Happy Halloween!!!!

Happy Halloween Everyone!!  We had an awesome time trick or treating with the cousins this evening.

My husband and the girls carved the pumpkin this morning, I put a small battery powered pumpkin inside the big one and it looked super cute!!

Its very rare I get a picture with me and all three kids!    Miss S was Cinderella, Miss L was a skunk and Baby C was a super cute pumpkin!

Its snowed this morning but thankfully it was around +4C for the kids to go out trick or treating tonight and all the snow was gone.  That being said we still live in a climate where costumes need to be big enough to fit under costumes!!

Oh my goodness....Miss S and Miss L only went around one block and the amount of candy they got was insane!!

I usually just dump everything into a big bowl but this year I figured if I separated the candy I could leave the suckers out and hide the chocolate and the 'miscellaneous' candy somewhere so they girls don't see it I should be able to avoid the candy monsters over the next few days!!!  I'm thinking those might be famous last words, we'll see how it goes....!  ;)

31 bags of chips!!  Crazyness!!!

I hope everyone had a super fantastic Halloween!

Blogtoberfest is DONE!  I did it, 31 posts in 31 days!  Now its onto planning CHRISTMAS stuff - crafts, sewing projects, baking...!  I can't wait!!!

Ruffled Pant - the Final Finished Product!

I know, I know...how many posts can I dedicate to ONE pair of pants?!  I guess the answer is three!!  ;)

I started these pants a few days ago with an idea in my head – I really wanted a ruffle on Miss S’s pants that were too short but after a calamity of errors (one of which was cutting off the extra fullness from the ruffle) I wound up with a pair of cuffed pants with a cute little ric rack trim!  

I've only sewed ric rack a few times and it got away from me on one of the pant legs but I figure once Miss S is running around no one is going to be close enough to them to see the ric rack is a little off.

A little close up of the cuffs.

The pants are super cute when they are on and its nice that Miss S will get a few more months out of a new'ish pair of pants which is always a good thing!

Miss L wanted her toes in the picture too!!

Perhaps I should rename my blog to 'the scatterbrained quiltapotamus' with how many mistakes I seem to make along the way! Oh well, I am learning all the time and can laugh at myself so I'll keep plugging along and quite possibly screwing up a little more along the way!!  ;)

Random Post

Its getting close to the end of Blogtoberfest and I'm drawing a COMPLETE BLANK on what to post about today so I went though my pictures to see if there was anything cool I could share and came up with this:

My husband took this picture in the summer when we were doing our maternity pictures down by Glenmore Reservoir, it reminds me of the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland.

Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to get some sewing done or maybe bust out some yarn and get reacquainted with my crochet hook.  I came across some really cute crochet blogs the other day and was inspired - I still really want to attempt a granny square to eventually make a super cute granny square afghan.

29 days of Blogtoberfest done - 3 more to go!!  
I think I'm going to miss this blogging everyday thing.....!!  Might have to start a Blogvember or something!  

Bedazzled Vase - 4 year old style...!

A few weeks ago my sister gave me a box full of old glass beads, seashells and various trims that she didn't need or want to move (so she knew packrat me the 'craft hoarder' would pounce on it!) and I've been wracking my brain trying to figure out what to do with everything and then it dawned on me - I could bedazzle a vase for a craft project with Miss S!!


We started with little bud vase that I got years ago that doesn't get used very often.

Once we laid out all the flat marbles Miss S picked her favourites and we put them in bowls so she could hand them to me so I could hot glue gun them onto the vase.

The first few rows actually looked pretty cool.

Then Miss S went to town with the round marbles in addition to the flat ones - it added some interesting texture to the vase but she LOVED it!!!

All and all the vase didn't turn out how I thought it would (I was leaning more towards just using the flat marbles but Miss S had other plans) but Miss S is thrilled with it and it will have a place of honor on top of her dresser maybe holding a fake flower or something.  Its super heavy so I don't want her to play with it too much since all it will take is one fall and I could totally see broken toes so its up high and out of her reach.

I still have a TON of marbles left, I think we might decorate a dollar store picture frame with them next week.  Nothing beats a cheap craft!

Ruffled Pant - Redemption, kind of....!

First of I want to say thank you to everyone that sent me a message or commented on my Epic Fail post from yesterday!  Your encouragement means a lot to me!

