Kazoo Band

We had so much fun today! We got to participate in a parade down in Ocean Grove by playing in the Starving Artists at Days' Kazoo Band. It was a blast. Fun was had by all! Now I think we are done celebrating the 4th of July for this year.

Practicing before we started.

Since we were waiting, might as well get a picture of the family!

Seth refused to wear the t-shirt. Silly kid.

My new summer house. :)

Happy Fourth of July!

We mostly did our celebrating yesterday. The fireworks display was scheduled for last night so we figured we'd do the small BBQ the same day. My mom had the day off of work so we hit the beach too. What a great day. Beach, barbeque, and fireworks. The only down side was that it was a bit cool at the beach. The kids bravely went in with my mom for a bit but then mostly played in the sand. Seth would forget it was cold and run as fast as he could toward the water. When the water would splash up his leg he'd gasp, turn around and run back. It was pretty cute. He also thought he could catch seagulls.

And when did my little brother start looking so much older!


The rest of last week was rather uneventful. I've got almost all of the blocks done on my aunts quilt. Only one more big block to go. Then I have to assemble ALL the blocks into the quilt top.

There's a new quilt hanging in my dining room right now. I absolutely love this quilt. When I was working at the quilt store in Denver (Quilts in the Attic which moved and is now Holly's Quilt Cabin) a woman gave me the quilt. She brought it in and told me it was worn out and she didn't want it anymore. It had been a wedding gift. Her grandma had it made by a woman who used old scraps and did it all by hand. I told this lady that she should keep it for her kids, get an appraisal, take it to an antique store, anything! But no, she was done with it... and I covet it. I truly don't understand how she walked away from this quilt.


Lastly, I thought I'd throw this in. I hear from people all the time how much Seth looks like Simon and I have to disagree. He looks like Hannah!

Beach trip

I love the beach. Even though you bring half the sand back with you in your swim suit I still love it. Sadistic? No. No. Just the reality of sand sticking to ya at the beach. Our friends were able to accompany us on our outing today. It was a perfect beach day. Hot and sunny yet the water was cool. Love it, love it, love it!

Here are some photos for your enjoyment.

The kids and I.

See she has braces!

Yeah, sand.

Their friend.

Little Otter and his mama.

Lots going on as usual- update

Blocks up on the design wall.

Next step in the pattern.

This is where I am with my Aunts quilt. I've started piecing the different block combos. There are a few to do! It'll take a while. I threw them up on the design wall so I could see what they'd look like.

I took a quick break from the quilt to make my friends purse. She really liked it. Well, at least that's what she said. :) She brought me some fabric that she wanted me to use but I swapped out the inside for a different one that I thought worked a bit better. Not that the one she choose didn't work, I just loved the contrast of the darker blue.

Scylla and new bag!

The other night while my kids were outside catching lightning bugs I tried to get a few pictures. Kind of hard to take pictures in the dark though. They have so much fun. They run around the yard catching as many as they can and putting them in the bug habitat.

Once it's time to go in side they let them all go again. I have to say, lightning bugs are cool! Being from Colorado where there aren't any I can see why the kids are so fascinated by them!

So, yesterday my Mom went with us to the Monmouth Battlefield reenactment. (She got better pictures than I did.) They actually follow the Battle of Monmouth! The original battle was about 5 hours long and thankfully they condense it a bit. We left after watching about 45 minutes of it. There were canons going off, guns firing, men falling on the field, and horse galloping around. The only thing Seth really noticed was the fence that had been knocked down. ? He kept saying over and over, "Fence broken." Yeah, and look, there are men dressed in funny clothes shooting at each other too!

Couldn't zoom in more... need a better camera. Hint, hint.

Seth and Grandma, taking in the sights.

Well, the rest of this week will be pretty busy. There's fun stuff to do with the MOMS Club all week and then we're going to the beach on Friday one last time with Scylla... she's going back home.

Conversations with a toddler

On our way to the store the other day.

Seth: "Aipane fly sky."

