Those Teenagers

On November 16th we celebrated out 6th anniversary of the girls coming to live with us and my retirement. 

What growth experience and I must stay the Lord has helped me a lot to care for them. He has blessed with strengthen, energy when I need it, words of wisdom when I needed them, patience even when I don't feel like it. Grateful for the experience, even if it wasn't what I had planned. I will be glad when they realize what we have done for them. Right now we are public enemy #1. 

I guess that means we are doing a good job as parents. 

This picture was taken in February and this is Bigger Bit. 

Age 14.5 Now 15.

This is Little Bit, she didn't want to take a picture on the day I wanted, so here we in March.  Age 12.5. now 13.

Thankfully they are good girls, one is a mouthy and will push the edge of the envelop so she is in trouble a lot. The other one is very helpful and is seldom in trouble. One works hard at school and the other one doesn't. One is always having drama with friends and one is not. One doesn't want to go do things but has a good time when she does, the other wants to go, go, go. 

They are as opposite as day is from night. 

They do keep me busy.

Well off to enjoy my me time while they are in school. 

The Tree House

Mr. B made a little tree house in our large orange tree in the back yard for the girls to play in. 

Here is a picture of it when Mr. B had just started. It wasn't very fancy but good enough for the girls to go hang out in the tree. 

I thought I had more pictures than the one above but I can't find them. It was basically just a bunch of cross beams.

Recently he decided to do an upgrade on the tree house. 

Since the chickens have to stay in the coop and the girls don't have to compete with the chickens to use it and they don't have clean it  any more. He even improved the entrance ramp. I don't mind going in now. I think I might have to cut that one little branch a little.

Below is the lower level.Some of the wood has been in the old tree house and now there is some new wood to make it a full floor.

Upper level, I have my head up in the hole of the floor.

One of the girls hung a little bird house.

The ladder going up to the top level.

Me sitting in the tree house on the top level.

 Listening to the poor bird that is caught in the chicken coop. Sounds like a bobwhite. I don't know how they get in but they never find their way out. 

My hubby sure did a great job on this. 

Even the Bits think so!!

Chickens Adventures

I am not sure how it happened but we now have chickens. I am not sure if Mr. B suggested it or the girls asked for them. 

Hubby built the coop.

As you can see he did a very good job! 

We had just bought the chicks home.

This was on September 29th 2016. The chicks were three days old.

3 Day Old Chicks


The Bits with the chicks.

Little Bit and chick.

Bigger Bit with the chickens, they are a little bigger here. She set up a little fence so they won't run away.

Here they are big and they think I have something to

 eat on my shoe. Silly chickens.

Here they are on the neighbors front yard. We let them roam free for awhile. Until we received a complaint from the city about them roaming. So hubby moved the chicken coop in under some branches of our orange tree and made a run for them. They sure do want to escape every time you open the door. 

Our first eggs!

They come in colors. 

We even died them for Easter and you couldn't tell on the blue eggs at all and the brown eggs just had a deeper color.

I was just ready to go out and take a picture of the coop 

in the tree but it started to rain and now it is dark. 

So I will have to do that tomorrow.

Until then take care and Happy Stitching!

What??

It has been a year and four months...

since I was last here??

Where does the time go??

Yes, a pre-teen girl and a teen girl keep me busy and tired. 

In August Bigger Bit will turns 14 and Little Bit turns 12 in September. Not so little any more. 

Crystal Pier, June 2017

Here is a picture of us from earlier this year in June when we spent 3 days in San Diego.

So I did a Brain Dump of all the post I want to catch you all up on and the one that I will start with is the girl's Christmas stockings.
Yes they are finished and we used them last Christmas.
Here is the last post about the stockings.

This is a picture of the fronts of the stockings when I had finished stitching them. This was in October of 2016. I rushed to finished them so they would be to the finisher before the Christmas rush.
I made it!

Front of Stockings 

Now just for a treat here are the backs of the stockings.

Back Of Bigger Bit's

Back of Little Bit's

Below is the picture of them all finished.

All Done!

I didn't let the girls see their 

stockings until we had finished decorating for Christmas.

As you can see they 

really like them!

And the stockings were hung!

My hubby, Mr. B. bought a metal dowel for my Santa Stocking hanger. Since the wood one has been broken for a couple of years.  He broke it when he was filling the stockings one year. He didn't know how heavy the stockings get when they are filled.
It was nice to stuff them and still keep them hanging.

Happy stitching or what ever you are doing these days.

Christmas Stocking Update!

I haven't done a stocking update since last July.  I have been working on Little Bits stocking on and off since then.  I stopped all together when fall came because I knew they weren't going to get done, so no sense in stressing over them.  

Here is a picture of where I left off in July.

Here is how her stocking looks now. 

As you can see I have done a lot.  When I made the stocking for the other kids I would take pictures weekly but now I want to take pictures when I get a section done.  So it always seem like a long time until I see progress being made. 

She is loving it! And she is happy with all the pink I put in for another color that was used.  Because she loves pink.

I am going to show you what progress I have made on Bigger Bit's stocking since I am taking photos.  The last time I worked on her stocking was in May. 

Here is how it look last May.

Here it is now, I have only been working on it for about a month.

