The signing of ........ Matt's "declaration of independence" !!!

Grand-parents, cousins, aunts, uncles, and...
....friends(not to mention his brother and parents, too) all came to Matt's graduation party yesterday to sign his ......... "declaration of independence" (i.e. his GRADUATION QUILT !!!)

In addition to signing the quilt, there was .....
.....eating and ....
.....more eating ....














......AND, we also had .....

...two Fourth of July Birthday Girls !!!! one is my Mom, the Birthday Queen, and the other is Matt's friend, the Birthday Princess (who was celebrating her Sweet 16 !!)...(note Birthday Crown on Mom .... that was made last year for her birthday by her grandaughters, Maura and Erin .... I think it's pretty spiffy!) ....and for the Sweet 16 Birthday Princess, nothing less than a sparkly "Birthday Girl" tiara will do! .... oh, and also notice that the Birthday Queen also has a sparkly sceptor that also lights up .... she was going for a kind of Vegas Look ....

Now, speaking of significant milestone birthdays .... yours truly has a whopper coming up about 4 1/2 months down the road .... and I'd really just rather ignore it ... HOWEVER, certain family members are NOT gonna let this go quietly or wait until I absolutely have to admit that it's my "significant" birthday .... oh, noooooo!!!!! they had to bring it up YESTERDAY already !!! UGH !!! It seems my sister, Boop, and my sister - in - law , Lori and their daughters Maura, Erin, Katie and Stephie have been planning behind my back already .... and yesterday at Matt's graduation party they gave me a gift bag full of clues/presents that lead up to the BIG SURPRISE ...... which is a girls' weekend in New York City, in November, to shop, dine , drink, and see "Mama Mia'" !!!!! WHAT FUN !!!!!..... and, now, let me show you some of the pictures that were taken with MY CAMERA as the surprise was unfolding .....
....here I am looking at my "Grow Your Own Enchanted Castle" ......really ... just add water (If you click on the picture, you'll be able to see it better ....) (OK.... and don't look at how BAD my hair looks ..... it was raining earlier .... maybe I should have a "Grow Your Own Hairdresser " .... just add water ....)
.....next is the new addition to my "Beauty Queen Sash "collection .... the "Birthday Queen" sash !!! .... and let's not overlook THOSE GLASSES !!! Those are real HUMDINGERS !!!

.... and , next ... since I started the Flowered Bathing Cap Tradition, they felt it only fitting for me to recieve a GOLDEN BATHING CAP for this stinkin' significant birthday of mine WHICH ISN'T FOR 4 and 1/2 MONTHS YET !!! (EAT YOUR HEART OUT all you "over 35" model wanna-bees on that show "She's Got the Look!" .... I'd say I've got THE LOOK !!!! and it's STUNNING !!!
.... anyhow, my dear sister - in - law wasn't able to find a gold bathing cap with those nifty flowers on it, so instead they decided to sign their names and decorate the gold bathing cap with "jewels" WHILE MY HEAD WAS IN IT !!!!

.....SO.... we had 4 celebration categories yesterday ...well 5, I guess if you count the fact that it WAS the Fourth of July ... so we threw in fireworks at the end of the day just to complete the Graduation Party Extravaganza !!!! (at least I get a 3 year break before Evan graduates and we do this again !!!!)

Well gang .... I'm POOPED !!! I think I'll get my jammies on and fall face down onto the first soft surface I come to .....

Be back soon!
Toodles,
Mary Anne (aka Mare)

Happy 4th of July !!!

Hi everybody !!!! Have a fun and safe holiday !!









Be back soon !!!

Toodles,
Mary Anne (aka Mare)

A FUN surprise in the mail AND SURPRISE ! (the BACK of the Grad Quilt is DONE too !!!!)

Yesterday when I got my mail (and this time I stopped at the bottom of the driveway in my CAR before driving up the driveway .... that way, if Mama Bear is hanging around I can jump back in the car and cower there until she decides to go on her merry way ....) ANYHOW, there was a VERY FUN and UNEXPECTED SURPRISE waiting for me in the mailbox !!! (Don't ya just LOVE getting FUN MAIL ?!?!!!)

..... it was from Sharon !! I couldn't imagine what it could be so .....

...I opened it and .....

..... found this VERY CUTE zippered pouch inside !!!

...and inside that cute zippered pouch was all this FUN STUFF !!!! AND a note from Sharon telling me that she made me this zippered pouch to replace my tacky ziploc bag sewing project tote system !! THANKS Sharon !!!! You've got my back and I appreciate that !!! Now I can hold my head up high and know that my take along sewing project is traveling in STYLE !!! (speaking of style makeovers ..... next project is my hair and clothes!! .... WAIT ..... now don't you DARE send Stacy and Clinton from "What NOT to Wear" over to my house !!! it would be WAY too embarassing!!) ... ANYHOW .... Sharon, thank you, thank you , thank you for such a very sweet surprise !!!!

