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!