Things to do before I'm 30

I saw a few blogs out there that had a list of 30 things to do before 30. I like the idea. Not sure if I can get the 30 or maybe I'll go further. Here is my list so far:

1. Give birth (should be easy since I am due May 7th)
2. Write a letter to each of my kids preferably on their bday to tell them how wonderful they are.
3. Loose the baby weight and get back down to 150-155.
4. Survive the Big Road Trip to WV, PA, and WI with three kids, a hubby, me, all in a Jeep liberty.

More to come...

Emily Who?

Wow, it has been forever since I've posted! What a crazy couple of months. Throw in the usual birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and everything else and time flies.

One major event taking place in our lives is the soon-to-be arrival of our 3rd baby. Baby Jake will make his appearance in May. We are very excited and my daughter is dying for him to get here. Clayton can't wait because he'll be sharing his room. Let's see how happy he is when we move the kid to his room! I'll be nursing so he'll be in our bed for awhile. The kid does take up 3/4 of our house though and he isn't even here yet!

The timing on having Jake is perfect! His due date is 2 weeks before school gets out for the summer and I'll be able to take most of the summer off with the kids. YEAH! We are planning on taking a trip back east to visit family in WV, PA, and WI. Matt and I are both excited about this. We'll be able to see the entire family on both sides in one shot! It will be long and tiring, but so worth it!

When we did cross-country trip my mom was awesome and bought little things for us to do and play with. We would open new things at different spots/times on our trip. I really want to do the same thing for my kids. It was so much fun and really made the time fly by. I found a great tutorial for making a messenger bag out of cargo pants at Noodlehead. http://noodleheads.blogspot.com/2010/01/tutorial-messenger-bag-from-cargo-pants.html I plan on getting little things like crossword puzzles, travel games, etc and wrap them up. I'll put a "don't open until ________" tag and then it will be spread out over our trip. After work I am heading to goodwill to find some pants. I should stop at home first to see what Matt has in the "To Donate" pile that never gets donated!

I also want to make this neat tic-tac-toe/connect the dots board for each of them. I'll post pics and maybe a tutorial when I do it. I am having a hard time sewing with plastic sheet. It keeps shifting. I'll have to think about it before I attempt again!

Water Your Wishes

Many years ago I got a quilt calendar and fell in love with one of the wall hangings. I decided to make it into a quilt. The angel is watering an open heart filled with flowers. In the flowers is a little blue angel for my son Clayton. He was just a baby when this was made. The caption below the angel reads "Water the wishes that bloom in your heart". I need to redo that part.

In one of the borders are hand appliqued flowers. I love the look of them. One day I want to send this quilt out to get professionally quilted.

Wind Blown Leaves

Here is a quilt I designed last year for a class I taught. I love it so much. I love the vibrant color of the leaves. I remember growing up in Wisconsin and watching the leaves change to these beautiful colors. In Arizona we don't get much of that unless you want to take a road trip to Sedona. There it is beautiful! This is a little bit of fall in a hot hot desert!


I am entering this quilt in a contest at http://www.quiltinggallery.com/. Link coming soon!

September!

Wow September is here! This is usually the busiest month of the year for us. Lots of bdays (Dad 12th, Molly 21st, MIL 8th, BIL 9th), anniversaries (ours 8th, in-laws 8th), Awana begins (I wish we had a date for that...), a baby shower school in full swing....

This year we are in the middle of moving church locations. We started building a new building in the spring and it is soooooo close to being done. We were hoping for mid-July, then August, then mid-September, and now keeping our fingers crossed we'll be mid- to late-September. That doesn't make planning for Awana any easier! Still we are having leader meetings tonight and next week. Although next week will be at my dad's house since we will be w/o a church location (temp or perm) after Sunday the 6th!

My sister and her hubby are coming down for Labor Day and we are going to throw her a baby shower. I can't wait to see her and her preggo belly! I've made her two quilts and have to post pics of the second one.

Molly's bday is coming fast. We are going to take her and a few school friends to go see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Should be fun. The movie looks hysterical.

Here are a few things that I would like to try to get done this month:
Finish Olivia's second quilt
Start the blue and yellow quilt for my babysitter's neighbor's (Pam) bday
Make something for my baby-to-be
Organize some of my fabric.

I would like to do these projects buying as little fabric as possible. I think I can do it with the exception of Pam's quilt. I may have to buy yellow...

Happy September!

Didn't Clean the Bobbin Case!

I had to borrow a sewing machine while mine was in the shop. Turns out the bobbin case was never taken out and cleaned under. After I was done quilting I turned the quilt over and noticed that a tons of fuzz from under the case was on the back of my quilt.

I opened up the the machine and cleaned it out. It was nasty! Can you guess where my label will be?

Sweet Quilt for My Sweet Niece

My sister is having a sweet baby girl in November. I am so excited to have a little niece finally. I have an adorable nephew from my other sister and now I'll get a niece. My sister doesn't like pink so coming up with quilts that had little pink and that were still girly was fun.

