Autumn has arrived!

My favorite season is here! I just love this time of year. The cool crisp air, the smell of goodies baking in the oven, seeing all the pumkins around town... Oh just to take it all in!

I have already baked an apple pie....

And oh! It is soooo delicious!! But I need to stop eating so much of the goodies and start working out on my treadmill... I will be starting today as it just arrived . No more walking outside worrying about stray dogs and weather! I have no excuses now!

I have been stitching more on my Harriet Elizabeth Coe by Brenda Gervais.. Here is where I am at..

I am absolutely in love with this piece!! I truly love sitting with my tea and stitching every chance I get on this design. Sooo enjoyable!

With the Fall upon us now a new member has entered our family. I had a choice of colors and that was quite a difficult decision .. I chose black. Although I liked the cinnamon red, I felt safe going with a color that would blend with any decor changes I made in my kitchen. Here she is!

A new professional series 6 qt kitchen aide stand mixer. These are by far the greatest mixers to work with. (In my opinion) I had a smaller version in white that was 24 years old and just now part of a knob broke off (just a little plastic piece)... But it was still running after 24 years!! They are pretty much workhorses. They may seem expensive but when they last that many years, well, you surely are getting your money's worth.

I had some visitors in our yard recently. Praying mantis! Interesting little bugs... Or should I say big bugs!

We celebrated our daughters 19th birthday! Our daughter is such a blessing to us.

Wishing you all a wonderful Fall Season! Happy Baking!

Louise

Sunday Morning Visitor

Good Morning Friends!
I was so excited to find out that I won the Top Hat Jack Challenge that Lori had on her blog at Notforgotten Farm ! If you had voted for my Clara doll, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I am so very excited!!
All the entries were wonderful and it was so much fun to be a part of something so exciting. I loved being a part of something such as this, and I loved the anticipation waiting to see what everyone had created. All the artwork was amazing and so creative. Each and every entry was so beautiful! Lori has a wonderful blog, please stop over and check it out, you will love it, I have been a follower for quite some time and I enjoy all her posts immensely.

I was up late last night trying to organize my sewing room..it is a real disaster area! I took a "before" picture..but I won't be able to show you that until it is all clean and organized...you would not believe how bad it looks right now..I can't believe it myself! I have decided that I am going to start ripping apart my cross stitch magazines that I have been saving for years and years. I just have too many and they are taking up way too much space. I will take out charts that I truly want to keep and donate the rest.
My sweet husband took me to the store last night and we purchased plastic shelving to put up on each side of the sewing room. There were no shelves in this room, and I had no where to put all my things for organization..so this will be a start.
We also bought a new light to go in the room, and we also bought new "yellow" bulbs to put outside on the front porch to keep the bugs away..now I can sit on the front porch at night without the bugs swarming all around..the bulbs work!! We tested them out last night. Amazing!! :)
We just had breakfast as we were sitting on the back porch, while it is raining..I noticed something on the back porch door moving a little bit..not sure what it was, I went over to look. To my surprise this is what I saw!

A praying mantis!
This is the second one we have seen out back since we have been living here.
This one was quite large though!
It is such a docile creature and so interesting to watch.
It had a big belly , so I am sure it is eating very well! :)

I hope you all have a wonderful Sunday today,

Our Backyard Visitor

Thought you might like to see who came to visit us today. Such a peculiar looking little creature!
So graceful and very interesting to watch..I snapped a couple of photos..but liked this one the best! :)