Chocolately goodness

Hey everybody!  So glad you are here. :) Welcome to new followers!

I finished Maggie's bath and haircut. I should have known better than to let her wander while I was watering the garden beds. She of course ruined her whole white and fluffy look. :(  Actually a quick blow dry seems to have fixed her up. She is not a girly dog. The camera battery died before I got a good picture of her for you.  I did get this one of the latest iris to open up around here.

Huckleberry Fudge Tall Bearded Iris

Pretty huh? How about this one too.

Pink Mocha Begonia

You can see how dark brownish the leaves are. These small dark red flowers are called Bittersweet William, because of the chocolate type leaves. Instead of Sweet Williams, get it? :) Yes, sometimes it is a stretch to place the flowers in the chocolate category. But if I like it, it's in. My favorites always remain the chocolate scented ones. ♥

Bittersweet Williams

 I am still reading The Fiddler by Beverly Lewis. It is a good book.

reading and stitching,
Vickie

Busy and a finish

Hey everybody! How are you all doing? We have been busy getting ready for Madeleine's Confirmation. There will be 20 young people getting confirmed on Sunday in our Lutheran Church. She had her questioning last night. The pastor asked all of them 200 questions regarding the faith, and they all did very well. Confirmation occurs on Sunday at 10:30. We will have family there and over afterwards. This is where the busyness comes in. Yes, the children and I have been crawling over the lawns, front and back, pulling dandelion weeds. Brian says this is completely unnecessary. Well, I like a clean, neat appearance! I have planted some too.

I think you can tell I chose this elephant ear plant because the leaves look like big pink hearts.♥

So this is our fence along the driveway. We put up trellises every year. I planted sweet pea vines a week ago. They have popped up and started. I filled the baskets with pink and purple flowers.plants and vines.

So the two on the outsides are light pink, the one in the center has dark pink geraniums. I prefer the light pink ones, but like them all. ♥

purple columbine

And finally, I did finish up that adorable little Bent Creek bunny from Sally.

Bent Creek Little Bunny

Now I am think, think, thinking on how to finish him off. I would like to say I am on to my next stitch, I cannot. I have to give both dogs baths and haircuts. Neat appearances remember. :)

reading and cleaning up,
Vickie

Happy Mother's Day to all you stitchy mamas out there!

The smell of chocolate!

Hey everybody!

I do not know how, but I forgot to tell you that those chocolate swirl irises I showed you last time, smell of milk chocolate.  They are just wonderful as you can imagine. :)  I took another photo for you of a second one that opened up today.

Chocolate Swirl

Here is yet another of the concrete poodles I made.  Her name is Cocoa and she lives in the chocolate heart garden. :)

One last picture I took for you tonight.  This is of a pink and yellow columbine that was planted by the original owners of this house.  The wife was a lover of pink like me.  I transplanted a few of these to the small garden we created on the side of the garage.  I have planted almost all pink and purple flowers there.

I did finish reading Threadbare by Monica Ferris on Monday.  It was a good book.  It is the latest from her in her Needlecraft Mystery series.  I have read every one of them.  I may guess part of the mystery, but not all.  The main character owns a needlecraft shop and has a gift for sleuthing.  I was disappointed though.  I am ashamed to admit that I did read the whole book, even though she did add probably 8 swear words in it.  I find it sad when an author feels they need to do this.  They don't.  I do not like to read books containing foul language.  I do not use it myself and find it offensive and just plain unintelligent.

The next book I am reading is also a fairly new one from the library.  I love that place!!  It is The Fiddler by Beverly Lewis.  I already know that this will not disappoint me.  It is number one in a new series by her.  This time involving an "English" lady and an Amish man.

Stitching, reading and planting seeds,
Vickie

Flowers, some chocolate and some not :)

Hey everybody!
How are you this evening?  I am feeling fine, only because I am ON PERCOCET!!  Yes, again.  Whatever!
See this pretty yellow rose?

