to tell you the honest truth

sweet things

New Lollies for Ava's room!

Remember this:

 

Now, it's also an embroidery pattern!

 

Not exactly what this will turn in to, but I like it.  Pete said her shoes look like they are floating, so I probably need a better skin color thread next time. (I was using what I had on hand).  This is also my first attempt at doing a log cabin quilt block, and I like it too.  If you notice any un-even-ness, that is because it is suppose to be "wonky"....that's what the quilting world calls it....the wonky log cabin.  My wonky-ness is very slight compared to some.  I was able to use some fabrics I swapped for too, so that was a highlight for me.  Anyway, that's what I've been up to lately.

Have a great day!

6 months!

So Ava's 6 months old now and I couldn't be happier about it!  She's doing all the cute things now...smiling, laughing, playing with toys, making sounds and spitting, eating baby cereal, sitting up, trying to crawl and growing hair!!!  She has been a super sweet baby and is a little dream come true!

Here are some snapshots I took a few days ago while she played in her room and I cleaned....well after I took photos...notice the clothes still on the floor....or on the other hand, don't notice the clothes on the floor. 

This is her little "crink face" she always does.

We love you little miss ava!

for fabric junkies

I've been doing some totally fabulous fabric swapping on flickr lately.  It probably sounds strange to most, but the fabric loving people are really into this!  It works like this:  I upload photos to my flickr of the fabrics I want to swap, I list the amounts I have available to swap and I also can list a wish list of fabrics that i would hope to aquire through swapping.  Then I wait for the flickr mails to arrive!  I can decline or accept someone's offer or do some negotiating.  A couple swaps have come in the mail and a couple more are on their way.  I am super excited about the variety of cute fabrics I now have to work with.  I won't bore you with anymore details, but all I have to say is...........YAY for swapping!  :)

TTFN...tata for now! 

Lollipops and Lemons

Today as I was embroidering some lollipops, I was contemplating life a little bit.  I started to think how our personalities can be sweet, like a lollipop, but at other times....sour...perhaps like a lemon.  We all have different personalities with different strengths and weaknesses.  Our very own "Lollipops and Lemons".

 

As humans, none of us are perfect.  We all make mistakes.  We absolutely WILL make mistakes.  No doubt we will trip, no doubt we will stumble...

Every.
Single.
One of us. 
Not just me, not just you. 

All of us have the "sweet and the sour" and we all will need the tolerance and forgiveness of each other to make it through this life.  I think everyone can find something about everyone that is sour, if that is what we are looking for.  And on the contrary, we can all find something sweet about everyone, if that is what we are looking for.  I know it is very difficult for me to find the "sweet" in my 3 year old right now!  But it's there if I look.   

The challenge we all have?  To NOT focus on that sour in others.  We ALL have that challenge, not just me, not just you.  We all need to be looking for the sweet.  I feel it would be unwise for any person to think that they do not require the forgiveness and tolerance of others at many times throughout life.  We are all the same that way.

I know that at times, I have been guilty of finding the sour in others.  I plan to get better at focusing on the sweet that we all have. 

But don't expect me to perfect okay!?  ;) (wink)

P.S.
This post is meant to be sweet, not sour.  In case you were wondering.  :)      

miniquilts, mugs and milestones....okay, and memories

I have 3 mini snippet quilts ready for quilting!  Yay!  When they are all done, I will show you.  ;)

Next up, MUGS!  (exciting, I know.)

Pete went to Florida again for work....it was a long HOT week when he was gone.  He always brings back little surprises for us.  This time he brought back Nasa Mugs.  He has been able to tour the Space Center the last couple times he has gone and has been able to go and see and do things nobody usually gets to see and do!  Basically, "special clearance".  He has been very fascinated by it all, if you can imagine.  Which, if you know Pete, you can imagine his fascination quite well.  So we all love and adore our Nasa mugs A LOT around here!  :)  One thing I will add about Pete...just because I feel like saying something nice about him....is that I am very grateful and impressed with Pete's honesty with his job.  Since he works from home 2-3 days per week, he has plenty of opportunity to "pretend" he is working.  This is never an option for Pete.  If anything, he OVER estimates his time and works without compensation.  A slacker he is definitly not.  In my opinion, he is quite the stellar employee.  I appreciate him everyday for his dedication to working hard and being honest with his time.