Another day brings a new perspective.  Once Miss S put the pants on and they had some movement and life to them I found myself liking them a little more.  I still haven't topstitched the top part of the hem since I wasn't sure if the seam ripper was going to make an appearance but I think the seam ripper will stay put away for now.   The top stitching will help the top of the seam lay flatter so they don't balloon out and that might help them with the finished look too.

Please - pay no attention to the different colored toe nail polish!!
Miss S and her Auntie had some fun last weekend and Miss S couldn't decide
between red or blue polish so she went with one foot of each!!!  ;)

I tried to get an 'action shot' of Miss S wearing her pants - this was all the action I could muster out of her today:

I think someone might be getting a touch of Mommy's sickness, poor muffin.

Miss L has a few pairs of jeans that are almost too short but the 3T jeans that she has are HUGE (why aren't there 2.5T clothes?!?!) so I might attempt to do another ruffled jean hem in the next few days.  Until then I will be watching some more YouTube and reading a few tutorials to see if I can make it work next time!

Thanks again for all your encouragement!

Ruffled Pant EPIC FAIL...! :(

My wonderful husband bought Miss S some new jeans for school last month and the little weed has already almost grown out of them. I thought I would try to upcycle an old skirt of Miss L's and see if I could get some more lenght and use out of Miss S's new pants.  I have been eyeballing some super cute ruffled pants on Etsy for the last few weeks and thought - hey how hard can it be?!  Well apparently they are hard!!

The more I think about my first attempt at making Miss S a pair of Ruffled pants the more I see it as an epic fail.  I messed up on a few things but on the bright side I have LEARNED MY LESSON and need to work on making proper ruffles before I attempt to sew them onto pants!  The pathetic ruffles I did have didn't translate when I sewed them on and I have tubes on the bottoms of the pants.  ;(

I took one of Miss L's old skirts that don't fit her anymore and used that as the ruffle since it already had a rolled hem on it.  Plus I loved the fabric and wanted to see it being used again!

The pants from afar:

I don't like how the ends are longer than the middle, I'm not a big fan of the flatness of the 'ruffle' BUT I'm going to reserve the final judgement until Miss S wakes up tomorrow morning and tries them on.

Ugh, the more I look at these pants the more I just want to go eat some chocolate and call it a day!

On the bright side, I actually sewed 2 days in a ROW!  And both things I sewed were completely new and something I had never done before. Yeay me!

Tooth Fairy Pillow

I was texting with my SIL this evening and she told me that my (just turned) 5 year old niece has her first loose tooth.  I have been wanting to make a Tooth Fairy Pillow for a while and this was just the kick I needed to get going on one!!

I made this in a little over an hour and that includes finding the fabric in my garage since the basement is being finished at the moment, and doing not one but three different pockets since they kept messing up on me.  

All and all I don't think my niece is going to be getting this one - but I've got the basics down to make a better one and get it to her in the next few days (hopefully!) before her tooth falls out.

Ugh, I wish my camera wasn't so temperamental and I wasn't so tired
otherwise I would totally take a crisper picture of this but I'm sure
you get my drift!!

I had to make sure that the money would fit in!! Although I'm pretty sure the Tooth Fairy gives out $5 for the first tooth these days!

I took pictures along the way and I might do a tutorial if anyone is interested.  It was super easy, I just need to 'professional' it up a little bit since it screams 'this is my first one!!' and since its a gift I want it to look a little prettier for my niece.

Cheat Day!

With only 8 days (including today) left in Blogtober I am using another cheat day!  I have a few things I could blog about but I'm exhausted, its almost 8:00 and I still haven't eaten dinner (and yes the kids have and they are in bed!).  That being said, I'm going to go make myself something yummy, curl up on the couch and watch some PVR'ed Dancing With The Stars.  Too bad Carson is gone, he would have rocked Broadway week!

I have a project that I might tackle tomorrow - hopefully I'll get a good sewing post in one of these days!  Until then thanks so much for checking in!!

2 Months old!

Wow - its amazing how fast time goes by!!  Two months ago today we welcomed our wonderful little man, Baby C, into our family and made it complete.

With my oldest I had a tradition of taking her picture every month with a big bear to watch her grow and change over her first year.  I decided to do that same tradition with Baby C with a hippo stufftie that his Aunties gave him for his baby shower.

