a quilt for baby Hazel

My good friend RaeLyn had her 5th baby last month. I’m so hit or miss with baby gifts– sometimes not getting them done until the baby is 8 months old, or 1 year old, but this time I delivered the gift to a 3 week old baby! Pretty good, huh?

I love the painterly style of Laura Gunn’s fabrics. You can tell they’re made straight from her paintings with the texture of the paint and canvas right there on the fabric. I’ve had a half yard of these two prints staring at me from a shelf for a LONG time and finally had the right idea coincide with the right time to make a quilt, so I cut into it.

I had a fun time with my design– making the border echo the shape of the blocks. I quilted the middle part in swirls and then went around the outside a few times with straight lines. I really like how it turned out. It’s especially fun to sew for someone you know will appreciate the thought and time and be just as giddy about the pretty fabric as I am.

The back is another Laura Gunn print– lots of dots in the perfect colors.

Baby quilts are such a good size to play with and FINISH. I need to find some fabric I love to make a few for this little girl kicking my ribs.

time to breathe

Today was a day I’m thankful I don’t send my kids to school everyday. (The oldest 3 just go on Mondays.) The school year is winding down, so there were class parties that needed treats prepared for, teacher gifts to remember, and the regular making of lunches, nagging to get shoes on, and feeding and clothing the littlest boys in order to get in the car and to school on time. I am not a person that thrives on busy-ness and, quite frankly, getting 5 kids ready to get in the car is not my favorite thing to do. Believe it or not, these little people all have minds of their own, and as much as I’d like them to immediately follow my every command when we’re trying to get out the door and somewhere ON TIME, they don’t. By the time I had got them to school I was tired out for the day– but I had one appointment after another ahead of me.

And so Hunter and Ian and I were go, go, go until the big kids got home. Then it was driving to karate, picking up from karate, Dad working late, wrestling matches in the family room gone awry (with at least 3 kids screaming like they were dying at one time), trying to figure out something for dinner, and feeling unsettled by the whirlwind of papers and toys and pillows and blankets strewn about the house.

I thought– there are people that do this every day– that have every minute scheduled, rushing from school to lesson to appointment to hectic meal where there is no real time together because those brief moments are spent hurriedly trying to get things done so you can all move on to the next thing. And then I was overcome with gratitude for this path that I’m on where, for more days than not, we can go at our own pace, be intimately familiar with each other, and the kids can draw and draw and draw and read and read and read. I thought of these pictures of Hunter

who can spend all the time he wants intensely making his 2 year old “space men” and “lightnings”, who every minute has big brothers who draw with him and for him

and with their big brother magic (and some paper and tape) turn him into a “lightning space man”.

I’m thankful for all the unscheduled time to just be, to be real, to be really together.

I’m thankful for time to breathe.

a trip to LA

First off– I want to be a better blogger. I’ve really been slacking lately. I have a goal to write here every day this week. (Week long goals are the most realistic for me– anything longer and I’m bound to fall off the wagon.) What do you want to hear about? What makes you hop over here and read what I write? Any questions I could answer? Anything you want to know my thoughts on? Please, please help me out with suggestions. I’m sure my week of posts will be more interesting if you do.

Anyway…

I have birthday posts for both Jonah and Brenna to catch up on, but I’m trumping those with this one first. Every year on the week of my birthday Barry travels to be an Air Force judge for the International Science and Engineering Fair. When Hunter was tiny I went along and last year Brenna joined him for a day. This year the plan was just for him to go on his own but be home for Brenna’s birthday, leaving late that night, then be home in time to take another day off for my birthday. That’s the plan I was in on anyway. Meanwhile, he was cooking up another plan which included finding an overnight babysitter and purchasing plane tickets. On my Mother’s Day my card was a printout of MY flight itinerary. What a fun surprise!

I shopped while he perused the science projects, then we went to the beach.