Come What May and Love It

I watched and listened to this clip this morning. The sun is bright and the air smells fresh and clean. What a day! What a beautiful way to celebrate my Father and my Savior and feel of Their love and spirit. My heart is full! Have a wonderful day filled with love from Above!

I love color, but I can't paint, I love needle work but I don't have that much time and only so many walls, I love fabric and sewing but you can only make so many clothes. So while we lived in Mt Vernon I found a new hobby: quilting. Well, really I only learned to tie baby quilts as part of our twice a month meetings for Project Linus; our way for our ward's Relief Society group to make a contribution to the community. Not only did I really enjoy visiting with my friends while we were tyins the baby blankets, but I learned a few things while watching and listening. Now I want to quilt every chance I get. These blankets are the perfect project: small, henceforth quick to make, and less expensive, and you can make a nice homemade present that will actually get used. I will take classes one of these days or read an easy book to actually venture beyond squares! I made a large one for Thomas many moons ago while I was expecting Nathan (over 10 years ago now) and it was such a long project and space consuming (that I finished) that I just put that out of my head thinking I would never embark in such a craft. When you live in Amish country and see what these ladies produce seemingly so easily, it's a bit of a blow to any wanna be quilter.
So as I said these small quilts are just right. I made my 1st one for my good friend Theresa's daughter Naomi. I hope I can post a picture of it soon. The colors are a bit unorthodox for a baby quilt, but I liked them and wanted to explore. Other than that, the 2 below are my most recent efforts, and I'm pretty satisfied how they turned out. having a deadline really helps to get the job done. Now if only I could tackle the rest of the wall hanging I started just before we moved to Las Vegas, that would be another one I could post about.

Thomas came up with this design variation for Cali (Philippe's daughter born June 16, 2006). I never made anything for her then, and I had some lovely fabric I was intending to use for Céleste, but I thought this would be a nice present for her to know her Tatie Claire thinks of her, even if I've never met her in real life, only through the Webcam. She is such a cute kid.

This one is for my brother Philippe's son Arthur (born Feb 14th, 2009). The bright spots are really squares of "fur", I added a satin binding for texture as well. This looks random, and a bit weird, but I promise it looks lovely with with the hints of light blue in the bigger squares. Well I hope so... I have to admit that compared to the pink picture this lacks some oomph. I hope his parents like it.

Joseph's new bike

Joseph is 7 years old and in 1st grade. Last week he experienced what some people call uncoolness. Since the beginning of the school year, Nathan and him have been walking to school, but 2 weeks ago, they wanted to ride their bikes, so I thought sure! Why not? It'll do them some good exercise riding the hill home, they can get there faster and they are old enough to be more familiar with road safety rules.

Joseph's bike is a hand me down, like most of his stuff- that's what happens when you have 2 older brothers. His bike still looks fine, bright blue with yellow highlights. Nobody thought there was anything wrong with it, until a kid made a comment about his "baby" bike at school. Joseph wears his heart on his sleeve, and when he gets hurt, his eyes open very wide and start to glisten. He really looks like a deer caught in the headlights of a car. So he was crushed that someone made fun of his (perfectly fine) bike.

The before colors blue & yellow.

Don having grown up in a large family with not a lot of money has a lot of hang up and understands that feeling of "uncoolness" of wearing homemade clothes, eating PBJ sandwiches every day instead of getting to use the cafeteria, etc. and simply not having the latest gadgets. I do understand that feeling as well, but I never felt like I was missing out that much (maybe in clothes, because I looooove clothes) but for the most part I don't really care about being cool, I'm pretty comfortable in my own skin, my friends never really judged me because I wasn't trendy, even if they were. However that may explain why I haven't had boyfriends mainly just guy friends. Haha, I just got an epiphany! Well that kept me out of trouble I guess!

Ok, I digress a lot. Don calls my mind dizzying for that matter!

So "retour à nos moutons", as a wonderful dad, Don proceeded to upgrade the bike. That translates into: man time in the garage with his boys! They took the bike apart (Check the photos), sanded the painted pieces, primed them, spray painted them, clean the mechanical parts and regreased them, then reassembled the bike back. It's a brand new bike with a metallic black frame & a chrome fork with flame stickers. Joseph feels on top of the world. It's quiet and fits right at home with their ninja play!