I think hes a pretty sweet little guy...well maybe not so little.  He weighed in at a nice healthy 12 pound 8 ounces this past Thursday at his check up!!  Hes my little chunky little monkey and I wouldn't change him for the world.

Friday Night Sew In -

Last night was the Friday Night Sew In.  I managed to get 5 more rows of my Tumbling Rubies quilt sewn together and ironed before my sister came over and we watched Paranormal Activity 2 (and screamed TWICE and woke the baby up!).  I was hoping to get the whole quilt top done but I never pass up a chance to eat chips, watch a movie and hang out!

I'm really loving how the quilt is turning out so far - even though my 'random' pattern produced not one but two tumblers that are matching up in two separate rows.  Oh well, I guess that helps add to the overall look.

I have 8 rows sewn together and another 7 more waiting to be squared up and sewn on.  I was hoping that 15 rows would be enough but I think it will be a super small lap quilt with only the 15 rows total since I'm not thinking about doing borders.  Like everything I do without a pattern, I'm wiging it!  So I might have to add a few more rows once I get the 15 that I already have sewn put together.  I'll make that call when I need to cross that bridge.

And for a nice Saturday morning funny break:  This is what happens when you bust out the camera with my four year old......

At least she asked permission to make a face before she did it!  

Friday Night Sew In!!

I can't believe its that time again - time for the Friday Night Sew in hosted by Bobbi at Crafty Vegas Mom and Heidi at Handmade By Heidi.  I missed the last two months so I'm looking forward to getting to it tonight!!

I think I'm going to work on my Tumbling Rubies quilt - maybe, just maybe I can get the quilt top done tonight!!

Its got to still be Thursday somewhere!!!

Ack - its just into Friday in Alberta but in British Columbia (or California!!) its still Thursday!!  I can use that excuse to post todays Blogtoberfest post!

Not much happened today - we had the framers in to frame out the basement and drywall is being delivered tomorrow.  I'm yet another day closer to my fully developed basement complete with a sewing nook!

Its late and I need to get some sleep before Baby C wakes up and needs to eat.

Speaking of Baby C, he had his checkup today - he'll be 2 months old on the 23rd - and hes 12 pounds 8 ounces!!  What a big boy!!  Perfectly healthy which is exactly what we were hoping for!

Nothing beats a sleeping baby picture when they are passed out in weird positions!  Baby C is getting his YMCA on....!

Basement developing goodness...

Well its October 19th - 19 days into Blogtober and after helping my husband move 80% of the toys, sewing stuff, and extra junk out of the basement to the garage I'm too tired to think of anything witty or craft today!!

We are getting our basement developed over the next few weeks (can I get a whoot whoot!??!) so all of my sewing stuff - fabric stash, rulers, cutters, extra sewing machines.....everything - has been banned to the garage for the next few weeks. I managed to keep my Tumbling Rubies quilt from getting packed away but  the majority of my stuff has made its way to spend the next few weeks in the chilly garage.

On the flip side once the basement is done I'll actually have a fully finished, WARM and cozy sewing nook to call my very own .  Am I excited - oh yes I am!!!

I did take some before pictures today but I'll post them tomorrow once the framing is done.

Unusual Alberta Wildlife

I live on the edge of the city and I'm used to seeing gophers, mice, hearing coyotes at night outside my back fence but when I was taking out the garbage this morning I almost stepped on this:

You can't really tell, but its a gecko.  Hes protecting himself since as hard as I tried not to, I think I stepped on the very edge of his tail (and I still feel really bad!!) and so he is curled up in a ball.  I'm pretty sure hes ok since he was long gone when I came back to check on him 5 minutes after I took these pictures.   His head is in the very middle and the rest of his body is curled around himself.  He was probably the size of my fist - the girls thought it was pretty cool from a distance!

Thats it thats all for today.  No sewing got done at all this afternoon or evening, we were at a playplace with some friends this morning and that pretty much tuckered us all out so it was a quiet day in the Quiltapotamus household and sometimes that is a beautiful thing!

Getting Reacquainted with my Runners!

Over the past 5 years I have either been pregnant or nursing - with a few month break in between each baby - and each time I had a 'break' between pregnancies I tried to get back into working out but life kind of got in the way.   That being said I've done some soul searching and some fitness goal setting and have figured out my 'get back into shape after baby!' plan.

