Fabric and trebuchets

It was so wonderful to go to the fabric store all by myself! No small people to distract me. Just me, myself, and I. I brought home some yummy batiks for a wedding quilt. I made an executive decision about the color way. I think this is going to be awesome!


Since I don't have a lot of quilt action going on here I'm going to post progress pictures as I go. The recipient won't be shocked by the gift but at least they'll know I worked hard on it. I still maintain my return policy. If you don't like it please give it back. I can always use another quilt in my house and I can always buy someone a blender instead. :)

While I was out gallivanting around I also went slumming at Joann's.


I picked up some flannels for a quick baby quilt and a few fun ones to make pillow cases for the kids. The little stinkers have already seen the fabrics so there's no surprising them now! Also during my trek I noticed that my car was shaking pretty bad. Now, I don't speak Car and Driver but I do know that this is a bad thing. We were planning on going to the Punkin Chunkin in Delaware and I wasn't ok with the idea of driving my car all the way down there and back. I'd hate to get stranded 3 hours away from home. Our wonderful friends helped us out so we could still go by letting us use their car. It was tight fit in a Jetta but we knew the car wouldn't have any problems with the trip. Only good friends let you take their car to another state!

The punkin chunkin was... interesting. It's hard for the kids to track the thrown pumpkin and you couldn't see where they landed either. Then the kids had to wait for the next attempt to track the thrown pumpkin. Boredom set in. I think the grown men had more fun than the kids.





Unfortunately, it wasn't interesting enough to hold the kid attention for very long though. After driving 3 hours there they were ready to go home after 2 hours. Oh, well. It was easier to head out than to watch the kids get crankier and crankier. Oddly, it was a hot day in the sun and they had to stand. Take chairs if you go.

Oh, and if you're ever driving down HW 13 in DE and the speed limit sign says 45, slow down quickly, the tickets are expensive. He pulled two of us over at once. How's that for efficiency.

Once upon a time...

...there was a blog that belonged to a creative quilter. The quilter went missing and was replaced by a half crazed mommy/student. Not so crafty anymore. It's hard to not have the creative juices going right now. I've got a few weddings coming up and I swear everyone is getting pregnant (not me though, phew!) so there are quilts to be made. With the holidays staring us in the face I feel some pressure to deliver with my usual hand made gifts and lots of baked goodies. I'm going to at least make my ornaments.

Christmas is a while away so I'll worry about that later. (The Art of Procrastination- 101)

I wanted to share the silly little game the girls played at Hannah's party last weekend. Instead of Pin the Tail on the Donkey, we played "Pin the Kiss on Edward." It was pretty funny to watch and they all thought it was fun to play.



Seth thought Hannah's gift bags were toys. Well, aren't they?


Where'd Seth go?

There he is!

Yeah, he still thinks that's fun to play. Hide and Seek, baby. You're never too old for it.

Since last Saturday with Hannah's party and all the Halloween fun I attended a birth with my doula client Z. It was a long labor which none of us expected. She went nice and slow for it being her second time around but she did get to have a natural birth like she wanted. I love that I got to be there for the birth of both of her boys. It really does make me feel special.

I'm taking a "me day" tomorrow and going to the quilt store in Pennington. All alone! It'll be odd to be up in that neck of the woods and not to see my mom. I haven't had a reason to head up to the Princeton area since they left. Yummy fabrics are calling me and I think that's a good reason to go. Spend some of that money I earned as a doula. After 12 hours at the hospital I definitely earned it.

I eeked out a bit of time here and there to finish up the baby quilt I was working on. It isn't very baby-ish but I went for soft fall colors since the baby was born in the fall.

Seth wanted in on the picture taking action.


I also whipped out a little 6" block for the quilt guild. Every year they do something for the current guild president. They'll present all the signature blocks to her in December.


Maybe I'll have some enticing fabrics to share with you tomorrow. If anything I'll have some pictures to show you next week because we're going to the Punkin Chunkin down in Delaware. Sadly we can't get our nephew while we're there but we tried.

Happy Halloween!

I hope you all have a fun day today and get lots of candy to share with me!

I need a tripod to get photos like this...

My little ghouls.

I'll take the Zombie Doctor, Granny, and Dinosaur out for some Trick-or-Treating right after we celebrate Hannah's birthday this afternoon. My little princess is now 11. She's such a great kid. I'm truly a lucky mom to have her.

This year for her birthday we got her tickets to see the midnight premiere of New Moon. Go ahead and judge me. She really wanted it and we decided since she's already read the book series like 5 times that we can indulge her this once. I think she'll fall asleep during the movie though. I also think she should have to go to school the next day.


She also got the Bella jacket from us. When she realized what the little piece of paper said she squeezed me so hard it hurt. I think she liked it...

Pumpkins

Pumpkins, pumpkins everywhere! It must be Halloween time! We got a few large pumpkins this year. It seemed like our options in the patch were huge or small. I'm sure you know which way the kids went. Unfortunately my theory of you have to carry it yourself isn't working out for me now that they are so big. They can carry a lot now.


Here are some suggestions to help you find the right pumpkin.

Sit on it and see if it'll hold your weight.


If it's too heavy get a friend to help you carry it.

Debate over which one is the best one.

Then, once you've selected the best of the best for yourself you show it to your mom.


