sewing experiment #2

I saw a tutorial online for something I wanted to try, so this weekend I went to work at it. It's nice for me to have some projects lined up to complete so when Matt pulls out his textbooks to study over the weekend, I've got a list of tasks to accomplish. Of course, I always pick the most fun option so this weekend I ignored "vacuuming" for "make a cute pillow."

I started on Saturday night, had some problems with the sewing machine, and quit before dinner. Sunday morning I had a bad dream . . . seriously, it woke me up and I couldn't sleep so at 5:45 I hit the old needle and bobbin (??).

Coffee in hand, of course.

A pin here, a stitch there . . .

It was all fairly relaxing because the nature of the ruffles covered a world of wrongs. The fabric was cheap as can be, so I bought plenty in case I messed up.

After a little while . . .

Ta-da!

A sweet, frilly little throw pillow. I like it. I'm pleased with myself, because it looks better in real life and not so lumpy. It now lives in our guest room.

beach days

This week the family I nanny went to the beach for a few days and I went along. I took on the roll of 'trip photographer.'

The kids loved being in the water and searching for fish and crabs. I spent a lot of time with the littlest, while his brothers went out on the boat, and he was so thrilled by everything. Shells, rocks, sand, water . . .

We were out on the North Fork and spent some time in Greenport, home of an adorable carousel.
Brothers on the beach.

I love this giant life jacket that practically swallows him up. He was pretty proud of himself, sneaking into "Erica's chair."

On Friday they started seriously searching for crabs. I went along on a crabbing expedition.

Yikes!


Mmm, dinner tonight!

summertime

We've been a little busy lately, a little tired, a little sick . . . fighting colds and sinus infections. Finally this weekend it seemed we got a chance to breathe, both figuratively and literally, as my nasal passages were finally mine again. We hit Saturday and accomplished a lot of yard work. gardening, house cleaning, and a trip to the vet for somebody's checkup.

My garden is in a pitiful state. Something about the transplanting it went through, the hot summer, the growing shade that overtook our little patch as the hickory tree got leafier and leafier . . . suffice it to say it's not our primary food source. I have enjoyed grabbing the occasional handful of mint or basil, lettuce leaves before they went bitter, and now . . . my first little cherry tomatoes. Or maybe grape tomatoes.

There they are, our little garden gems, dirty fingers to prove I was weeding.

Last night Matt got a hankering for . . . a bonfire. I guess that's a benefit of living out where we do, we can light fires in our yard without anybody knowing or caring.

A boy and his dog.

A girl and her hot dog:

birthday

At first, when I thought about turning another year older, I kind of felt like this:

another birthday already?!

But the whole experience wasn't so bad. :) We stretched it out over a few days, which was of course fun.

Saturday I woke up to some suspicious clanging in the kitchen. Matt making breakfast! And later I found my camera full of pictures of my work-of-art omelette and pancakes.
Thank you, Matty!

We went out and fulfilled my birthday dream by buying a printer . . . it sounds ridiculous but our current printer is a constant source of frustration since it works with neither Matt's nor my computer, so if we want to print we have to boot up my old computer, which doesn't work unless it's plugged in, and even then . . . anyway, it's frustrating. So I've dreamed of a wireless printer for some time. So we bought one. While setting it up, we realized the wireless function is not working on this particular model so . . . we have to return it. The one flaw in my special day. :)

I opened a couple packages . . . one with a million stamps from Jenny in Africa:

And some number tiles from my sister, which I'm very excited to hang!

Trying to get Moose to take pictures with the numbers . . . we got him a new bed, too, for my birthday, because it's always better to give than receive.
On my actual birthday, Tuesday, Matt woke me up with gifts from him and Moosey that included Moon Pies, which he thought was the closest thing to a ready-made s'more. I like that the people who love me appreciate my love of s'mores. When I got to work, my boys treated me to many treats! What better way to start the day than with a drink from Starbucks and a bagel with candles in it? They also got me a Winnie the Pooh and some Pooh books, since we are reading through the classic stories together. And balloons. And flowers. In a pitcher, because of the lemonade stand. Sweet!

Tuesday night Matt made dinner . . .
Mooser wanted to eat it . . .
Later our friends Tim and Lori came by with a delicious dessert. But first we had to play "pass the baby."

And then it became really entertaining to hold her up in front the projector.

She's going to get really smart from watching Jeopardy all the time.

After throwing Ayla around for a while . . . dessert time . . .

Loved Lori's hair flower she stole from her baby.
Ayla want some ice cream?

The dessert looked amazing and tasted even better! Mint chocolate chip ice cream . . . you can't get much better. Thank you, Lori! I blame you for any sudden weight gain, with that thing in our freezer!

So that was kind of a long post about ME which seems kind of narcissistic, but since this is my blog, I guess I write about me all the time. Which explains why it all came rather easily. :)

badbye

We said goodbye to a friend last week. :(

Jenna went back to California. She is a California girl, after all!

We like this girl. She's just so . . . nice!! She watched Moose for us on multiple occasions. She ended up staying with us for a week and made dinner every night. And she helped us move and clean up our new house. She is just so sacrificial. And she's just a good pal, one of my closest friends out here.

And she takes pictures of Moose and has come over to visit him even though she knew we weren't home. THAT is true love.

Our small group had a little going away party for her at our house . . . we had finished the last chapter of "Celebration of Discipline," which is on the discipline of celebration, so I enforced the party-hat rule on those who were willing.

We prayed for her and sent her off fondly. We already had a skype-visit with her during small group! It was pretty hilarious.

We miss you already!

before and after: our porch

This house has many quirky and endearing factors. When we first looked at it, we saw the potential in the space. As renters, we aren't going to fix up much, but when we first moved in we attacked what we could with the energy of the young and naive.

We're pretty much done attacking things and have resorted to hiding the piles in closets.

But, just last week we made major strides on one little area, the porch.

This is how it looked when we moved in:

Pretty bleak.

The brick was so stained that Matt decided to go after it with a power washer. He power washed every day after work for hours, and after a couple weeks, he had made a big difference on the appearance.

We collected some items that were left at the house, added our garage-sale umbrella, and this is how it looked outside for a while:

Not very inviting!

When we had our 4th of July party I decided that red, white, and blue would look nice out there and had my heart set on red-and-white striped cushions. After searching the stores for two months without finding any, my mom stepped in to save the day and got them for my birthday.

But still, the area needed a little punch . . .

We found this chair on the side of the road . . .

Yikes.

But I figured an afternoon of scrubbing it down and a can or two of spray paint would spice it up a bit.

My helper, showing off Matt's power washing:

Do you know how much Moose sheds in the summer? It's ridiculous.

So here's how it looks these days . . .

Striped cushions!

Red chair!

Sweet Moosey! And the rustic decorations sent to me from Wisconsin by my dear sweet Johanna!

I also painted the table legs to clean it up a bit.

Now imagine if that planter actually had flowers in it . . . there's always something else to do!