My husband surprised me with it this morning just because.♥  He is very good that way.  I get flowers very often actually.  Roses seem to be the favorite.  Yellow always reminds us of the first flowers he gave me.  I was sixteen, he was seventeen.  I had my tonsils taken out and he came to visit me in the hospital.  This was when you still stayed over night for this.  We were only friends at this point still. :)  Anyways he brought me a small arrangement of yellow roses.♥

Look what I found in the chocolate garden this evening.  The first iris.  This one is a standard dwarf bearded iris.  It is called Chocolate Swirl.  I love it.

Chocolate Swirl

So, I have been planting a bit more, but mainly reading Threadbare.  It is a good book thus far.

Went to my mother's yesterday for our Mother's Day celebration.  She loved the heart I stitched up for her. :)

Jacob and his date had a very nice prom.  They enjoyed themselves.  He is not asking her to be his girlfriend, and he is my son who does not expand upon explanations. :)

Hello new followers.  I am glad you are here.  I am glad for all of you.  Thanks for your caring comments.♥

Planting, reading and stitching,
Vickie

Prom?!?!?!

Hey everybody!
Our oldest is going to prom tonight!!! Yikes!  Jacob is 17 1/2.  He is a junior at Pius XI High School.  The prom is to be held at Miller Park, the large, new baseball stadium in Milwaukee.  They have a large party room.  Being the parents of the boy, I have to say really doesn't include the parents much. :( 

Guess who this is????  :)

Brian and I, prom 1986

That's right!  It's Brian and I in 1986.  Yikes again!  The kids get a big laugh out of dad wearing a white tux with pink bow tie. :)  So, back then, just like now, the boy went to the girl's house, where my parents took pictures and then we were off to prom. 

Jacob has promised we will get the pictures also.  They are going as friends. Well , we will see.  She is a very pretty young lady. ;)

Here is a picture of chocolate chip ajuga, or bugleweed from the garden the other day.  This is what is slowly spreading to be my living mulch in that chocolate heart garden.

chocolate chip ajuga

This is Tiarella Mint Chocolate.  It has very pale pink flowers.  See the chocolate striped leaves?

tiarella mint chocolate

Well, mom and dad are excited/nervous about prom tonight.  Say a prayer that all goes well?  Thank you. :)

Stitching and praying,
Vickie

A Gift In The Mail and a Pinkeep

Hey everybody!  How are you today?  The sun is shining here.  It should be a mild, pretty day.

Giveaway gift from Sally

This arrived in the mail yesterday.  It is the sweet little bunny chart that I won from Sally. :)  Isn't he just adorable.  Every time I see him, I just think he needs a hug.♥  The card with that sweet dog on the front, almost made me cry.  If you replace all the light colored hair on that dog with the black, you would think you were looking right at our Mac.  He died extremely suddenly back in October.  He had cancer of the spleen and we never knew it. It ruptured and he was gone within a few hours, because we took him to the vet to find out what was wrong and humanely euthanized him since it was the only option.

Mac

Well, anyhow, it did make me smile too. :)  Time does heal.  We loved him dearly, and we do have Maggie and Mabel still.♥

So I pulled the few flosses I do have for the chart last night.  I need to go to JoAnn today and buy the rest.  I looked up conversion charts last night, I am going to use dmc of course. :)

Yesterday I took this...

Madeleine's vest from Christmas Around The World

and I made it into this...

Christmas Around The World Pinkeep

This vest has been sitting in her closet for over a year. I made it for Madeleine for Christmas Around The World at our church school for December of 2010.  Her grade got Poland, so she and I dressed in costume.  I had these freebie patterns I found a long time ago on a Polish blog actually. I personalized it with the owls, she loves owls.  And of course I took out the cats and put in poodles! :)

Madeleine found it this morning in her room.  I finished it after she fell asleep last night. She is very happy.

Well, I did finish the book I was reading,Quilters Academy.  I kind of forced myself to read it actually. It is a good book, it is just a book to learn proper techniques and basics.  Since I taught myself to quilt through books, I thought I should read this one also.  I did pick up a few helpful hints, so I am glad I read it.

Okay, that does it for me today. I am off to JoAnn soon and the library too.

Poodles Around The May Pole

Thank you for stopping by.  Have a great day.  I appreciate you all. :)

Stitching and praying,
Vickie

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