A little Brayden update

Oooooeeeee...my little grandson is now almost 3 years old (March 1st!). This little guy changes almost daily -- whether in his vocabulary, his counting, his desire to learn, or his wicked (can you tell I'm from New Hampshire?) sense of humor, every day is an adventure with this child. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I'm flattered. This is what Brayden was "working on" today: Yes, I've been knitting socks again. Brayden loves to watch me knit and sometimes sits in my lap and I put some yarn on needles for him to play with. Today he gathered up his yarn and needles, sat on the couch by himself, and "knit" away. I asked him what he was working on... "Socks for Umpa." Awwww... Then Umpa walked into the room, and Brayden promptly pipes up, "Umpa, don't pull my stitches off!" LOL I've mentioned before that Brayden has shown great interest in learning his letters and numbers, so yesterday was our first official 30 minutes of preschool type activities. We read his favorite monkey book, "Ten Little Monkeys" and talked about the numbers, then we did this activity that I found on a great blog called Ramblings of a Crazy Woman. I printed off the five snowman print-outs found here, then put one "button" and the number 1 on the first, two "buttons" and the number two on the second, etc. Then I made little hats with the same numbers, 1 thru 5. I had Brayden count the number of buttons on the snowman, showed him the number on the page, and had him match the hat with that number. It went very well! He understood what I was talking about and easily counted the buttons, and made the match ups with little help. I'll be adding numbers 5 through 10 as soon as he's confident with these and can point out the same numbers in other situations. Mr. Fussy Eater helped me make crockpot beef noodle soup yesterday, but wasn't here at dinner time to taste what he'd cooked. Today I did a bit of extra babysitting so my daughter could work some extra hours, so Brayden had beef noodle soup for lunch. My gosh, he actually TASTED it (which is a huge hurdle with him) and LIKED it and ATE it! There's hope for the child yet! Brayden's Crockpot Beef Noodle Soup 1 beef shank 1/2 stew beef (I cubed up a portion of a chuck steak) 1 cup carrot slices 1 cup diced celery 1 cup diced onions 3 tablespoons beef bouillon powder (or 3 cubes) 1 tsp black pepper 1/2 tsp salt 1 can diced tomatoes in sauce 2 dashes Worcestershire Sauce 8 cups water 2 servings dry spaghetti, broken into thirds Place all ingredients except spaghetti noodles into crockpot, cook on low for 7 hours. Remove shank bone and cut up shank meat and return to soup. Add in uncooked spaghetti and turn on HI for 30 minutes. Serves 4 to 6.

Where to find Giveaways

Wooo Hooo! I’ve won another giveaway (Amy Schimler fabric with the most adorable matching buttons. I won the fabric in the center of the picture. Click on the photo to enlarge.)! I do believe that’s #6 in the past two months. Lucky? No! Smart? Yes! You can’t win a Giveaway unless you enter, and I enter a lot!

I thought I’d share some web sites that keep a running list of Giveaways.

Etsy Giveaways

Bloggy Giveaways

The Giveaway

One World One Heart - 100's of Crafters - Begins 01/19

I have my own personal Giveaway rules. First, I read instructions thoroughly – some want you to describe something, some want you to write about a subject, some want you to simply leave a comment on their blog. Some want you to post or link to the information about their giveaway on your own blog.

Second, I never put my name in for items I either don’t care for or can’t use. Baby and scrapbooking items are big giveaways, and I can’t use either. These Giveaway items are often handmade items that come from the heart – they deserve to go to new homes that will appreciate them to the degree the giver intended. So if you don’t care or can’t use an item – move on.

Lastly, I do not enter giveaways for which I have to return to the web site to find out the winner. Ninety-nine percent of giveaways will email you if you win. I have enough disorganized bookmarks – I don’t need more.

So go forth and COMMENT! I’ll even let you have the HGTV Dream House Giveaway – I can’t afford the taxes or transfer fees on a $2.5 million dollar house and trying to sell a house like that in the current economy? Ummm…. no thanks. You can have that one!

Extreme Blog Makeover

Wow, how cool would it be to have someone actually look at your blog and give it a makeover?! I have two blogs - this one (duh) and my Quilting on a Budget blog, and of the two, I'd be hardpressed to decide which one needs a makover the most. I've seen many free blog backgrounds and blog templates, but every one I've seen and contemplated downloading warns me that all my links and widgets will be erased when I do it... Ummmm... no thanks. So here's a good deal -- Tara of BlogMakeovers byTara works with several blog designers, many of whom design backgrounds and buttons and whatmacallits very suitable to crafters and quilters. Tara comes to your blog and does a complete makeover, including Custom background, Custom header, Custom made sidebar headers, Optional navigation Bar, Three column layout (something I desperately want!), Custom made signature, Favicon, and Your own blog button! How cool is that! And from now until January 31, she is offering these services at 50% off... so that's... $13.00! Considering 18,000+ people have viewed this blog (eeps!), and another 8000 have hit the QOB blog, I think this might be money well spent. And oh yeah, Tara is also having a Giveaway of a free blog makeover, but don't enter that because I really, really want to win it myself.

The Weather Outside is Frightful.....not!