Me: "That's right Seth, airplanes fly in the sky."

Seth: "Me fly aipane sky!"

Me: "Oh, you're going to fly an airplane in the sky?"

Seth: "YEA! Mommy fly aipane, daddy fly aipane, Anna fly aipane, Dion (Simon) fly aipane!"

Me: "We can all fly airplanes?"

Seth: "Yea."

Me: "Can I fly with you in your plane?"

Seth: "Yet (yes)."

Me: "Where will we go in your airplane?"

Seth: "Bark!"

Me: " Wow, we're going to fly an airplane all the way to the park! That'll be fun!"

Seth: "YAY!"

Hibachi

We had an impromptu dinner out tonight. There weren't a lot of options for dinner in the house and earlier today Tiff had said how she wanted sushi which made me want some sushi, so... of we went to get some sushi for dinner. On our way there the kids were telling us they didn't like Japanese food. Yeah, sure. They really actually love teriyaki.

We sat in the hibachi area because we thought the kids would get a kick out of watching their dinners be made.


Boy, were we right. The kids loved it. By the time we left Simon was asking if we could go there every night for dinner. Well, no you see, we can't. That is a rather expensive meal but we can go every now and then.

Seth loved the miso soup. He ate all the little pieces of tofu.


He also ate a few rolls from our sushi platter and some of Hannah fried rice. However, he didn't like the sushi rice with soy and a bit of wasabi. He wanted to try what I was eating so I gave him a little bite. He spit it all out. Then Hannah and Simon wanted to taste the wasabi. I warned them that alone it's really hot but that the hot goes away quickly, unlike Mexican food hot where the heat just lingers. Well, Hannah definitely thought it was gross and hot!


We had a great time. If this is a taste of summer then I think summer is going to be fun.

PIF

I got a special package in the mail today from a special friend. I was SO EXCITED to see what I got!!! My pay it forward gift was here. I knew I was getting a pair of socks but I didn't know what yarn or colors she'd choose. Well, she choose perfectly. I love them. I can't wait until it's cooler outside and I can wear socks all the time again. Yay for me!

Aren't they great?

I spent some time today cleaning up my messy office. I had projects all over the place. Stacked up one on top of the other. I had to take care of that. My trusty little seam ripper helped me out with some things.

I don't know why she likes to rip out seams but I don't really like too so, I think I'll just let her do that for me.

I mentioned in my previous post that I had finished all my half square triangles. Well, I actually made an oops. I made 32 squares with the wrong coordinating fabric. Oops. Good thing I had some extra so I could correct the mistake. I have little piles of them all over the ironing board right now.


Tomorrow Simon has one of his regularly scheduled doctor appointments to see how the brace is fitting and how his scoliosis is responding to the brace. Hopefully I'll have good news to report like his curve is correcting so well that he'll only need the brace at bed time.... Ok, it will probably be more like- things look fine, curves the same, but he's out grown the brace and he needs a new one. Once we have seen the orthopedic doc I am going to talk to the neurosurgeon again and see if there is anymore follow up stuff we should be doing. I don't want to miss anything.

Two more days of school for the kids. Then it's summer break!

Quilt show

I'll quickly give you an update on the bat... we never saw it again... that creeps me out pretty bad. What if it's still alive (unlikely, I know) and living in my office?!?!? I'll have the pest control guys come out and make sure they aren't hanging out in our attic. Eew. I hope you all had a good laugh about it. It wasn't very funny when in happened but it is funny now. As far as googling it, well, we had no idea what to do to get it out so we looked it up. You've gotta love the internet for that!

On to less creepy things.

First off, a very Happy Fathers Day to all of the wonderful daddies out there. I know I have a good one here at my house. I am hoping he'll have a nice quite day to do whatever he'd like to do. Of course, the kids will make it hard to have a quite day. Here's to hoping.

