A Mother's Prayer

This poem caught my attention today and I wanted to share it with other mothers, especially those with younger children. I remember well the days when my children were young and I was so tired, mentally and physically, calling out to the Lord! May the Lord continue to bless each one of you!

A Mother's Prayer

Please help me raise these precious little one for You. Often I fail and I need Your wisdom and direction to face this grave responsibility.
May Your love and patience shine through me as I teach, train, and discipline like You would have me to do. Help me to not grow weary in correcting. Oh, at times the thought of more discipline discourages me. I long for a loophole out of it. I want to be consistent even when I don't feel like it. When I'm tempted to let it slide, O Lord, at those times do bless me with Your loving direction.
Teach me how to teach our precious little ones about You. Help me teach from sunrise to sunset. I count this my privilege-- my wonderful privilege.
Help me to be a mother who is a living example of our little ones. Help me grow in You. Allow me to show them how You are by my meekness, kindness, longsuffering, diligence, contentment, forgiveness, fruitfulness, honesty, humility, dependability, generosity and loyalty. Help me to be committed to showing them my deep trust in You.
Help me submit to my husband--their father. Help me love, honor, bless, and admire him too. As they grow older, help that same love and admiration to flow toward You--their Heavenly Father.
For all these things, Lord, I need Your help. I cannot do it on my own strength. Thank You for all these dear little children You have blessed us with.

~Your Unworthy Servant

Fun tutorials and a new book

Hello Friends, my computer has been on the blink so I haven't posted in a few days. I spent the past few days sewing and visiting other blogs via my daughters computer.
I found some wonderful tutorials I'd like to share with you.

The Noble Wife has a great tutorial and pattern for a cute apron that's really easy to make. I made one in just a short time and now my daughter is adding some hand stitching along the border. Christmas is just around the corner you know.

Amanda Jean has many wonderful tutorials over at Crazy Mom Quilts. There's a entire list of tutorials from checkbook covers, quilts, storage boxes, bibs, and much more. Give her a visit, I'm sure you will be pleased.

I've started a new book, The Scarlet Thread, by Francine Rivers, my favorite author. I can't wait to sit down, put my feet up and begin with a nice cup of hot cocoa! Yummy.
Dinner's in the crock pot, hostess ham, "how easy is that!" (That's my favorite saying by Barefoot Contessa's Ina Gartner, I just love her show!) Just add a few veggies and those wonderful freezer rolls and it's dinner.
Now, where's my new book?

pumpkin table topper

The weather has turned colder over the weekend and so we are snuggling under quilts and finally after a little hint from the girls, turning on the heat. Oh, it's so hard to get up early when it's cold isn't it? How I'd love to snuggle under the covers just a little longer.
Trying to get this crew up for church Sunday morning was no easy task!

"Snuggling Cousins"

We enjoyed a very relaxing weekend at home so I took the opportunity to finish some quilting and sewing projects.
The pumpkin table topper is finished with stippling complete. Don't look to closely, my stippling is nothing fancy. I'm sure my stitches aren't consistent but that's ok, it's mine and I love having it on my table.


The sun is shining and I'm looking forward to a beautiful day! We are joining our homeschool group at a Gem Mine today to pan for gold! How exciting, we've never been.
OK, now I'm off to get our day started!
I will leave you with some Fall pictures of the trees and mountains here in East Tennessee!

A little quilting progress......

Yeah, I'm so happy that we didn't have plans today! Most days we are out and about when school is finished but today I was quilting!!!
Enjoying the satisfaction of seeing this quilt come together as I added the inner border and cut strips for the outer border to be added later today. I was so excited I had to get a picture while the weather is nice outside. My daughter did a fantastic job choosing the colors for this quilt, they look so nice in the picture with the border.

Sweet Ellie wanted in the picture too!! She would love to wrap up in this!
Ain't happenin!

This is the 6 1/2 inch Outer border that I cut today!
It's an Amy Butler fabric called Midwest Modern.
I just love her fabrics.



Amazing how different it looks when you stand back and take a picture. I love the colors!

Now for some great giveaways to share!!

Elizabeth at Pigtails and Snails is having a wonderful giveaway for her original designed quilt, Lizzie Anne! Take a look!

Michelle at Quilts and Stuff is also having a Birthday giveaway for 13 Patterns from Pearl Louise Designs Banner of the month club.

Fall Giveaway Winner!

Thanks to everyone who stopped by my blog for the Fall Giveaway!
I've had a great time visiting your blogs and made some wonderful blog friends!

Today is a very busy day for us so we picked the winner early this morning

The Winner is...............

Sherri at A Quilting Life!!!!!

Congratulations!

Thank you Sherri for entering, I just love your blog and your quilts are gorgeous!!

pumpkins and crab apples

Our little crab apple tree is truly "bearing much fruit" this year, with branches actually dragging the ground. I haven't made crab apple jelly in a few years and decided with such an abundance of fruit I really shouldn't let them go to waste.
The recipe is really very easy and quite fun to make. I plan to make more in the next few days.

Pumpkin wall hanging I've been working on, practicing my hand applique. I love applique but I'm rather slow.
Any suggestions how I should quilt this little punkin?? I planned to do stippling but would love some advice from other quilters.

Enjoying the weekend

Weekend Fun

First, let me say how much I'm enjoying this wonderful weather we are having here in East TN!! Gorgeous sunny days and cool evenings! Oh, how I wish it would last just a little longer.
Looking forward to those beautiful colors just outside our window overlooking the mountains.

Saturday was a very busy day with a little house cleaning early and then lunch with family, and then on to the quilt show here in our town with my grandma. She doesn't quilt but she enjoyed looking as much as I did. I was so busy I forgot to take my camera to get pictures of all those gorgeous quilts. Oh, I get so excited as I look at all the patterns, colors, hand quilted, machine quilted, etc. I'm fascinated because I know how much time it takes to complete a quilt.
I could have stayed much longer but I had a youth board meeting at the church and from there we joined the church for a hay ride to the lake for hotdogs and roasted marshmallows.
Everyone had such a great time, young and old!
Thank you Lord for such sweet fellowship!

Then, believe it or not we swung by the grocery store for groceries. By this time I'm draggin just a bit. Oh, but when we arrived home I was soon revived by the many teenagers who had gathered at our house to watch a movie and eat ice cream. They had rearranged the furniture to fit everyone in. He he!
So happy to hear the laughter and joyful screams as they hooped and hollared.
We were happy to have every last one of them! Several of the girls even stayed for a sleep over......yahoo. I think they had a busy day too, I didn't hear a peep out of them after midnight.

Just a note to say how much fun I'm having visiting all the great blogs who have signed up for my Fall Giveaway! I promise to read each comment and take a look at each blog! It's great meeting so many wonderful ladies!! Thank you all for your sweet comments!

Looking forward to a great week!