A Few of My Favorite Things...

...about the house James and Beth are buying.

That one of the neighboring houses has a field of corn and sunflowers in their front yard. Awesome! Dad backs me up on that. He now wants to till up their entire yard and plant corn. Poor Mom.


The gorgeous espalier.


Outdoor fireplace.


This intoxicatingly scented mystery herb. Don't you dare pull it up! I would be happy to rehab this little brick porch-ette for you. It would take all of ten minutes.


The children and I are filled with envy! We can't wait to find a cute little house of our own some day. I think the two of you are just what this home needs. A pinch of effort and a dash of style - I'm sure you'll love it. Let's have a rhody-killing, wallpaper-peeling party when you move in!

Cozette's New Hobby

Cozette has found her thumb. We are so proud of her.

...and you were right, Mary. I LOVE that outfit. I nearly bought it the week before, but resisted the temptation. Good thing, huh?

2 Scoops-A-Day Keeps the....Skinny Away

...because we wouldn't want to catch the skinnys - that would be horrible!

In all honesty, it was WAY more than two scoops and I'm sure one of the best days of my life....food-wise.

After doing all of our homey chores Saturday morning (watering the grass, dishes...ahem..sewing), we took off to the Fairgrounds. (The girls are entering their sewing projects.)

We were forced into a Cosmos detour (since we had to return a Redbox movie), so I got my panini fix, with a little gelato on the side.


Notice that I didn't even wait to take the picture before digging in. I couldn't help it - they had new flavors! Blackberry, peach, hazelnut...but we wouldn't want our old friend coconut to feel left out. In my defense - they were very tiny scoops...and I shared!


We filled out fair entry forms and then headed up to the Kingston ferry. Super long line when we got there, so we killed a little time at the local quilt shop (where Sofia decided she wants to start quilting - horse quilts only) and J'aime Le Crepes.


Such yumminess. The kids didn't save me any of the strawberry-chocolate crepe, but left me a few bites of the blueberry.


At J'aime Le Crepes, you can also get a rather rare kind of ice cream - Honey Lavender. Yum. I got the biggest serving they had, since I was going to share bites all around.


Only James was interested in bites of Honey Lavender. Tony said, "That tastes like little-old-lady bathrooms smell." Bummer. I was FORCED to consume most of it myself.


Saturday summary: Trip to Grandma's house. Lots of yums.

My Bug-Eyed Boys

Here are my cute little boys in the bug glasses they bought at the dollar store. ...and the pictures are blurry because they DO NOT hold still.

We're going through an adjustment phase in our household. There is someone here now who gets my oil changed and notices when I need air in my tires. He makes breakfast and changes diapers. He also notices when I buy a diet coke from McD's every day (it isn't as good from a bottle/can) and grounds my naughty kids from the lake (I don't ground children from things I want to do). SO - overall a good adjustment - but an adjustment nonetheless.

A Dozen Down....

...so I only have about 58 more to go. I'm working on a nine-patch quilt from Crazy Mom Quilts, but it's hard to make a scrappy quilt when you're fairly new to quilting. Not many scraps to be had. And I'm determined to have a huge variety of fabrics in this quilt. I love every single fabric on my nine-patch.

When I was a little girl, I loved to look at the different fabrics on the quilts at my Grandma Cozette's house. ...all beautiful...all unique... I knew that my Great-Grandma Tunnell quilted, so I assumed she had made all of those quilts. No. G.Cozette bought them at an auction for $30 each!



My little Cozette - helping me assemble nine-patches. (Actually, she was trying to eat them. Fabric - Yum!)

Sewing Camp Nostalgia

In order to be happy when you have a large family you have to either be extremely well-organized or have a very high tolerance for chaos. I'm surely the latter, which comes in handy during sewing camp...at least the way we do it. It is a week of lots of cousins, sewing projects for kids, sewing projects for moms, and trips to the lake, with occasional mommy jobs sprinkled in there (you know...dishes, cooking, and all that jazz).


Anyhow, if you can handle a crazy house, it's the best fun ever. Last camp, I think I was pretty worn out by the end (we were doing morning AND afternoon), but this time I was just sad it was over.


It turned out even better than we anticipated. We all had dreams of everyone sitting around, working on their projects together (without intensive Mommy help), but we thought those were fantasies that wouldn't be fulfilled until our kids were much older!


If we move away, I think our annual summer vacation may have to include attending sewing camp in Washington.


Projects completed in Sewing Camp - Part Deux (I'll let Sarah report on her own):
Annika: pillowcase, nightshirt, and pajama pants
Sofia: shirt, purse, stuffed animals
Annalia: numerous nine-patches and learned to crochet around socks (Jessica - what pattern do you use?)

Name #1

Well, I guess things don't happen as quickly as I thought they did in huge buerocracies...weird...and our future employment is still very undecided. We hope this coming week will bring some additional info as to what we can expect.

So...in the mean time...we're still in the Navy...not sure if we're getting out...making plans to put our house on the market (for a big loss)...and continuing our lives as usual (almost).

On to much more fun things - I've decided to give all of my sewing machines cheesy names. Yes, I know - you'd think I had absolutely nothing better to do with my time.
Meet Betsy. She is exactly like the sewing machine my Grandma Betty had when my mother was growing up. (..but belonged to someone else's grandma. I bought her at a garage sale.)



Betsy has a knee pedal instead of the modern foot one. Very handy if your children think it's funny to step on them while you're sewing.



Of course, if you're nursing a baby while you sew, you can improvise it into a foot pedal.



Betsy may be older than me, but her stitches are lovely. I even find it charming that you sometimes have to give the wheel a turn with your hand to get it going. (She needs a new belt.) She's been stowed in the garage while we contemplate selling the house, but I'll happily welcome her back in some day.



This is the first project Betsy and I completed together - an apron for my sister, Beth. I'm sure it looks even cuter on her (skinny and twenty-something).