I posting because my sister made me…

17 Nov

Sooo… This month I have mostly been sitting on the couch (on my fat bum) feeding my glorious new baby and reading books. Lots of books, happy day. (But I am too lazy to tell you all the good ones and find pix of them and remember the author’s names. maybe later.) I have also made lots of cookies and caramel popcorn and other sweeties because I wanted to, OKAY. But when I wasn’t busy doing those things, I was doing some of this:


You can have lots of fun with a few silk flowers and rubber bands and 2 cute girls

The the Boy has mad soccer skills.

Well, not really, but at least he didn’t hate it and refuse to go every game, like 2 years ago.

And he is a decent goalie. Also, he just tested into his school’s gifted program. The DH’s buttons are bursting.

We had a blast on our visit to Fayettville AK

Everyone climbed about on this awesome castle at the park. And don’t worry, G-Diva (not pictured here) climbed up high and then got scared and screamed murder until Katie and I realized there was a problem and ran speedy quick to rescue her.

This is A-Diva holding a snake (who knew?) at the fantastic reptile museum we visited. It was one of those places where you find yourself murmuring, “oh, Good…” repeatedly and checking the floor for things that move. But we loved it and will probably go back because how many places will let you pet the alligators?

the Boy holding the baby boa.


I had to put this one because she was so cute. Do you blame me?


It was R-Diva’s birthday (look at that self-satisfied smile as she peels the cupcake.) Also, note the obligatory Barbie. Sigh. At least they all have one now, so I don’t have to buy any more.

Seester made this sweet monkey doll for the birthday girl. Don’t you just covet her fabric stash??? R-Diva has named her “Genevive” which is perfect, IMO.

(am I so cool for using a text messaging abbreviation?? Tell me I am. I am having a b-day myself in a week or so and I will be much more than 3. ten times that, in fact. It’s a good thing I use Mary Kay, I can feel the wrinkles knocking.)

P.S. We also watched Kung Foo Panda. It was awesome. I wish to own it. In the words of Po: “I love Kung FUuuuuuuuu….”

Roman Shades

11 Oct

I have in my house what we call the “Big Room.” It is located over our garage and is 18 feet wide and 24 feet long. The kids play there–it is our family room and it is glorious. It has 4 large windows, two on the south and two on the west. Because of those windows, our Big Room gets pretty warm in the afternoon, and there is a constant glare on the TV. So I wanted to make curtains. My husband likes streamlined, modern things, so I decided to try roman shades. I guessed how much fabric I would need and purchased it. Plus lining, ring tape and nylon cord. Then I put it in a pile and was too scared to do anything else–even though my sister-in-law loaned me a great book on making curtains by Better Homes & Gardens.

PRAIRIE HENS TO THE RESCUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My wonderful friends Lucy and Jill came over and forced me to start. They cut out the fabric and cleaned my kitchen too!

They had to go home then, so now it was up to me to be a big girl and finish my project. First I got out my trusty Bernina 1008 which I have owned for 11 years now. I bought it with my very own money when I was 19. Occasionally, I see other machines with lots of fancy stitches or Aunt Lucy’s Pfaff, which is better for quilting, and experience a flash of envy. But this little work horse of mine always does what I need it too.

Then I sewed the lining to the face fabric. I really debated about how to attach the ring tape to the shades. The book was pretty vague at this point. It just said, “Sew around the ring tape.” But I didn’t want sewing lines up and down the whole shade. I have never seen one like that. Finally, I pinned it on

and then tacked it with my machine below and above each ring. That worked great.

Up close, you can see the stitching when the light shines through. (PS isn’t my fabric awesome !) My DH helped me to hang them in the windows.

FINAL NOTE : My sister doesn’t know what DH means–she says in softball it means “Designated Hitter”. I guess that works, but what I mean is “Dear Husband.” Which I think is nicer than “Hubby” and fast to type, besides. So I hope no one is confused any more.

new baby happiness

10 Oct





Okay, I am sure you all are way bored of pictures by now, but I’m not and it is my blog, after all.

Julia

8 Oct

My long awaited baby is here 🙂 She was born Oct 4 and weighed 7 lbs. 4 oz. (my smallest baby ever). I think she is absolutely beautiful. Here are 10 things I love about my new baby:

1. New baby skin is softer than anything else on the planet. Softer than marshmallows, softer than down feathers, softer than the nougat inside chocolate bars.

2. tiny tiny hands folded up like little flowers

3. shiny black eyes (MY babies have black eyes)

4. the way she cries like a little kitten mewing

5. the way she bobs her little head, nuzzling around with her mouth open when she is hungry

6. the greedy little gulping sounds she makes while she nurses

7. the greedy little gulping sounds she makes while she nurses (I really love that)

8. the way I can spend an hour just looking at her and be utterly happy and not feel as if I had wasted any time at all.