This weekend was the Halloween Costume Parade. It's so awesome. The people around here put some serious work into the costumes and props.

Pirate Family, Arrg.

Little Max and a wild thing.

Guess who they're supposed to be?

Simon and Dan missed out on the parade because Simon had a Tae Kwon Do award ceremony to attend. Which means I missed out on the cool ceremony where the masters and instructors do cool things like cinder block breaking, wall climbing flips, and kicking an apple off a sword blind folded! Can't be two places at once though and Hannah really wanted to shake her granny fanny in the parade.

Henna, school, and a mad scientist

Another whirlwind week since I last posted. What do I do with my time? Homework mostly...

I saw my doula client last week. She is due early next month. I am thrilled to be attending another birth soon. Her last birth was natural and she wants the same for this one. Something I am all in favor of. :) Friday I kind of invited myself (tacky, I know) to a Mehndi Party. Hannah's BFF's family is from Bangladesh and her aunt was getting married on Saturday. Friday night they were doing the brides henna and having a gathering with friends and family that came in from out of town. I was talking to her friend's mom and she asked if Hannah could come because she knows Hannah loves to get henna on her hands. I blurted out "oh, me too!" and she said of course I was welcome. Oops. How's that for a tacky way to invite yourself along? There were two women who did all the henna work on all the women there. Tania, the bride, had exquisite work done on her arms and legs. Don't want to forget to mention how incredibly fabulous all the food was.

The henna paste was still on her arms and feet. She was going to leave it on until she got ready for bed.

Henna work on my palm. Nothing like the brides but beautiful too.

Saturday morning I went to an open house at Georgian Court University. I found out they have a 4 year bachelor degree program for nursing. I bravely applied even though I don't meet all of their criteria. The program is designed more for incoming, recent, high school graduates. Um... that's not me. I have college credits so I am hoping they'll look at that and not my lack of SAT scores. I'm 33 for Pete's sake. I'm not going to attempt to take the test now. Cross your fingers and wish me luck. If they except me as a spring transfer student I'll be back in school full time very soon! This is such a better path than waiting for my turn to come up on the long waiting list so I can begin the 2 year associates program at the local community college.

I really am hoping to get in there. I really, really want to get moving toward my goal to becoming a midwife.

I better get a move on here, it's almost time to go get Seth from preschool. He's loving it btw.

Let's see, what else is going on. We had a wonderful dinner on Saturday night with our friends.

Also, Simon had a fun cub scout meeting this week. They had a Mad Scientist there. He showed them some really neat tricks. Simon also has a belt test on Friday. He should have tested on Tuesday but he was at the pack meeting. Oh, the joys of juggling activities.

Isn't that an awesome shot of the back of Simon's head?

After school today we're going pumpkin picking so I'll be sure to take along my camera. Of course, once we finish with the pumpkin patch we need to go pick up a few last costume pieces for Halloween and still fit in dinner before Hannah needs to be at gymnastics and Simon has to be at Tae Kwon Do. Always something going on.

Preschool

Ready for a big day.

We've entered the world of preschool with Seth. He was so adorable on Wednesday morning. He was very insistent that I didn't get to come with him. He was going all by "his own self." I told him they wanted mommy to come but just for the first day and after that he got to go by himself.

We were met at the front door by a large group of teenagers (mostly girls) who walk back with the kids each morning. There are more high school students then preschoolers. He got help getting his little name tag on and went straight to the train table.



About 45 minutes into the preschool class the bell rang and all the big kids said "bye" and left. All the little ones looked confused for a minute and then went right back to playing. Once passing period was over a new group of kids came in. I wasn't expecting the classes to rotate. I thought he'd be with the same group of high schoolers for the whole 2 hours he's there. Nope. He gets to play with 3 different classes. The same teachers are always there though. Kind of weird, like they're little guinea pigs. I have friends who've had their preschoolers in this class and they loved it.



He had a good time on his first day of preschool. He had free play, craft, and snack time. Who wouldn't love that! When we were walking hand in hand back to the car, talking about how much fun it was, he asked me to come back with him the next day. Can't buddy. Sorry. *sniff* He already knows one girl there so he has one friend to start off with. I am sure by the end of the program he'll have lots of friends, big and little.

Today at drop off time he was really excited to go in. One of the girls took his hand and he looked back once to make sure it was ok and then off he went.

What a big boy he is now.

Atlantic Farm and a baby quilt

I liked the rooster roaming around in the mums.

A little trip to the farm was just what Seth needed before he starts his preschool class tomorrow. Have a little fun with a few of his friends and get a chance to feed the animals.



I have worked slowly on the baby quilt. The blocks are pieced and eventually I'll get them off the wall and sewn together into rows. Slow but steady. No, slow and occasionally.

Philly again!

The family and I made a trip down to Philadelphia to see Cynthia and Trent on Sunday. They were in town for a wedding and had a late flight out on Sunday. Just enough time to have a yummy lunch at the the City Tavern and do a little sight seeing with our dear friends. If you're making a trip to Philly and you'd like to experience some fun you should go to the City Tavern where they dress in Colonial clothing and serve food from the Colonial times. The big kids had fun there. Although, I don't think Coke was on the menu back then. :)



I love the architecture of the 1700's.

It was wonderful to see them and I'll have to make a trip to Minnesota to see them again soon. Or maybe... they'd like to see NY next?