Quilts

I have been working on quite a lot of quilts but mostly quilts my Oma has made and I'm just free motion quilting them for her. I won't post pics of those quilts cause they aren't ones I've made and I haven't taken any close ups of my quilting on them. Any who, the first quilt "Tom's Tumbling T's", is one my mom asked me to make for Tom for Christmas. It was a pretty simple pattern and I enjoyed doing this one. My mom just went through my fabric stash and pick fabrics so it has a very scrappy look to it which I love. She did buy one piece of fabric that had all the divisions of the police department on it to be a part of the T's and police car back fabric for the backing. Tom's a police officer by the way :). It turned out really nice and I just stitched in the ditch to outline the blocks. Oh it was huge too!

 The second one is for my soon to be born niece or nephew of whom I have named corn muffin until baby is born and we know it's name. There's more to the name but it's only for Aunt Coco and corn muffin's momma to giggle about. Not knowing what corn muffin is going to be was so hard for me when it came time to make my goodies. I am so built to design based off the person or the sex of a baby so this was stretching my comfort zone but so worth it. I think it kind of ended up leaning way more towards the boy side but I love how it turned out and figured baby isn't really going to care what color it is. I love the jungle theme and was kind of inspired by it not only when my 5 year old saw the fabric and lead me to it but also because corn muffin's momma was painting a mural at a church which had lots of animals in it and it just spoke to me.

Not sure there will be too many of my quilts to share this year since my Oma has a goal that is pretty productive over the next couple years, but what I do get done will be exciting to share with you all. I might even start taking close ups of my free motion so you can see what I DO work on. :)

Easter Sunday

We had a great Easter weekend with family in town and Sunday was such a wonderful day. The kid's Great Grandma hid eggs in the back yard for the kids to find and then the kids got the chance to whack the pinata. I had all good intentions of making a chick pinata this year but the first one caved in so I got behind and in my massive rush to get it done I settled for the "golden egg" that has the best prize in it of all.

 My girls skipping through the back yard with baskets, it cracks me up how naturally it seems for them.

 And the boys trying so hard to find eggs as well, grandpa hid them very well!

 Miss Maid taking her turn at the pinata.

 Autumn was next.

 Dakotah trying his hardest to be the one to crack the egg which he did put a good dent in it.

 Then Colby who managed to smack it off it's rope (which happened to Autumn as well) which then lead to dad just smashing it on the ground. This years pinata just didn't want to stay in the tree on it's rope this year.

Daisy enjoying her Easter treat, what was left on the ham bone.

Play Date Fun

Last Wednesday the Mahan ladies came over for a play date in which they enjoyed playing upstairs in the girl's room, watching some TV and dying eggs. Madi requested that they get to enjoy this together and I was all about it. I'm glad I did it cause it actually was all the dying that went on in this house this year. The other kids haven't mentioned anything about it so hopefully they really haven't noticed. ;)

 Something was sure cracking her up!

 Precious moments that mommas get to have with their little ones while their home!

I could not get a picture of her looking at the camera for nothing! Jennifer managed to get one but it's on my phone so it won't be making this post.

April Fools Day

Ok, normally I'm not that ornery....really, I'm not! However this year seemed to spark something in me when I was presented with the perfect opportunity to play a trick on my kids. The school schedule called for the first day of spring break to start on Friday April 1, April Fool's day. It hit me so fast that I had to find a way to make the kids think they had to go to school still but didnt quite have all the details sorted until I unloaded my idea on my husband. He had the thought of a letter sent to the teachers that they could get to them. Genius! So I typed up this nice "official" letter stating that due to a miscalculation of snow days/ make up days they had to have school on April first for a make up day. I then wrote a note to the teachers explaining my mischevious plan and my need of their help. I asked that they would take the letter and put it in their homework folders to take home on Thursday, the day they thought wa their last. I sent the letters in sealed envelopes Thursday morning and told my kids how important it was to get it to their teachers. The teachers are fabulous! They went above and beyond and copied my letter onto official school letter head paper and put them into the kid's folders as asked. My kids came home, emptied thier folders as normal and the grumbles startes as my 10 year old read the letter. "How could it be? It's not fare! I'm so mad!" It was so hard to not smile or laugh and have to play the part of "that stinks, well they have to do what needs to be done so you aren't in school longer into the summer". Hee Hee! They went to bed at school night time, got up at school morning time, went through the whole normal routine and headed out to the road to wait fo the bus. My husband, 5 year old and I went to the garage and waited in the van for about 5 minutes or so and when we noticed my 10 year old start to get worried they missed the bus, we drove up the driveway and told them we would take them to school on our way to run errands. We pulled into the parking lot at the school where they started to notice that teachers vehicles weren't there and yelled "April Fools"! It was great! They couldn't believe we had tricked them and how good we got them. I loved it! If it hadn't been for the fact I had to play it off, I would have had my camera with me to capture their faces. Well, after that we let them in on the rest of our plan which was breakfast at IHOP. I fed them so little for breakfast before school they were probably wondering what was wrong with me and probably so happy to hear they got to go eat now.

 Good times, but it didn't stop there. I seriously have no idea what got into me this year but next year, I'm so watching my back!
Almost every Friday night is Fabulous Friday Dessert, this is not out of the ordinary for me to try new desserts. I decided to make this scrumptious looking sponge cake with vanillay frosting and sprinkles at that. After dinner I asked my husband to help me dish up dessert cause I was tired after a busy day working in the yard with the kids. He asked what he could do and I handed him a knife and told him to cut everyone a piece of cake. The kids all gathered around (only the 10 and 5 year old knew what was up) waiting in anticipation for their cake or in 2 of their cases, for dad's reaction when he cut the cake and found out that it was.........

 really a "sponge" cake. My husband gently pressed the knife into the cake and when it pressed back at him he was like "what?". So he decided on the "saw" method of cutting and then it hit him as he was sawing and I was finally laughing so hard I was crying as well as about to pee my pants! It was GREAT! The kids laughed too when they figured out what was going on.

What a good sport!

Guest room/Rodney's den redo

We have guests coming for Easter and I was tired of the taxi cab yellow we let our teenager pick out for this room when we moved in. I was so excited when Rodney told me I could have at it in this room and redo it. Walmart had this cute plaid wall paper boarder that I fell in love with, on clearance so I bought it as my inspiration. This room is kind of hard to take pictures of so all I got was one shot before and after of the same corner.

 Good bye needing to wear my sunglasses at night and......

hello peaceful, inviting and so pretty new look. I have since these pictures were taken, made a bed skirt, hung up some pieces of art that were painted by my grandfathers as well as a wall hanging I stitched all last year and finished at my retreat this February. This is such a better look and such a nice room. Rodney, when we don't have guests, gets to escape to this room and shut the door to do all his school work. It is being used a lot more efficiently now.