Finished Pillows

I've finished up the pillows!  Hand quilting was more tricky than I thought, well, not the quilting exactly but keeping all of the batting and backing lined up while quilting.  Of course I had the thing held together with straight pins instead of the super fancy quilting safety pins I saw, so that probably didn't help matters.  I decided to quilt down the seams which was probably a good call since my stitches were a tad uneven to say the least.  If you taught your seven year old to quilt you'd probably see a similar result.  David and Henry don't seem to mind though......the pillows are very cushy and excellent for jumping on/making pillow forts with so they fit all of their requirements......

I embroidered the boys' names onto the back of the pillows too which they were really excited about!  Maybe soon I'll get up my nerve to make a real quilt!

A Lazy Weekend

We spent the weekend mostly napping.......

.....and eating delicious banana pudding that the boys and I made for daddy for Father's Day.  Well I made the pudding, they ate mini Nilla wafers.....this is becoming a Father's Day tradition......

David Draws Something

.....something that actually looks like the thing he was trying to draw!  You may not be impressed by my little artist's chalk creation but I do believe this is the first time he has successfully drawn a train (or, let's face it, anything).  I was trying to distract him while I made dinner and asked him to make a picture for Mr. Leroy before he arrived and this is what he came up with--I'm sure David must have had an inkling about just how much Mr. Leroy also loves trains.......

Do you see it?  

A Little Patchwork

I'm not sure what has possessed me recently, but I got the itch to create some pillows for the boys room and I couldn't rest until I started.  I have a not-so-secret life goal to sew a quilt but alas I have no idea how to actually quilt  so I've never tried before.  This time, however, I've thrown caution to the wind and decided to quilt anyway--after all, I'll never learn how to make a quilt unless I try to make a quilt....right?  Well, like most of my sewing projects I'm totally making this up as I go......

I thought these euro shams would be perfect for practicing since they're so much smaller than a quilt :)

I went to the fabric store (with the boys--mistake #1) to grab some extra fabric and quilting supplies.  The lovely woman at the counter asked what pattern I was using..... I replied that I was winging it....she didn't look very hopeful......

Well I managed to use some graph paper to sketch out a design and then patchworked my pieces into the right shape...I was pretty worried it would turn into a misshapen mess.....then I got really fancy, looked up some pictures online for a how-to, and mitered the corners too.  I know, you're super impressed :)

A lot of the fabrics I'm using are from my random fabric stash which mostly consists of old clothes and cast offs--including our old holey duvet cover.  I thought it would be fun (and easier) to use the button closure from the duvet for the back of my pillow.  This ended up probably being a lot more work than just making a normal back to the pillows but I think it will end up being cute--hopefully!  I also want to embroider the boys names on the edge there to make them a little more special.  I was going to do it to the front but I chickened out when I began to think that I might ruin them with my kind-of-sad hand embroidery skills.....

I've started hand quilting them now.....I'll let you know how they turn out!  For now how about a little cowboy David to tide you over.....

Ant Farm Update

We've let our sneaky little ants free, but then that was probably their plan all along.  A few days after we made our little ant farm all ant activity appeared to cease, not an ant was to be found, and almost all the tunnels had collapsed.  I confirmed with Chris and we decided that the ants had most probably *ahem* not made it or were on their way to not making it.....What could we do but dump them out?

What we then discovered was that the ants had managed to lift the interior jar, move half of their dirt in and had taken up residence there instead.

*Note to self:  even though the tutorial said nothing about putting a lid on the interior jar it is indeed an essential step.*  

To be fair, this possibility had crossed my mind when we were constructing the original ant farm but I never save our jar lids much to Chris' chagrin.   You see in our town you have to pay for your trash but not your recycling.  Chris would have me put everything in the recycling bin....I however maintain that the lids are not labeled as recyclables so they should go in the trash.  Feel free to correct me--or more likely him :)--if you can settle this years long argument for us......

