Blogger's Quilt Festival Entry

As such a new quilter it is intimidating to even post with some of the bloggers I follow! They are so amazing! But it is inspirational! I have been quilting for a year now. I am submitting my favorite quilt in my short quilting career!

I made this throw for my own couch and am so pleased with how it turned out! It was quite a process. I started out with brown, navy, white and red fabrics but after cutting them all and laying it out... it just wasn't what I was going for! That's when I saw the gorgeous turqouis fabric at my neighbor's quilt shop. It fit perfectly! Just what I had in mind. This was also my first time quilting with half-square triangles and it was so fun! There are a lot of imprefections but I was really surprised by how many corners actually met up! I was running out of fabric for the back but I was able to fit every last scrap in to make it just the right size! I really enjoyed creating the back for this quilt. My friend, Carol Burkhalter, offered to quilt it on her computerized long arm and it turned out better than I could ever imagine! It is beautiful, thanks to her great quilting designs. So there you have it, my favorite quilt in 1 year of quilting! Hope you all like it! And I apologize for the poor photography :)

Quilt Details -Pieced by Me -Quilted by Carol Burkhalter -Quilt measures 58x58 -Best Category: Throw quilt, Professionally quilted

Hiding and Halloween

I just had to take a picture of this! Our garbage pick up was this morning and this is what I found after they left! They put our neighbors can inside ours! WHY??? Now I don't know whose responsibility this is! :) Do I have to take my neighbors can out and leave it in his yard, or does he have to come get it! Nasty!

My kids are in a hiding phase. That's Jackson under the quilt... and again under the blanket in the car.

And my little penguin and skeleton. They had so much fun at trunk or treat. We had hot chocolate and they got too much candy. It was fun to hand out candy, usually I walk around with the boys, so this was new for me. Luis and I didn't dress up. We are also planning on handing some out Wednesday night, but we don't have much left. Probably the equivalent of one bag. Hope you all have a great Halloween... with lots of treats and not so many tricks!

Misc...

First of all... did anyone know how damaging Purell is to finished wood? I found out. Remember the dresser I found the boys at a garage sale in great condition? Here is what it looks like now. After the boys pumped pretty much the whole bottle of purell on to it. Not cool.

And who ever thought I would be such a homemaker? The velcro came completely off of the top strap of Jacob's shoe, so I sewed it back on!!!

Jacob has seen Jackson do school time and decided he wants to join in. Look at how awesome his letters are! With no help at all! Not even 3 years old! What a smartie!

Last Saturday we had a lot of fun together. We all went to the park and played some soccer. Then we played at the playground. Jacob got sad very quickly because Jackson kept stealing the ball. But then when Luis would steal the ball from Jax, Jax would get mad. It was pretty funny. Here are some cute pics. Oh, and yesterday I took the boys to the park for a picnic. First picnic ever. It was 80 degrees and since it is mid October I figured it might be the last chance to enjoy warm weather. So we ate sandwiches and chips and played!

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Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

I really wanted to feel the holiday spirit! It's never too early for Luis and me. We are already listening to Christmas music. I decided on Saturday to make pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. I used a recipe I found online. I was expecting a lot of pumpkin flavor so when I tried one, I thought it was a little bland. I would have also liked it to be a little sweeter. A friend on facebook recommended a super easy recipe. (1 box of spice cake mix, 1 can of pumpkin, chocolate chips!) I am going to attempt that recipe this weekend. I am hoping it's a little sweeter since it uses a cake mix. This is the one I used. Ingredients: 1 cup canned pumpkin 1 cup white sugar 1/2 cup vegetable oil 1 egg 2 cups all-purpose flour 2 teaspoons baking powder 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon milk 1 tablespoon vanilla extract 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional) Directions: 1.Combine pumpkin, sugar, vegetable oil, and egg. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, ground cinnamon, and salt. Dissolve the baking soda with the milk and stir in. Add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture and mix well. 2.Add vanilla, chocolate chips and nuts. 3.Drop by spoonful on greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for approximately 10 minutes or until lightly brown and firm. ---Even though I wasn't the biggest fan of my cookies... the boys are! Jackson and Jake devoured them! He asks me for one every 5 minutes! I am totally surprised! I thought he wouldn't go for them! It makes me really happy! Here's a pic of the boys enjoying their cookies... and Jake giving you a great view!