 

Now, onto MILESTONES.......

Little Ava is showing some of her brothers up!  Only one has surpassed her in the crawling department of life.  She isn't crawling yet, but at just 5 1/2 months, she is doing what we call "Rocky-Rocky".  It's that cute little back and forth motion they do once they have mastered getting up on all fours.  Way to go Ava!

Here's the action...well as best I could in photos:

 

   

 

 

 

That was tiring! 

Here's a couple other recent pic's of Ava.

And finally, one more milestone....sort of.

There are two brothers that come to the neighborhood, from North Carolina, to spend the summer with their dad.  They are Cody and Ethan and our boys have become friends with them.  They met in the summer of '07.  Summer of '08 they didn't come because their dad was in Iraq (or somewhere).  So we were all excited to see them this summer!  They are really good boys, super nice and well mannered, kind to the little ones, etc.  They already went back to North Carolina and we look forward to seeing them next summer!

Here are the boys in '07:

Caleb, Ethan, Isaac, Taylor, Cody

And here they are summer of '09:

And a group photo:

I love it!

For MEMORIES.....some of my FAV-orite songs of my teen years are playing.....such memories!!

C-ya!

hip hip hooray, it's a sewing day!

I've decided to take a little time to make something fun....just because!  In the quilting world, little mini quilts are all the rave.  They're cute plus they are quick so you get that instant gratification feeling.  The above work in progress in called snippets inspired by Crazy Mom Quilts.  If you do a search on Flickr, you can find lots of examples of this fun technique.  There is a tutorial here on the Lady Harvatine blog, which is the one that Crazy Mom followed.  Anyway, it's super easy and fun.  Especially when doing the little quilts.  The point of the mini quilt you ask?  (I know that my sister wonders! hehe)  Well, yes, they have been known to be used for baby dolls, but also for something like this:

This is an ever so popular photo from the blog of Hillary Lang's Wee Wonderfuls and also found on Flickr.

This is something I would like to do in Ava's room over time.  Probably won't ever get that many up, but on a smaller scale.  So, the floral snippets quilt is the beginning. 

Here's a little red and aqua one I did on Sunday.  Not sure what to do with it yet, but i'll keep you posted. ;) 

C-ya! 

simplify

(Pete and Taylor canoeing)

This past weekend our family discovered Zion's Camp.....a privately owned campground of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, but usable to anyone whether you are mormon or not.  For the price of just $10 you can get into the camp for day use or even to stay the night.  They give access to row boats, canoes, paddle boats and life jackets and have a couple rope swings over the lake that even the young kids can use.  There is plenty of play areas and another big rope swing that my kids also enjoyed.  They have volleyball and archery there too which we didn't take advantage of, but would have if we were spending more time there.  My boys had tons of fun on the obstacle course that the YW use during girls camp....we all remember those!  We loved roasting our hot dogs and making s'mores around the campfire and exploring the campground together.  One of the missionaries there said we came on the perfect weekend because it was very unusual that there were only a couple other families there, so we really did have the place to ourselves!  We were just amazed at how much was offered for entertainment for such an affordable amount.  This is wonderful for those on a budget in this recession!  I know that we are, and have had to trim down our spending, but we had so much fun at Zion's Camp on Saturday, we truly did feel like we were on a vacation for a day and we can't wait to do it again!    

I have to THANK my family members in Spokane who were so willing to change and re-arrange all the housing plans when Pete and I thought maybe we would be joining them at the lake at the last minute.  Even though it took a little chatting to one another to see what could be done to accommodate our family, it did make us feel important and like everyone really did want us to be there.  We ended up missing out anyway, but we so appreciated the effort and kindness on my family's part to make sure we felt included and important.  I really have awesome siblings who would go out of their way to make me and my family feel wanted and needed and that rearranging things was totally worth it and no problem at all.  It was a great message to me about what families should be doing for one another and I hope that when someone else is in my position, that I am a person who is willing to make room for somebody else, even if I have to change my plans to accommodate that person or family.  Hey, it's much funner in the end if everyone you love and care about is with you anyway, so really...everyone wins.  Notice my first song on the playlist is titled "BETTER TOGETHER".  We truly wish we could have been there....thanks for all your effort to make new plans for us!  :) 

