Bloomin' Snow

I felt bad about cleaning out my flower beds right before another snow (....as if some leaves and last year's dead plants were offering my Spring bulbs much protection).

But they seem to have made it through ok.

Today my crocuses even had bees on them.

...and I may have daffodils blooming this week! Yay - Spring!

...and why is everything so much work?

Some things just seem to take forever.

Right around Christmas, we needed to add one more bedroom to our home...for a friend who would be staying with us for several months. Since I'm pregnant...and my office/sewing room would need to be a nursery someday anyhow...we decided to move all of my sewing things into the basement and Sofia into a temporary bedroom/someday nursery.

Bleh.

There's my sewing table in it's new home.

Totally the easy part.

Then everything got piled in the middle of the office, so that the room could get a much-needed repainting.

(My office always looks something like that anyhow. Post-tornado. It's a valid style, right?)

Choosing paint colors for the baby - without knowing the gender of said baby.

I wanted something light and bright (...but not painfully bright).

Slowly painting the room.

The room with Sofia all moved in:

Then, of course, we realized it would be better to have Cozette and the baby downstairs and that Sofia would be a better roommate for Annika - upstairs. (I'm just consoling them with the fact that it's temporary!)

And - YAY! - we had one (hopefully) last snow day, where both of the strong men in our family were home and available/willing to move furniture!

Cozette's downstairs room. I think there is plenty of space for a crib too.

I do have a few more things left to do in there. I need to clear off the bottom 2 shelves of the bookcase....

....and fill it with all of these homeless children's books.

I also have to pick out colors for the baby's quilt...and a new one for Cozette (less pink, more coral/orange).

- so that I can repaint frames and hang stuff up!

Until then, at least the room is livable and play-able. I call that a victory.

A Lil' Heart Quilt

I have been so proud of myself lately. I've actually been making some of the billion things that I pin on Pinterest boards. Yea for me! 

I finally tried the "One-Pan Enchillada Pasta" recipe...which the children were all afraid of. It turned out like a much higher quality hamburger helper dish. Everyone liked it except for James...who threw up when he tried to eat it. That's not so much a comment on the dish, as it is on his sensitive gag reflex. James generally eats peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner, regardless of what the rest of us are eating.

When it was time for the cub scout dessert auction, I let Jon look through my "Yum" board for ideas.

I tried to steer him toward highly tasty desserts instead of highly decorative ones (which do actually sell better.) He chose Salted Caramel Cheesecake Bars (that I won in the auction!...and yes, they were amazing) and a Grasshopper Pie.(I doubled that recipe, so we're having it for dessert tonight.)

My "Quilt Ideas" board is also getting some use.

Cozy went to a friend's birthday party last weekend, and I managed to eek out enough time to make a gift.

Her friend said her favorite colors are red and orange, so I made her this little doll quilt with some scraps left over from Hannah's quilt and a little fabric from my stash.

Yes, I think I'm still in a valentines mood.

Besides, I wanted a pattern that made the fabrics girly enough for a 5-year-old girl.

I'm dying to make twenty more of these....or just one big quilt with lots of hearts.

We'll see what comes of that impulse.

Anyhow, this lil' darling was inspired by "Emily's Heart Quilt".

All tied up and ready to go.

...and there ya' go...Pinterest is no longer just a waste of my time. ;)

Who's adorable?

When I went to Ikea to get Tony's desk...the kids talked me into four or five stuffed animals (for the baby, of course) and this charming mushroom hat. I only wish I'd bought 2 of them. So cute and Mario-ish!

Speaking of cute, I'm a little concerned that Cozy has been the youngest child for too long already. Five years of being told how adorable she is have left their mark.

The other day I heard her talking to the cat.

She was saying, "Who is adorable? Who is adorable? You and me are! Yes we are!"

Silly cutie. I'm sure the baby will be getting plenty of this type of Cozy compliments.

Holly Hobby Doll Quilts

I was in a Valentine-y mood when I started these two projects....

....with a little Holly Hobby nostalgia thrown in.

My Mom found these cute HH prints for me a couple of years ago. 

They were such cute patterns on their own that I didn't want to cut them up. I'm just calling them whole cloth quilts....and hand-quilting them to make up for the lack of piecing.

The back of this one is another vintage fabric that Grandma Ruby gave me from her stash. I honestly couldn't have found anything more perfect in a store!

I've begun a little "economy block" pillow to go with it. I love this pattern, although my technique is still a little sketchy. I think this is the pattern that I want to make baby boy's quilt out of...but I'm still figuring out the nursery colors.

I still have 3 months, right?

This other little quilt was quick and came with it's matching backing.

...and I chose a grey binding (left over from another project) to add just a dash of something modern.

Now we'll just have to see how long it takes me to finish the two tiny pillows to go with these quilts.

I can already feel myself getting distracted....

Valentines

We had a lovely Valentine's Day.

Tony made breakfast.

...not just the pop tarts, there were biscuits too.

Then I made him put his present together. ;)

I was going to do it -  I really was! ...but he was home...and it was just screwing on the table legs.

Maybe that's why he didn't look thrilled about his present?

It does fit in perfectly next to our bed. (I only had to sacrifice about five inched of "my side" of the room.)

...and, as an extra happy bonus, the nightstand/important storage thingy slid right underneath it. Easy peasy. And I didn't even measure for that!

Now his laptop monitor has a home. (It's location was in flux when we dissolved one of our offices.)

Extra study nooks are good, right?

Tony, on the other hand, didn't get me something practical. He got me something lovely and unnecessary that I would't buy myself. So sweet.

You only get to see its case until I get better pictures...but I'm sure you can guess what's inside.

Oh, and cupcakes!!! Some strawberry cupcakes with cream cheese frosting for the kids...and yummy Georgetown Cupcakes for me.

(None for Tony. :( He's slow-carbing it right now.)

These little cakes are evily delicious. I'm trying to ration them out in a reasonable way.

Tonight it was the strawberry cheesecake. Why yes, that is a graham cracker crust at the bottom. See - evil!

It was warm enough to enjoy playing outside today. 

The kids worked on a great snow fort in the front yard...

...until Anthony ran off to throw snowballs at his friends.

Now the abandoned fort is infested with little sisters. ;)

A Happy Valentine's Day to all and to all a good snowball fight!

Ah, Winter Continues

I don't appreciate Winter going and justifying our sadly short Christmas break 

by making us use up all of our snow days. I want school to be cancelled on beautiful, sunny days instead. Then we could use those days for fun outings or something.

Oh, well. I guess you have to be grateful for any 5-day weekend.

Our street: preshovelling. Though our neighbor did snowblow the sidewalk for us.

Here is where Matt (our cat) tried to go out in the snow. ....at least that was Jonathan's original story. As it turns out, Jon thought Matt would enjoy experiencing snow and threw him out there. Matt did not.

Aside from the obligatory digging out of the cars, we've been enjoying the snow from inside today.

The last time we had a snow day, I took the kids sledding.

Anthony was the sweetest big brother ever.

He took Cozy down on the sled and then pulled her the whole way back up.

Once was enough for Cozette.

She demanded to go home and couldn't stop talking about how mean Anthony was for making the sled go so fast! I think she'll have to stick with the bunny slope in our back yard for a few more years.

You could probably chart a nice slope relating age to sledding enjoyment.

James' reaction was slightly better than Cozy's.

Jon had fun, but he was over it pretty quickly.

Annika and Anthony were enthusiastic....

....and innovative.

Weeeeeeeeee!

Where was Sofia? Sitting by the fire, drawing.

Now, when I suggest we go sledding, the little kids act like I'm 

threatening them....so we all get to sit by the fire.