I almost feel bad for the Cincinnati weather forecasters today...almost. My goodness, I'm not sure if they could be much more wrong in their forecasts lately. My husband and I have decided that our local Krogers must sponsor the weather forecasts behind the scenes, because every other day the forecasters are claiming !SNOW! (which we all know means big business for the grocery stores) and yet... no snow. Our streets are pre-treated (yet again), the local news stations yanked their fine news reporters out of bed for "Special Reports" starting at 4:30 AM and yet... it's 10:00 am, 38 degrees outside and no snow... again. Do you know how silly it looks to have reporters reporting from the streets and highways when there's actually NOTHING going on?? I liked New England weather forecasters when we lived there. They always got the forecast wrong in the RIGHT way. They wouldn't predict snow and we'd get a six inches. I remember one long-time Boston television forecaster reading a letter a viewer had written to him. "Dear So and So -- I just finished two hours of shoveling your 'partly sunny' off my driveway." Think how much easier life is when you don't know the snow is coming. You don't make a panic run to the grocery store. Kids don't already assume they're going to have a snow day. The snowplow guys get to sleep in until the phone actually rings with the news it's snowing out. I wonder what they did "in the old days" before weather forecasts? I'm thinking -- people looked out the window to see if it was snowing or not. OK, as I'm typing this I just looked out the window and it's snowing...LOL! I'm betting all the news reporters have given up and gone home, the local weather forecaster is dancing around the news station in glee, shouting "See! I TOLD YA!" and the local Krogers stores are preparing themselves for the second round of panic shoppers... Now watch - just because I posted this, we'll have a blizzard, I won't get out of the house for three weeks, and darn it, I have no milk or bread. Maybe I should take a quick run to Krogers...

Photo Tag

I got tagged by Dixie over at the wonderful French Lique blog, to post a photo -- not just any photo, mind you, but the fourth photo of the fourth folder in my photos on my computer. If Dixie only knew how disorganized my photos are, she'd know she's lucky there's even a fourth folder. I tend to put my photos in one of two folders -- the one marked PHOTOS or the one I can never find and I don't know the name of. But here you are, Dix -- the 4th photo of the 4th folder... This photo is a good lesson for people holding estate sales and yard sales to advertise, advertise, advertise. I stumbled upon this unadvertised estate sale, and was shocked to find five six-foot long tables piled high with top of the line designer quilting fabrics. You can't even see half of it here -- we filled two cars with fabric! At the time of the sale, they were asking $3 and $4 a yard for it. I did not buy ANY. I gave the folks my phone number and said, "If you have any fabric left at the end of the sale and want to make me a good deal, call me." As you can see, the phone rang, the Mother of all deals was made, and I was the proud owner of about 800 yards of quilting fabric. Oh yeah.... Thanks, Dix! That was a great motivator for me to get away from this computer and go upstairs and quilt! LOL Now there's rules to this'here Picture Tag -- and here they are: 1) Choose the 4th folder where you store your pictures on your computer. 2) Select the 4th picture in the folder. 3) Explain the picture. 4) Tag 4 people to do the same. I am going to tag: Karen at Now Don't Get Me Started Jan at It's the Cat's House Tina at Quilt Dancing and ???? TAG! You're it!

A bit about me - now tell me about you

A Meme for Fun! Add this to your own blog and come back and tell me so I can come read it! Copy, paste, and bold what you have done! 1. Started your own blog 2. Slept under the stars 3. Played in a band 4. Visited Hawaii 5. Watched a meteor shower 6. Given more than you can afford to charity 7. Been to Disneyland 8. Climbed a mountain 9. Held a praying mantis 10. Sang a solo 11. Bungee jumped 12. Visited Paris 13. Watched a lightning storm at sea 14. Gone rollerskating 15. Adopted a child 16. Had food poisoning 17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty 18. Grown your own vegetables 19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France 20. Slept on an overnight train 21. Had a pillow fight 22. Hitch hiked 23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill 24. Built a snow fort 25. Held a lamb 26. Gone skinny dipping 27. Run a Marathon 28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice 29. Seen a total eclipse 30. Watched a sunrise or sunset 31. Hit a home run 32. Been on a cruise 33. Seen Niagara Falls in person 34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors 35. Seen an Amish community 36. Taught yourself a new language 37. Acted in a play or performed on stage 38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person 39. Gone rock climbing 40. Seen Michelangelo’s David 41. Sung karaoke 42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt 43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant 44. Visited Africa 45. Walked on a beach by moonlight 46. Been transported in an ambulance 47. Had your portrait painted - 48. Gone deep sea fishing 49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person 50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris 51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling 52. Kissed in the rain 53. Played in the mud 54. Gone to a drive-in theater 55. Been in a movie 56. Visited the Great Wall of China 57. Started a business 58. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment 59. Visited Russia 60. Served at a soup kitchen 61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies 62. Gone whale watching 63. Got flowers for no reason 64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma 65. Gone sky diving 66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp 67. Bounced a check 68. Flown in a helicopter 69. Saved a favorite childhood toy 70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial 71. Eaten caviar 72. Pieced a quilt 73. Stood in Times Square 74. Toured the Everglades 75. Been fired from a job 76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London 77. Broken a bone times four! 78. Been on a speeding motorcycle 79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person 80. Published a book 81. Visited the Vatican 82. Bought a brand new car 83. Walked in Jerusalem 84. Had your picture in the newspaper 85. Read the entire Bible 86. Visited the White House 87. Won money 88. Had chickenpox 89. Saved someone’s life 90. Sat on a jury 91. Met someone famous 92. Joined a book club 93. Had to put someone you love in Hospice Care 94. Had a baby 95. Seen the Alamo in person 96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake 97. Been involved in a law suit 98. Owned a cell phone 99. Been stung by a bee 100. Read an entire book in one day Your turn!