Thursday, May 26, 2011

The Unplanned Garden





I am enjoying spending a lot of time outside this spring. I've been taking on some small scale gardening projects this year. In previous years I decided I was much more interested in quilting than gardening. This year, although I love quilting, it is not something that can be done while a certain little girl is awake so my yard & garden are getting a lot more attention.


I'd like to say that attention is well planned and focused and knowledgeable and experienced but that would not be true. I take random trips to Bi-Mart and look at the different flowers and decide what I want. Then I bring them home and hopefully find a pot for them. I also decided to try to fill in my front flower bed with some flowers. It seemed like a good idea until I started planting. I found that all of my calla lily bulbs had greatly multiplied and were all over the bed....but I had no idea where. So I cautiously dug holes for the new flowers and filled in. There definitely is no rhyme or reason to how that bed is organized right now!


The two plants I did 'plan' on (and actually spend some real money on!) were two tomato plants. We're pretty sure a certain little girl is really going to enjoy picking cherry tomatoes off of these two plants this summer. She's dying of anticipation, can you tell?





Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Getting Ready for the Big 0 - 2!

We have a busy few weeks planned. First, my parents fly in, then we're planning a little 'family' party for Allison's birthday. Mark and I busy working on all sorts of things. I've been having more fun than I ever imagined making fun things for the party! One pack of decorative paper & some digital paper to match and I've been having a blast. I have to make the most of these years when Allison doesn't have opinions about what her party should be like. Mark has been busy, too. He's making a present for Allison's birthday....hopefully it will back from the painter's by the end of the week. Until it comes home and I snap a picture you'll just have to believe me that Mark is a.m.a.z.i.n.g.l.y talented!

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Picnic Season



Spring has been pretty slow in this part of the country. In order to make the most of any dry & somewhat sunny days we've had around here we've been enjoying lots of picnics. Last week we ate dinner in our back yard. Someday we'll hopefully have a real outdoor dining set. For now our camping table and folding chairs works great. Oh, and yes, Baby had to join us for dinner as well. She joins us for most meals!


On Sunday Allison & I were on our own for lunch. I made her lunch while she played on the patio. She came to check on me regularly (the bottom photo). We're working on learning not to push on the screen. And the first photo below? I wanted to post it to show off how good she is getting at drinking out of a real cup. I still only trust her with water in a real cup but for the most part she is pretty good at not spilling. I can't believe how grown up she is looking!















Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Finished in 2011 No. 5

My part in this quilt is complete so I'm adding this one to my 'Finished in 2011' List. My friend, Natalie, made this quilt (with my assistance) for her new niece, due in June. We had a great time making this quilt, again using a crazy quilt pattern. We found perfectly matching borders, which were probably a bit flowery for our original intent - but they give the quilt a nice vintage feel. I didn't take a picture of the back, it is a very nice lavender polka dot. And we used left-over block fabric for the binding. Natalie is finishing up the binding this week so the quilt can be given away next weekend.....and hopefully her new niece will be snuggling in it before too long!