Family Weekend

We had a great 3-day weekend back home in Iowa. It is about an 11-hour round trip car ride, and Ian slept for a whopping 30 minutes total.

Luckily, he's a very good traveler. He loves reading books, dancing along with the radio, and playing with cars..

We didn't do anything special this weekend, just enjoyed watching Ian show his grandparents, aunts, and uncles everything he can do, and of course eating wonderful family meals with no preparation by me! He played with his Tonka truck, played with Lacy, drove his tractors, and made some music on the xylophone. It all just makes me wish we lived closer to our family, so they can experience these everyday moments more often.

Before we left on the trip, I got my prize in the mail from Regina. It's a cute homemade basket filled with an orange fat quarter, a Halloween fat quarter, and a bag of candy corns. Thanks Regina!

It's Here!

Yesterday while Ian was down for his nap, I went sewing machine shopping. I went with the intent of just figuring out which one I wanted, so that I could buy it as soon as I lost my 4 pounds... but it's so hard to leave without a machine after you've tried it. I ended up buying a Janome Quilter's Companion Marie Osmond 200.

I did not buy it because M.O.'s name is on it (I'm way too young to know her from anything other than her fainting spell on Dancing with the Stars), but because it had the most features and quality for my price range. My favorite features are the needle-down, tie-off, and start/stop feature. I can't believe it's possible to sew without a pedal.

I didn't get much sewing done yesterday because Marlena and Noah had their annual pumpkin-carving party. Ian picked out his pumpkin and helped scoop the seeds out, but he got bored waiting for me to get it carved out and had more fun playing with the bocce balls and eating Noah's homemade marshmallows. He enjoyed checking out his pumpkin when it was all done.

Today I got a chance to sew after all my errands were taken care of. I wanted to start something new with the new machine, and I worked on the block of the month for the quilt guild meeting tomorrow. I just joined last month, so I didn't have last month's done. I got both Sept. and Oct. done for the meeting tomorrow. The guild is celebrating its 20-year anniversary, and so our block of the month is the same one done 20 years ago.

I got a quarter-inch foot with the machine, and it is so nice to use. The machine went over the seams without pulling them askew and started without wadding up the thread, both problems I was having on my old machine.
I wish I could go and start sewing on November's but I should probably get ready for the school week. It's parent/teacher conference week, which always proves to be a hectic week. Hopefully I'll get a chance to do a bit of sewing before heading home to see mom and dad this weekend.

Surprise Guests

While Sara, Marlena, and I were busy quilting away the day today, we had some surprise visitors drop by, although they stopped by to see our neighbors first.

These turkeys hung out for nearly 5 hours. They moved between our yard, the neighbors on either side of us, and those behind us. I would have expected this back home where my parents live, but not where we live, which is a pretty heavily populated part of Omaha. We do have a big park close to our house with some wooded area, so that has to be where they came from. They enjoyed perching on the fence in our backyard.

As always, I had a great time quilting with Sara and Marlena. I choose not to work on Shadow Play, but get some other things finished up. We were all exhausted, so the conversation wasn't as lively as usual, but we all managed to be very productive and quilt for a long time. I'll post pictures later after the camera battery has charged.

Marlena was organizing her sewing room and made a list of every project she has fabric/yarn for. She wouldn't tell me how many until I figured my list, so I did. I came up with 15 projects, which is actually more than I thought I would have. It's nowhere near what she has, but in a quest to reduce that list, she brought Ian over a pillowcase that is just perfect for him.

He is really into any type of vehicle, so he loves his pillow. It was the perfect gift because he's also really into pillows and blankets. He'll pull the blankets and pillows off the couch to curl up with them, even though it only usually lasts for about 10 seconds. He gets mad if Darrin and I use them because he thinks they're all his. Before the girls got here today he was busy reading on the couch.

I had to smile while taking this picture because the quilter in me loved that he is infatuated with blankets/quilts right now, and the teacher in me loves that he's 'reading' a book.

It's Shaping Up to be a Great Weekend

Reason #1: I stopped by a sewing store a couple weeks ago looking for thread, and on a whim inquired about the machines sitting there. Came back and talked to some of the Online Prolific Quilters, and now I really want a new machine. The hold-up, I made Darrin bet me (back in April), that I have to lose x-number pounds before I could get a new machine. The trip to the quilting store and this talk has helped motivate me, and I stepped on the Wii-Fit tonight (because who needs a scale when you have a balance board), and I only have FOUR pounds to go until a new machine. I was shocked to see it so low! I can do four pounds!

Reason #2: I WON! Regina had a giveaway for her 300th post, a game much like The Price is Right, and I won. Amazing!

Reason #3: Tomorrow I'm scrapbooking with Marlena at Archiver's all night long. I love having plans to be productive, because without plans, I tend to be lazy. My goal is to get 3 pages done from before Ian's first birthday.

Reason #4: Saturday is quilting day. See above reason about having plans. Plus, it's just fun hanging out with the girls. We're quilting at my house, which means Ian will be popping in seeing what we're doing, and that leads to lots of fun, too.

So, it's looking to be a good weekend. I'll get back to you on how it actually all turns out.

Pooley's Pumpkin Patch

My parents are visiting this weekend and we spent this morning at Pooley's Pumpkin Patch. It was a perfect place for Ian to run and explore (he had so much fun running I had to take the stroller back to the car). The farm was very kid friendly. Our first stop was a chicken coop where Ian had fun feeding the chickens and petting the chicks. He really loved hearing the rooster "Cock-a-doodle-do".After the chickens we headed to Cornyville- a corn crib converted into a "sandbox" of corn kernels. Ian loved putting them in the bucket and dumping the bucket on himself.

After that, Ian got a tractor-driving lesson from Grandpa. It was hard getting him down off of it. They had a corn-maze up, but we skipped that in favor of a straw bale maze perfect for Ian. He had fun chasing Darrin around inside and taking Grandpa through the maze. The pumpkin patch wouldn't have been compete without the hay rack ride out to the pumpkin patch. Grandma and Grandpa had brought a big pumpkin from their garden to Ian this weekend, so he picked out a pumpkin the perfect size for him. We did a few more things like petting goats and sheep at the petting zoo and pushing Ian around on the toy tractors and trikes, but all he really wanted to do was run around from one area of the farm to the other. We had so much fun watching Ian experience all the different things the farm had to offer. It will definitely become an annual experience for us.