I've saved a couple of new jars with lids  so we will try again and hopefully our ants won't go into hiding this time.....

Our Farm

We got ambitious yesterday and decided to make a last minute ant farm.  I thought I took lots of pictures of the process...Chris digging into our front yard ant hill, the ants going everywhere (including up his pants!), the filling of the jar, David squeezing a ridiculously large dollop of honey on top, the boys sweetly holding up the finished product and smiling....but apparently I had neglected to put the memory card in my camera and then neglected to notice the warning that popped up after each photo that said there was.no.memory.card.  I'm a genius :)

Anyway, we used this tutorial that involved two jars with some holes poked in the top--it's really complicated :)  Then we dumped some worker ants and apparently some babies into said jar, added some food and closed the lid tight.

I never really got the whole ant farm thing and, as far as I can remember, I've never had one myself but this thing is amazing!  We've been watching the ladies digging furiously, making tunnels and moving what appear to be eggs all over the place--well eggs or some kind of food--we really have no idea......I do know though that all the worker ants are ladies and they only nap for a minute at a time for a total of 4.5 or so hours a day so that at any given time only 20% of a nest is resting.  I know you were dying to know that.....you're welcome.  We've been doing a lot of ant reading as of late and The Life and Times of the Ant is our current favorite and pretty much where all of my ant knowledge comes from....

Here are some replacement pics I took today of David loving on our newest pets......

You can kind of see the tunnels in this picture.......

....and here's a close up of the babies/potential food thingies.....We should probably work on our nature identification skills here.............

Well, I need to run and soak my fingers in some more lime juice--they are currently a fiery burning disaster from the jalapenos I was chopping up during naptime for our dinner.  Of course I wasn't wearing gloves--but to be fair I've never had a reaction like this before so I don't think it's entirely my fault.   Any suggestions for what to do with burning jalapeno fingers would be much appreciated.....and the next time you see me taking pictures feel free to ask if I do in fact have a memory card in my camera....apparently that's an important picture taking component.....Oh, and you should go dig up an ant hill.   Like right now :)

Jack Be Nimble, Jack Be Quick.....

This ingenious game of nursery rhyme singing/candlestick jumping lasted a good part of our morning.....I know, I know, you're all awestruck by my amazing drawing on the back of my grocery list......

The Train Museum

We spent last weekend at Nick & Elizabeth's house up in Scranton which the boys have been begging to do since the graduation party so they could have "sleepovers" with their cousins.  Obviously we had to swing by the train museum since our boys are just a tad infatuated with all things train.  And bonus, apparently the Scranton train museum is also a national park so military plus three guests get in free!

David really wanted to see everything a little more up close than the museum staff would probably prefer.....don't worry I didn't actually let him jump into the turntable......

We also took a short train ride around the station that involved plenty of track switching.....so obviously that was incredibly exciting as well.....

David might have had one of the most exciting days of his little life :)  And I know you're all dying to know...how did I survive in a vehicle that didn't allow me to be in the front seat, well don't worry.....I didn't get the least bit nauseous :)

I think we need to look into taking an overnight train trip somewhere.....the boys would be beyond excited and I would sit in the dining car drinking tea and knitting as I imagined myself riding across the English countryside...........

Bigger is Better....

when it comes to bubbles that is.  We have one of those big circle bubble wands that make gigantic bubbles but the boys have a hard time with it and daddy is the one who always ends up in charge of bubble making--which isn't bad all of the time but sometimes boys just gotta blow their own ginormous bubbles.......

We found these wands at one of those educational toy stores and they are a big hit.  I just put our bubbles into a rimmed baking pan to give them something to dip in and let my little men go to town.

Excellent bubble blowing/furious bubble wand waving ensued and everyone was a lot less sticky than when they play with shorter bubble wands where little fingers are more likely to get dunked in bubble solution.......ah, bubbles....what a wonderful invention..........