Scrap Mania

Marlena and I spent Friday night at Archiver's for Scrap Mania. You scrapbook from 5-11, with supper and a snack included in the price. I got four pages nearly completed for Ian's book, which is double my normal finish. I usually spend most of my time trying to figure out layouts, but I actually went in with a plan this time. The first layout I did was a two-page spread from our trip to Pooley's Pumpkin Patch. All it needs is a title and journaling and I'm done.
For the next page, I emailed Darrin earlier in the day and asked him what he loved about being Ian's dad. I then copy and pasted his response to be the journaling for pictures of Ian and him this summer. I just need to add the title.The last one is one of my favorite pages of all time. The picture is of Ian's first smile, which Darrin amazingly captured, and I love the layout. I also love the fact I used a color other than green or blue for the main color. This one is completely done.

The rest of the weekend has been filled with lots of creativity,too. I'm nearly done with the middle part of the purple ocean waves blocks, and I spent 3 hours today at a friends stamping a stack of cards to use as inspiration for others.

Ian has been helping with his diaper changes for awhile; I say up and he pulls his legs up, and then I say down and he puts them down. Being the teacher I am, I said, "Up and down are opposites, Ian." Wouldn't you know, he spits out the word opposites- and it's actually pretty understandable. I also taught him "She'll be coming around the mountain." He adds the choo-choo perfectly, and even tries singing it himself- "She'll be comin' choo-choo." I am in constant amazement of how well he talks and how quickly he picks up on things. Now, if we could just get past the tantrums... those amaze me, too, but in a different way. Where does a child that age learn such aggression? I know he doesn't see it at home, and he's one of the oldest at day care, so I don't think he sees it there, either. I'll just be glad when he outgrows it.

Does it have to end?

This weekend was FANTASTIC, and as the hours of Sunday are quickly slipping away, I just wish I could have a few more days like this weekend.

The weather for Halloween on Friday night couldn't have been better for Ian's first trick-or-treating experience (it was about 60 out). Noah, Marlena, and Sara came over for supper, and then Darrin and I took Ian trick-or-treating while they stayed back at our house to hand out the candy. Ian was a moose this year. Mom and Dad bought the brown fleece outfit when they were here last and I sewed the antlers on. We went to about 6 houses on our street. He wasn't quite sure what to think, but he definitely figured out by the end that you're supposed to grab some candy and put it in your basket. At one house, Ian was concentrating on walking up the stairs and didn't realize that at the top was a man in a 'scream' outfit. Once he glimpsed him, Ian started backing down the stairs until the man stuck out the candy bowl. Ian was right back up those stairs- and that was the only person Ian said thank you to the whole night. The camera crew was ready back at our place and captured Ian's expression as the door opened. Once inside, Ian proceeded to take every piece of candy we had to hand out and put it in his basket.
Saturday I headed over to Marlena's house for quilt Saturday. I brought my Shadow Play Ocean Waves to work on, and it was nearly effortless sewing on my Janome compared to my Bernette. It is no longer frustrating to work on; I'm just amazed at how much better sewing on this machine is. I go all my half-triangle purple squares done while I was there. Now I'm in the process of squaring them up and trimming those darn little triangles off.
I left at 3:00 to meet with my bookclub from work. We only read books that are coming out as a movie. So far we've done P.S. I Love You and Nights of Rodanthe. This time it was Secret Life of Bees. Of the three we've done, this one stuck the closest to the book, and so was the most enjoyable to me. I loved the other two books, and probably would have enjoyed the movies if I hadn't read the books, but the movies just didn't compare. If you haven't seen it- go, or at least rent it when it comes out.

Today's weather continued being great, and after watching the Packers lose a close one to Tennesse, we headed outside to work in the yard. Of course, before we could work, Ian had to play in the leaves. He brought quite a few back inside the house attached to and inside his diaper (poor guy).

Thank goodness for our mulching lawn mower; after Ian's fun Darrin just mowed the lawn while I dug up my calla lily bulbs and planted some tulips that will hopefully come up in the spring. Ian helped me make apple-snicker salad for supper tonight, and got to lick the spatula when we were finished.

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.