Sew What?

So here is the quilt in it's almost complete stage. I have one more border to sew on and then the top will be finished. Then off to the quilter it goes and hopefully returns to me more beautiful than when I sent it.

I have had so much fun making this quilt and I am so excited for my next project. Who would have known that making a tie for each of the boys would help me realize that I have a "crafty" hobby that may just become a talent?

Sew Train

When you're a stay at home mom it is good to find a hobby. I was struggling to find something that I enjoyed and that I might be good at until Jaycia introduced me to quilting. She has a business called Sew Sistas and so I thought I would add to her goodness and become Sew Train.

I have completed a couple of ties for the babies (as seen in the following picture) and now I am working on a quilt.

Here is the very first block that I made and I must say that I love my quilt top even though it is not completely sewn together. I have enjoyed the stress relief that it offers and how I finally have something to do for myself. I will have to post pictures once the top is finished and once then when the entire quilt is complete.

I must admit that I have almost given up sewing a couple of times because I want my quilt to be perfect. I am so blessed to have a mother and sister that are quilters so that they can reassure me that the first quilt is never perfect and you get better as you go. As a self-taught quilter and perfectionist, I think I will try to see this through.

Christmas in July

Had I waited any longer to post about our Christmas, it just might have been Christmas in July. Lucky for me I have a sister that encourages me to update my blog and so it is finally being documented.

This year for Christmas we had some visitors, oh how we love to have visitors. This year is exactly the same as last year as far as our company (Dad, Mom and Michaelee) goes but the weather was so much better. Last year we had somewhere around 20 inches of snow and this year we had zero inches of snow. The weather was great but the company was amazing!

When we picked them up from the airport the twins weren't sure about the strangers and even cried a little or maybe I should say a lot.

They warmed up to Michaelee a lot faster than they did to my parents but maybe that is because Michaelee is a little person just like them. On the way home from the airport Mom gave them three cookies each and Dad told her to stop using his tactics to win their love and affection. My dad does love to give the kids whatever they want.

For example, we made a trip to Costco and Makaio grabbed at a big thing of cookies and which to Dad meant that he wanted them and so they ended up in the cart. The cookies were opened before we left the store and Makaio went at them in his usual manner. If there is chocolate to be found that kid can find it! The Cookie Monster personality quickly emerged and soon he was tearing apart the cookie, eating the chocolate and discarding the rest of it on the ground. When Dad noticed how much Makaio liked chocolate we made a trip to the junk food isle where a 5 pound tub of Hershey's Kisses was added to our growing mound of madness.

We were all spoiled during this trip, the boys especially, and don't know how we can ever repay you for your kindness. We had so much fun and hope that you come again soon!

Another Punching Bag...Unfortunately

At the beginning of January we had more visitors and boy did we enjoy their company. Josie and Max came to visit and we had so much fun. Makaio enjoyed playing with Max and even enjoyed the relief that his head and body received as a result of Max's visit. Kekoa on the other hand enjoyed having two people to beat up on, much to my dismay. All in all I think they had a good time together and we are so excited to be able to visit them in the near future.

Here are a couple of pictures of the little guys and all that they did together.

They spent some time looking out the window and pondering some of the greater things in life. Usually the gazing out of the window included more window pounding and screaming at passers-by, a little (or a lot) of shoving to get the best spot and on occasion a bit of crying because the best spot had just been taken over (probably by Kekoa).

We visited the zoo on the one day when the weather was nice enough to be outside. I was a little disappointed that we spent most of our time inside due to weather but hopefully their next visit will allow us to be outside where we can enjoy the beauty of Nashville.

Since the weather has cooled off here the animals are generally moving about their enclosures which makes it more interesting for the babies. The day consisted of a lot of stopping, turning or lifting the strollers so the babies could look in the general direction of the animals while Josie, Sterling and I snapped like crazy with the hope of getting the babies to see an animal. I like to think they they each saw multiple animals that we stopped to look at but that could just be the optimism of a mother.

Of course with three little boys it only seems natural that there were a lot of baths. The fact that the twins treat dinner like shampoo means that we either get a sponge bath or a regular bath every day of the week.

Bath time is probably fun when Max is alone in the calm waters of his tub. Sadly he had to be part of Kekoa's splashfest and he often did not enjoy that. Most of the time the boys were all smiling, sometimes tears were shed and all of the time Kekoa acted as if he had no clue why the others were crying. Believe me, his face in the picture says it all, "You mean I did something to make them cry?!"

Best of all was that I got to spend time with my sister and the babies got to spend time with another cousin. There was definitely a lot of playing going on our house for two weeks straight and I hope that Max misses the twins as much as they miss him!

Something New

Every now and again I have the desire to do something different with the blog. I wish that I had the talent of doing cool designs and making a variety of different changes but such is not the case. So I am stuck with searching the Internet and trying different "pre-made" templates/designs. I don't know if I love this one but it is different and that is what I was going for. I will update more important things shortly.

Tearin' It Up!

A few weeks ago I walked into the boys' bedroom, after they had gone completely quiet, and this is what I found.

I guess this is my own fault since I let them rip up all the junk mail that they would like. However what I don't know is how they got the scriptures down since they were on the top of the chest of drawers and the only thing they could have used was the ottoman. Anyway, what I do know is that we are now missing 10 pages and I guess we'll just have to skip over that part when we get there.

The very next day I found them "tearin' it up again" in the bathroom and loving every minute of it. I might be a bad mother but I left the toilet paper down for a few days for them to enjoy because if I can help it something like this will never happen again.

I love how Makaio's face shows the pure enjoyment of the moment while Kekoa's says, "Oh no, we got caught!"