The winner is...

I determined the winner in the best way I knew how... names on pieces of paper. I had the cutest assistant in the world draw the winning name:




And the winner is:



Congrats Moneik. Now to figure out what to make you, someone who churns out more quilty things in a month than I do in a year :)



And apparently picking the winner is exhausting work, because Ian pushed away the bowl and took a break as soon as we were done.

A Quick Finish

I've been using my last week of vacation not doing what I intended: looking through all the curriculum I brought home in May. Instead I've been enjoying time with Ian and my sewing machine. Today we went and met Meeghan and Alexa for lunch, but before we left, I stitched up a diaper/wipes carrier for them. Since Ian's gotten older, I tend to grab the one I made myself instead of his whole diaper bag. It's just more size-friendly to me.
Yesterday we took advantage of the afternoon sun (it was cloudy all morning) and headed to my co-worker's pool for one last time this summer. Ian did a lot better in the pool this year than last year, getting brave enough to put his face in the water and lay on his belly. He wouldn't let me let go, though. He loved playing with the different balls she had in the water.


If you haven't already, you have until Friday at noon to win a prize for my 100th post. Just check out this post and leave a comment.

Celebrations

I've had lots of reasons to celebrate lately and thought I'd share (in no particular order):

1: This is my 100th blog post, which means a giveaway. Leave a comment to this post by noon on Friday, August 7 for your chance to win. I'm not sure yet what the prize is, because it depends on whose name I draw, but more than likely it will be something quilt-related. Only those who comment can enter, so for those of you who just email me your response (mom and dad, that's you) just click on comments at the end of the post, click anonymous, and sign your name at the end, or sign up for a google account. You can use your hotmail address as your login.

2: I've got two new quilts to make. I'm making this quilt for Ian. He went along to the store to pick it out. I think the fact there was a shovel and rake attached to the kits sold him on it- that and the fact he's completely obsessed with tractors right now. I bought two kits because I need to make it at least a twin for Ian's new bed. Turns out someone is coming along in about 7 months who will need the crib. Yep, quilt number two is a baby quilt for Ian's baby brother or sister who will show up in very early March. We're all super excited. To add to the baby news, Darrin's sister is expecting a boy in December. We're so glad Ian will finally have a cousin!

3: My cousin got married this past weekend, and we had a blast, as we always do when the Warnecke family gets together. The food at the reception... mmm... I wish I could eat the leftovers tonight. It was so good. The best part was watching Ian dance, or lack there of. He had more fun running around everyone or watching in amazement. When everyone was dancing the chicken dance and hokey-pokey, he just stood in the middle of the cirlce and watched everyone. We're sure he was thinking, "What are these guys doing?!?!?"
All the great-grandkids were at the wedding, so we snapped a picture with Great Billie.

When Ian wasn't dancing, he had so much fun running around and playing with all of them. Especially Makenna, who is 11 months older than him. Makenna's brother Layton is in the picture, too. They still call him Baby Ian, even though he's almost bigger than Makenna.

4: The weather here has been AWESOME! I hate hot, humid weather, and this summer has been a pleasant surprise. We got replacement windows in last week, and finally have a cross-breeze for the first time on the main floor of our house. It's been blissful. I was so thankful the weather cooperated and I could open all the windows up and enjoy our new purchase. It didn't make parting with the money as hard.

5: I finished another UFO! I began this block almost 2.5 years ago, shortly after we brought Ian home from the hospital. I finished the I and A block at least 2 years ago, but Ian never played with them, I hated doing the embroidery of the words, and just moved on to other things. Why I didn't stick with it, I'm not sure, because it only took me about 5 more hours to finish this thing up yesterday. I just shake my head thinking how long that sat on the shelf. Ian has had a blast throwing them around like balls, though he got upset when they didn't stack like his wooden blocks do.

