Prepping For Spring

Time to take down the 2 misfit trees & make room for our new "gently used" play set.

 It took all day but was so worth it. Dean will be pouring the footings this weekend. The girls are so excited!

Dean cleaned up the mess from last fall & moved out compost onto the mounds where we will plant again this year. It was a mess before he started & now it looks so nice. 

We'll be planting two kinds of peas again this year. They are wonderful in soups & stir fries.  

garlic coming up 

Still loving our greenhouse. We've enjoyed fresh lettuce & kale all winter long. The cabbage are coming up great & on the other side (I didn't take a pic, sorry) he's started a ton of new seedlings getting them ready for when we can finally plant outside. I think we'll be trying out cloches again this year. They worked pretty well last time. 

Life has been pretty busy around here. Not only have we been working on things inside but outside too. Gotta get ready for spring. It's right around the corner. Can you believe it's almost March? The back yard still has such a long way to go but eventually we'll get things to where we want them to be. 

Today I'll be working on the last 2 blocks of my granny square quilt along quilt. I'm almost done binding the quilts to send to Elizabeth woohoo! I made a pile of "to finish" projects & almost passed out. How does such a pile come to be? I have a good 7 projects that are almost finished but not quite. So silly. The only good thing about this is I will have some fun finishes to post about over the next few weeks. It will feel so good to get them done. In fact I may just post a few pics later today if the weather cooperates.

Granny Square

I was a little apprehensive about my fabric choices after my last post. I usually feel like I have a pretty good vision of how things are going to look in my mind but they don't always turn out as I plan when put together. I'm very visual so I figured I'd put one block together to make sure I was on the right track. Since I'm new to quilting I also mapped out the quilt block to make sure I understood how to construct it. It's a simple block but I didn't want to make a mistake. I don't have any extra of the vintage fabric. Plus it gave me an excuse to work in my new sketchbook.

In case you missed my last post here are the gingham's I choose to finish the quilt with.

I love how my first block turned out. I think it's going to be a little funky, in a good way. I really feel the gingham's are going to work together perfectly with the vintage prints. I'd love to hear some feedback.

Quilts, Quilts & More Quilts

The front of the quilt

I thought it was about time I show you guys what's been taking up so much of my time (aside from sick kids & a remodel). I'm happy to say the two quilts are almost done! I trimmed them up this weekend & prepped the binding. Tomorrow after I get the girls off to school I'll finish sewing it on. I love this part of the quilting process. When I'm hand stitching the binding on I'm able to put on my favorite movies & listen as I work. It's calming & relaxing. It also means I'm almost done with my first two quilts!!!!

Back of quilt

I'd be lying if I wasn't a little nervous about sending these off in the mail. It's taken me so very long to finish them & I hope that my dear friend is happy with them. Do you see the green glove on the right hand of the quilt? My neighbor & his friend saw me struggling with the quilt. I thought maybe I could hang it up in the tree with clothespins, ha! It was way too heavy. They offered to come & hold it up so I could take a picture. The guys had been working on a truck & offered to put the gloves on so they wouldn't get grease on it. Aren't great neighbors the best?

 Another reason I'm excited about finishing up these quilts is I'm joining in on the Old Red Barn Co. Quilt Along! You can find out all about it ::here:: If you've been thinking about trying your hand at quilting this would be a perfect beginners quilt. If you can sew a straight line you will be able to make this quilt. I chose to make a baby sized quilt, but they have the measurements for all different sizes. I wanted something small to work on while I start my next set of quilts. I also have a few WIP that I need to finish up. I am really happy about my fabric choice. I have had the above vintage little boy fabric for years. I love them so much but haven't had anything to use them for. Until now. I was so nervous cutting them but I'm glad I did. I had just enough too! It was meant to be :) Please tell me I'm not the only one that has a hard time cutting up their favorite fabrics?

I decided to go with all gingham for the remainder of the quilt. Call me crazy but I think it will all actually work together. The big blue gingham is for the back, the little blue gingham will be for the front background & the red gingham is to add a pop of color with the binding. I'm making this little quilt for Oblio. It will be fun to see if it turns out. What do you think, too much gingham?

How about you, what have you been working on?

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!!!!

Omri was running around too much to join in the photo fun so this will have to do. Last night the girls & I made their Valentines with construction paper, puffy hearts & crayons. They were sloppy & perfect cause they were made with love. I went & bought a bag of DumDums & stuck one in each letter (the girls were horrified that no candy was involved & I had to correct the situation). I promised I'd paint their faces in the morning if they were helpful getting ready for school. Zoe got a heart, Sloan some little hearts & Aris......a princess. Omri had to have one too. I painted a small heart alien on his cheek. Tonight we'll be taking the kids out to eat in celebration of being in love with this little family of ours. I hope you all have a wonderful Valentine's day!!!!!

Valentine's Surprise!

Not too long ago I won a giveaway from Sweet Jennifer over at Noodle & Lou. 

I just got this awesome little package of sunshine in the mail this weekend. I meant to blog about it sooner but we still have the plague at our house. 

Isn't it cute? It makes me smile every time I see it. Thanks so much Jenn!

Our Days

These past few weeks have been very busy. We've all been taking turns getting sick. Almost 3 weeks of Sloan spilling ketones about did me in. After two ER visits & several Dr. visits later we met with the pump people to rule out pump issues. It all boiled down to her ports. They were kinking. Like every time. Nothing they had ever seen before. So now she has new infusion sets & they are working very well. Thank goodness. I've been fighting a sinus/sore throat & thankfully I'm on the tail end of it. Thinking we were almost done with all the yucks, (did I mention Omri had croup?) only to have Zoe wake up this morning running to the bathroom with her hand over her mouth. Never a good sign. Yes the flu has officially made it to our house.

Aside from the yuckies I have been enjoying my time staying home with the kids. I organized all of their rooms & it has really helped when it comes to playtime. The messes are more controlled & that makes me happy!

Aris' side of the closet. Don't you love the dirty walls? We'll be painting them once we scrape the ceilings & finish the walls.

 My goal was to organize their toys so they could see what they have & that the things they play with most are easily accessible. That makes them happy! They basically have to ask for boxes when they want to play with a certain activity. We have a one toy at a time rule & this new organization makes it an attainable thing. I'm fine with them playing with 15 different things in one day if they want. It was just driving me nuts cleaning up heaps of toys. Now we don't have that problem.

Zoe' side of the closet.

The big "pile" is their bin of doll stuff. Everything dolly is in there. They love playing babies & house & the bin used to be hard to get to. Now they can play with dolls to their hearts content & it's super easy for them to clean up. The key being ease of clean up. I love that they are able to learn some responsibility. Clean up time is a little less stressful for everyone.

I love that I get to stay home with these two little mugalugs! Aris is such a great big sister to Oblio.

I'm going to miss her when she starts kindergarten in July. Then it will just be me & my little man.

I'm pretty sure he'll keep me on my toes.