas Day yesterday. Mine was very nice. Despite some 'growing pains' from baby that prevented me from doing much movement, it was a very nice and relaxing day.

Between visits with family and friends Christmas Eve,

(Lisa and I were matched years ago with the Big Brothers/Sisters program when she was 11 and I was 19... now we are both preggy!!! (2-3 weeks in difference) Too funny!) We are still very close even though we have been out of the program for many many years!

(Baby Bump pose)!


we didn't get home from midnight Mass until after 1:30 as the service went a little longer than usual, but that was okay as it was a beautiful Mass and the choir was just spectacular! I think I crawled into bed around 2am and never got out of bed til 9 the next morning.

Our Christmas Tree!!!

Trevor, Alexi the pooch and I had a nice Christmas unwrapping our gifts. I felt spoiled! I got some beautiful clothes (mostly maternity, but some I can wear after the baby is born too), a beautiful picture frame for the baby's room


some baby clothes, a cute little soft blanket with a puppy dog face on it for baby

a gift certificate for a hair salon, nice smelly stuff for our nebulizer we bought in Vancouver back in April (makes the house smell sooo nice), books, a Kitchen Aid hot red kettle, a new pair of boots, and so much more!!


Trevor got a DVD box set of The Sopranos

a new PS3 game for his system, I made him some knitted socks (my first time knitting with four needles!!! I'm sooo proud of myself!! I loved making them and now I want to make more)!!


He got a book of one of his favourite rock bands, AC/DC, chocolates, loose green tea (he has become a fan of green tea lately), some nice toiletries from The Body Shop, the movie "Borat", a Van Halen watch from his good buddy Jody, and much more!

Alexi got a new winter coat

a purple bikini chicken toy


a Christmas Dog collar, doggy snacks, a new dog tag with her name, and much more! She was in the festive mood yesterday morning and Trevor had her well decorated. I think there was more stuff on her than on the Christmas tree!!! LOL


By 10:30am we three headed downstairs to Mum's apartment for a beautiful Christmas breakfast. After that we had another Christmas gift opening at Mum's place! It took yet another hour or more to unwrap everything down there!!!

Ooh where to begin there!!! Mum gave me a Kitchen Aid Splatter guard attachment for my Kitchen Aid Mixer, maternity pjs, the latest book from one of my favourite authors, Diana Gabeldon


lots of stuff for cake decorating, two books on quilting (a Thimbleberries, and one on Bargello)

a fabric kit to make a soft pretty baby quilt, more baby clothes and toys

a recipe book on brownies (YUM), a new CD full of gorgeous machine embroidery designs

(THANK YOU Theresa)!!!!!!!

and the list goes on and on!

I gave Mum a framed cross stitch of a cross stitch kit of a cat in a sewing room she made some years ago. (she went crazy when she saw that one),

a nice cast iron dutch oven, pjs, quilty stuff including a book on Christmas projects, a fat eighth fabric set from Connecting Threads, smelly stuff for the bath, chocolates and more!

Mum gave Trevor a really nice Black and Decker Jig Saw.

This is a photo of Mum's Christmas tree.


Today, Boxing Day, we had more gift opening ahead of us! About 4 or 5 years ago, Mum and I started the tradition of keeping one gift to open on Boxing Day. We realized and agreed that Christmas morning is so anti climatic. All the gifts are opened, and suddenly you realize after getting in the swing of opening gifts there is nothing left to open til next year... sigh............ soooooo, we keep one gift to open on Boxing Day morning to prolong the whole gift opening fun!

This morning we had a great time doing just that. I gave Mum a nice Sony digital camera with a memory card. I figure with her first grandchild on they way, there are going to be alot of photos!!! She loved it! I gave Trevor a 12" x 12" scrapbook shadow box of photos and memories of his trip to Vegas with one of his best buddies back in August


Mum gave me a Cuisinart Panini Grill!!!

Whew!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! All that gift opening just wore us out! Trevor is now spending the afternoon taking a little nap with the pooch on the couch

I'm just lazing around here on the Internet and relaxing, and Mum is downstairs preparing a nice big Turkey Dinner for us tonight! Since we had breakfast at Mum's yesterday morning,then a big turkey dinner at Trevor's parents for supper, and Mum went to her neice's home for a turkey dinner, she wanted to make her turkey dinner for us tonight! wooo hooo more turkey!!!!!!!!! LOL I haven't had to cook a meal for two days.. err well I did make up a big messy breakfast this morning along with a new breakfast dessert of fried apples in cinnamon/cloves/nutmeg sauce along with pecan phyllo pastry triangles!! They were sooooooooooo yummy!!!

And with that, it is now time to have another great Turkey Dinner and then off to a Boxing Day party!!!!

From our home to yours, Happy Holidays everyone!!!!!!!!!



My next post I will show some photos of some of the gifts I made. I can now post them since all gifts have been given out! I have been sooooo busy the last few weeks sewing and quilting and gift wrapping and more. I wanted to post more frequently, but I guess I found every spare moment I had was working on gifts!!!



Quiltingly Yours!

Andrea and Soon to be Baby William Todd Best!! yes we are having a little boy!!!!!!! He is due April 24th!!!!

Alive and Kicking!!! (In More Ways Than One)!! :)

Wow... I've been away from here for a bit, but these days things have just been in a whirl wind. I feel I am Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz being swept around this way and that!!!

Let's see... where to begin.. To start all the 8 tree skirts are FINISHED!!!!!!!! wooooo hooooooo!!! I kept one for myself this year and had 7 to sell. I have 6 sold so far!!! Yippeee!!! They took up alot of time and I had to put some of my Christmas gift making on hold, but it was well worth it!!! Here are some of the skirts!