6: Ian has spent lots of quality time with his grandparents this summer (5 out of the last 6 weekends). When they live 6 hours away, this doesn't usually happen. It will be weird this coming weekend to just hang out at our house. We haven't done that since the middle of June. I'm so glad he was able to see them this much. He got in LOTS of tractor riding, saw two parades, and met some extended family for the first time. Here's just a few pictures of the fun he had back in Iowa:

driving fire truck

getting a pull on his H- he needs longer legs

wrestling with Jared

checking out parade loot

driving the 706 with Grandpa Dan

This is my last week of summer vacation, and it will be an busy one for Ian and me. We're headed swimming and to the zoo one last time (weather please cooperate!), meeting a friend for lunch, and trying to finish up the to-do list. I've got to start digging into all the bags of curriculum I brought home from school over the summer that haven't been touched since May. Can't believe the school year's almost here. Summer went too fast, as always.

Quilt Retreat

Well, I've had a few days to recover from the quilt retreat, though I definitely don't have all my energy back. The 13 of us had a fabulous time together at Lou Ann's. We could not have found a better place for hosting. We had access to her quilt shop the whole time we were there. So if at midnight, we needed fabric, thread, etc, we just walked over and got it for ourselves, writing it down on our tab as we went. This got pretty dangerous for some, as most of her fabric was 50% off.

We had plenty of room in the workspace to spread out. There were 12 big tables, so most of us didn't have to share, 2 large ironing boards, 2 cutting height tables, and 4 design walls. I had one of the long tables to myself and it was so nice to be able to spread everything out.
The tables also worked well for pushing things to the side and taking a quick snooze. I have no idea how some of the girls stayed up working til after 1 am. I didn't make it much past 10:00, but was usually up in the morning sewing way before they came down the stairs.

The upstairs sleeping quarters were so cute. There were 5 different 'apartments' for sleeping, and each of these were divided into smaller rooms and included a full bath with Bath & Body Works amenities.
This is where my sister, my mom, and I slept. Off to the left of the picture is a doorway into another room of the apartment where my MIL slept. The beds were so comfortable and the quilts gorgeous. She had 24 beds to choose from, all with at least 1 quilt on them and matching pillowcases.

Now to the sewing. Sara, Marlena and I made everyone a thank-you gift for attending. Sara made pillowcases, Marlena made sewing machine caddies (they rest under our machines and hold stuff), and I made water bottle covers. Thanks to Jen for the directions for the last two items.

I got 8 of my star blocks pieced (though before the weekend started I thought I'd get all 20 pieced and the top together). Everyone seemed to get a lot accomplished during the weekend: My sister completed her first-ever quilting project, a table runner, and pieced a wall-hanging; my mom completed a table runner and purse, and pieced a wall hanging, and my MIL got all the pieces done for an Ocean Waves quilt. The same quilt as my Shadow Play, which took me about 8 months to piece.I think the consesus from everyone was that we need to make this a yearly event and hold it at Lou Ann's, since it had everything we needed. Just have to make it through another school year that starts in THREE WEEKS first!

Tomorrow, Tomorrow, I Love Ya

Tomorrow, you're only a day away. I loved watching Annie; can still sing most of the songs from heart. Wish I had time to watch it now.

I've been so busy these last two weeks, and I'd catch you up on everything (10-year class reunion, swimming, Keith Urban), but I just don't have the time. I'm busy preparing for tomorrow... well, except for writing this blog post. Tomorrow my quilting friends from Omaha (Sara, Marlena, and her mom) are heading up to NE Iowa to meet up with the women of my family and Sara's family. We're going to Lou Ann's Quilt Garden and Retreat to quilt the weekend away.

I'm so excited to go because I'm actually working on something just for ME. I've never made a quilt just for me, always others (though I suppose one could argue those I give Darrin are for me too), but this one will be for me. A throw in pink, brown, and cream in a star pattern. Can't wait to start. But before that happens, I have to finish up the gifts I'm making everyone and pack my suitcase. I'm so tired from the inservices I've gone to this week that I'll probably forget some sewing tool. At least I'll be retreating in a quilt shop and can buy whatever I forget. Hopefully I'll have pictures to post and maybe a thing or two to cross of the UFO list on the sidebar. We'll just have to see how productive I can be.

