A Peach Fest

This is what the majority of my Saturday consisted of......

Normally I'm a machine when it comes to projects like canning - I'm super focused and crank out jar after jar with great efficiency.  I had grandiose plans of doing the same yesterday, but the hubby got called into work for the morning, so I had to juggle 2 kids and canning at the same time.  It made the process feel so much more arduous and long.  (Oh wait- because was it harder and it did take so much longer).

 

I still managed to bottle 24 quart jars- not too shabby for a day's work.  Now if only my kitchen would clean itself I would be perfectly happy.

On a Need to Know Basis

Our Activity Day this week involved "Mission Possible"- each girl received these instructions in a manila envelope with express instructions to not open it up until they were completely alone:

WARNING:

TOP SECRET – DO NOT REVEAL CONTENTS OF THIS ENVELOPE *

Your mission (if you choose to accept it) is to complete at least two of these tasks BEFORE the next Activity Day (July 27, 2011). Make sure NO ONE finds out about your mission (especially brothers and sisters).*

*A parent may be included in your mission as needed.

· Pick up trash in a public area

· Do yard work for someone

· Make a treat and drop it off for a neighbor

· Clean up a mess at home that you did not make

· Write a nice note to a family member

· Clean an entire room in your home (other than your room)

· Make a card and drop it off for an elderly person

· Be very nice/helpful (with no negative comments) for a full 24 hours with your family

Once you have completed at least 2 tasks write about 1 of them in your journal. Come prepared to share your completed missions on July 27th at Activity Days. Those that are successful in completing their mission will receive a sweet reward.

We got together and cleaned/sanitized the nursery toys while talking about what secret service they each did. Here's their sweet reward....

I'm Back

After a couple of weeks without being able to sew (out of town, painting, and general summer madness), I was really starting to get the itch.  I had a little catching up to do with the Skill Builder Sampler. 
Here's the 4th block- Pin Wheels:

Here's the 5th block- Arizona:

I finally got around to piecing the back of my ladybug quilt....


Here's the inspiration for the quilt..... I painted my little girl's room a light yellow, and added these adorable ladybug decals. I got them from Graphical Interiors .  You should seriously check out their stuff - it's so cute!

This Week's Stats: New projects - 0
Completed projects - 0
Currently in progress - 4
Quilts to start - 2 (Baby Niece Quilt, Baby Girl Quilt)

Check out the other WIP at Freshly Pieced.

The Potter Ending

I went with a bunch of my family this past weekend to watch the final segment of the Harry Potter series.  We all liked the movie, but to varying degrees.  I think Joel was the happiest of all of us with the movie adaptation.  He felt like it was well done, entertaining, and a good conclusion.  My dad liked it, but was a bit lost/fuzzy with details (he hadn't read the books, so I think some of the stuff they left out would have helped him understand the ending a little bit better).
My mom and my sister had the most issues with the movie (they were also the 2 that had read the book right before watching the movie).  They both felt the "resurrection" scene at the end with Dumbledore was missing a lot of essential details. 

In the end, my dad did a dramatic reading of those 10 pages or so of Dumbledore talking to Harry.  He wanted the details and my mom and sister wanted to prove that the scene in the movie could have been better.

I personally think the movie was good, but when you have such high expectations for a movie it's hard to be completely wowed.  With everything leading up to the killing of Voldemort it's difficult to make it as dramatic as you feel it should be.  I was also slightly irritated by people in the theater clapping after each death.  It was distracting and annoying.  People were cheering when Voldemort died - as if he were a real person, and it kind of ruined the intensity of the movie for me.  I did think it was a good movie though.  It was a good finish to a fun series of movies. 

And now I'm saying "Good bye Potter and Hello Hunger Games!"  :)

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

My new assignment in church is Activity Days for the 8-11 year old girls.  We have activities twice a month and let me tell you, these girls fall under the personality plus category!  I love how excited about life they are.  So cute!