OK, next on our agenda today is yet another SURPRISE ..... yes indeed .... hold onto your hats and tiaras because ......

....the Queen Bee has been fed mass quantities of chocolate and ....

...she actually FINISHED the QUILT BACK, TOO !!!! ..... and almost an entire day EARLY , we'll have you know !!! NEVER in the history of the Moonbeams in a Jar Sewing Dept has ANYTHING been completed this far in advance of the event it is being made for !!! You have all just witnessed HISTORY !!! (any don't expect it to repeat itself anytime soon!!) ..... therefore, it is with great pride that the COMPLETED quilt top and quilt back will be displayed at Matt's Graduation Party tomorrow leaving No opportunity for a snide remark about yet another IOU on a gift quilt from yours truly !!! HA ! .... so, now the plan is for all of Matt's friends and family members to sign that quilt back tomorrow at his party .... and then we'll have to light a fire under the Sewing Dept's butts to QUILT the QUILT !!!! (or maybe just a little bit more chocolate ... and a new treadmill to work it off!)

Be back soon!

Toodles,
Mary Anne (aka Mare)

Mrs Yogi and the kids are WHERE?!?!?!?!?!!!!!!!

OK .... typical day .... I came home from work about 5Pm ..... decided to go outside , walk down the driveway to get the mail before I go out for a longer walk for an hour ..... as I'm heading down the driveway my next door neighbor , Tim came calmly walking over to me and said "I'd wait to go get the mail if I were you." ... I, being typically unobservant, asked "Why?" He answered and pointed "because Jim, across the street has a mama bear and her 3 cubs up in the tree right next to his garage ..... you do NOT want to mess with a mama bear with cubs .... she's pretty darn mean and dangerous" ..... so, I decided the mail and the walk could wait, but a PICTURE could not ....

.....(if you click on the picture to make it bigger , you'll be able to see Mrs. Yogi better ..... I wasn't about to become dinner for the bear family, so I used the "zoom" on my camera and kept a neighborly distance!)

...if you click on this picture to make it bigger, you'll see a big dark blob --- that's mama ...and to the left of her and slightly higher are 2 smaller dark blobs .... those are 2 cubs kind of hanging on a branch of the tree .....Anyhow, here's how the bears ended up in the tree in the first place .... Jim came home from work and pulled into his driveway to find Mrs. Yogi treating her cubs to a lovely dinner out of Jim's garbage cans .... which included the remains of Jim's wife's birthday cake ... he said the bears had icing on their faces .... anyhow, when he pulled into the driveway, he beeped the horn hoping to scare them out of his yard so he could get out of the car and call the game commision guy (a couple of years ago, Jim's dog, a yellow lab, surprised a mama bear who attacked the dog .... so Jim was in no mood to mess with this bear ) .... anyhow, the car horn scared the bear family ... but right up the tree where they stayed for 2 hours !!!! (and during that time, the game commision guy never did show up! ..... but lots of neighbors did!


.....look, EVERYBODY is taking a picture of Mrs. Yogi and the kids!!!









.....and, eventually

....one of our local police officers (who happens to live in our neighborhood and wanted to know where the heck these bears might be headed next) stopped by .... but wasn't able to do much except call the game commision guy again.... and keep a safe distance!!! By this time, the bear family was getting a bit restless and tired of holding onto a tree branch .... they started moving down the tree and .....

......nosy neighbors SCATTERED !!! look, that guy hopped into his van and he's about to burn rubber ... and that other guy jumped on the 4-wheeler and is revving the engine to peel out of there if mama heads his direction !!! even the cop made a beeline for his car!!!(hey, what the heck! you at least have a gun ... all I've got is this camera!!) .... and , yes, that's Kid #2, Evan in the yellow shirt who I'm screaming at to GET OVER HERE !!! .... and he, in typical teenager know -it - allness, said that the bear would run AWAY from all of us .... well, he was almost right ... all the noise scared Mrs Yogi and cubs back UP in the tree!!! So, about another 15 minutes passed while the bear family stared longingly at the rotting birthday cake with all that yummy rotting icing from up in the tree (actually, I can sympathize .... many a time I've stared longingly at a good blob of icing ..... I know how that can be .....) Anyhow, as nature would have it, there was another reason Mrs. Yogi wanted down from that tree .... she had to POOP!! well, when ya gotta go, ya gotta go!!! what's a girl to do ? .... well .... POOP from up in a tree , that's what !!!! So, now Jim's really pissed !!! Not only does he have garbage all over his driveway to clean up, he now has BEAR POOP to clean up in his yard!

