fire & ice

We had just got back from the grocery store and I was making some delicious corn chowder that I saw on Pioneer Woman today. Melissa and Charlotte were in the family room playing on the floor eating some awesome cheese dip we found at sams club. Melissa had asked me if we could have a fire, so I built one before heading to the kitchen to make the chowder and Melissa got some great shots of Charlotte.

All of a sudden Melissa came running into the kitchen with Charlotte letting me know that it was snowing. I didn't believe her at first because 1) this has been the warmest winter we've ever had here and 2) we had just been outside and it didn't have that about to snow feel. But sure enough it was snowing. Here's what it looked like outside our house.

Couple of shots of my girls enjoying the snow.

First, the "face of wonder"

Next, the "face of happiness"

And finally, the "face of ecstatic-ness"

Hope you had a great Saturday!

-jay

flying shrapnel

 

I have written my share of sewing posts.  Typically these posts share the love I have of sewing, today is a different day.  I have always been interested in sewing and roughly seven years ago Jay bought me a fairly inexpensive machine from Target for my birthday.  Like most things you get what you pay for, even machines...except for mine...she is/was a beast.  I know that I have put far more miles on that machine than was intended.  She has sewn all the curtains in my house, dresses a plenty including a bridesmaid dress, window seats, lawn furniture slip covers, purses, bags, stuffed animals, bed skirts and roughly seven quilts.

She has been so good to me.  Pushing through layers of fabric, long hours, not all the time treated kindly, sometimes even shamefully I will admit cursed at and at times hit her.  She has been telling me that she needs to retire, dropping stitches and getting louder and louder.  Tonight she really told me.  She cursed a little and hit back.  After going through two quilters feet, dropping countless stitches and breaking three needles (one hit me in the chin, one in my left eye) I threw up my white flag.

She won, I will retire her.  All it took was flying shrapnel.

Okay my sweet dear old lady I give up, I will retire you.  Thanks for your devotion and all the good hours we put in together.

-melissa

ruff ruff

A guest post...written by Abby. On Saturday Jack and I started to get that feeling that something was going down and when Jay grabbed our leashes from the coat rack we knew we were heading somewhere great! Jack thought maybe it was just a walk up to the baseball field to run around, but when I heard Jay click the car doors open I knew we were in for at least a car ride and probably more. After a short drive, we arrived at the park and made a straight path to the trails in the woods. After walking around the trails for a while, I heard Jay mention something about a new dog park. A few minutes later this is what I saw...

Finally a great use of Jay and Melissa's tax dollars. This place was ginormous. One section for small dogs and a whole other section for big dogs like me and Jack. There's a grassy section, a mulched section, trees and all sorts of toys to play on.

Like this low table that we can jump on and sit.

I even found this great tunnel to jump up into and run through. Man it was fun!

I tried to get Jack to jump through these set of hoops, but Jack was a little distracted by all of the other dogs.

Then I looked over and noticed that Melissa was cheating on me with another dog. Jerk!

After a while I got tired and just laid down to take it all in. Finally a great dog park that the whole family can enjoy!

Jack even found a bloodhound that drooled all over his head. You can see how excited he was.

I found a lovely collie that was beautiful. We thought this tree smelled really good. Jack thought that something else smelled really good. Gross.

You know Jack is tired when his tongue almost touches the ground, so we decided to head home. But I'm sure that this will be the first of many times we head to this wonderful place. So I'll be looking for Jay to grab to leashes some time soon....I hope.

-abby

a new year started off right

We here at jayhess.com hope you had a wonderful new year!  We ended the new year and started it the best way we know how.  Charlotte spent the last day of 2011 in a vintage Cincinnati Bengals shirt that use to be Jay’s when he was a kid.  We had a relaxing day playing with Charlotte, cleaning up the house and working on our blog makeover.  We were all in bed and asleep by 9:30, we are such partiers!  The next day we had some of our favorite people over for a New Years Day brunch.  The house was full of great people, yummy food and the backyard was alive with the shrieks and shrills of kids...just the way we like it!

Some of our projects for the year of 2012 are well underway, as you can see one is already complete: the makeover of jayhess.com!  Jay has really been putting in some hours the past couple of days trying to convert and update everything.  I hope everyone likes it!  We think it is real purty! (southern accent used there)

Jay has some great time off, as this is his slow season.  So, he is getting to spend some very valuable quality time with Charlotte before he gets crazy busy in the spring.  I have some major birthdays on my mind and I am already planning and scheming away.  Jay turns 30 at the end of February and crazy enough C turns one in March.  Of course, there is going to be some major crafting, planning and at least one quilt that comes about!  Charlotte has just recently (Dec. 31st) learned to crawl and so nothing in the house is safe, especially the dogs!  As the new year comes about we have eagerly welcomed it and are charging full steam ahead!  I know that this year will be filled with as many fun memories as 2011.

-melissa