perfect weather
sail boats on the reservoir
first king birds seen
first meadowlarks heard
goat-head in my tire
rode a long way without air in my back tire so Barry didn’t have to pay to get into the park
still a good ride

Each April my friend April spends her birthday month making things to give away.  How wonderful is that?  I was surprised with this beautiful bag in my mailbox the other day.

I do love it because it is gorgeous Amy Butler fabric, but I love it most because it is from April.  I miss her so.  It almost makes me cry as I write this.  She was my knitting, learning to spin yarn, koolaid dyeing, craft show stocking, homeschooling, bike riding, long walks partner.  I haven’t found another quite like her yet.

So I knew just what to do with the sweet gift for HER birthday–

I filled it with knitting.  I’ve got a cowl (neck thing), a pilot cap for a fresh new nephew, a t-shirtish sweater for me, and a jacket for Eva all in the works.

When we put up all of my new school room shelves I decided I needed rainbow quilts in the wall space above the desks since my books are arranged in color order.  What I had in mind for one side was this quilt from Purl.  I drew up a pattern to fit my wall and raided my scrap bin.  My mom also sent me a box of her scraps and I bought a few more.

This is my first time piecing curves, so it’s far from perfect.  My seam allowances on my rainbow ended up a smudge less than 1/4″, so my top came out a bit ripply.  I could have ripped it apart and started over, I guess, but I’m more into getting things done  than I am into perfection.  I just made good use of my iron and quilted concentric circles to remedy the waviness.

I like it on my wall.  It is bright and cheery.

Who knows when I’ll get to making something to hang above the other desk…

Today I got on my road bike for the first time since sometime in the fall of 2010. The weather was perfect as I wound my way along the bike path through the state park just minutes from our house. The cottonwood trees are just starting to get their leaves. The wading birds are starting to fly in– I saw several white faced ibis shaking their curved beaks in a pond. The mallards are nesting, the red winged black birds are calling, a ring necked pheasant jumped out at me from a clump of cat tails. High in a dead tree I saw a woodpecker that looked like a northern flicker, but bigger, so I need to figure out what kind it was.

It was a reminder of my college days wandering Cache Valley Utah in search of wetlands with avocets and cranes and heron rookeries.

I don’t ride me bike to be fast. I ride to watch the birds.

I pieced diamonds!  I made this little quilt for a friend’s new baby girl.  I found all the fabrics for the top in my stash, then designed from there.  I had a lot of fun doing something new and love how it turned out.

I had to buy fabric for the back and binding, though, so I tried a new quilt store.  Snappy Quilts was full to the brim with my favorite designs, and I came out with some Joel Dewberry fabrics that went with my top perfectly.  It was expensive, though.  It seemed all of their fabric was closer to $12/ yard than the $9 or $10 I’m used to.

Of course, I quilted it in swirls.

Anyone have some tips on photographing quilts?  I’d love some advice because I’m just not thrilled about my quilt photos lately…

Just in time for Easter I received a copy of Naturally Fun Parties for Kids by Anni Daulter with Heather Fontenot to review.  It gives plans for seasonal parties for kids using all natural and recycled stuff including instructions for how to make everything from the invitations to the food and games.

It wasn’t really time to throw a party (I’m still recovering from the gaggle of 10 year old boys I hosted immediately followed by a well attended baby shower) but we decided that since it was Easter time we’d give using natural materials to dye eggs a shot just for us.  Directions are given in the book for making all sorts of colors.  We picked red cabbage (blue), turmeric (yellow), and paprika (orangish) because we had them all on hand.

Making the dye baths was a pretty odoriferous endeavor.  Our house smelled like spicy pickled cabbage well into Easter morning because to really get the color out of the cabbage it had to boil in water and a little vinegar for several hours.  I boiled the spices in other pots at the same time, with a little vinegar as well.  Spicy, cabbagey steam wafted throughout the house.

Then the kids colored some eggs with crayons and we stuck them in our jars of dye.  It was kind of magical how it all worked.  The cabbage dye looked purple, but was supposed to turn the eggs blue.  The turmeric was clearly yellow.  Since yellow and blue make my favorite color green we made a jar of cabbage and turmeric mixed.

It looked this orangey color, so we called it “not green” and were completely skeptical that we would get any green eggs.  We let the eggs sit in the dye for a long time.  Some for an hour, others a little longer or shorter.

They turned out really beautifully–so earthy and rich in a way that store bought dye just can’t duplicate– worth the stink I think.  The paprika dyed eggs were a little disappointing.  We could have just bought some brown eggs and they would have been prettier, but the yellow and blue we so, so lovely.  And the “not green” really turned our eggs green!

They made our lovely day-before-Easter morning egg hunt all the more lovely.  (We do the egg hunting the Saturday before Easter to make getting to church easier, and to focus on the Savior on Easter day.)

Back to the book– it is full of lovely photography and inspirational ideas.  I don’t think I would ever do a whole party from beginning to end just as it is laid out, but I’m sure I’ll refer back to it for ideas now and then.  Logan is really intrigued by the Knight party.

We hope you are all having a joyous Easter!  We recorded a little holiday song to help you celebrate the miracle of this day (click on the link below).

hosana

We’ve spent time the past few weeks watching these beautiful videos about the life of our Savior.  I thought today was the perfect day to share them with you.

Keeping with tradition we had our annual April Fool’s Day No Manners Dinner on Sunday.  We had friends over and did it all like we did last year.

Fun times, fun times.

Read about our first one here.

I just finished this pair of pants I had started when Eva was teeny tiny.  I used the Big Bum Baby Pants pattern from Growing up Sew Liberated in the 0-6 month size and got to the point of putting the waste band elastic in.  They were so huge then I didn’t bother to finish them, set them aside, and forgot about them until now.  I quickly put some elastic in the waste and hemmed the legs (without the elastic called for in the pattern).  They are still big and baggy to fit over her cloth diapered bum, and soft and comfy even in the 0-6 month size.

And now Eva is 7 months old.  She’s a big girl– wearing 12 month or 18 month clothes depending on the brand.  She’s got 2 teeth on the bottom, one on the top.  Her new blonde hair is growing straight up.  She loves to clap and blow really, really noisy and slobbery raspberries.  Not very lady like, I know, but very funny.  We’ve tried feeding her sweet potatoes a few times because she seems so interested in everything we’re eating.  Her little arms go reaching and her little sucker gets sucking, but when we actually put some food in her mouth her instant reaction is to stick her tongue out and spray that orange stuff all over the place.  It is so funny– and messy.  It’s like she thinks that using her tongue in that way is the way you’re supposed to eat and enjoy those yummy new flavors.  Silly girl.

She’s not crawling yet and can just roll from her back to front.  Once she gets on her tummy she plays for a bit, does some super man poses, and gets mad.  I love this stage where she can just sit with a basket of toys and she’s staying in it much longer than my other kids did.  I think Jonah is the only other one that waited longer than 7 months to start crawling and getting into EVERYTHING.  What a blessing to have her as my 6th baby!!

I came home from the store the other day with a new orchid.

I do so love to have a blooming orchid on my kitchen table, but seeing how I am incapable of getting them to rebloom it has been a long time since I’ve had one.  I decided to remedy that with $15 and an impulse buy at Costco.  Much easier than monitoring humidity, seasonal temperatures etc. etc.

Yesterday I sat down with a scrap piece of watercolor paper and my little box of paints and painted.

It wasn’t long until I had company.

We all felt so happy– it’s so easy for me to forget that I love to paint and that I don’t need total solitude to do it.  My kids LOVE to sit and watch me.  They love to paint along side of me.

It’s a habit I need to create.