Let me in introduce you to my lovelies:

I've had these for quite a few years and although it doesn't look like it they have at least a few hundred kilometres on them (gotta love treadmills!) so they are good for some serious training!!!

Today I signed myself up for the Resolution Run on New Years Eve (along with my SIL as her birthday present).  Its a 5K run along the Bow River in downtown Calgary.   I did this race quite a few years ago and it was -40C, we all had icicles on every hair follicle on our faces - it was AWESOME!!!!

I have just over 10 weeks to get myself into 5K shape, so I need to get started!

Once I tackle the Resolution Run my next goal is the Calgary Half Marathon at the end of May - 21.1K (or 13.1 miles) and then my really really really lofty goal is the Canadian Derby Edmonton Marathon 42.2K (or 26.2 miles) which takes place on August 19th.

I do have an idea of what I'm getting myself into - I did a half marathon and a full marathon 6 years ago BUT they were both before babies and when I actually had free time on my hands.  Thankfully I've got myself armed with training plans, a training partner (SIL), and will be paying for my races soon so I don't chicken out!!

I'll post from time to time with my training so you all can keep me accountable!  Now I need to head downstairs and clean the junk and toys off the treadmill!!  

Tumbling Rubies - two days in a row!

My strategy of not putting my sewing stuff away off the table until I finish the Tumbling Rubies quilt top seems to be working.  I managed to sit down and sew two days in a row and actually got ALL 15 rows of my Tumbling Rubies quilt top finished this afternoon.  I think its going to be so lovely when its fully pieced together!

After I managed to get the last row I had a little bit of time before Miss L usually wakes up from her nap and was able to piece together the first four full rows of the quilt top.  Most of my seams match up so far and since this quilt top has 180 tumblers, as long as most of them match up I'll be completely happy with the end result!

Please forgive the wonky picture - I was holding Baby C while standing on chair trying to take this picture.  It was the best one out of the three I took and since I didn't fall or wipe out with Baby C I consider this picture a success!

I'm hoping that I can find an hour to sew tomorrow and Tuesday and I should be able to have the quilt top done and then can get to work on pinning the quilt sandwich and possibly get to some free motion quilting on my machine this weekend.  I'm dying for something to cross off my WIP/UFO list and hopefully this can be that something that I can cross off soon!

Cousins & Stickers & Sewing

Its not even three o'clock and we've had an awesome day so far!  My SIL brought the cousins over for Miss S and Miss L to play with and Baby C got some Auntie snuggles in for a few hours.

After Miss L went down for her nap Miss S and I got to work on her Tinkerbell Sticker book that I've had hiding for months, she found it the other day and has been on me to play with it ever since.

After working on a few pages together I figured while shes busy with the sticker book, Miss L and Baby C are both napping that maybe, just maybe I could get some sewing in!!

I posted a month ago about my lovely sewing room thats in the unfinished basement but it seems like I've gravitated back upstairs with some of my stuff.  Its too cold in the basement for Baby C and I haven't been able to get any actual sewing done in a while so I figured today was the day to bring my Brother back upstairs and get some of the Tumbling Rubies quilt done.

My view from my machine as I sew and Miss S worked on her sticker book:

I managed to get two more rows done before Baby C woke up and demanded some food.

The more I do of this quilt the more I love it - but I still have issues with the randomness (and judging from some of the comments I got on my last post, I'm not the only one that has issues putting the 'random' in a random quit top) but I figure the more rows I do the more chances I have to mix things around to get the right amount of randomness. I think I need at least five more rows to get this quilt to the right size for a lap quilt if not maybe seven more rows, I'll play it by ear ('cause thats what I do best!) and see what looks the best as I go along.

We are in talks with a general contractor to develop our basement, hopefully by Christmas I'll have a nice warm comfy sewing nook in a fully developed basement!!  Then Baby C can hang out with me in the comfort of a nice warm basement - until then I'm just going to keep taking over the kitchen table. ;)

Mail Sending Day!

Yesterday was a mail receiving day - and today I'm sending out mail!  Funny how that happens especially when I pretty much NEVER do either!  

I was able to wash, iron and cut up all my fabric for the I Spy fabric swap hosted by Sandra at Sew In Peace over the past few days, its amazing how much longer stuff takes with three kids!!  I made a mistake and didn't buy enough fabric and I cut one section of fabric SO badly that I'm pretty sure a drunk monkey could have cut the squares better, so I had to go back to the fabric store and buy a little more of each fabric to get my full 40 squares of each pattern.

