BIrthdays, Here and There!

This week's been a sort of busy one for me with birthday celebrations all around.

Thursday was my good friend Shirley's birthday and Friday, was her husband's day. I try to get cards for each of them and also, some little gift for Shirley too. Last year, I gave her a tabletopper I had done which had a cardinal in each corner. (She, like her Mom, is a big fan of cardinals and apparently her love for that bird, as well as her late Mom's too, rubbed off on me as well.)

This year though I knew what I wanted to get for her but wasn't sure if I could get it or not. She had pointed out to me a really cute apron -a fall design with pumpkins on it -that she had fallen in love with in the Herrschners' catalog and knowing that I follow Herrschners' special sales online each week, she had told me to be sure to let her know if this particular item ever went on sale.

Well, about a month ago or so, it did show up on their weekly sale and it was such a great sale price that I bought one to give to Shirley for her birthday as well as one to put in my stash for embroidering at a later date this year! The sale price was so good that I was able to get the two of 'em for less than what they normally sell just one apron for so I was really happy over that find. And, judging by Shirley's reaction when she opened the bag with her card and the apron in it -she jumped out of her chair and really squealed with delight when she saw it -made me feel really great to know she was very happy with my choice this year!

Tonight, we had a little family get-together mainly because this coming Wednesday will be my older daughter's birthday. I know I have mentioned her age to some of my readers in comments I have made on posts of theirs but I'm thinking I probably had best not announce her age here on my blog in case others are reading this (but don't comment) who Carrie might not want them reminding her, or knowing, when her birthday is and what age she is gonna be come Wednesday.

So, for the occasion, I cooked a nice-sized turkey breast, did mashed potatoes, candied sweet potatoes, peas, fixed a bowl of apple/carrot and raisin salad plus a pan of cornbread. Mandy had picked up a really nice ice cream birthday cake today too for Carrie so we did have a really nice family meal and the cake was a big hit, especially with the two little ones.

I did try to video Alex -Carrie's son -lighting the candles on his Mom's cake and then, the family singing "Happy Birthday" to her but the darned video thing on my little digital camera seems to be acting up on me all the time now. It worked most of the time -actually, it appeared to be working fine while I was videoing the cake and singing, but when I played it back after downloading it to my computer, a little over half-way through the video, the darned thing goes a bit wonky on me with the video stopping but the audio continuing and then, the audio gets wonky and starts skipping like crazy too. But almost at the end, for some reason or other, all of a sudden the whole things speeds up at way faster than it should be! Go figure! If anyone knows what causes this to happen, please share the information with me, will ya?

For Carrie's birthday, I gave her the recently completed tablecloth I'd been working on for well over five weeks -just wanted to be sure to get it completed in time to give it to her for this occasion. This cloth is 52x70 inches and has two sprays of three different colored pansies in the center part along with two purple pansies on each side of those sprays in the center. Then, at each corner, it has a spray of three pansies with single purple pansies spread out along each side. Very pretty arrangement, if I do say so myself!

And Carrie knew I had been working on this cloth but I had never said who or what occasion I was doing it for so she was a little surprised then when I handed it to her tonight. I knew she really liked the cloth so at least I had no concerns over that while I was working on it -just was worried whether or not I'd be able to get it finished for her.

Here are the photos I took -while Mandy tried to hold the cloth up for me. Because of the dimensions on this cloth, it doesn't photograph well at all on the table we have had here because the table isn't really large enough to lay it out properly. (Well, that's all history now though because tonight, I got my son and grandson, Alex, to go down the street to the home of a friend who had this maple table -a fairly large one complete with two nice leaves for it too -that she was giving away! Yes, you read that correctly -she was giving it away and get this, the table is also a Broyhill! Okay, it probably will need to have the top sanded and refinished but that's a fairly minor chore to tackle when you think about the table being a Broyhill, isn't it -and especially since it was a freebie too!)

Clate and Alex had a fun time -NOT -trying to get the table into the house because my doorways are a bit on the smallish side plus, we already have so doggone much other "stuff" (Thank you George Carlin for that sidenote) in this old place but finally, we got it in and in place. Now, there is the issue of what to do with the table we had been using for the past 9 years and there was some discussion that perhaps my son and his girlfriend might be able to use it but I don't think he was all that hepped up on that idea.

His girlfriend, Elizabeth and I were discussing the table though and thinking of a way to maybe move a couple things around in the dining room and be able to still utilize the smaller table then too so after Mandy went to bed tonight, I moved the small buffet over to another wall and then, put the smaller table in front of the window in the dining room. It's functional enough that way that perhaps Mandy will go along with the program and leave it there. One nice thing about having the smaller table there is that the kids will still be able to use it then for playing with their games and playdough and such, plus both kids are really getting into jigsaw puzzles with Maya even getting quite proficient at working on slightly larger puzzles and having this table available means then the kids can also do bigger puzzles without having to rip them apart so we could then use the table for our meals too. And, not only that, but I now have a place in front of the dining room window where I can put a couple of house plants on there too!

Multi-purpose stuff -just the kind of "stuff" I like, ya know!

One last thing too -the silly dog of ours just adores Carrie, my older daughter and will not leave her alone whenever she comes up here. Tonight was no exception either as he jumped up onto her lap as soon as she sat down in one of the recliners and made it known to her -and everyone else too -that he wasn't about to get down from his little perch there either!

So, now that I've told you what we did tonight, I'm gonna try to show you via some photos of the tablecloth as well as Carrie and Sammy parked in the recliner too!

This is the center portion of the tablecloth - as you can see, there are two clusters of 3 pansies there and then, a single pansy in purple along each cluster.





These two shots show the clusters of pansies a bit better -or at least I am hoping they show up a bit better here than in the first picture!










And finally, here's Sammy, our sweet little mutt, in his favorite resting place whenever my daughter, Carrie, comes up here to visit!

I'd like to post the video of the kids watching Alex light the candles on his Mom's birthday cake, but right now, I'm trying to upload it to my facebook site and it is taking forever to complete. Perhaps tomorrow or Monday I can load the video into a post and put it up here then too!

Hope you all are having a great weekend -just as my family and I did!