• Freebie,  Holidays,  Travel

    Remember.

    I'd like to take a moment to thank every single member of our Armed Forces for their service to this beautiful country of ours. You have served and sacrificed, and to simply offer my gratitude for what you've given to protect what I have will never be enough, but I give it with all my heart.

    Thank you to our Founding Fathers and to Those who served under them for their faith in God Almighty.

    Thank you to Those who gave their lives for the freedom of their generations and ours.

    And thank you to Those who would have given their lives. Praise God They are still here for us to honor.

    I was privileged to visit Arlington National Cemetery last fall, and what an impact it had on me. I wish every American could walk those solemn grounds and remember what was given.

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    At the tomb of President John F. Kennedy…

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    A view of Arlington House, the home of Robert E. Lee…

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    This is the view from the porch of Arlington House…

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    Inside Selena Gray's quarters (a house slave of of the Lee's). The doorway to her family's quarters is to the far right of the above photo.

     

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    The gardens at Arlington House were beautiful…

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    The Tomb for the Unknown Civil War Dead, constructed in the rose garden…

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     The US Army rehearsed for a forthcoming funeral…

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    The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier…Known but to God.

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    To our Military and their families, God bless you.

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    If you would like to read a very interesting article on how Arlington came to be our National Cemetery, click here: The Beginnings of Arlington National Cemetery

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     In 2011 I posted this free chart for Memorial Day. In case you missed it, here it is again… Please note that the color image you see below is slightly different from the chart, in that the words have been changed to blue. 

    To download the chart, click here: A Patriot's Sampler

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    And a very Happy Memorial Day to you!

  • Family,  Holidays

    Likewise

    This past Thanksgiving brought with it the usual craziness that our small family can muster, but as usual, it was a lot of fun. Josh and Bre and Kaia came into town too, and it was so nice getting to visit them! What a surprise to see Kaia all grown up! Here's what she looked like the last time she was here:

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    And here's how she looked at Thanksgiving:

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    And what a sweet big girl she's become!

    We all headed over to my parents' house that afternoon, and Mom gave each of the girls some beautiful scarves she had crocheted for them. This is Bre, trying to get it folded correctly over her head…

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    After dinner, we played a game called Likewise. If you've never played this, it's a fun, fast-paced "party game" in which each player has a greaseboard-paddle and pen, and when a phrase is given, each person writes down (or draws) something that they feel fits the phrase. After a set time, all the players simultaneously reveal what they've written on their boards, and the players with like answers gain points, while those who had odd answers get nothing, and so the game goes on.

    It was Bre's turn to roll the dice, to find out of we were to draw or write our answer…

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    Josh was a very focused player…

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    (By the way, my mother keeps a very clean house, but once the Stewarts descend on the Kwaak home, there isn't usually a clean countertop or a closed cabinet door to be found. 😉 We do love to have a lot of commotion at our get-togethers!)

    Here was one of the phrases played:

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    And here were some of the answers:

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    Mike always enjoys a bit of game drama…

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    And here was another phrase:

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    Again, Bre was not amused with Josh's gameplay, although Josh appeared to be enjoying himself…

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    (I think his idea of a fun game is seeing how easily he can get Bre rankled! Ha!)

    I think my favorite part of our family holidays, however, is when we sit and relax and talk at the table. One never knows what the topic will be.. the latest headlines, chatter about past holidays, ideas, or even how one would interpret a certain Bible verse. It's always lively conversation, and mostly everyone seems to hang on to what my dad will say; he's a man of few words, but when he does speak, everyone listens.

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    I wish my brother and sister and her family could have been here this time! Sabrina and Sophie were there also, but somehow they managed to duck the camera, along with my Mom. I hope your holidays with your family are as enjoyable as ours always are. I look forward to the time together this year as well… I'm so thankful for these moments together!

  • Family,  Holidays

    Winter Sampler Exchange 2013

    Finally! I just got around to uploading the photos I took all the way back in late November from the annual sampler exchange Mom and I do. Things were a little more hurried this year than in years past.. we pretty much blew past and tossed each other our samplers in jubilant exchange before I was back in the car, hurrying back to Plum Street in Cruella DeVille-esque mode. It was a very busy season for both of us.

    Last year we didn't open our boxes from Jill until we were together, but when I called Mom to see if she had time for me to run over, she said, "Yes! Hurry! I can't wait for you to see your piece!!! Jill did an outstanding job!!"

    "Wait. You opened the box?" I asked.

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    "Yes!" She gleefully replied. "I couldn't stand to wait another minute!"

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    So after I hung up, I went ahead and opened the box from Jill, wrapped it in some sort of pretend wrapping paper, and headed over to Chez Mom.

    We both agreed to scale back this year on what we were stitching for each other because of time constraints. (That was her idea, so I went ahead and tossed the almost-finished Ann Medd Sampler I had been stitching for her for several months and opted for something much smaller.)