Speaking of being on a budget....and I know a lot of us ARE in this financially uncertain time,  I have been so thankful for our church leaders who have put out such wonderful, inspired articles in the Ensign magazines lately to help us.  They have talked so much about being prepared, provident living, stretching your dollar, living within your means, paying off debts, being self reliant and so forth, that it really has helped Pete and I change the way we view our money and spend our money.  It has helped us to re-evaluate and prioritize our spending and has given us the information necessary to get rid of any debts we have and how to be better prepared for the future.  My mother-in-law and I even had a little fun on Provident Living, using the financial calculator to see how fast we can pay off our credit cards!  Anyway, enough chatter...onto the pictures! :)

First, after finding our campsite, we went down to the lake where the boys swam and played on the rope swing.  Pete and Taylor also went on a canoe ride together.  Austin loved getting in and out of the water and was totally occupied going in and out of the 'boathouse'...this cute shack that stored all the lifejackets.

 

Caleb was a bit more into relaxing....what a cutie. :)

After that, everyone was hungry so we headed back to the campsite for roasting!

After all this, basically it was play time!  At first we were worried about how much longer we would be entertained here, but we ended up staying until almost 9 pm and surprised ourselves at how much fun we had and how there was plenty to keep us all entertained!

I thought this old sprinkler was just too cool...especially with it being red!

The End! 

the new do

So, I finally came to terms with the fact that my child usually looked like an orphan with his fluffy mop and that it needed to be tamed.  I really do like the long hair look, so it was difficult to start the chopping process.  Pete really had gone crazy looking at his wild do, so he had no reservations about it what.so.EVER.  Anyway, I'm glad I went through with it because he looks so handsome and I love getting out the gel for styling like I used to when Caleb and Taylor had their short cuts.  Here's the new kid at our house!

C-ya!

posies and pictures

I had fun making a couple head accessories (not really hair accessories yet) for Ava.  She needed some bigger headbands and I saw the cutest shabby posies on Cluck Cluck Sew.  It's a cute crafty quilty blog that's in my sidebar that I am too lazy to do a link for.  She used hers for broaches, but I thought it would be a cute idea for adorning Ava's head!  They were really fun and easy to make.  I just use a bobby pin on the underside of the posie to attach to the headbands and the hat.  That way everything is interchangeable! 

These first pictures are featuring the pink posie attached to a crocheted hat!  They also feature some brotherly love.  ;)  She's so lucky. 

Yes, this is Austin below with a haircut!  That will be another post! 

These next few pictures feature the red posie attached to a headband made from baby tights.  They also feature her latest favorite activity....sucking on her fingers.  Oh, and her chubby legs.  She's so squishable and kissable!

This photo was taken at a park on Memorial Day.

Here's me and Ava.  She's my sweetie pie and I can't help but kiss her a LOT every day!

Bye!

blessed.

A few weeks ago Ava was given her baby blessing at church by her wonderful daddy.  It was a special day to see little Ava looking like a perfect angel.  Pete adores Ava so much and Ava sure lights up big when Pete chats with her.  We were so happy to have my parents here for a few days so they could be at the blessing. My mom and I got to go shopping together and also made sure we got in on the Sonic hype.  What that means is that we got a new Sonic here in town and the lines have been OUTRAGEOUSLY long, but we couldn't resist.  My dad was great and played lots of Wii with my boys.  For the blessing we were so grateful that a few of our siblings and their families could also attend.  We loved having everyone over afterwards for a spaghetti dinner.  It was a wonderful day! 

The blessing dress that Ava wore was also worn by her slightly older cousins, Zoe and Maya.  We were so thrilled that she could wear such a beautiful dress!  A true heirloom!  Thank you Mom and Dad!  :)  Ava's darling headband was made by my sister, Talia.  I love it! 

Now I'm off to care for this little cutie pie!