4th of July

Darrin's parents brought Ian back to Omaha on Friday and we had a BBQ at our house with Marlena, Noah, and Sara. We served brats and hamburgers, beans, and watermelon. Marlena brought red, white, and blue Jello and Sara brought her spinach-strawberry salad. Noah made funnel cakes for dessert. I was stuffed!

We were lucky enough to have the rain hold off for our cookout, but not so much for the fireworks. We drove to the Botanical Gardens where Sara works to watch the big city fireworks they shoot off at Rosenblatt after the game. Shortly after we got their the skies opened up. It was already late and we weren't about to hang around to see how long they would wait to shoot them off. I guess they shot them off around 10:30, when we were getting home and putting Ian to bed.

Saturday proved to be a better day for celebrating. We went to the parade in Ralston. It was 1.5 hours long. I'd never been to a parade that long before. I had also never seen so many firetrucks or Shriners vehicles in a parade in my life. Ian was meserized by it all. It's the first parade he's really watched, all the others he was too scared or little to pay attention.
We went to the fireworks that night at Boys Town. I wasn't too impressed, but it was better than nothing. At least I got to try my hand at fireworks photography.



When we got back home, the neighbors were shooting off big ones in the neighborhood, so we hauled out Ian's sparklers. He had tried a few the night before after the BBQ, and he was much more receptive to playing with them tonight.

St. Louis Free Days

The rest of our days in St. Louis everything we did but eat supper was free, and we had TONS of fun. Saturday we spent most of the day at Forest Park, which is approximately 500 acres bigger than Central Park in NYC. It once hosted the World's Fair, and was packed with stuff to do. In the park, we visited the zoo, art museum, and history museum, all for free!

The zoo map bragged about being America's #1 Zoo, and we could tell why. We are frequent visitors to the zoo here in Omaha and thought ours couldn't be beat, but we were proved wrong. The animals at the STL Zoo weren't behind glass like at ours and you could get so close to them. They had a lot more animals than our zoo, too, as well as zoo employees near the animals to provide more information.

(Lion in the tree)

It was stifling outside that day (over 100 and very humid), so we didn't explore the whole zoo. Instead we headed for the free air conditioning at the art museum. I'm not that big on art, and unless it's a realistic painting/sculpture, I really don't get it unless it gives the back story. So the photographs taken by Ansel Adams they had on display, I got why that was art. The 8 nails in the wall they had connected by wire forming an octagon, I don't get why that was art; my students do that every year on peg boards when we study geometry.

(One of Monet's Water Lilies paintings)
(Degas ballerina bronze cast)

We spent a bit of time after the art museum in the Missouri History museum learning all about Lindbergh, who I discovered was so much more than just a pilot. We were pretty exhausted, so after resting at the hotel, we headed for supper in The Hill a.k.a. Little Italy. It was some great food. We went to Target for some picnic supplies and back to the hotel for sleep.

Sunday continued our free experiences in St. Louis. We started the day at the Holocaust Museum. It was an experience that is hard to put into words. Even sitting here now thinking back on what I read, saw, and heard there makes me shake my head. How one group of people can do this to another is beyond me, and the sad thing is things like that are still continuing in parts of the world. We must all learn to live by the Golden Rule.

After that emotional experience, we headed to Laumeier Sculpture Park in St. Louis. They had some really cool, outside-the-box sculptures (and some that I thought, "What the heck?"). I'll just let you see for yourself:

(Noah setting up his large format camera shot)

After picnicing in the park, we headed to the GORGEOUS Cathedral Basilica St. Louis. It was built beginning in 1906. I've been to the Vatican and other churches in Europe and it reminded me a lot of those, except they were all painted by hand and this Basilica was done in mosaics. I could handle going to church there, because if I got bored, there's plenty of interesting sights to look at.(center dome)

For dinner that night, we headed to Union Station. The old train station had been converted into a Mariott hotel, along with shops and restaurants.
We went to the Arch to grab a few dusk shots, then it was back to the hotel and bed, because we were leaving STL early in the morning.