    (I'm only kidding.)

    Getting our picture proved to be very tough because we both kept laughing at how awful they were turning out. As soon as I'd get one that I'd think was passable, she'd see it and exclaim, "My hair! Oh no, my hair! What happened??"

    And that's when I'd look at the photo again, and notice suddenly that I'd forgotten to do anything with my hair.

    For now, I'll bypass showing our photo, and just get straight to the point: what we stitched for each other.

    I was so thrilled with what my mom chose to do for me, especially because it's one I had never seen before! I love love love it! Thank you again, Mom. 🙂 It's perfect!

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    My mom found out from The Primitive Hare that this isn't an exact reproduction, but rather several parts of different antiques, all brought together to form this beautiful sampler. It's wonderful, and I love the soft browns and blues, which Jill brought out beautifully in the moulding!

    Here is what I did for Mom:

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    This is a chart that is no longer in print, but if you do happen to have the chart, you'll notice I left off the "Elizabeth Whipp" portion from the top, and stitched my initials instead. I chose it for Mom because I just felt like it was so her, especially with the deer motif in the center. And again, Jill's taste in frames is outstanding. I couldn't be happier with it!

    As for our photo together, we settled on one that we thought was decent enough…

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    …It was Mom who realized the glaring problem. (I was still marveling at our hair.)

    So we hurriedly turned our samplers around before the timer on the camera clicked off, and called it good.

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     I hope if ayone else out there exchanged stitched pieces with someone, you had just as much fun as we did, even if we did manage to get the whole event done in 7 1/2 minutes! We've decided that for next year, we'll have a theme: Christmas! And I think I've already got Mom's chosen… 🙂

  • Holidays

    Timber!

    Yesterday I took down the tree and all the decorations around the house, although I really didn't want to. I feel like December snuck up on me, and I had very little time to enjoy it and take it all in! I'm just happy I started watching Christmas movies in November while I worked on charts (even watched Elf back-to-back three times, and Holiday Inn twice!).

    And now everything (except for the stirring creatures) is packed away until next year..

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    This marshmallow jar was curiously fuller a few days ago…

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    This is an old Prairie Schoole I stitched back in the early 90's (Santa's Ark, I believe it's called?)…

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    My reproduction antique candy dish (Santa's top half comes off to reveal a small "bowl" for candy in the bottom half)… I love his wreath, btw, since I'm a sucker for bottle-brush!

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    Every year Sophie loves to set up the Boyds Bears nativity, given to me by a friend before Sophie was even born. This year, when I opened the box, I found a note she'd scribbled on a sheet of paper last year, laying on top of the figures: "THIS GOES IN SOPHIE'S FUTURE HOUSE," the note read. Clearly, she doens't trust me to remember it in my will.

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    Another Santa, this one with a barn owl on his shoulder…

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    I moved out lots of stuff from the china cabinet so that Mike could put his Lego advent calendar figures and village inside…

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    It's the only way to keep them safe from Tilly-Roux and her pesky little brother…

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    (My goodness, that little fella carries a lot of dust around on his face!)

    I love vintage mercury glass ornaments, even if they're not really vintage!

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    I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas season! So many of you have asked about the winter sampler exchange Mom and I do, and I've been wanting to show you the few pictures we took, but just haven't gotten around to uploading them yet to my computer. I will soon though! As usual, it was so much fun fun fun, and I can't wait to do it again next year!

    Happy New Year, everyone!

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  • Crazy Kids,  Critters,  Family,  Holidays

    Chucky 2.0

    When I asked Sophie this year if she was going trick-or-treating, she said she wasn't, because she was 13 and none of her friends were going. Truth be told, I was relieved, because I wasn't really up for the task of making a costume.

    Two days before Halloween, Sophie changed her mind. Some friends of hers were, indeed, going trick-or-treating, 13 or not, so she was joining them.

    "I want to be an evil doll," she said, and rummaged through her closet for something that would work. We made a quick trip to WalMart for false eyelashes and fake blood, and this was her presentation for her door-to-door soliciting of candy that night:

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    The girl does love keeping in character.

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    Even Big Papa was no match for her focus.

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    So Big Papa turned his sights on other unsuspecting innocents.

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    Oh, but that wasn't enough for Big Papa.

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    I imagine the Yorkie was having a field day.

    Happy belated Halloween! 🙂

  • Freebie,  Holidays,  Stitching,  Sunday Mystery Sampler

    An Announcement!

    Please see the ETA at the bottom of this post…

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    ETA: Both Mary's Sampler and Mary's Sampler II are nearly the same. However, the second version requires a bit more stitching time to complete. Both versions are the same size, but if you'd like a simple quick-stitch project, you may want to opt for the first. If you'd like something a bit busier, then the second version may be the one for you. I hope this helps clear a few things up! 🙂