Another year older...

My oldest little girl just turned 5 and had a great time celebrating getting another year older...

We had a party for her at church after the Sunday evening service to celebrate with our friends...it was fun and she said she really liked it :)

Then on her birthday, we had some leftover cupcakes :) and she blew out more candles...

Also, over the weekend we went to a couple of Maple Producers open houses during the NW PA Maple Association Taste & Tours Weekend.

We began at Yatzor's Sugar House, where we had pancakes and ham...and I 'gracefully' spilled my full cup of coffee on myself :) We moved on to Hurry Hill Farms and Museum so the girls could do a few crafts (which Liz remembered doing last year). We were attending a wedding that afternoon, so we were unable to go on the wagon ride, or to any other sugar houses along the tour, but it's a fun family activity!

Lizzy received a great craft project for her birthday... FOAMIES!

She did three at one sitting, and then another one later in the afternoon! She also had her new Princess/Bride dress-up dress on to be a fashionable crafter!

Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord:

and the fruit of the womb is his reward.

Psalm 127:3

Liz's Sashed Postage Stamp Quilt...

Finally DONE!!! I took my sewing time this week and quilted Liz's quilt.

I finished it this evening and we went out to take pictures...

Her Christmas gift is now complete, 4 months later... but she was still very excited!

The quilting is echoing diamonds in each 16-block square. The center diamond moves around in the blocks per color of thread used for the quilting. 

The evening air was chilly, so, Liz is shivering...I was too!

The back.

Great colors!

{Edit to add the quilt stats...forgot those, opps!}

Quilt Stats:

Size - 53" x 72"

Design - Sashed Postage Stamp

Fabric - yardage from JoAnn's

             some scraps from a Moda jelly roll

             some scraps from the 1933 Poinsettia by Jackie Robinson

                          and Maywood Studio used in Amber's quilt

             other miscellaneous scraps from my stash...

Binding - yardage from JoAnn's

Quilting - machine quilted by me

She LOVES it!!!!!!!

I love this picture with Liz wrapped in the quilt...it was the last one we took --> back into the warm house {except that a few hours later and my hands are still freezing :)}

I was pushing myself to get this quilting done...and it's the only thing I sewed all week {but we also had revival services at church this week too!}... 

So now I can add it to the weekend linky parties on the right side bar, as well as Amanda Jean's Finish it up Friday party at Crazy Mom Quilts.

I spent a little bit time editing the pictures over at PicMonkey to see what it was like... I really like some things about it. Especially the ability to rotate my 'label' in the pictures. It's got some other neat photo editing features too! However, I did miss the easier way of changing the colors of the text in my other program.  

On to quilting the scallop quilt from Curves class, starting a couple of new quilts soon, and throwing around ideas for others :)

Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD:

and the fruit of the womb is his reward.

Psalm 127:3

Today a couple of friends -both have more children than me :)- shared the link to this song with me this afternoon...it's a wonderful reminder to realize there is more to life than having a toy-less floor and not finding stale Cheerios laying around (from our Cheerios Princess). It is a good one to listen to daily!

Amanda