Sisterly Love

Sampler Quilt

This is called a sampler quilt, all the blocks are different, so it is a good way for a beginner to learn how to quilt. I pieced this quilt together when I was pregnant with Natalie. An amazing woman, Betty Rossiter, passed on her quilting knowledge to me and helped me with it. This lady has made literally hundreds, if not thousands, of quilts in her lifetime, and donated most of them. I was fortunate enough to have an "in" with her, and learned from the best! So now, three years later, it has been sent off to the quilters (they have a special machine that does all the decorative stitching on top of the quilt) and returned to me. I'm so excited to finally be able to display and use my first "real" quilt.





Some close ups so you can see the beautiful quilting that was done.

Musical Instruments

Natalie is really into musical instruments. She likes to "play" them all the time. Her "flute" is a snorkel, her "trombone" is a plastic straw that whistles when she blows on it, her "cymbals" are two plastic pot lids. She loves one of James' Dave Matthews Band t-shirts because it has a picture of each instrument they use in the band, and she can name all of them. She is constantly singing a Dora song that is about musical instruments "I play the flute, dee dee dee dee dee, you play the trombone, bomba, bomba, bomba, etc." So she just loved this musical fountain at Legoland. When you stand in front of the instrument it will play that instrument. She had a great time with her friend Coleman running around this fountain and making the instruments play.

The Nat Girl

Our Natalie. She's a character. She makes us laugh every day.

Here she is trying on every single piece of jewelry she owns. On one arm.



This is after she took a bite of a Smores on family night. She didn't want to eat the rest because it made her hands sticky.



She likes me to take her picture so she can see it on the little screen afterward.

Going on Year No. 3

We went on our annual strawberry fields trip a couple weeks ago, thanks for joining us Shannon! As always, fun was had, strawberries were eaten, even an onion was tried, and quickly spit out. Oh, and my camera's battery died right after we started picking, but luckily I got a few pics.

Paint

I've been letting Natalie paint a lot lately. She's having a lot of fun with it. I ordered "Young at Art" and "First Art" off of Amazon and really like the ideas in the books. They both focus a lot more on the process rather than the finished product, which is perfect for this age. I'm excited to try more projects!

The Girls

Updates on the girls. They get along great. Natalie only allows Annette to play with her baby toys, if I ever hand Annette one of Natalie's toys, she almost immediately takes it away and replaces it with a baby toy. Natalie loves to pat Annette's head and tickle her face and smoosh her with hugs. Annette loves to watch whatever Natalie is doing.



Natalie is being potty trained. She is wonderful at going number one on the toilet, not so great at the other one. It may be a long road.



Annie is sitting up on her own, eating baby food, and still can't turn from her stomach to her back. That's a lot of baby to move around, you know?

Before and After

I was going for the tousled, just out of bed look.



Here's my new do. Medium length, kind of strawberry blondish. Don't ask about the shushing...I don't know, just one of my many modeling poses, ha ha.

Quick Vote

Okay, my hair appointment is Thursday, so hurry up with the voting.

Short?



Medium? By the way, I'm pregnant in this picture, thus, chubby cheeks.



Long? Well, as long as my hair gets, dangit!



You are welcome to add other opinions too, like color, bangs, etc.

Quilt Borders

So I finally picked out some fabric for the borders of my quilt. I decided to go with fabric that wasn't matchy matchy. I like how it turned out, what do you think? Now I just need to quilt it and bind it...that should only take a few hours. I'm anxious to see how I do with machine quilting, I've never done it before. Hopefully my next post on this quilt will be the finished product. By the way, the quilt is really quite small, it may look large, but it's actually about the size of a toddler quilt.

Step one:



Step Two:



Different views:

Back to Real Life

James and I had a great time on our trip! We really didn't take that many pictures, I guess after you get married pictures of yourselves seriously taper off. Anyway, here we are at the Ben Folds concert, which was fabulous! He's so talented, there were times when his hands were a blur because he was playing the piano so fast.



Our view of the stage



Our friends Dave and Holly met us, James surprised me!



Room service at our hotel...ah, this is the life!

Off to...Utah

Well, James and I are leaving tomorrow on our first ever trip without kids. And we're going to...Utah! I know it sounds pretty blah, but it is a weekend just for us. We're going to a concert, my favorite, Ben Folds. And we get to stay at the nicest hotel in Utah, the Grand America. So it's going to be great! Thank you Mom and Dad!

Here are some pictures from our Saturday in Coronado. Natalie had a great time with her great-grandparents: G.G. and Papa.

Playing baseball with Dad.



Action shot!



Awwww.



Me and Nat, I love this girl.

Chocolate and Marshmallows. You can't go wrong.

I just made these cookies. Divine.

Up For Grabs

I made this headband this week, and I really like it, but I don't think it looks good on me. So, if you want it, I'll give it to the first person who comments and wants it! It ties in the back, so it will fit anyone.

Big Bebe

Hi, my name is Annette. I just turned 6 months on Sunday, but my doctor says I weigh as much as an average 9 month old and am as tall as an average 10 month old. Beat that!

Here's To...

Three nights in a row of sleeping through the night! Dare I hope...



Thanks Annette!

And the winner is...

Holly! Congratulations Holly, I'll be sending the bibs to you as soon as I can get over to the post office. Yay!

My First Ever Giveaway

I was making these bibs for Annette and made a few extra, so I thought, Why not? Let's do a giveaway. So, if you want to give it a try, post a comment on this post and I just might pick you...randomly, of course! I just hope you aren't expecting perfection, I'm still learning, you know? I'll announce the winner on Saturday. Your odds should be pretty good, I should think.

Quilt Top

Well, here it is! I still have to add a border, which I need to choose the fabric for. I am debating whether to do it in one of the fabrics in the quilt or a totally different fabric to give it kind of a funky look. Whaddya think?

Island's Brownie Sundaes are the Best

Oh and I just wanted to let everyone know that I finished my quilt top today and I was so mad because I was so excited to post pictures when I realized that James took our camera to Minneapolis today...arg.