Living, Loving, Learning

It's my kind, loving, handsome, witty, romantic, smart, brave, generous, groovy husband's 40th birthday. I'm off to prepare tonight's celebration of HIM!!!

Loving these curls - definitly more pronounced in this humid KY weather! This door connects Lucy and Griffin's rooms, and is used for many different games. Now that she walks, she loves to push her wagon around.

Gorgeous colors, for a future project.

We had a great weekend in Knoxville. The reason we chose this particular weekend is because there was a huge quilt show there. Vicky and I spent a good portion of the day on Saturday walking around the show, enjoying the amazing art and doing a little bit of shopping. These are some of my favorite quilts. It is soooo inspiring to see what people are making and how they are expressing themselves!!

This is it folks, I think we can call it. She's a Walker!!! At least 75% of the time. WHEW, just days before the 16 month mark - it's about time!! Have a fantastic weekend.

I don't want y'all to think that once my guy got to the White House that I stopped caring at politics. Far from it, in fact. Bruce and I are more than ever energized and interested about what is happening in this country of ours. So today, I just want to share a few words that are laying heavy on my heart. To those politicians who are going around the media circuit explaining that they cannot begin to make a decision on the President's health care bill because it is too much information, too fast, that they are just not ready to "rush into" anything. SHAME ON YOU!!!! I have been interested in politics since the early 90's and since that time health care has been a huge issue and I am sure it was for decades before that. Health care reform is an issue that has been discussed, written about, debated and a platform that many have run on. If you are not prepared to tackle this issue, than I believe you are letting your constituents and country down and you a...

Griffin and Lucy are having such a great time playing together and I am constantly amazed by how big they are growing!! Lucy is taking 10 steps at a time and last night she gave Griffin her first kiss. Before when asked for a kiss, she would present you with a cheek. Last night she was practicing walking from me to Bruce to Griffin and when she reached Griffin she have him a big ol' smakaroo on his cheek. He was so happy and we all clapped - learning to show and share your love is a big achievement. Griffin is so so so ready to start kindergarten. He has been keeping busy playing with the neighborhood kids, setting up huge scenes in his room with his playmobil knights and pirates and loving riding his bike. Every 3 - 4 days we have to go to the pet store to buy live crickets for Zed. Our goal this summer was for Griffin to be able to go in and purchase them alone and he met it this morning. I am soooo proud of him. He was able to go in, ask for what he wanted, pay and g...

Here is another fun project I was able to make based on an online tutorial. We received Griffin's list of needed school supplies and one item was a nap mat. I had never heard of such a thing but after a quick google search, I found it is just a 1" to 2" thick mat covered in a simple vinyl. They run anywhere from $8 to $25. No problem, except they are UGLY and not cozy in the least. My friend Chris (THANK YOU for thinking of me!!!) had just given me LOTS of yardage of dino fabric that I was dying to use for something so after finding the free tutorial I thought I might as well try it. It turned out pretty cute I think. I changed a few things from the directions. Originally I had button closures on it but it was hard for Griff to open and close quickly and within a few tries one button already was ripped off. I quickly decided Velcro would be a better option - after all, I did not want this to be a hassle for the teacher. The mat also has Velcro running down one...

On Wednesday I received a message from a friend reminding me that the theme at that afternoon's story hour was "Masquerade Ball". UH OH..... Griffin was already dressed up at Supersonic Boy, so no problem there, but nothing for Lucy...what to do?? Luckily, I had bought some tulle awhile back, planning to make her a tutu to celebrate her walking. I found this tutorial and off I went. She looked sooooo cute and I think she even liked it!

So, this is what things looked like after the Flood. I have never seen floors buckle up like that. You can see in the doorway on the left (Lucy's room) the floor there is also bumpy. It is hard to see the bathroom floor, but it is soft and squishy when you walk on it! The walls have to be removed, dried and replaced. Wiggly baseboards. And now it looks like this, 2 industrial humidifiers, holes cut in the floor and walls and 2 huge (and loud) fans (not pictured - aka baby finger eating machines). UGH! We are trying to make the most out of it. Griffin likes the wind effect on his cape when he is dressed as his alter ego "SUPERSONIC" boy.

These little bags were also a fun project, although, I may never make another one again after putting at least 6 together!! Complete with a little pocket on the inside. You fit the long handle through the short handle and it wears so nicely on your wrist. A fun chance to work with some heavier weighted upholstery fabric.

One of my favorite things I made this spring were these little wallets. You can buy the pattern here . It even has a little pocket for change. They are the perfect size to throw in a teeny tiny going out on the town purse or in your back pocket when running a zillion errands and not wanting to be bothered with a purse. Of course, I had to make them in a ton of colors. I gave all 5 of Griffin's teachers one as a thank you gift. And this little alien friend went to Griffin's BFF Jake, who was having an outer space 5th birthday party. I have a few more things to post tomorrow.

This one was fun to do for two reasons. First, we could use any pattern we wanted to and second, any fabric in the pink and purple family. I did the same pattern that I was doing that month for my local quilting club and I was able to use fabric from my stash. This block was super hard for me, a real challenge. I love the way it turned out though! This month the pattern, Snail's Trail, was provided and the requested color was blue. A couple of month's ago, Bruce staged a quilt block intervention for me. I have been making quilt blocks for a year and a half now and still don't have a finished quilt to show for it!!! He is so right, time to get to it. I am now working hard on putting together the blocks from last years swap, theme "travel", for Griffin's bed. I actually have to make 7 more blocks to have enough for a full quilt so it won't happen overnight, but I am hoping to have it done for winter!

is a really good way to live. We had a great trip to Kentucky Lake! We drove over there on Thursday morning, and by that afternoon we were all out on the boat having a great time relaxing together. The fact that we were out on the water at all was pretty amazing. Our friends, The Webbers , whom we were meeting, had not had an ideal trip so far. They had blown a boat trailer tire on the highway on the way down, the rental house definitely did not live up to any one's expectations and on Tuesday the alternator in their boat had broken. In fact, shortly after we arrived, they received a call that the boat was fixed after two days in the shop (a short turn around for these parts!!). Bruce and I volunteered to stay with the kids (our two, the 2 Webber kids and their cousin) while Chris and Chanley picked up the boat and put it back in the water. Shortly after they left we got a phone call from them - they had blown ANOTHER trailer tire!! It was nuts and of course there ...

Some of my best memories of childhood are warm summer nights running around the yard chasing fireflies with my sisters and friends, the voices of our parents comfortably in the background or going to see 4th of July fireworks, dressed in good ol' red white and blue, oooohing and ahhhing cuddled up together, the sound of an orchestra playing patriotic melodies filling our senses. We are headed to Kentucky lake for the long holiday weekend. We are joining our friends, the Webbers, and aim to have some great family time and make some great memories for our kids. In the meantime, I will leave you with these irresistible faces.

It was finally time to leave the Cape and although there was lots of wonderful things we would miss.... Griffin and I agree, the outdoor shower is on the top of the list.