So, yesterday my mom accompanied me the the NJ Quilt Convention. You will all be so proud to know that I didn't buy any fabric for myself. I bought two books though. One of the books had my name in the title. How could I pass that up! Now, my mom on the other hand, bought fabric. She finally found something that spoke to her. She pointed out how much she liked it so I asked her about it. What do you like, the colors, pattern, etc? She like the whole thing.


The nice lady in the shop got the last two panels out for me and we began looking around the booth for the accompanying fabrics in the line. I found lots of them. My mom was surprised that I could look at a shelf of fabric and just point out which ones went with the line of fabric. I guess working in a quilt store for three years taught me something. This is what we ended up bringing home.


I will be the one putting the quilt together but I don't mind at all. I like to quilt. Free fabric for me to play with? SWEET! That will keep me out of the quilt stores for a while. Since I don't have a specific pattern I'll have to make something up. I think I'll do the panel blocks on point with Ohio Stars. I hope we got enough fabric!

I have a few other small things I'd like to make along the way here as I work on my Aunts quilt (the half square triangles are done!!!) and my Mom's new one. I need to make a purse for my friend who is abandoning me and returning to Denver! I can't forget that I am supposed to make a charity quilt. Also, a doula friend of mine is going to have a baby in a few months and I'd like to make her something. I am not quite sure what I want to do for her because I don't know if she's having a boy or a girl. Do I make something gender neutral or do I wait and see what she has?

Wow, I wanted to talk about the quilt show and here I am discussing a baby quilt... Where was I?

Well, the show was pretty neat. I can't say I always agree with the judges choices but I am not inspecting the quilts. We are all drawn to different things I suppose. There were beautiful pieces of artwork, intricate applique, piecing so tiny I couldn't imagine working with it, antiques, and many more. I always enjoy looking at the broad range of what is considered "quilting". Really, it quite amazing.

Holy Toledo, Batman!

Last night Hannah came down stairs from her room carrying on about something really big flying around in her room and the cat was trying to get it. I told her to tell daddy and he'd help her get what I thought was probably a big bug. We get those out here ya know. She went back up and a few minutes later was screaming, "There's a BIRD in the house!!!!!! There's a bird in the house!"

When we ran upstairs we could tell it flew into my office because that's were the cat was. We went in and closed the door. No sense in having the bird fly back through the house especially when the boys were sound asleep.

The thing started flying around my office so I ducked down so I didn't get hit in the head. When I looked up I realized it was a fucking BAT! I think I probably said something along the lines of, "Oh shit, it's a bat!" Now in retrospect, of course it was a bat. Birds don't fly around at night.

We went out of the room to assess how to deal with getting bat out of the house.

Dan quickly went back in and opened the window up after we googled "how to get a bat out of your house." Then we got ourselves ready with long sleeves and gloves... back in we went. We couldn't find it! We looked up in corners, moved things around, made loud noise, still nothing. There is a hole in the upper corner of my closet where some of the plaster has come off. Uh, oh.

So now what? Is it still in the office? Did it fly out the window before we got back in the room? Did it crawl into the hole to hide? Here's a better question.

How the hell did a bat get in our house!?!

Braces

Hannah got her braces today. She isn't a very happy camper and she refused to let me take her picture once they were in. I'll get her, you'll see. She looks cute as usual. Before long she'll even forget she has them.

"Hannah, smile so I can see your new braces!"


One of the ladies there thought Seth was just wonderful. Maybe because she has teenagers and toddler tantrums don't seem so bad in light of back talking teens. So, while Hannah sat in the chair Seth got a new toothbrush and lots of stickers. Simon got to play video games in the game room. This place is seriously geared toward kids.


As a treat for sucking it up and getting the metal put in her mouth against her wishes I got them some ice cream. It was a good idea, I swear. Except for the whole need to get back in the car right away part. Yeah. You know how ice cream melts when it's hot? Did you know it's almost 100 today? Yeah... that was messy. Even my cone was dripping all over the place.

Older homes

You know you live in an older home when:

- The new AC unit flips the breaker it's on.