I ran into a little issue with shipping but after a quick email with Sandra we were able to square things away and I shipped off my package this afternoon!  (Thanks again Sandra and I'm sorry again for the shipping snafu, darn international shipping!).

I can't wait until I get my fabric bundle in the mail in a few weeks, I'm so excited to see what kinds of fabric everyone picked out.

Oh yes - yet another day of Blogtoberfest done!  I am hoping that I can get some actual sewing done in the next few days so I can actually post something sewing related until then you get little bits of randomness that is going on in my life!  ;)  

Oh how I LOVE getting Mail!!

I LOVE getting stuff in the mail - although most of the time its boring stuff like junk mail and bills - the junk mail I don't mind, the bills I could do without.  Every once in a while something comes that just rocks my world and I have been waiting for this arrival for a week or so!!

I have been seeing people post blocks online that they have made from Farmers Wife Sampler Quilt book for the past few months and it has piqued my interest.   I went to a few of my local quilt shops and the Chapers book store that was close to my house - none of them had this book in store so I wound up having to order it online.  It came to the house the other day and the lovely UPS guy left the package on the doorstep and left without checking to make sure we were home which we weren't.  When I got home from my Moms house the other day my husband was a little perplexed at what could be in the box since he didn't remember ordering anything (most of the online ordering is his!) but when he asked me I jumped up and ran to the box - I knew exactly what it was!!

The back has a picture of a completed quilt with all 111 blocks in full color.  Just looking at it makes me want to sit down at my sewing machine and create something beautiful.  That being said I have no idea how to use paper templates and if there are any special techniques that I need to accomplish any of these blocks. (yep, thats me: jumping right in without knowing what I'm doing!) Even if I don't make a single block from this book thats ok, the stories and the pictures are beautiful.  

I also ordered Nancy Ziemans Sewing A to Z along with my Farmers Wife book.  It has tonnes of tips and tricks for everything from appliques to zippers and a bunch of stuff in between.  I have been PVR'ing Nancys sewing show on KSPS (or whatever american public broadcasting station it is) - much to my husbands horror - for the past few weeks and she has had some really cool ideas and tricks.  Its amazing what one will watch when they are up a few times in the middle of the night with a nursing baby!  When I saw the book online at the same time as I was ordering the Farmers Wife block I knew I had to add this book to my sewing book collection.  I'm all about having reference material on hand when I don't know how to do something and sometimes its just nice to look at the pictures and daydream!

I've got a few more books lined up in the que that I'd like to get, until then I'm more than happy with The Farmers Wife and Nancy Ziemans books!  They'll keep me busy for a while.

Applecore Block

I have been eyeballing the Applecore Die from Accuquilt since before I got my cutter back in May but the curved piecing had scared me enough to stay away from it for a while! I had mentioned to my SIL that I really wanted to try the Applecore die and she surprised it for me for my birthday in September.

The die cuts REALLY well, it has little notches that you are supposed to line up with the different pieces so they sew together easy.

I wound up spending quite a bit of time on YouTube learning how to do curved piecing - I saw quite a few different ways (and each way seemed a little more confusing than the other!) to line them up so I decided to pin them together and hope for the best!!

It looked super wonky....

The first few seams I messed up a little bit and had some puckered seams but since it was my first time with curved seams I think it turned out ok. I'm positive it could have been a whole lot worse!

After I did the first row I decided that I could make a few more rows to see how difficult it would be to piece more than one seam together at a time.  Plus cutting fabric on the Accuquilt is way too much fun - especially with a 4 year old helping.

I finally decided that doing a 9 patch quilt block would be good enough until I figured out what (if anything) I wanted to do with the fabric.  I think I'm going to make another 9 patch block of different fabrics and make it into a doll blanket for the girls.  Miss L is seriously into her babies lately and I'm sure she would love to have their own blankets to cover them up with. 

I'm not sure what the heck I did wrong on the last applecore piece - it lined up perfectly when I was sewing it and the seams all the way across all line up but it has some overhang.  Leave it to me to get some funky edging on a new project.