9. the way she can’t seem to open both eyes at the same time–that is just too much effort. So she peeks at me with one eye.

10. the way she stays curled up like a little bug all the time.

I won’t bore you with my birth story–though it was quite engrossing for me and I am still obsessing about it now, 4 days later. I think childbirth falls in the category of extreme adventure sports. It is every bit as much of a rush/ life altering experience as climbing a mountain or base jumping. My DH is really into mountain climbing and asked me one time if I would want to climb Mt. Everest with him. I told him that childbirth was my Everest and I didn’t need anything more difficult or life-threatening to “test my metal” against than that.

Noah’s Ark Quilt

15 Sep

I finished putting the top of my Missouri Noah’s Ark Quilt!!! Yay!

All last year, I was the Project Chair for my quilt guild, the Newtonia Battlefield Quilters. Part of my job was to choose the Block-of-the-month. I wanted to have a theme and I love quilts that tell a story, so I decided to pick all animal blocks and that way they could be Noah’s Ark at the end.

I got the idea from a pattern book “Country Threads” by the very cool ladies Mary Etherington & Connie Tesene, who run a quilting shop in their chicken coop. Here is their website. One of the little quilted wallhangings in their book is an Iowa Noah’s Ark, complete with a scarecrow, Old Mac-Noah.

I love their folk art quilt patterns. However, I usually modify the cutting and piecing directions for simplicity. They call for so many tiny pieces!! And they never use the fast piecing techniques for half-square triangles and flying geese–which I just won’t do without. I don’t DO bias triangles, okay!

Enough about them. Back to MY quilt.

I had fun searching all over to find just the right animals- to be for Missouri’s Ark. As you can see we have cardinals and raccooons and cows and chickens and even a mule. I am really proud of this quilt because I actually designed 3 or 4 of the blocks myself, as well as the layout. I drew the raccoon and turned it into a pattern. (The only raccoon pattern I could was by Debbie Mum, and it looked like a really depressed bear. The pigs in the quilt are from a pattern she designed, just so you know, I am not anti-Debbi Mum at all.) I also designed the Mule block. I did feel a little blasphemous putting a sterile animal on Noah’s ark, but you can’t have Missouri without a mule. The other block I drew was the yellow kitty-cat block. My very talented friend Vea turned it into a paper-pieced pattern for me.

The chickens, cows, sheep, and barn-ark came from Country threads–though I enlarged the chicken block to 6″ finished and uber-simplified the barn. I was pretty sure the guild ladies would murder me in my bed if I asked them to make a block with 38 pieces to cut, most of them hardly bigger than 1 inch square. My simplified version had only 12 pieces.

We also do a fabric exchange each month. We were exchanging 6″ squares last year, and I chose the colors to go with the blocks and the folk-art theme. Nearly all of the flying geese and the 4 little 9 patches are made with 6″ blocks that I got in the fabric exchange. I had lots leftover for another project as well.

It was tons of fun to put in some symbolism, like the 4 suns and 4 moons to represent 40 days and 40 nights, and the rainbow in the flying geese. I put in a few white geese to be doves.

At the last minute, I drew that little Noah and appliqued him onto my barn ark. Heat-n-Bond!!!

Here I am auditioning the green fabric, trying to decide if it is good for a border or if it is too busy. I decided in the end that the border was good, and it is now sewed on. The green is called “Elephant Walk” and is by Moda. It has elephants hiding in all those jungle leaves, and they look very worried that they are not going to be let on the ark.

After a year of animal blocks, I was very tired of sewing them! I was so glad to turn over the job of choosing the block to our new chair this year. I am enjoying sewing blocks chosen by someone else.

A few final details about my quilt: It is about 36″ by 48″ plus about 5 1/2″ of borders, so it is now approaching 4 feet by 5 feet. I usually end up giving away quilts when I finish them. This one is actually intended to be a wall-hanging because of all the buttons that I put on for eyes. I am telling myself that I get to keep it, but someone’s birthday will come up, or something and I will panic and send it off, hoping that they love it as much as I do.

A rant

8 Sep

Okay, We all know that gas prices are high–everyone complains about it. Everyone wants the government to “fix” our problem.

So

–Why do people leave their cars running while they go into the post office?

–Why do people who drop by my house leave their cars running in my driveway while they chat, sometimes for more that 15 minutes?

–Why do so many people drive their kids to school instead of having them drive the bus? They sit in line with their cars idling every morning and afternoon for 20 minutes or more to pick up their kids.

Do these people really not care about all the wasted gas they are burning as their cars idle? (I won’t even go into ozone pollution) I remember in school being told not to leave the water faucet running while we brushed our teeth–to conserve water. What about conserving gas?

Until the high school parking lot is empty and people start turning their cars off when they leave them, gasoline isn’t really a
“crisis,” is it?