Finally, one of the cubs just had enough of staring at that lovely rotting cake from afar and just shimmied down the tree and grabbed some yummy bit of garbage and ran back up the tree!!! Then a little while later another cub came down and then mama decided to come down before the kids ate the whole thing and didn't leave anything for her! (again, I can relate!)

....(if you click on the picture to make it bigger, you'll be able to see that Mrs. Yogi is just to the left of the car in the driveway and one of the cubs is behind her .... the other 2 cubs were still up in the tree)

Anyhow, eventually Mrs. Yogi and the kids were tired of being the center of attention and took off behind Jim's house .... into the woods .... and came up behind MY HOUSE !!! so, again I'm yelling at Evan and his buddy to GET UP ON THE PORCH and DON'T PISS OFF THE BEAR !!!! .... well, with all my yelling, I guess Mrs. Yogi decided it wasn't the pleasant mealtime atmosphere she was looking for and herded her kids/cubs back in the woods ..... and the game commision guy never did show up!! .... so , I'm sure we'll be seeing alot more of the bear family!! So much for my hour long walks!!!!

OK ... enough excitement for one day! Be back soon!
Toodles,
Mary Anne (aka Mare)

We've been busy bees ...... buzz,buzz, buzzzzzzzz.....

Lots of activity out in the yard .... the bumble bees have been hard at work....


.... and so have the butterflies!!!













....and look at what a great job they're doing !!!
....and it's a good thing they know what they're doing since the rest of the "garden-ing staff" here at Moonbeams in a Jar DON'T !! (seriously, we look for labels that say "thrives on neglect and incompetence")

....oh, and by the way ..... I'm only showing you the good parts of the yard !!!!







Anyhow, while the "worker bees" (and butterflies) were busy outside doing their job, the "sewing dept" here at MBIAJ was buzz, buzz, buzzing busily away inside working on Matt's graduation quilt ..... shall we take a peek?

..... but .... WAIT!! that's not the Very Pink Sewing Room ! .....let's take a closer look and walk down this hallway towards that black ladder ....(don't trip over that laundry basket ...the "housekeeping dept" here at MBIAJ really stinks ....)

....hmmmmmm..... where does that ladder go? ....and is that a sign hanging on the ladder?...let's see what it says ...

.......uh oh .... sounds like the "Queen Bee" means business!!! (she even took off her everyday tiara ... she must really be working up a sweat!) I wonder what she's doing up there .....

.......shhhhhhh..... let's just tippy toe up this ladder and take a peek ....

....(wow! somebody needs a tan! look at those glow in the dark legs !!! maybe somebody should spend more time OUTSIDE with the worker bees in the SUNSHINE!!)

No...no! don't look down! it's safe, the ladder is nailed to the wall ... let's keep going ....

.... OK .... we're at the top of the ladder and can just see over the trap door ....looks like somebody is sewing up here! ...let's look around!
... it's an attic room that's fixed up (sort of) .... looks like a kid's playroom (or more like a teenager hangout ....better NOT be the "make out room"!!!!).... there's some beat up furniture and a t.v. .... and the sewing machine is set up on the table at the right ...
.... oh, look .... there's an iron set up on that red wooden toy chest .... and there's the top of the ladder and trap door we came up.... yep .... looks like the "Queen Bee" has taken over this room as an annex to the pink sewing room .... I guess she must not have a t.v. down there in the pink sewing room (she'll have to speak to management about that!) .... AND, she has more floor space up here to spread out bigger stuff that's she's working on ....oh, look! her majesty is back at the sewing machine with her nose to the grindstone .....

....wow..... she took her tiara off again .... she must really be working up a sweat to have to take that off again!!! (and .... just between you and me .... looks like somebody could use a manicure and some hand lotion!!!)

Well, anyway, the "Queen Bee" buzzed along for the past few days and ...... (drum roll please ......) HERE IT IS ....... HOT OFF THE PRESS .....

.....Matt's FINISHED graduation quilt !!!!! TA DA !!! (well, it's a finished quilt TOP ..... the "Queen Bee" still has to whip up the quilt back in time for the graduation party this Friday , the 4th of July, so that everybody can sign it ...)