The primed frame.

The bike in pieces (down to the bolts and screws).

The finished result and its proud owner!! Tada! ♪♪

What do boys do for fun?

After the dinner on Friday night, the boys of the family left discreetly one at a time to meet in the foyer of the church to hop in the truck and head for the mountains for the 2nd weekend in a row for Don and go camping after he offered the suggestion during the week. The idea was to send Matthew (Don youngest brother who moved to Vegas last Spring with his family to go to graduate PT school at UNLV) ahead with his family to pitch the tents. The idea was for Don and the boys to drive up with the dirtbikes after the dinner so that the next morning they could play in the dust for a while. Now after last Saturday's camp out Don got sick and had to stay home on Sunday from church and Monday from work because he was miserable. So guess what? Even though he is not feeling at the top of his form, he is still going up to keep his promise. I'm not crazy, every time I've gone camping and it's not in the 50s at least at night, I freeze and I'm miserable.

The camp site with the truck, motorcycles up at Easter Egg Summit near Logandale, NV.
Nathan on the morning of his 10th birthday. Looking just as small as ever, but then good things do often come in small packages.

Thomas likes to play with sticks and fire a lot. My son?! Yep, I'm just as much of a pyromaniac, except it's ok to be one now because I'm a grown up; before that, I would hear, "you'll pee your bed if you play with matches!!!"

Joseph did get cold.

Uncle Matthew cooking breakfast with aunt Cassie looking on., and cousin Brecklyn is wandering around and baby Riley is enjoying the clean air before the dust gets stirred up.

What do girls do when the boys are gone?

Despite Don's many attempts at making me go camping with them, I opted to stay and enjoy a quiet evening with my daughter. We went home to a peaceful place full of possibilities. I love it when all seems possible even for just a night. I didn't have to make dinner, yeah! Céleste was game for anything. She is our party girl! So we chose to watch both Princess Diary movies. She loves anything glamourous and princessy these days. She really is a fun girl. She fell asleep during the 2nd one in a typical Joseph position and I had to carry her to bed with me. She always sleeps better when someone keeps her company.

Go figure, none of the boys have cared to have someone share their room or their bed, she does.

Teamwork looks beautiful and tastes delicious

Friday evening (Feb 27th) was the annual "blue and gold" dinner for the cub scouts. Each of the cub scouts had drawn out a state to represent in a cake. Nathan hasd pulled Vermont. He and I had fun making it. It was super easy and there was no competition this time around. He wanted a lemon meringue pie for his birthday the next day but he said he didn't mind using the lemon "Vermont" cake instead. I felt a bit lazy and didn't want to bake again so soon. It was delicious when we ate it on Saturday for his birthday with some Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey Vermont ice cream. We went with the theme and check our cake, it is accompanied by a bottle of Vermont maple syrup even has little Playmobil skiers on it!
Nathan measured & mixed the ingredients, greased and floured the pan, baked the cake. I cut it to shape before sticking it in the freezer. He iced the top and I the sides. To prove 2 cooks in the kitchen can sometimes work.

With THE Vermont lemon cake at the "Blue and Gold" dinner.

Basking in the glow of the candles. Already in the double digits.

Nathan and his birthday loot: the Build-a-Bear car he's asked for 2 years and a karate outfit for his rabbit disguised in a motorcycle jacket and a cowboy hat, and a play model of the Star Wars Millenium Falcon.

One more: for his birthday dinner he requested my least favorite place to eat: Mc Do. Oh well, it's not my birthday. Don took and edited this last picture from his new phone. Pretty neat, huh!

I am addicted to my new phone

I don't mind technology because it makes my life easier and less cluttered usually (except for wires, I can't stand them). I'm not a tech junky, I leave that to Don. Once I have a piece of equipement that functions as it should I don't see the point to change it because a newer one is out there. I'm happy with my stuff once I know how it works. I hate change. However, since getting this new phone I've discovered a world of convenience and entertainment. I'm hooked and I look like those crazies constantly doing something on it. I have a GPS, maps, a calculator, brain puzzles, etc. on it. I still don't get many calls on it but it's a fun distraction when I forget to bring a book. It's just plain fun, and I think it turns my "lovey fish" on ;-) to see me having fun with a piece of electronics. Now we can be geeks together!