Sewing Projects

Thought I'd share a few of the sewing projects that I've been working on the past few days.

I made new aprons for Christmas for all three of my girls:

Here's the one for my oldest:



Here's the one for my middle daughter:



Here's the one for my youngest daughter:



My middle daughter tried her hand at machine sewing for the first time this week. She made a gift bag for the gift she has for her little sister. She was very precise in her sewing and did a great job!



We all seem to love to sew!

Giant Snowflakes

Found this super neat craft project on Facebook of all places - these giant snowflakes the girls made using Popsicle sticks, hot glue, a little paint and some beads.

The link for how to make these is here: Giant Snowflake Craft

I have these hanging in our bay window area of our breakfast room and they look just fabulous. They are big - if you can't tell from the photos - most are about 18 inches across or so! I love these!

Here's the one made by my 4 year old:

Here's the one made by my 7 year old:

Here's the one made by my 10 year old:

Here's how they look hanging in my breakfast room window:

Mammoth Caves Adventure

Our first adventure on our trip to Fort Knox was on Saturday, Nov 21st and involved about an hour drive back to the south on I-65 to visit some caves.

We had some brochures about things to do in Kentucky that hubby had brought home before. My oldest daughter spent a good portion of the drive to KY going through the brochures and letting me know things they really wanted to try to see while we were there.

One item on their list was the Mammoth Cave Wildlife Museum - essentially a 14,000 sf museum with about 1600 different animals, marine life and insects displayed in their natural environment, which is located near several of the caves that make up the Mammoth Cave area.

So we decided that while we were in the area of the museum, we might as well check out a cave, since none of us had ever really been in caves before. The first cave we attempted was closed; our second attempt was Outlaw Cave.

Many of the caves that make up the Mammoth Cave region are actually privately owned - several by generations of the original families that discovered the cave. Some families do a good job of managing and caring for the caves; others do not.

The Outlaw Cave is said to have been a cave where Jesse James would hide out and is still owned by his relatives. The viewing area of this cave is not large and has over the years had some wear and tear - people looking for treasures and artifacts from Jesse James and during the years of what is known as the "Kentucky Cave Wars".

This part of Kentucky covers a county called "Barren" - for good reason. In the early 20th century, tourism to caves was picking up - especially to Mammoth Cave. Local owners of small caves wanted to get in on the tourism dollars and would intentionally mislead tourists into thinking other caves were closed, caved in, quarantined, etc. They would even go so far as to sabotage caves owned by other families in order to drive tourism to their own cave.

The tour guide we had for Outlaw Cave was a PhD archaeologist - she had a ton of knowledge in particular about Native American influence in caves of the region.

After our visit to Outlaw Cave, we took the girls to the Mammoth Cave Wildlife Museum - we were the only people there and the girls took great delight in seeing so many different species of animals on display. There were many species I had never seen except in books; so in all it was an interesting stop.

The girls decided they really wanted to see one more cave, and we had been advised by our first guide that a good one for a nice but not too strenuous observation would be Diamond Caverns. So that was next on our list.

Diamond Caverns was a good visit - there was a group of about 10 of us who took the approximately 40-minute tour with a pretty informative tour guide. It had good lighting and many very interesting formations for the girls to see.

Ways to remember stalactite and stalagmite: Stalactites "hold on tight" to the ceiling. Stalagmites "might grow big enough to touch the ceiling". This seems to have stuck with the girls long past our cave adventures.

Some photos of Diamond Caverns:

Back Home

I didn't post this before our trip, because I don't like advertising to the internet that I'm not going to be at home, but the girls and I just got back Monday night from a 10-day trip to Ft. Knox to visit hubby over the Thanksgiving Holiday.

We drove up on Friday, 20 Nov - it was my first real distance trip with the girls. I was a bit concerned that they'd be able to hang on for the 7 hours it took us to get there, but they did just great. Once we were about an hour or so outside of our area of the country - everything was new and exciting.

