Happy 3rd Birthday, Isaac!!

Just waking up on his birthday ... love the smile on this guy!

Mommy and her little man

Half chocolate, half vanilla cake, made to look like the pit mines that Jesse and Jesse's dad, John, work at.
Isaac just calls it his "dump truck cake".  

Brothers

October 29, 2012

Isaac, almost 3 and Jed, 4 1/2 months

Happy 11th Birthday, Riley!

You are beautiful, intelligent, creative, unique, flamboyant and just a little ditsy.  We love you so much, Riley. Happy Birthday to our first-born!

Happy 9th Birthday!

Wishing my sassy, sweet, funny, sneaky, joyful, intelligent, lovable daughter Savannah a wonder-filled birthday today!  We love you, Savvy-girl!

The Whole (Crazy) Crew!

Oh, Those Fall Colors!

Autumn in northern Minnesota is absolutely gorgeous!  I've been meaning to get out and take leaf pictures for a while now, and just haven't gotten around to it.  So it's a good thing that my in-laws have a beautiful maple tree in the back yard to snap photos of.  Here are a few.  Oh, yeah, and trying to get Isaac to stay still for a picture nowadays is next to impossible, so I didn't get any of him in the leaves.

My Blessings

Love these kiddos!

Volleyball Star!

Well, she's a star in my book, for sure.  Riley just started playing volleyball in our local town's city league.  It's really just a skills class at this point, with a couple of games in the mix.

"Around the Town" Quilted Carrier Canopy

My local craft group got together for the first time last week.  One of the projects suggested to have been working on was a quilt block called the Disappearing 9-Patch.  Since I haven't quilted in quite a few years -- a decade, really -- I decided to take on this one.  But instead of just making a quilt, I made the pieced top into a canopy for Jed's car seat carrier.

Here's the tutorial link, and the pictures below are my finished project.  I opted to not quilt the whole thing, but just topstitched around the outer edge, just to save some time.  The top is quilter's cotton, and the reverse is cotton flannel.  I have titled this one "Around the Town".

FIVE!!

Happy Birthday to our little honey badger, Brooke!

Feeling Left Out

Isaac was feeling a little left out of the pictures on here, so here's a few good ones of our big boy!

He loves playing at the grandparents' cabin on Lake Esquagama. 

Oldest and Youngest

Love this sweet picture of our oldest holding the youngest.

September 10, 2012

Quilting Again

Facebook hooked me up with a local crafting group online, and we like to post pictures and tutorials of all our craftiness in the group forum.  We are finally getting together for a craft night this week.  One of the challenges that the leader of the group gave us was a Disappearing 9-patch block.  

You make a 9-patch block, then cut it in quarters.  Then you can spin the quarters around, mix it all up and sew it back into a square for a block that makes it look like you did a lot more work than you really did.  My kind of quilt block.  It has been MANY years since I did any quilting, so it's been interesting getting back in the swing of it.  Not to mention that the kids lost my rotary cutter ... grrrrr.

So, my squares aren't that square.  And they don't all match up.  Oh well.  I'm a beginner, and it's a fun outlet for my insanity.  I've got 5 of 12 blocks done.  After it's all pieced, I plan to make a car seat carrier cover out of it.  I'll post finished pictures once it's done, but here's what I've got so far.

My niece, Brenna, is learning to quilt too.  She's 13, and I have no doubt this is something that she'd be able to do to.  

It's an easy first time project if you're wanting to start the quilting journey.  Here's the tutorial that I used from the challenge.

First Day of School!

I admit it:  I haven't been looking forward to the start of school.  Who wants to listen to incessant whining and complaining about having to lounge around in the pajamas and work on school for two hours a day.  Yeah, seriously.  They moan about that.  Are you kidding me?!

Anyway, we are trying out a new curriculum this year.  LifePacs by Alpha Omega publications.  It's a Christian-based teaching package that lays out their lessons in workbook form.  It's a great grab-and-go format that is, so far, really working for us.  Which is what I have been praying for, since we have the new little one added to the mix.

We've got one week down, and it was overall a great week.  Hardly any complaining and no tears.  Not even with math.  The average school day lasts about 1.5 hours for Savvy and 4 hours for Riley.  Brooke is doing kindergarten work on ABCMouse.com, and then does a little handwriting and reading work on the side.  I'm not completely crazy by the end of the day.  I call that a success.

Here are some pictures of our first day of school.  No spiffy new clothes or shiny new backpacks.  No school bus in the background, unless you see one on the street in front of the house, waiting to park in the bus barn area.

Just praying the following weeks of school go as well as the first one!

Two Months and Growing!

Hard to believe that Jed is already 2 1/2 months old, but he is!  At his checkup yesterday, he weighed in at 14 pounds and 11 ounces, and was just under 25" tall.  Our doctor says he can't believe a 10-week old is as tall as he is.  (At least he's proportional!)  Jed is sitting happily in the 90th percentile for height and weight.  What a chunk!

Savvy's Baptism

Savvy was baptized in Birch Lake by Pastor Marlin Bjornrud, on August 19, 2012.  We are so happy and proud of our little girl!

McCarthy Beach

A little late on the post, so hopefully you'll forgive me.  Last weekend the family (minus Riley, who was camping with a friend) went to McCarthy Beach State Park for a little swimming and fun.

The lake is very shallow, and that equates to less worry for the parents.  I sat on a shaded hill with Jed, watching Jesse and the other kids having a good time in the water.  Here are a few pictures of this little summer outing.

Jed's Two Months Old

Can't Get Enough of Those Cheeks!

Jedidiah, almost two months old

More Storage!

For months it's felt like my kitchen cabinets were shrinking.  Junk was being left out on counters and we were wedging things into the upper cabinets and lazy Susan with desperation.  I've been on the hunt to find a shelf unit that I could use as additional pantry-type storage.  After scouring CraigsList, rummage sales and Goodwill to no avail, I finally settled on paying for a new one at Target.  This one was $99, but totally worth it already.

While I was rearranging things to fit on the new shelf, I was also wondering how I could get rid of the half-empty boxes of pasta and oatmeal cluttering my cabinets.  This was what I came up with.

Half-gallon sized Mason jars do the trick nicely, and look pretty too.