I fell in love with the Katie Jump Rope fabric from Moda and was so excited when I found a charm pack at a quilt shop. I paired each charm with an off white to make 2 half-square triangles and put each set of HST together to make diamonds. The back and the border are Soiree by Moda. I love the polka dots!

Below are pics of the quilting I did. I am getting a little bored of meandering and straight stitching. I decided to branch out and tries loops. I LOVE IT!!!! For the border I did curved lines with circles along the way and a circle in the corners.

Overall this quilt is a hit in my house. My hubby loved it so much he said I should keep in case we have another one soon. If I kept every quilt I made and loved we would have to have 10 more kids!

All done

All done! I love it!

Friendship Swap Update

I got my swap partner!! I am so excited! I checked out her blog. Oh, she is so talented! Her quilts are beautiful, I love the colors! I almost feel like mine isn't good enough for her!

On mine I wanted to do something artsy, which I never do! I went into my scrap bins and pulled out a stack of blue for the sky, a yellow for the sun, a whiteish for a cloud, and green for the grass.



For the quilting I meandered in the sky and spiked to look like grass blades



After it was done I embroidered vines and put a bunny and flowers on.

I'll finish it up in the next couple of days and post a pic!

Em

Blogger Background

And here is a great website on how to make your own background.... http://www.thecutestblogontheblock.com/blog-secrets/144-how-to-make-your-own-background.html

For now I am using some of the free ones from:
http://www.thecutestblogontheblock.com/
http://www.sassyfruitstudios.com/
http://www.delightfuldots.blogspot.com/
http://www.leeloublogs.blogspot.com/

Enjoy!

New Look

I stumbled on this site: http://everydaymorgan.wordpress.com/2009/06/23/make-your-own-blog-header/ and learned how to create a banner. I love it! Now my blog feels personal! I thin I'll keep playing with it but for now this works!

Drop Dead Diva

I loved last night's episode of Drop Dead Diva (Lost and Found, ep 5) : "Deb is only 24 but faces Jane’s 32nd birthday on the horizon. When she takes on a pro-bono case for a man who was wrongfully incarcerated and freed 10 years later, she realizes she has lost of eight years of her own life. Kim and Grayson must defend a man who created a website for married couples looking to cheat. "

Grayson and Kim have to defend a guy who's website it set up to assist married men or women in finding someone to have an affair with. The owner of the website is being sued by a wife who was recently left after her husband had used this website. At first I was really worried about the case that Grayson and Kim had and I was worried that the writers were going to make it all about how silly people are over "something so little as a broken marriage". I was very pleased that Grayson did not like his client or what his client did. I liked that he was disgusted by him. It seems like everywhere you look on TV marriage, monogamy, and fidelity are mocked or belittled. I was pleased when Grayson said that he believes that we are made to be monogamous and he planned to always be with Deb. He was upset that her death had ended their relationship and his dreams of their life together.

Kim played a woman who had only seen a mother who had many marriages/boyfriends and was wary of marriage. I loved the end when she told her client that she believed in "the sanctity of marriage". Sanctity of marriage!! So often you only hear that term from conservatives or being said snidely. Here was a tough, professional woman saying she believed in the sanctity of marriage, one man and one woman for the remainder of their days!

All in all I love this new show. I love how Deb-now-Jane has a heart and is learning to see things through other people's eyes. It is all about finding the justice and the good in people.

Friendship Bag Swap

I've signed up for a new swap! I love swaps! It is so much fun to get a name, to read what she likes to do, find out what she likes, and then start to put together something for her! The gals over at The Quilting Gallery have put together a fun Friendship Bag Swap here. Deadline to sign up is August 20th. We'll each get our swap partners name and then we make a little bag about 5" big. Gonna be so cute!

If you want to join, hop on over to http://www.thequiltinggallery.com/!

Enjoy!

Old Red Barn Co Quilt Along - New Border

While I LOVE the yellow fabric with puppies, elephants, and baby chicks it just didn't feel right on the outer edge of this quilt. I cut it down from 4" to 1 1/2" and added a red border. Looks much better. Some of the puppies and elephants are still showing too! I was goign to use the yellow fabric on the back, but I think I might save it for another quilt.

Old Red Barn Co Quilt Along

I've been following the quilt along at Old Red Barn Co and love what some of the ladies are doing. I decided I was going to use up some of my fat quarters for a baby quilt rather than yards of fabric for a big quilt. Since I didn't know at the time what my sister's baby was going to be I decided to make it kinda boyish with some really cute fabric I got while camping in Williams, AZ (see close up on bottom pic). I figured that since i have a girly quilt started at home that a boy one would be ok. This way I can keep one or the other for other people who have babies.







The quilt along has been fun and I love reading the comments and checking out other people's websites. Really some amazing and talented woman out there. Check out these:
Quilternity's Place
Teeny Tiny Quilts
A Stitch and a Prayer
Sugar and Spice

And many more here.