4th of July Recap

It's Sunday afternoon as I'm writing this post and I'm plumb tuckered out. It's too late for a nap so I'm trying to power through, but it will be an early night for Gram and Pap tonight.

Our little town (it's actually called a village) pulls out all the stops to celebrate Independence Day. The parade lasts an entire hour. 😂

But the streets are packed and the little ones are excited

The best way to celebrate is with family

Smokey is always on patrol

After the parade, we went to the ranch rodeo

We went both Friday and Saturday

It didn't take long for little E to make friends

You'd of thought they'd been friends for decades. 😂

We were tired at night, but thankfully we had excellent help with evening chores

She's become an expert scratch scatterer

The dirt pile patrol was on the job and determined to see the latest project complete

On Sunday, little E went back out with Pap while I cleaned up from breakfast and started pulling things together for Taco Salads

When I ventured out, she was playing in the water trough again. 😁 And no, she wasn't out there alone - Pap was there.

I always seem to return a dirty child back over to her parents.

                                     

But childhood and mud go hand in hand

When they came to join us for dinner, we were treated to a spectacular puppet show. Even Skeet was captivated.

Encore! Encore!

After she helped me make the bed this morning, she ran off saying, " No, it's not finished, properly. We need something..." When she returned, she clammored up on the bed announcing it was now, "Perfect. You and Pap need company so you won't miss me." 🥰

It was an exceptional weekend

A Really Good Combination

 

A deck + a mountain + a book + a quilt + a freshly baked Banana Nut Muffin + a mug of hot tea + green pastures + a slow, steady rain = the perfect morning. 

See, we DO know how to slow down. 😉

Mountain Monday

Yes, I know it's not Monday, but this is just a peek into our Monday last week.

Our days are always full, but I still feel like we lead a pretty quiet, laid-back life so it always takes me by surprise at how fast time goes. It seems like I'm flipping the calendar to a new month every couple of weeks. Since moving to the mountains, I feel like we live in a bit of a time warp. I don't look at clocks or calendars and when I do, I am always caught off guard when I realize what day it is. Did 5 minutes pass as we sat watching a summer storm roll across

Or was it an hour?

DH and Skeet take off to scout the hills in the mornings and return with stories of new discoveries

While they were out exploring, the chickens got a clean coop

Looks like I woke someone up from a nap when I went to fetch the wheelbarrow

The kittens are sweet 

they are so playful at this age

                                       

Time for a new hot water heater we picked up last week (Marcos is our plumbing-heating-cooling guru and he was out to diagnose a problem with our air conditioner and showed up as DH was removing the old hot water heater)

I was in the kitchen making Lemon Cowboy Cookies

And Taco Pizza and a salad for dinner

And then we made a trip up the mountain                               

where DH changed into shorts to fix the intake at the spring

                         

Skeet says it was a good day

We agree, Skeet

Under the Needle: June

Is it just me or did June just whizz by? Somewhere along the way, I did manage to make some progress and get some stitching done. It doesn't happen every day, maybe 2 or 3 days a week most weeks, but that's a good balance for me. It might just be 30 minutes, but every once in a while, I manage to sneak in a couple of hours. 

 My big accomplishment this month was getting all of the HSTs made for the Land of Enchantment quilt. SO many HSTs, but I enjoy making them. They may be my favorite unit to make because of their versatility.

I also pieced all of the blocks, but that's the extent of my progress in June. There are 3 different blocks in this quilt.

I did pick up 3 quilts from Jackie earlier in the month and stitched those bindings to the fronts

I finished 2 of them this month...the Jungle Jam quilt

And the Summer Farm Stand quilt 

So I didn't accomplish a whole lot, but I feel good about getting those 2 oldest UFOs finished.

I've just got 3 more tops ready to be quilted and then that'll be the end of my UFO tops so even though I have a few projects lingering in bins, I'm feeling the urge to start something new. I may have already begun. 😉