We made our first stop at Casey Jones Village, around Jackson, TN. This is the home of Casey Jones, it has a train museum and a quaint little general store. When you walk inside the doors of the little general store, there are about a dozen huge oak barrels full of candy. Yes, lots of ooohs and aaahs from that one! Decorations and knick-knacks are everywhere - recipe books, Christmas ornaments, homemade fudge, a real soda fountain - more than the eyes can take in. So I spent about 45 minutes or so letting the girls relish in all the goodies and pick some souvenirs!

Then we were back on the road; next stop was at my best friend's home outside of Nashville. We've been friends for about 18 years now - she had offered for us to stop by for a lunch break. The girls had never been to her home - more oohs and aaah as she had it all cutely decorated in the kitchen area for Thanksgiving. She'd picked up nice sub sandwiches for us and had even picked up a little cake so we could celebrate my birthday (which was the previous day). We took about an hour break here and the girls had a fabulous time, especially seeing her two little Yorkies!

From Nashville it was about a 2.5 hour drive to hubby's home on post at Ft. Knox. He was standing outside on a little grassy area to show us the final turn to his house - the girls were so excited by this time!

I felt like I spent about 2 days before the trip packing just about my entire house to head up there - I knew I'd be cooking Thanksgiving dinner for all of us plus several other soldiers who were not able to get home for Thanksgiving - plus packing all the clothing and essentials for the 4 of us and a few things hubby needed me to bring up for him - but it certainly didn't take long to get it all unloaded that night! Wonder why it is it takes sooo long to pack, but just a blink to unpack? Kind of like Christmas day - takes just a flash to get those presents unwrapped!

Anyway, we got the truck unloaded that night, went out to dinner, and then to the store to let the girls each pick up a few things to make their "rooms" seem like their own.

Hubby is assigned to a 2-story duplex for his housing on post - it has 3 bedrooms, 1.5 baths, living room/dining room combo and kitchen. One of the bedrooms is furnished, the other 2 are not. He had purchased an air mattress for each of the older girls to use and they got to have their "own" room while they were there. They each picked out some neat "clings" to decorate their walls, a lamp, a clock and a little set of plastic drawers to keep their personal things in. My youngest daughter slept on a smaller air mattress in our master bedroom.

The trip ended up being somewhat of a mini-vacation for us, as hubby ended up having some time off over Thanksgiving and we were able to take some little excursions. We went to the Mammoth Caves area and explored 2 caves; we went to the 3-story Bass Pro store just across the border into Indiana; we went to the Creation Museum just outside Cincinnati; we had a very blessed Thanksgiving dinner; we did some Christmas shopping; we went to the Patton Museum; we went bowling; decorated hubby's house for Christmas - it was a good time.

I'll be posting more on each of these activities, complete with photos, throughout this week - but now we have to catch up on some school-work, get unpacked, catch-up on laundry and get our own Christmas decorating done! More soon!

Let the Decorating Begin!

We had a very blessed Thanksgiving Day yesterday - still haven't uploaded photos but will be doing that soon. Everyone had plenty to eat, and we enjoyed a lovely day of food, family and friends.

Our final menu:

Roasted Turkey, Gravy with Shallots and Sherry, Cornbread Stuffing with Cranberries and our own Pork Sausage, Green Bean Salad with Bacon and Walnut Vinaigrette Dressing, Sweet Potato Casserole, Garlic Mashed Potatoes, Homemade Cranberry-Pineapple Relish, Marble Cheesecake, Lemon Ice Box Pie, Pecan Pie and Iced Tea.

It was so delicious.

And today is Black Friday - which I never do. I have never been a Black Friday shopper. For one, I'm not big into shopping; I don't like crowds of people shopping; and I usually have all my Christmas shopping done by now anyway. So I do not partake in the shopping frenzy. The introvert in me shines through!

My husband loves it though. He'll hit the 4 a.m. sales without blinking an eye and swoop in for the good deals. So I leave it to him to enjoy his quest for deals and he always seems to be thrilled with conquering the crowds. Me, I'd rather start Christmas decorating.

So, let the decorating begin!