I also finished the "Snow Days" quilt and I donated to my place of work to put up on tickets. All proceeds will go towards getting Christmas boxes (hampers) together filled with food, turkeys, hams, veggies and other things to some of our much needed tenants. (I work with the provincial government and help to provide housing and housing services to low income families). I love my job and find it very rewarding. So far I hear tickets sales within our organization are going very well. I think the ticket drawing date is December 17th. I'm very curious to find out who will win the quilt in the end!! If this quilt goes over well with ticket sales this year, I think I might make it an annual thing. Hey its a great excuse to try out one of the many million patterns I want to make!!! LOL









I also spent all last weekend handcuffed to my sewing machine making dining room curtains!! Yippeeee FINALLY both the living room AND dining room curtains are finished and the room is really starting to look complete. Hopefully when the Christmas tree goes up this weekend and our bookcases are complete, I will take a final finished photo of the room. I just love my living room and dining room now. In January I'll start the curtains for Trevor's "Man Cave". We picked out the fabric for it ages ago, but I was just up to my eyeballs in so many other things.

Tonight I even got to finish all my Christmas shopping!!!!!!!!!!!!!! hee hee Things are FINALLY starting to come together for me. I have been sooooo late getting shopping and gifts done this year. I still have a pile of gifts to make, but I think I am getting a little better grasp on the whole thing. I managed to cut out 3 sets of placemats last night, and will give myself a time schedule for most nights after work to live out in my sewing room til all my gifts are made. I might be gift wrapping until midnight Christmas Eve, but hey... I WILL reach my goals!!

On a non-sewing/quilting note, some of you might have figured out by some little hints and winks in the last few posts that I am preggo!!! I am 20 weeks today and feeling great! Lil munchkin is starting to kick (well feels more like tickles right now) and I'm LOVIN' IT!!! Tomorrow we have our ultrasound appointment and will get to see the lil munchkin! I can't WAIT!!! We will also know if we have a little boy or a little girl!! Well providing that is lil kiddo is a bit of a flasher or exhibitionist for us for that day. I'm getting sooooo excited!! Less than 12 hours to go.. one more sleep!!!!



Well I'm pooped after a night of Christmas shopping and oogling over all the things I wanted and also bought at Costco. What a wonderful store Costco is. Its just a shame you leave there will less in your wallet than you planned. Ah, but we got enough food and treats to last us into the winter months!!! My freezer is always full. Come January after Christmas is over and we are back to some normal routine, I will spend a couple more days in my kitchen making up more meals to freeze. I'm not sure I'll get much Christmas baking in this year, but that's okay. Mum lives in my basement apartment so I'm sure she will have plenty of yummies to get us through the season!!!!!!

Quiltingly Yours
Andrea

A Quiet Yet Busy Weekend

I have to say I packed in a nice bit this weekend both in my kitchen and in my sewing room. With Christmas only a few weeks away I had to sit down and seriously take a look at everything I need to complete sewing and baking/cooking wise and how I was going to get it all in. I've come to realize after looking at my list I now have to live as a hermit for the next 5 weeks only going outside for work and the occasional trip to the grocery store LOL!!! I can see that once again this year I will probably be stitching up the last of the gifts midnight on Christmas Eve!!! Eeeeeeeekkkk!!!

But saying that I am pleased with what I accomplished this weekend. Friday night and Saturday I managed to bake 3 different loaves of bread with one of them being a brand new recipe. It was called Chunky Apple Bread... All I can say about that one is ........ YUMMMMMMMM!!!! It is sooooo tasty toasted with Apple butter!!!

Here I am making Savoury Pull Apart Bread for supper Saturday Night. I made homemade spaghetti. Instead of having garlic bread, I made this yummy one instead!




When this bread rises to twice it's size, it's put in the oven. It's best eaten when it is just come out of the oven with some butter!


Alexi is never too far away from me when I'm playing in the kitchen.. As you know from past posts, she has a liking for bread!


While I was teaching my Sampler quilt class Saturday morning, as they were working on assembling their borders, when I wasn't needed I sat down to start hand binding tree skirt #3!!!

Tonight I tried out a new recipe for supper. It is called Mushroom Cheese Pies. Again all I can say to that is YUMMMM!!!! I had never worked with Puff Pastry before and I figured tonight was the night I was going to do it!!! I made 4 out of the recipe and they were a nice size for supper. We had one each and I have two more left to reheat later the week. I'll have to try and remember to post the recipe here soon.

Throughout this afternoon I managed to get the "Snow Days" Quilt layered and quilted, and this evening after supper I machine sewed the binding to it. I just have to slip stitch the other side by hand this week. My goal is to complete it along with stitching up a nice label for it on my embroidery machine before the end of the week.







It is now 11:30pm on Sunday night and after writing out what I just did the last few days I'm POOPED!!! I think I'm going to head off to la la land for my beauty rest as it's back to the work day grind again tomorrow!!!

OOh... I thought I would throw this photo of Alexi in for good measure. Trevor took this photo a few days ago during one of his days off work. This is a common thing for Alexi to do and it cracks me up every time I see it!!



What a nut job for a dog!!! She certainly keeps up entertained with her comic relief every single day!!! I just LOVE this photo. I plan to print it this week and frame it for my sewing room! This photo is her silly personality to a tee!!!

Whewww!!! Now it's bedtime! Good night, sleep tight!!!!!!!

Quiltingly Yours
Andrea