Skyping

We had a lot of fun skyping with LizAlan last night. It was the first time we told the boys that we will be going to their house for Christmas. Well, they were VERY excited about that idea. That's all they have talked about! We put the boys to bed after our conversation and around 11pm Jackson woke up... probably to go potty, but he wandered out to where Luis was still doing homework at the computer and started asking us when we are going to Liz and Alan's house! As soon as he woke up this morning, he came out to find me and said, "Mom, we are going to Liz and Alan's house!" It was hilarious! He reminds me of this fact every few minutes and I try to get him to understand that it is still 2 months away! I just thought it was funny how even in his groggy sleepiness he remembers that he is going to Liz and Alan's house! Can't wait til Christmas.

Birthdays coming up!

I love holidays, and I love birthdays. Jackson's birthday is November and Jacob's is January. So both of them are coming up pretty quick. I asked Jackson last night what he wanted for his birthday dinner and he said quesadillas! OK! Then I asked him if he wanted cake or cupcakes. He wants cupcakes. So Jacob wanted to talk about his birthday of course, and told me that he wants a birthday cake and cupcakes for dinner! :) Wise guy! Would it be weird to get Jackson a bike for his birthday... in a cold Illinois winter? He is going to want to ride it all the time but it will be so cold! I really want him to have a bike but don't want to just randomly get him one next summer, it feels like it should be a present! Once it gets really cold playgroup moves to the church cultural hall... the kids bring their bikes and I think Jax really wants one. He did last year. But it is only once a week. What do you think? Then I could get Jake a little bike too for his birthday. Another thing... it was cute. We have been reading scriptures with the boys everynight using these books. They have the stories and tons of pictures.

Well, we were reading about Lehi's son, Jacob, and my Jacob was so excited to hear his name! Everytime we read the name Jacob he would smile so big and giggle at the sound of his own name in the scriptures! I liked that because this is the Jacob that inspired me to choose Jacob as his name!

Just some random stuff... Let's see, Jackson's soccer season ends this week. It seems short, but I'm kinda glad. It was very hectic on soccer nights, trying to make them rush dinner... I can only imagine what it will be like with more kids, and all of them doing soccer or some other activity. Luis had to go back to the dermatologist again to have his finger worked on again. He had a big blood blister, I forget what it's called, but they have to burn it off. Well, it came back, so he had to have it burned off again. I really hope it's gone for good. He has a bandage on his finger and yesterday Jackson got a nice big cut on his finger and he was comforted by the idea that now he has a bandaid like Daddy! :)

When Liz and Silvia were here we found these minion shirts and I bought them because I wanted the boys to be minions for halloween. But I can't find the overalls that would have fit Jake, so I kinda scrapped the idea. The boys love the shirts though. I think this year we are just going to recycle costumes. We have a penguin costume that Jax wore that now fits Jake and Jackson still fits in the skeleton costume from last year. What can I say, I'm cheap!

Jacob's Quilt

I finished Jacob's quilt... I asked Jacob what he wanted the town name to be and he said Jacob, so his quilt is now called Jacobtown. :) I still have to sew on a label but other than that, I washed it and it's completely done. He loves it. I made it twin size so it is big on his toddler bed. But that's ok, I can just fold it in half this winter.

I quilted the chevron pattern on the upper and lower half of the quilt (Stitched in the ditch) and one through the center of each chevron. I did this part on my own machine.