...... where's she going ?!?! .... the "Queen Bee" is climbing back down the ladder with her tiara on sideways, muttering something to herself about she thought she was finished and now she finds out she's not and she's gonna need alot of chocolate and a maid and if she could ever get some cooperation around here maybe, just maybe she could get something accomplished besides the thankless, never ending cycle of stinky laundry, and somebody, probably her, is gonna have to get out and do the grocery shoppping, and who left another mess in the kitchen sink , and let's not EVEN discuss the disgusting state the bathrooms are in .... don't want to touch those with a Hazmat suit and a 10 foot pole, .....blah, blah, blah ......

OK .... we'll just let her wander around the neighborhood with her sideways tiara while she mutters to herself (the neighbors have become used to that ...)

Be back soon!
Toodles,
Mary Anne (aka Mare)

Amish Friendship / Enemy Bread

Have you heard of this stuff? Amish Friendship Bread? It's a "starter" batter that is divided into four bags of batter .... these four bags of batter are supposed to be given to 3 different friends (you are supposed to keep 1 bag for yourself so you always have the "starter" batter because only an Amish person knows what the heck goes in there to begin with) .... then you follow the specific directions for each of the next 10 days of your life to either "mush the bag" (no big deal) to adding a cup of milk, sugar , and flour on the 6th day...... then on Day 10 you add more stuff, divide the batter into 4 more bags (keep one for yourself if you want to continue to be a slave to the batter) , then add even more stuff to what was left in the bowl after you took out enough batter to curse your friends with their own "blob in a bag" ....and bake it up ...... Now, the friend who gave me my starter batter / blob in a bag just pawned the whole thing off on me without making it herself (WIMP !! and you know who you are!!! ...... you'll get one of my starter bags ..... it will come FULL CIRCLE !! You just wait and see!!!! HA !!) ..... I have to admit, I wasn't going to bother with this stuff either right now because I'm a LITTLE BUSY trying to finish Matt's graduation quilt AND get the party organized by the 4th of July AND not get fired from my job .... BUT you know who popped in and begged to "PLEASE make it ..... PLLLLLEEEEEASE !!!)


OK .... FINE !! We'll make it just this once! (and actually, I didn't have time to make it on "Day 10" .... had to wait until "Day 11" (UH OH!!) .... I was afraid to come down into the kitchen that morning thinking maybe "the blob" was taking over the house since I made it wait an extra day!!)
...OK, so we divided the batter up into 3 different bags and the fourth amount was left in the bowl...
....then we gathered up the rest of the ingredients that go into the batter in the bowl.....

.....when all of the ingredients are mixed together, you grease up your pans and dust them with a mixture of cinnamon and sugar ..... then pour the batter in the pans and dust with more cinnamon and sugar.....

....and here it is .... fresh from the oven ...... and does it ever smell GOOD !!!! (and it was GONE in one day!!! My kids and persinickity eater husband LOVED it!!) .... so, the Amish Friendship bread was a pleasant surprise, but....... HOW DO YOU GET OFF OF THIS MERRY GO ROUND ? ...... now I have 3 MORE BAGS of this STUFF to pawn off on my unsuspecting friends AND 1 bag for me to go through this entire cycle AGAIN !!!! NOOOOOOoooooooo!!!!!! So, what did I do you ask ? With heart pounding and shallow breaths, I dumped .... yes DUMPED 2 bags down the drain (and I'm checking every few minutes to see if I've grown a tail and donkey ears as punishment for that ....) and I'm sticking 1 of those "blob in a bag" bags in the original perpetrators mailbox !!!(my friend, or shall we say ENEMY!) ..... AND , I'm currently on the 5th day of the "mush the bag" cycle of yet ANOTHER ROUND (AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHhhhhhhhhh!!!!) ....... but, after the next "Day 10" that's IT !!! NO MORE !!! ( no matter how much the kids love this stuff ..... I can't be a slave to the blob anymore !!!!! I must be STRONG !!!)

OK .... I've got a bag to mush, and a bag of mush to stick in a mailbox !!!! Then a quilt to finish after work !!

Be back soon!

Toodles,
Mary Anne (aka Mare)

cute x cute = cute squared

I spotted this yesterday .... CUTE car (look at those daisy hubcaps!) and an even cuter pooch inside !!! (it was only 59 degrees out yesterday morning when I took this picture, so the pooch was not in any danger ... and the owner came back right as I finished taking the picture) Anyhow, this cuteness was sitting in the Hazleton Penn State campus parking lot yesterday morning when Matt and I arrived for the day long orientation session (see, just being in the PARKING LOT of a college campus has made me smarter .... note math reference in my title!!)

OK ... gotta zoom to work .... then more work on the graduation quilt (which probably won't be until late, late , later tonight!!! .... after much caffeine!)

Be back soon!
Toodles,
Mary Anne (aka Mare)