This past week we had a Top Chef night.  There were 2 teams - one made corn bread & the other made homemade chicken nuggets.  They had 10 minutes to get them in the oven.  Both teams were successful - they put together the salad and set the table while waiting for their food.  Dinner was a hit!  They finished it off with ice cream sundaes.  What's there not to love?  These girls can pack away food as well as any boy I've seen, but they are definitely more chatty (which makes it all the more fun).  

Nathan was in heaven.  He thought they were there to have dinner with him.  He sat right up to the table and enjoyed the meal with all of his new friends. 

I absolutely love how energetic and fun loving these girls are.  I have a feeling we're going to have a lot of fun this year.

Yay for WIP

I finished the baby boy quilt this week.  We took a little trip to IKEA and I finished binding it in the car.

I confess I've never done anything interesting with the back of my quilts, so for the first time ever, I'm piecing part of the back of my ladybug quilt.  This row is going to go through the center of it.  I'm excited to see how it turns out. 

This Week's Stats: New projects - 0
Completed projects -1
Currently in progress - 4
Quilts to start - 2 (Baby Niece Quilt, Baby Girl Quilt)

Check out the other WIP.

Garden Goodness

This week we got our first produce from the garden - zucchini!  I didn't look at the plant for 2 days and they ballooned on me.  I've now gotten 5 zucchinis from my plant this week.  Not bad if I do say so myself.  We made our first batch of zucchini bread today.  Yum.  It's yet another thing that I love about summer.

It's WIP Time

Well, here are the first 3 SBS blocks so far.....

I ended up having enough time to start a little, baby boy quilt that is for a friend.  Time flies and she'll be having this baby before you know it.  I cut everything out and now I'm in the beginning phases of piecing.  I went with the animals motif (I know my son still can't get enough of animals).  I thought the little turtles were particularly cute.  I've never stuck to only using 2 fabrics for the entire front, so we'll see if I end up thinking it's too boring or if simplicity was a smart idea.  Anyway, this is a quarter of a bigger block.....

This Week's Stats: New projects - 1 

Completed projects - 0

Currently in progress - 5

Quilts to start - 2 (Baby Niece Quilt, Baby Girl Quilt)
Goal - We're doing some painting and rearranging of rooms this week, so we'll see how much sewing I actually get to do, but I would like to at least get the baby boy quilt top completed. 
Go see what else people are doing over at Freshly Pieced

A Review of Vampires

I'm always up for a good book series so when Twilight came out I started reading this series.  With each book though I became more and more frustrated, because I didn't like the main character.  Bella was my definition of what a girl should NOT be.  She's whiny, needy, moody, clingy, destructive - and all because of a boy - not even a boy - a vampire.  By the end of the third book I couldn't stand her.  I couldn't bring myself to read the 4th book.  I had to take a break from the series. 

When the movies started coming out I was surprised to find that Joel actually liked the movies - the concept of a vampire, werewolf (shape shifter to be more precise) and human triangle was interesting to him.  With the last movie coming out soon I decided I better bite the bullet and read the last of the books, because I can't read the book once I've seen the movie - it ruins it for me.

I have to say that surprisingly I liked this book better than all of the first three combined.  One of the reasons why I loved this book was because a third of the book was through the eyes of Jacob (one of my favorite characters) and also, as a vampire Bella was no longer so dang annoying.  I found myself able to focus on the plot instead of her and I was actually able to get into the book.  It definitely didn't end the way I thought it would, so I liked that I couldn't determine the plot before I read it.  It kept me interested the whole time.

I feel like the first half of the book was a little too focused on sex for my tastes.  It was tastefully done and yet always part of the subject matter.  You would probably had to of read it to understand what I'm saying.  The second half is where the plot really got interesting.  I liked the ending, but it was a little too open-ended for me.  It feels like there could easily be another book if the author wanted it.   Over all, I'm just glad to be done with the series and happy that Bella redeemed herself in the final book.

SBS #3

I'm happy so far with my choice to go in the opposite direction and use black as the background color.  This is the Churn Dash Block.  I learned a new way to sew triangles - a week after I put together an entire twin bed quilt top full of triangles!  Argh.  That's ok though, because the new method is quicker and more exact, so I'm encouraged for future triangles.