It's probably hard to see, but I outlined each of the buildings and the roads on Chris' long arm. I used green thread so it would blend in with the grass... and I'm thankful that I did because it was very hard! I thought it would be so easy, but turns out, when you are trying to trace someting it's easier to see your mistakes! There are a lot of them! I would rather do a meander or make up a swirly design on my own over this!

And here is proof that Color Catchers work! That is a clean, unused sheet next to the one I pulled out of the washer with Jacobtown!

New haircuts

I'm always impressed with Luis' barber skills :) The boys look great in their new haircuts. My boys are kinda hairy... in case you haven't noticed. Jackson has a really hairy forehead. Compare his new cut to the one with his new glasses in the last post. Notice all that hair? Well, this is the first time it ever occurred to us to buzz it off! He looks like a whole new kid! With a normal hairline! So handsome! Doesn't he look older? And Luis let Jackson stand on a chair and watch the whole haircut. Jackson loved it and was so well behaved!

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Jackson's New Glasses

I don't know if I ever told everyone but Jacob does not need glasses. He has just been squinting to be silly I guess. Doctor said his eyes are fine. Jackson got these new glasses. Aren't they cute? We got him the awesome kind that are completely flexible... so you can literally bend them in half and they won't break. I am afraid that Jax might be able to find a way to break them though, considering it is his 5th pair of glasses in less than 1 year.

Downsizing

Luis and I went through our budget last week and found several areas where we can cut back and save. We cancelled several programs that we rarely use, saved money on our internet... and made a major cutback on our cell bill. We decided to downgrade our plan and phones since we rarely use the smartphone features and it's expensive to have an unlimited everything plan! The main things I did were Facebook app, email, and games! Not really worth and extra $100 a month. So we bought cheap phones online, which turned out to be in mint condition! We are now saving all that money! YEAY! Sadly, no more games with friends... and we limited our minutes... so if you want to talk for a long conversation... it's probably best to call at night. We have 1500 minutes, so it's not like we can never talk, it's just that now, after a long time of never counting minutes, we are back to that!

Our beautiful photons... which we are trying to sell.

Our new phones! Luis' rugged manly flip phone and my cute itty bitty phone! It slides open to get a little bigger, but it's tiny! It's hard to go back once you have enjoyed more technology, but it's worth it to us!

Thanks Mom!

Dave brought me this gift from Mom! Isn't it cute!!! I love it! I am amazed by how straight your stitches are Mom!

A quick Jackson funny. To keep the kids from killing each other in the back seat lately we have been singing songs in the car. We were singing Old McDonald and Jackson added this version. "And on his farm he had a train, with a choo choo here and a choo choo there..." It was really cute.

Big boys!!!

Daddy and Jackson got flu shots on Saturday. I am a big believer in immunizations! It is free with our insurance... so why not!? And for those of you who doubt... it is scientifically impossible to get the flu from an inactivated flu shot. It's a dead virus, it can't cause disease! You may feel a little under the weather because your body has kicked into gear to make antibodies... but you don't have the flu. And if you do get the flu during the season, it's a different strain! Or simply the common cold that you are mistaking for the flu! Ok, I'm done with my rant! I got my shot a few weeks ago, but Jackson was freaking out so I decided we needed to wait until Luis was with us. So we went to Walmart and got the shots Saturday. Luis got his first and Jackson was very nervous for him. He was crying just at the thought, but we kept telling him to be tough and he can play Cars afterwards. He sat on Daddy's lap and was crying, but trying so hard to be tough. It was over before he knew it and he got a smiley face band aid. He has been reminding me ever since then that he is a big boy and he is good at getting shots :) A little Jacob funny... he is very skinny. He is tall though. This is a problem. Most pants now have the adjustable waist but some of the older hand me downs dont. So we were walking into walmart and a lady stopped Luis and said "Excuse me, your son's pants are around his ankles." Haha, yes they were! And his woody and buzz underwear was in full view! :) So after shots we went straight to childrens and bought him a belt :) Which he loves!