Four

Jack recently had his fourth birthday.  He had a good day full of cake, presents and fun.  He requested a rocket ship cake.  I kept trying to talk him into something easier, but he would not have it.  I ended up being sick on his birthday, so he was lucky to get this sorry excuse for a rocket cake. He didn't seem to notice that it wasn't perfect, so, I guess it is good that I went ahead with it, even if it wasn't my best effort.

He scored some pretty good gifts.  Transformers, Legos, money, leapster games and his very very favorite -  this green machine gun with lights and sounds.  The boys spent days fighting over it.

Jack is sweet, funny and happy.  We are so grateful that he is in our family.  It has been a great four years!

Quilts for my Boys

For Christmas this year I decided to make quilts for all my boys and Jeremy.  Well, actually, I decided not to make one for Tad, since I had already made one for him this year, and I did not make one for Dallin because I have plans to make a special quilt for him for a big day he has coming up in 2012.  Dallin got a minky blanket for Christmas, just so he wouldn't feel left out.  These are some rather poor pictures of the quilts I made for the rest.

This is Jeremy's quilt.  He told me he didn't care if it had flowers all over it as long as it had minky on the back.  I obliged, and there are a few flowers, but I tried to keep them to a minimum.  The minky on the back is cream with brown circles.  You can kind of see it through the bottom part of the quilt.  I had to fold this quilt over quite a bit to get a picture on my clothesline.  It is a good sized quilt and I will never attempt to quilt such a large one on my machine again. It was really tough.

I stayed up until 3 am while Jeremy was on a business trip to Tucson in order to get this pieced without him seeing it.  A few days later while I was quilting it, he walked through the front door at 10 am and spoiled the surprise I had worked so hard to maintain.  I was angry the rest of the day.  I'm glad that he seems to love it so much.  I guess it was worth it after all.

This is the quilt I made for Thomas.  When he unwrapped it he was mad that it didn't have minky on the back.  I think he is still holding a grudge, but, as you can tell the quilt has already gotten plenty of use and needs a wash.

This is Jack's quilt.  I originally started making it for Tad, but Jack loved it so much that I decided to finish it up for him instead.  It is a cute sort of "I spy" quilt and Jack loves looking for the different things in the blocks.

This is the quilt I made for Drake.  He insists on snuggling up with me or his dad under it every night on the couch and then he has to take it to bed.  Drake, of all my boys, appreciates a good quilt.

I'm glad all of these are done and I think I will be taking a break from quilting for a month or two.

Six Months

Six months?!?!?!  I can hardly believe we are halfway to one year with this little guy.    Time - please, please, please slow down!!!

My Birthday Present

This is what I told Jeremy I wanted for my birthday this year.  Didn't he do a beautiful job building it for me?  This now hangs in the entry hall of our home and will provide a fun decor opportunity year round.  Right now, I love the hooks for hanging stockings. (We, unfortunately, are fireplace free at this house.)  As you can tell, we have an empy hook.  I thought for sure that I would get Tad's stocking made before Christmas this year, but as I am looking at my "to do" list, I am pretty sure it won't happen.  It looks like he will have to get by with one of the old cheapos from days gone by.  Next year Tad.  I promise.

Love it!

Christmas Advent Quilt

My sister really enjoys piecing quilts.  She has inspired me over the last couple of years to pick up the hobby as well, and I must admit it is quite addicting.  Last year, she made a cute Christmas quilt.  I decided that I would like to make a Christmas quilt for my family this year.  I could just picture my boys snuggling up on the family room couch under a cute holiday quilt.  Then, I ran onto this pattern for an advent calendar quilt, with pockets pieced right into the quilt.  I knew I wanted to make it this year.  I armed myself with a Ready, Set, Snow charm pack by Moda and some yardage and got to work way back in August.

This was actually a fairly easy quilt to put together.  The worst part was appliqueing the numbers on the pockets.  If you are good at applique it would probably be a snap, but it took me FOREVER.  While I was in the middle of it, I told my sister that I wished I had just stenciled them on with some good fabric paint, or cut the numbers out of felt and used a fabric glue to apply them.  Now that it is done, however, I am really glad that I took the time to applique the numbers.  I love them!!

It is nice to have something substantial to hang on the wall during the Christmas season.  My boys will love getting their surprises out of the pockets every day.  Maybe next year I will make that dream Christmas quilt for them to snuggle up under on the couch.

Five Months

My beautiful number five is now five months!

Crying Over Spilled Milk

The other day I went to upload my photos from my camera to my computer.  There were some great ones.  Drake had just turned two and I had taken a bunch of cute pictures of him with his cake and opening his presents.  We had also just had Halloween, so I had taken loads of pictures of my kids in their costumes and at their school Halloween parade.  When my import was finished, I found that every picture had been deleted except for these. . .

This is all I have left to remember my child's second birthday and Halloween 2011.  I am sick inside.
The picture of Tad - was NOT taken by me, so I figure whoever took it, did the deleting. I really got after my kids, so I don't think they will dare touch the camera again for awhile.  At least the picture of Tad is cute.  It would have been an even bigger tragedy if I had lost all of those pictures for something like a picture of the TV screen, a transformer, or an elbow.  Kids!!!!!!