- You use an extension cord and move it to another outlet in a different room and you still trip the same breaker.

- You discover that you can't have the TV, AC and coffee pot on at the same time. They are in three different rooms and on the same breaker...

A day in the life of a toddler

A good day for a toddler would go something like this...

Got into sisters hair ties while mommy showered. Like my rings?

After nuggets for lunch AND ice cream I got to play in the mud!

Watched some Shrek and then took a good nap because I was so tired.

What should I do tomorrow?

It must be summer

It's hot. I mean, HOT! Technically it isn't summer yet but since we are in the 90's I think we can call it summer now. Ick.

My dear sweet husband got us a new ac window unit for downstairs. Bless him. It's frackin' hot! Now we just have to get the monstrosity into the window...

Field Day was great. Luckily it didn't get hot until yesterday so Friday was cooler in the morning which made it much easier to enjoy the day.


One of my neighbors has a pool which we got to go use yesterday.


It was wonderful to get in the pool when it was so hot out. It took a bit to get Seth in and as you'd guess, it was hard to get him out. Once we are rich and have completed ALL the huge projects around our house maybe I can convince Dan that we need a pool. We'd all use it. Simon immediately wanted to make plans to swim today but I had to tell him no. When he looked at me with a confused look on his face I told him that it isn't ours to use as we please. We have to be invited over. Oh, the disappointment.

While Hannah was at her friends birthday party today Simon, Seth and I hung out at McDonald's. I brought a book along that is starting out very well. Definitely my kind of book. We indulged a little while we were there and got ice cream too. It's summer, right?

Once we got home (had to stop off at the grocery store and btw, don't go there on Sunday with all three kids even for a few things! Agh!) the kids wanted to run in the sprinkler. They called the neighbors girls to come over. I assume Hannah and Simon don't actually consider each other as "someone to play with". The running in the sprinkler turned into spraying each other, which lead to mud... thankfully it was all outside. Hannah and Simon got to accompany the girls back to their house to swim for an hour. They should be home any minute.

Well, that's about it for me. Still working on my Aunt's quilt and I will be for a while. I know I'll have to stop and make quick baby quilts as I work on it but I am going to get the quilt done hopefully by the end of summer if not sooner.

Off to make dinner and get ready to go get coffee with the girls. Sunday night coffee is like a light at the end of the tunnel.

Jedi's

Young Jedi's in training.

"AH, my arm!"

"Seth, I am your brother."

Movies and quilts

We had a nice weekend full of movies. On Saturday Dan and I went to dinner and then saw the new Indiana Jones movies. It was totally entertaining just like the other ones. Then on Sunday the girls and I went for dinner/drinks and the new SATC movie. It was also really good. If you liked the shows you'll love the movie.

The baby quilt was well received on Tuesday. I liked this one. I know, I usually like them but every now and then I make something and just think its, meh. KWIM? Anyway, the mom seemed to like it very much which pleases me greatly. I didn't have my camera at the little baby shower but I had Dan take a picture of it for me once I had completed it.

(So ah, in the picture here I'm holding the quilt upside down. Smart, huh?)

On to the next quilt!

What's next you ask? The huge, way past overdue, king size quilt for my Aunt! I got some of the cutting done a few days ago and last night I started in on the half square triangles. I am cheating a bit or shall I say, using a tool to my advantage, to make the 1/2 square triangles. I'm using triangles on a roll paper. Have I mentioned this stuff before? Great stuff. I don't have to mark 336 squares. Phew. Pin, sew on lines, cut apart, and remove paper. Viola. Tres bien.


So, I have to back up a second here. I watched Into the Wild last night while working on the quilt. Have you seen it? It is worth watching. I can't really talk about it without ruining the end of it like I did for a friend last night... oops. Put it on your Netflix queue and email me about it after you see it. I'd love to hear what you think.

Field Day is tomorrow. Hopefully the weather will be nice. Not to hot, not to cold, just right. Hopefully I'll remember my camera too.