July is went by in a blur!

But I was able to finish this cutie! It's Blackbird Designs Summer House, I think it might be Loose Feather # 14. I used the called for fabric, and most of the called for threads. There was one that I subbed since it didn't show up well on the fabric. I loved stitching up this one. Thank you Ranae for stitching along with me!

Then I'm working on another Blackbird Designs project, Autumn Silhouette. The ladies at the Blackbird Designs Yahoo group are doing a summer SAL and this was my pick for it. I'm stitching it on R & R 40 ct Iced Cappuccino and that is a yummy fabric. My eyes hurt but it's so worth it!

And this is another almost finish. Just have to add the buttons to it. The fabric is gorgeous in real life.

My other darling daughter had her birthday too this week! The girls are just 3 weeks in July so it's always a lot of partying going here. Which is fun, I have a whole gaggle of tween girls here yesterday for a slumber party and they are all a hoot!

In between parties we have been busy. My older kids both showed their cats for the Sarpy County Fair. This is DD with Jack who took home a purple ribbon. Not bad for a stray that we found living under our grill. No microchip, no one called about him from the humane society so we decided to keep him after trying to locate his family for 6 weeks. Jack was not amused by the show and did hardly peek out of the carrier.

Oscar showed Juni, she did get blue ribbon. Evidently we have to brush her teeth since she has plaque. That will be an interesting experience.

Then we have built rockets and launched the same rockets and now their entered too. I have a little craft queen on my hand it seems. After weeding out some project DD entered 15 items! I love the crafting party but it's a pain finding all the projects scattered around the house, fluffing and fixing all the projects and the dreaded mind game of figuring out which Department, Division and Class they belong too. We did the interviewing Tuesday and Wednesday I just took a mental healt day. Lucky that everything was prepared for DD party.

Occasionally the sun shows up here and then we run down to the pool. Which is great because I have read quite a bit. I just finished up Must Love Dogs and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Pie Society. Both very enjoyable!!

Thank you for all the nice comments on my last post. I'm behind again, story of my life. The kids are going back to school in the 20th and then I don't have to wrestle 3 young uns for the computer!

Happy birtday sweetheart!

My sweet baby girl turned 6 this week, she's getting so big. We threw a party for her at Build a Bear Workshop and she really loved her day. Almost all the kids from her pre school class came and her friend from the neighborhood too so we had a big party crowd. It was so much fun seeing the kids party away.

I did finish up Block 10 on Village of Hawk Run Hollow from Carriage House. I have to say that this is one big design, I need to find a huge frame for it. It's worked on 36 ct linen.

And here's where I'm at on the Summer House after Wednesday. The letters and vines work up really quick. Wednesday was a good stitching night too with DH reading to youngest DD and I was able to catch up with 4 DVR'd shows while I stitched away.

Thanks for reading and commenting on the last post. I'm off to start catching up on some blogs now. We have 2 birthday parties today and I still haven't picked up gifts so I can only roam for an hour in blog land, but this next week I should be caught up.

The most magical place on earth was fantastic!

But first and foremost, here's how far I gotten on the Summer House SAL before tonights stitching frenzy. Can't wait, I haven't stitched for quite a bit now since we went away for our vacation. We really had a great time.

We flew out to Los Angeles to meet up with my husband who was at a conference there. The kids and I toured Hollywood for a bit although it was really crowded since Michael Jackson had passed away the day before we did get there. Here's DS with Jimi Hendrix's star, he's a big fan.

The kids and I in front of the famous Hollywood sign. You can see the sign vaguely up on the hill.

The day after we headed over to Universal Studio's which was just awesome. I think we did almost everything you could do there except for a couple of the shows. The new Simpsons ride was a huge hit with my whole family. The Shrek 4 D show was amazing too.

The kids got to meet Bart and Lisa even! So cool!

And we had a close shark encounter! Youngest DD was not to sure about the shark, she thought that part was kind of scary when we did the Studio Tour.

Disneyland was so much fun of course. It was a bit different then The Magic Kingdom in Disney World and we did find some new favorites there like the Matterhorn and Indiana Jones. Alice and I did take a twirl in Dumbo of course and the Pirates of Carribean was even better then I remembered it.

It was a big moment when we did get to meet Sleeping Beauty! My youngest daughter was so excited she couldn't talk!

The family as a whole enjoyed the California Wilderness park too. It had some really neat rides and was well organized. The food was so good too! We saw their parade just before we left Anaheim and it was great. Here's DS with his new Nightmare before Christmas hat!

And this is when me camera batteries died. DH had his camera though so I have plenty of pictures from the rest of our vacation. We did drive down to San Diego and visited SeaWorld and saw all their great shows. There was some frolicking at the beach involved too. The mexican food down there is yummy, and the sushi likewise. I'm on the bread and water diet now so I can zip my pants again.

Thanks for all your sweet comments on my last post. Since I have been preparing for our trip, going on it and doing laundry after our trip I haven't read or commented on any blogs lately. Can't wait to see what people have been up to lately so I have to take some time for that.