I’ve been tagged

6 Sep

THE RULES:
1. link the person who tagged you
2. post the rules
3. tell 6 unspectacular quirks of yours
4. tag 6 fellow bloggers by linking them

#1 my seester tagged me

#2 see above

#3
1. I really hate taking my shoes off at the airport security station because then my socks get dirty and I have to put my shoes on my dirty socks after I walk through the metal detector and that makes my shoes dirty on the inside. shudder.

2. When I am making cookies and I eat the raw dough, I count how many spoons I eat, and tell myself that I have to subtract that number from how many cookies I am allowed to eat later. Sometimes I follow that rule…

3. I enjoy filling out applications and forms. I get quite a sense of fulfillment filling in all the blanks. And I have great difficulty leaving blanks empty even when I am not supposed to write in them.

4. Like my sister, I lift my feet up off the floor during scary parts of movies (it makes me feel safer.)

5. I like to talk about myself way too much, although in this case I am excused because I was tagged, right? I love to be the expert and if anyone ever asks me a question, I answer quite decisively. Even if I don’t know, I catch myself figuring something out to say so I can have something to say. Later, when I rethink it, I want to die. Why can’t I just say, “I really don’t know anything about that?” But no, I have to be the expert and fill in the blank and impart my *wisdom* to the world. sigh. Not to mention the fact that I will usually totally waffle if someone else states their opinion at all confidently. I am easily persuaded by whoever I am talking to.

6. I don’t like to eat doughnuts. I have never met anyone else who does not think that Krispy Kremes are heaven on earth. The only doughnuts I can even stand are ones I make myself. Or if I’m starving, a maple bar, but only because I like the frosting, not the doughnut.

#4 tag 6 peeps (hazards of friendship)

1. Lucy
2. Jill
3. Vea
4. Vicki
5. Josie
6. Alisa

That took way too much time to figure out!!!

MY DH IS HOME :) :) :) :)

5 Sep

I know I haven’t said a thing about this on my blog, but my husband joined the Missouri National Guard this spring. It has been a dream of his to serve his country for years, I was happy to support him in his decision. (I was in the National Guard myself for 8 years) So he has been gone to Basic Training for the last 10 weeks. Let me just tell you, ten weeks is a long time! It felt like forever to me. He is home now for 4 glorious months before he has to go to Officer Candidate School.

The children were so excited to see their daddy. It could be partially because I made a big deal about how he was going to be bald. (They shave your head in basic and give you really *fashionable* glasses too.) Our youngest is two and a half, and she did not stop talking for 3 straight hours. “Daddy, what’s that? Daddy, is that your hat? Why you wearing that? Are you a soldier? I like your boots…” and on and on. She was just beside herself with joy that Daddy was home.

After a few days of having fun as a family, we left the kids with my sister for two days and went down to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, for some time together. We stayed at a lovely Bed & Breakfast, the Inn at Rose Hall. ( I would definitely recommend it as a wonderful place to stay if you ever go to Eureka Springs, BTW) It was very relaxing and fun. One evening, we dressed up fancy, and he took me out to dinner for our 9th anniversary, which passed by while he was gone.

I must say, I like a man in uniform…

How Lame am I??

21 Aug

Okay, I just checked MY OWN BLOG to see if I had posted anything new. That is definitely sad. very sad. Here are some things I have done since my last post:

Made Applesauce and canned it !!!




Had cousins from New York come visit for a week 🙂

Sent two of my children off to school

Breaking Dawn

5 Aug

Okay, I have to ‘fess up to my guilty secret. I am a Twilight Fan. Lucky for me, I didn’t read the first three books until January 2008. So I didn’t have to wait as long as some to read each book. I loved Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse. I have to say that the third book, Eclipse, is still my favorite. Why, you ask? It is my favorite because Bella begins to grow up. She isn’t just a love-sick teenager any more. She learns about compromise. She learns that she has to make a choice and that choices mean you have to give up some things that you want. She actually considers for the first time what she will be sacrificing in order to become a vampire.

I have been looking forward to Breaking Dawn for months!

Will Bella become a vampire? (I was pretty sure she would)

What will happen to Jacob? (I had no idea–things sure looked bleak at the end of Eclipse)

Will Bella really be okay with not having children? (she doesn’t seem to care at all–hard for me to understand because my day dreams were always more along the lines of Rosalie’s. So will something happen to really make her think about it???)

Something had to happen with the Volturi…we needed resolution there

What was being a newborn vampire like? How bloody would it be?

And finally, I just wanted more steamy scenes between Edward and Bella. Admit it, so did you.

So I bought Breaking Dawn on Saturday and finished reading before dawn Sunday morning. It was great 🙂 I was surprised by a few things, others I expected. I am consoling myself with the fact that even though the series is over, the books are very fun to re-read.

p.s. It is obvious who the white queen on the cover is (new vampire Bella.) But who do you think is the little red pawn?

Is it Jake, is it Nessie, or is it the old Bella?

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