sister's quilt

as promised, here is a snapshot of the quilt that i made for my sister for Christmas. thanks family for taking these for me and getting them to me when you did!

front and back

i will get pictures and story up of the quilt i made for kendall's grandmother later this week! happy tuesday everyone!

oh january

Between the shelving books during the days and trying to exercise in the evening, life has been flying by. there are so many Christmas presents that I made for family and friends that i never blogged about [shame on me]. the one problem is that i did not take pictures of most of them [again...shame on me]. probably my favorite quilt that i have made to date is a zigzag one that i made for my sister [sadly...this is one of those presents i do not have a picture of]. i found this fabric online and absolutely fell in loooove with it. the mustard print on top might be my favorite print of all times.

i promise to have a picture asap [if my family up north would help me out with a few snapshots...that would be lovely].

i also completed a quilt the beginning of this month that meant a whole lot to me. i made my first tee shirt quilt for a dear friend. this was not just any tee shirt quilt. without getting into too much detail, one of mine and my husbands closest friends was taken to be with Jesus last september 7, 2010. Heath's death was difficult for family, friends, and out entire community. i felt honored and privileged when Heath' sister asked me if i would make a quilt out of his tee shirts. there are many elements that go together when making a quilt: cutting, piecing, sewing, ironing, more sewing, pinning, etc. i have come to see the importance of each step and the transformation from lifeless, random pieces of fabric, into something which breathes life and warm is the reason i quilt. however, completing this process with something of someone who meant so much, it was quite a different experience. while emotional, it was tender and refreshing knowing that these pieces of fabric that once hung on Heath's shoulders would be comfort and warmth for his dear sister.

I will be honest, i was not completely thrilled with the back. if i had more time and more space, i would like to think that it would have turned out a bit differently. this ended up being almost a queen size quilt thus marking the largest quilt i had ever completed. also, please forgive the pictures; it was a rainy day and we had to snap the quickest pictures ever. i am proud to say that one of my quilts has traveled the world and is now in Australia with Hannah. She is completing a DTS [discipleship training school] with the organization YWAM [youth with a mission]. if you would like to read more about what Hannah is doing, click here.

we have a busy weekend. wedding shower tonight and birthday party tomorrow for my husband's grandmother [i just finished up her present and threw it in the wash...i will post pictures on that present after she gets it!]. our little man turned 10 months old yesterday. i can't believe it. i love him so much, even his mullet and obsessive thumb sucking.

hello 2012

So, I turned all the noise off in the house and the silence is absolutely therapeutic. I forget how much I need the silence. Throughout the hustle and bustle of all the various components of my day, I am pretty consistently surrounded by noise. Being that it is close to the start of a new year [it is still January so it counts]; I am still working on my new years resolutions. Sitting in silence for a bit of time is one of them. Check. Enjoying the little things is one of them as well. So as I sit here in silence, I am enjoying a cup of hot chocolate, which brings me to my next new years resolution: enjoying a three mile run tomorrow due to the enjoyment of hot chocolate this evening =). I am also making it a point to create more over this year. Being an artist at heart, I find that I am most alive while creating. It makes sense, considering God’s beautiful ability to create, that he would grant us those same feelings of joy, contentment, and accomplishment when creating. Being that my awesome parents surprised me with a new sewing machine for Christmas, I really have no excused now. I am striving this year to complain less. Not that I think of myself as an “over-complainer”, its just that complaining breeds negativity and I just don’t have the time or energy for negativity in my life. I want to plant a garden this year. Last year, we had the best of intentions. Then Loudon came, and we quickly realized that a baby requires a lot of attention [who knew?]. Both Kendall and I are striving to live healthier lives [who doesn’t right?], which includes better eating habits [hot chocolate doesn’t count…in case anyone was wondering] and exercise.  We did join a CSA last fall and it was such a great decision. We received produce every Saturday from an organic farm 30 miles north of home and it was ah-mazing. We are planning on joining for the spring/summer session and I am sooooo ready for it. [FYI: if any of you live in the Columbus area and are interested I would be happy to give you more information!]

We had a wonderful first Christmas with Loudon. Being that I was 6 months preggo and we had just bought a house, Christmas last year was a bit off. This year, I was determined to enjoy the season for as long as possible. Thanksgiving night we went out and bought our Christmas tree and decorated the next day. We just took it down last Wednesday [needless to say, it was a pretty brown color and most of the needles were on the floor….however it still smelled wonderful]. I made our stockings, which hung by the chimney with care. And, in true Christmas spirit, I drove myself crazy making presents for people. Of course, I am going to include pictures, however a few projects did not get photos snapped…so give me a bit to get those taken care of.

Loudon is almost 10 months old and my baby is becoming a little boy. He is a crawling machine and loves to babble. He is soo super close to walking and I am sure it is going to happen in the next month or so. His two front bottom teeth are in and one random top-side tooth has come in. In the words of our pediatrician, Loudon has thunder thighs and that is where most of his 20 pounds is located =).  As of Christmas he was still waking up in the middle of the night. The last week of my Christmas break, Kendall and I both felt that it was time to break him of this. We needed our sleep [ 5:30am comes real early] and honestly nursing him was the easiest way [at the time] to get him back to bed [that probably makes me a bad mom]. I just kept thinking, he is going to sleep through the night when he is ready. And he would…for a random night, or for a few nights and then he would start waking up again. At this point, I knew that it was not that he was waking up because of hunger, but because he wanted to hang out with mom or dad [this kid is such a social butterfly]. Finally, it was time, and we all handled the transition relatively smoothly. Everyone has there opinion of which method works the best, and we went back and forth on what would be the best for our family. It took a few nights of Loudon crying for about 15 minutes or so for him to finally just fall back asleep on his own. While we have still had a few random noises at night, we are all sleeping through the night and mom and dad are such happier people =). That being said, I must retire for the evening. One last new years resolution is to get to bed at a reasonable hour [wish me luck with this one =/]

family picture

my two favorite men

homemade stockings