a spot of tea

Rob had this brilliant idea yesterday of having a tea party with Lily. He set it all up, invited the guests (um, us), and we had our afternoon tea. It was lovely. It reminded me of the importance of playing at being grown up and how magical and fun it could be. And then the added benefit of learning new skills through play and brushing up on manners.

From yesterday:


And this morning Lily requested another tea party. This time, Eric got to attend. He really enjoyed it too. I was demonstrating to them how to make conversation as they enjoyed their tea...and since it's morning, afew minutes later I heard him say to Lily:

"What did you dream about last night?"

She answered "Chik-Fil-A!"

Then she asked him the same question. It made me smile.

babywearin' love

So I love to wear my babies. All the way back to Grace. I had a ring sling with her but I never really got the hang of it and didn't know there were other options. With Eric, it was a 'hip hammock' and with Lily it was a hotsling, now with Calvin it's a mei tai and a moby wrap. I made the mei tai, though for some reason the body of it is too short so I need to re-work it. I'm pretty sure I followed the instructions for it, unless I mis-measured or something. But I love it and it'll be good with some tweaking. I don't know how one does a back carry with it though!

Mei Tai

My little brown bear in the Moby Wrap

Quilt update, birds, and TP

The quilt is coming along well! Here's the side with assorted fabrics from Grandma. I just pieced them together randomly (I like random) and sewed them in strips.

Then here's the other side. And below that is the unfinished quilt binding edge. I've never done a quilt binding (since I've never made a quilt!) but thanks to this flickr tutorial: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8244232@N08/sets/72157602048418660/ I was able to figure it out easily. Now I just need to handsew the edges and I'm done! This will be our couch quilt. Woo hoo!

I made these felt birds from stiff felt I got at JoAnn's. It's only .79 cents for a large sheet and I could literally cut out 10+ birds per sheet, so it's not only a cute craft but inexpensive too! The wings fit onto the body as you can see by the one I assembled on the right. These would be cute tucked into a card as a little gift. I'm giving these to our little guests that we're having over for a family dinner tomorrow. I got the idea and pattern here: http://jas.familyfun.go.com/crafts?page=CraftDisplay&craftid=12105

Who knew a 20 pk. of Scott's toilet tissue could provide so much fun? I wouldn't say hours of fun, but many happy minutes were spent stacking it into skyscrapers and marching it up the stairs like this.

I'm going to attempt a quilt

We stopped by my Grandma's the other day on our way home from a family visit and she generously gifted me this amazing fabric, along with several sizes of large quilt squares she had pieced and a whole bunch of little ones. Grandma was an avid quilter but doesn't quilt anymore and wanted someone to be able to use this. I sorted through the bin and picked all the fabrics that go somewhat together and piled them together for the quilt. So now I have this ahead of me and I'm excited! I need to pick up Bend the Rules Sewing from the library, I know there's an easy lap quilt pattern in there. I sure won't get as fancy as Grandma and do hundreds (thousands?) of small pieces. But I love that I will make it entirely out of fabric she gave me, except for the lining and backing.

I love this picture of my Grandma, taken in 1926. Here she is with her first quilt. She was six and had to sew a 4-patch quilt block together every day before she could play. Wow.

Peace and gingerbread houses

I shamelessly copied this PEACE garland from soulemama's blog. I went to Arbuckle's and got 2 yards of this amazing wool blend felt (72"wide) for just $5 since it was the end of the bolt. This retails for $10 plus per yard usually. I was thrilled. My plan (for years now) has been to make us all blue felt stockings and to cut snowflake designs out of the cuff. That won't happen for this Christmas, but it will for next!

The kids made graham cracker 'gingerbread' houses using juice cartons yesterday. I pretty much let them do whatever, since hands free time is limited with the babe and I harbored no illusions of trying to make them 'perfect'. They did a great job and proclaimed their houses 'the best ever'. And having friends over really made it a party. It was easy and fun and they turned out perfect, after all.

Me and gingerbread go way back. We had a cast iron gingerbread house mold growing up and traditionally we would make and decorate a house with our cousins every Christmas, hiding more candy inside and then after the family dinner we would have a tear-it-apart-free-for-all. It was like a pinata of sorts.

7 or 8 years ago for a Christmas present, I decided to make my parents a gingerbread replica of their 1875 brick house. I made a posterboard model and used the pieces as a pattern to cut the gingerbread. I cut out the windows and when I assembled it I glued vellum to the windows, little strips of paper for the windowpanes. I assembled the house on our pizza pan and glued little candy wreaths to the doors. Inside the house I put a strand of battery operated white lights. I used Big Red gum for the brick sidewalks around the house. My parents loved it! I think last year it fell apart due to being in a storage closet and subjected to an unfortunate roof leak. I think I have a couple grainy pictures of it, unfortunately this was before we had a good digital camera and I didn't think to take pics in the process of making it. I loved it though.