It is rolled up on the frame I am using.  There is a mistake some place in that donkey, but I am not going to fix it. 

Happy Stitching!!

Fun in the Snow

On New Year's Eve Mr. B had off from work so we took a day trip to find some snow in Northern Arizona.  We found some up on the Rim around Wood's Canyon Lake.  There were a few people there but we had our little section to ourselves.  We don't have a lot of winter cloths but we make do with what we have.  It is also called layers!  We wear lots of layers.  The girls even bought extra pants, shoes and socks to change into, without being told.  They remembered from our last trip when we had to stop in Wal-Mart and buy them new jeans. 

The first thing Little Bit does is lay down and make a snow angel. 

Yes she has rubber gloves on over her knit gloves in hopes to keep her hands dry and a little warmer.

Little Bit found this log that had been covered with snow, that had been packed down and made the little hill there a little bigger and she started sliding down it.  Those were brand new blue jeans she had one and her undies had a very dark blue dye on them when I went to do the laundry. Actually both girls had the same dye stains. 

Here is Bigger Bit trying it out. 

Mr. B. found this piece of broken plastic sled and the girls started using that to slid down the little hill.  Boy did it help make them go fast.  They had a blast!!

That is Bigger Bit all the way down at the bottom. 

There goes Little Bit!  So fun to hear them squeal in delight. 

Mr. B took some pictures of them in an igloo they had found and built up a little but they are on his phone.  I was freezing and sat in the car for a while to warm up, so I missed it.

That is one of the nice things about Arizona, you can go a couple of hours away and find different weather. 

That evening the us girls went to a friend's home and they had some small fireworks to exploded, so it was a fun way to end the year. 

Happy Day to all. 

My Spanish Doll

Here is my beautiful little Spanish Doll, in the professional photo taken for her role in The Nutcracker Ballet produced by Ballet Etudes.  The photo was professionally taken by Stefani Bullard. 

Doesn't she just looked beautiful in that costume which 

is just perfect for her.

This was a very exciting time for both of us as she participated in the Nutcracker. I was able to chaperone for four different opportunities. I was there twice for dress rehearsal and twice for  shows. It was interesting to see how things work backstage. One of the frustrating things was there is a lot of hurry up and wait as the chaperone. The cast and the chaperones show up two hours before showtime. I am not sure why other than they want to know that everybody's there and was enough time to get ready. The kids seem to deal with this much better than I did. They all brought games or toys to entertain themselves with. I had things to do also but it was hard to concentrate on reading or journal writing while watching the kids. All the kids were really well behaved and very patient backstage. It was fun to watch them especially one night during dress rehearsal. The little kids are divided into two cast groups and the one cast group was watching the other cast group and they were saying they're getting onto late they miss their cue. It was really cute to watch them.

As a chaperone for the little kids I also had the job of 

applying their makeup which was simple and fun. The girls really liked my eyelashes that I made for them. The lips were a little harder to do. One of the fun techniques I learned was how 

to apply glitter on their faces.

Little Bit really enjoyed having me as a chaperone I was glad I could help. But it is very time-consuming. Little Bit is ready to do it again next year and I'm glad there is almost a year until we start again. At the last show I was backstage waiting for the little dolls to come off stage, when one of the professional male dances came off the stage and thanked myself and the other volunteer for being there and for volunteering. He said we couldn't do this without your help. It really made me feel good to have that recognition and I appreciated him taking the time to say that. I felt there was a real spirit of cooperation with everything I saw during rehearsals as well as production.

While we were waiting to leave during intermission of the last show the female Spanish dancer came offstage. Little Bit saw her and told me that one day she wants to dance that part. I hope her dream comes true. I sent an e-mail to Stefani the photographer asking if I could use her picture of the big Spanish dancer to put it her on my blog but until that time you can go to her link above and see the Spanish dancer on her website with a lovely photo.

Right now little bits next goal is to be a baby mouse next year, 

I hope she makes it.

Here is another Christmas video for you to enjoy!

Pre-Christmas: The Little Ones' Decorations

This year the girls asked if they could spend their own money to decorate their rooms.  So we did a run to Hobby Lobby and here are the end results.

Bigger Bit has a double bed and shares her room with our food storage rack with the #10 cans on it.  So her dresser is in the closet.  Luckily she isn't a high maintenance gal and she doesn't have a closet full of cloths. Her drawers are also always in order. 

So she decorated the top of her dresser borrowed some Christmas napkins from me and this is the end result.  

We also made a garland of paper tree lights that I found on Pinterest.  This link will take you to the original site. She made her garland in the traditional Christmas colors. 

This is Little Bit's Tree, she was so excited to find a tiara ornament. She told me one day that I don't call her princess enough.  When my dad called me princess it was not a compliment.  So I have been using it more.  This morning I said, "Time to get up Princess, even a Princess has to get up and go to school."

Here are Little Bit's garland of Paper Bulbs.  She used less traditional colors. 

We are enjoying the season.  One of the things the girls look forward to is the hanging of the mistletoe.  We sure get a lot more hugs and kisses when it is hanging up.  The other is hanging the ornament each day on the Advent Quilt and counting how many days are left until Christmas. 

I have one with a Nativity scene I want to make. 

Maybe it will get done in 2016.

Just so we don't forget the real meaning of Christmas.