CAROL SIMS "SHY PHILOMENA"

My many thanks To Carol Sims from "Sampler Farm" for her kindness in sharing a picture of her finished sampler of "Shy Philomena" as always she did a beautiful job and loved her choice of frame.

I always enjoy looking at all the samplers Carol has stitched through the years http://community.webshots.com/user/samplerfarmer and the way she has them displayed throughtout her beautiful home. The time, dedication and love that she has put into her samplers is a great inspiration to me and to alot of people that know her in the needlework industry.

I would also like to congratulate Carol on the upcoming wedding of her beautiful daughter, she has been very busy and working hard to make everything perfect and beautiful for that special day.

GRANT'S LITTLE BIRTHDAY

We did a small celebration on Grant's birthday at his house, since we could not do his birthday party since he and my daughter were sick, so I decided to have a cake made for him (yes monkeys, he loves monkeys and his best buddy is is stuffed monkey who sleeps with him every night, he gets very upset when he cannot find his monkey) he was so happy when my husband and I showed up unexpectedly with his cake and his birthday gifts. We ordered two delicious Italian pizzas, sang him happy birthday twice and then he cut his cake and shared it with all of us.

After that he opened his birthday presents all excited and we played with him, that got a big smile out of him even though he was not feeling well, then his big brother Alex entertained us with his guitar, playing a couple of songs for us. There is a gap of 8 years between Alex and Grant. Grant tends to look up to his big brother, he loves his big brother.

So that was our Saturday evening  gathering with the family and my husband and I were very blessed and happy to celebrate another birthday with a another grandchild, Thank you God.

TED AND BRENDA SHARING "RESURRECTION"

I would like to thank Ted and Brenda for their kindness in sharing these pictures with me of the finished band sampler of "Resurrection"  and I wanted to share them here for you. Ted and Brenda are stationed at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, and he is a Air Force Chaplain there, they are the proud parents of two beautiful children. When "Resurrection" was released Ted fell in love with the design and of course Brenda his beautiful wife wanted to surprise him and stitched it for him. Ted and Brenda are originally from Knoxville, TN and were college sweathearts. 

Brenda being a homemaker and having two small children keeps her very busy, but she has always loves to cross stitch and her family is a huge supporter of her needlework. I really loved what she said when she was stitching this design, since it took her a year to finish it. She felt close to God and her husband Ted while working on it, so this piece has so many prayers invested into it while she was working on it. It  kept her company and occupied so much while her husband Ted was deployed to the AF. Now if pictures could talk, these do since you can see the big happy smile on Ted while holding his sampler with his beautiful wife Brenda beside him, also very happy and proud of her finished piece and making her husband very happy. 

Brenda stitched her piece on 32 count Lambswool with silk fibers. So thank you so much again for sharing these pictures with me so I can share them here. God bless you both and your beautiful children and hoping to see you back in the States next year. Brenda's best friend has suggested to her to stitch "And The Sinned" so she can hang it next to "Resurrection" so Brenda is thinking about it as a future proyect. Brenda has promised to share a picture of Resurrection when she has it framed.

On my side I wanted to say that my model hangs in my bedroon on a side wall by my bed and there is not a day that goes by that I do not take some time to read the verse and thank God everyday for all his blessings and our health. After reading it every morning I feel good and ready to start and face another day in my life. 

God bless you all, Vilma