All and all I think I did a pretty good job for my first time trying to do curved seams.  Thank you YouTube for being there to help me out - I would be lost without you!  Hopefully I can tackle the backing and Miss L can have a cute little blankie for her babies.

Rambling Thoughts....

I'm claiming today as Blogtober cheat day number 2.  I have a ton of things that I could blog about but I just don't have my whits about me to actually write a coherent blog post tonight or post any pictures.  Its just been one of those days.

I am however washing the fabric for the I Spy fabric swap right now and hopefully will cut it up tonight or tomorrow and have it in the mail by Thursday at the latest.

I'm off to watch my PVR'ed Dancing With The Stars from last night, then we'll follow it up with the results show.  As long as Carson doesn't go home I'll be happy!!  He makes me laugh.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Today is Thanksgiving up here in Canada so I'll send out a lovely Happy Thanksgiving shout out to all my Canadian friends.

My girls have spent the last two nights at my Mom and her husbands house and later this afternoon my husband and I, along with Baby C are heading over to pick them up and partake in some turkey dinner action!  Oh how I love Turkey dinners...!

I hope everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving, and to my American and other friends and followers from around the world I hope you have a wonderful Monday!

Jungle Squares - my Quilt Along with my Niece

For Christmas last year I got my then 8 (and now 9 - soon to be 10) year old niece a quilt top kit for us to sit down and work on together.   I figured it would take us a few afternoons or evenings to get the top pieced together and then we could find some boarder fabric - I'm thinking two decent sized boarders since we want it to be a bigger quilt for her - and some fabric for the binding.  What I hadn't banked on was my pregnancy ending up in me being on bedrest for the last 4 months so we couldn't really work on the blanket until this weekend.

My husband took Niece T out to the mountains yesterday to Climb Mount Yamnuksa - she did AWESOME!  By the time they got home from the climb it was getting pretty late and so we decided to save the sewing until today so she was bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready to go!

The mountain my niece and my husband tackled yesterday - it was her first scramble and she did so awesome!  

I had her lay out all the squares and design her own quilt top, she came up with a few different patterns:

This was the pattern on the quilt label that she wanted to see how it looked, but Niece T wanted to do her own pattern.....

Then she came up with this one....

Finally she decided on this one - she liked how the rows were (from top to bottom) purple, black, purple, black with her dark 'jungle' fabric in the middle part of the quilt.

I have only sewn with Minky fabric once and it was the cabbage swirl - what a PAIN IN THE BUTT it was!!  This quilt is minky fabric, its not nearly as difficult to sew with then the cabbage swirl but it was a pain to line up and my sewing machine kept eating the fabric if I didn't have a leader piece on.

Niece T did sew the first two squares together and after we had a little fabric slip up that involved some seam ripping she asked if I could help her.  Together we sewed the far left row of the blanket together this morning.  Hopefully we can get together and do the rest of the quilt top in the next few weeks so I can find the boarder fabric somewhere in town if not I think I might have to order it online.  I'd LOVE to get this blanket done with/for her before Christmas since it was last years gift to her and it would be nice to have it done so she can cuddle with it (she a huge soft blanket fan!).

I'm super happy with how well she did designing her own top and cant wait to see how nice it is when its all done.


Ohhhh - Day 9 of Blogtoberfest and I've even managed to post BEFORE noon - that never happens!  

I Spy Fabric!

I picked up the fabric for the I Spy fabric swap that is being hosted by Sandra at Sew In Peace at My Sewing Room today.  Sandra posted the 'rules' the other day and now that I have my cutting guidelines I'll be able to wash, dry and iron my fabric tomorrow during the day and then cut it up at night when the girls are in bed.

The fabrics are from left to right:

• Dino Scatter (not sure who its by)
• Little Ducky from Robert Kaufman
• not sure of the name of the Bus print but its from the Wilimington Print line.

I think the bus fabric is my favourite - probably because my oldest is obsessed with going on a school bus (which isn't going to happen since shes just in preschool this year!).

I'm so excited to see all the fabric that everyone gets and sends in - I think I'm going to make a great big quilt with all the squares so all three kids can play on it but we'll see what I come up with when all the fabric comes in.

Yippie - Day 8 of Blogtoberfest is done!  I'm on a total roll and so far I've only had one cheat/cop-out blogging day and I figure thats not too bad!  Until tomorrow everyone - to grandmothers house the kids and I go.....!