Happy Birthday

It has been a few days since the birthday celebrations but I wanted to share some of the happenings.  I celebrated on Friday with my co-workers.  My partner Amanda gave me these flowers.  They are still looking good.  She knows how much I love flowers.

We got together for Mine and Stacy's birthday party on Saturday night.  Liz and Dennis had come to town to share in the fun.  We decided to BBQ.   A first for my birthday but the weather was so nice that Josh and John did up some steaks and ribs and Liz made the above Holiday salad.  It was Good Eats!  The salad was the one that Morgan posted last year.  I think it is one of my favs.

Perfect steaks.  The ribs were also the best that I think I have ever had.

Stacy made me these little wooden pilgrims.  They are especially cute.  It is fun to have a birthday around the holidays because I get so many cute decorations.

This is the only picture that I have of the cake.  It was a carrot cake as ordered.  Whitney slaved over it.  It was wonderful.

Whitney made these cute blocks for Stacy.  

Not sure what Essie was doing but she was enjoying hanging out with Dennis.

The much awaited knitted socks.  I got my own pair now, thanks to Lizzy.

Whitney was crafting madly on Saturday morning and did this cute Noel for me along with the blocks for Stacy.  She did them all in about 2 hours while Stacy and I were shopping.

You know it is that time of year.  Lizzy reminded me a few years back to always plant my amaryllis around my birthday.  So here they are.  Now I just need to make sure they get enough sunlight.

I have been working on quilts for Maren and Esme's beds.  I wanted to applique their initials on them.  So here it is, my first experience with applique.  I used the iron on kind and then did a blanket stitch by machine.  It was going quite well when I first started and then I noticed that the machine was having to work a little harder to make the stitches.  I then realized with trying to maneuver this quilt around I had somehow slid another piece of bright pink fabric that I was sewing to the under side of the quilt.  I then had to wrestle that and clip it down and then I noticed I had gotten some oil or something from the machine on the "M".  I should have known nothing about sewing is easy.  There is always something to keep you humble and sewing always keeps me humble.  I am always having to learn the hard way.  Lesson learned.  

I think they are going to be so cute.  I am enlisting Whitney's help to quilt these in a few weeks.  I am also working on a few pillows to match.  I will have to blog them when they get finished.

Thank you everyone for making my 42nd birthday so great and for the great gifts.  Thanks Stacy for sharing your special day with me.