In Over my Head

Great Aunt Patsy. She's soft-spoken, loves to go garage sale shopping, and she's my Papa's sister.
She's also one heck of a quilter. A Jedi-Quilter.

And then there's my GiGi, who made my favorite pair of pajama pants ever, my prom dress my sophomore year, and all of my bridesmaid's dresses. She's a Jedi-Seamstress

So somehow I got this crazy idea in my head that I've got sewing skills in my blood. Surely, quilting skills are hereditary, right?

I stumbled upon this quilting blog one day, purely by accident I guess. And decided she had some great ideas for something crafty to do this winter.

I found one of her easier/beginner ones, The Ragged Squares Quilt, and figured surely anyone with a little spare time and some common sense could do it.

I was half-way right. It just takes a little common sense really.
But I was wrong on the spare time thing.
It took wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy more time than I was thinking it would!

I followed her instructions almost exactly, so I'll spare you all the pictures of that process.

First of all, all those little tiny squares don't just appear out of nowhere. I think that was the most time consuming part. 80 squares of each size.



Those little rotary cutter things are awesome. I guess at first I thought I could do it with a pair of scissors. Quilting no-no #1. Scissors don't cut it. hehe

After getting all those little meticulous things cut out, it was time to lay it out.
Quilting no-no #2. You can't be all crazy picky and anal about color preferences and patterns...otherwise this process takes forever:



The pattern recommended sewing the squares together then laying them out and deciding the order of the  squares in the blanket. I'm not that go-with-the-flow though. It took me days. yes DAYS. to get the layout how I wanted it.

And then the sewing together of all the squares began.

And then the pinning, and quilting began.

And then the hand sewing of the binding.

All in all, WAY more time than I was originally planning on committing to this project!
But once I started, I couldn't stand giving up on it.
Plus, my motivation was for Salem to have a special quilt that he could use on his big boy bed someday in China. Eden has one that's special and I wanted that for Salem.

All that time and effort was worth it.








A lot of the quilting part of it was done with Salem sitting on my lap. Which is kinda sweet, but at the same time, any imperfections in the sewing, I get to blame on him. :)

Ragged edges:

Another Jedi-Seamstress that I know, embroidered Salem's name for me, adding just the right touch to the quilt!

Duck...It's the other Dark Meat

We celebrated our first of four Thanksgiving meals this evening.

Yes, you read that correctly. Four.
That's one of the benefits of living near family this year at Thanksgiving.

Tonight, we shared it with 32 other people. 28 of those people are from China, making this their first, possibly second, Thanksgiving meal ever.

So we pulled out all the stops. Recruited lots of help. And rounded up:

21 pounds of Turkey
2 green bean casseroles
2 pans of dressing
2 sweet potato casseroles
1 corn casserole
4 lbs of mashed potatoes
68 deviled eggs
3 cans of cranberry sauce
48 rolls
3 pumpkin pies
1 pumpkin roll

And none of it stood a chance against 28 Chinese college students.



One of our sweet friends, Angel, has trouble with pronouncing her "R"s in English. She tried to help Brandon pass along the info that one pan of Turkey was white meat and the other, dark meat. By the end of the evening, several people thought Brandon served some mean "Duck meat."

A surprising hit among the asian crowd...deviled eggs. Awesome!






I really thought I'd done my part to be completely prepared to host 36 people in our home. But then we ran out of forks.

oops.

Fortunately, when you're serving Chinese friends, there are alternatives to forks.



Try eating cranberry sauce with chopsticks.
It was like a very cruel game.



Do you ever really need an excuse to come together to talk about Jesus?
Answer: No.

But turkey and dressing is a good starting point.

Does it get any better than Turkey, Dressing, and Jesus all in one evening?!

All About Salem

We live about 150 yards away from railroad tracks. At least every 15 minutes a train passes by. (read that sentence with a bit of annoyance to it!)  For the little boy though, this is AWESOME! It's made him develop a huge love for trains. Well, it's either that or just the fact that he's a boy. But the above picture is him making his surprised, "look mom!! Another train!!!"  Imagine that face every 15 minutes. :) LOVE it!

He also loves shoes lately. Lest you be worried about him maintaining a certain "man-code" about this, let me assure you it's purely all about the fact that he knows he needs shoes for going outside. And outside, he LOVES!  So he's got it figured out that shoes = outside. But he doesn't have it figured out that he needs his shoes. So all four of us have shoes scattered around the house from Salem getting a pair out, shuffling around the house in them a bit, and then giving up on that pair only to move on to another.


He's nearly inseparable from his NUK, despite our best weak efforts.
and he prefers a certain corner of his blanket.


And like his mama, will eat anything chocolate.



He's saying lots of words now, most of which are probably unintelligible to the non-mama-trained ears. But the beginning stages of talking are some of my most favorite times!


He's like his sister. We're 0 for 2 in the mashed potato department. Thought I haven't tried it, I think he'd eat boiled cabbage over mashed potatoes.

But he will literally shovel fruit into his mouth. To the point that it's dangerous to leave him in the same room with fruit or he will gag himself by eating so much of it at once. Fruit, beware!

And he's cute. Cute. Cute. Cute.



Salem, we love you more than words can describe!!

All About Eden

Eden, please stop smacking your gum.
"But mommy, I have to smack it."

Her gum-chewing style describes her life.
She does everything to the fullest.
She's an all out smacker. A go-getter. A non-stop, don't back down, never-give-up, 3 year old.

Which is a little terrifying for me occasionally.

Like yesterday, when she climbed across (on top of) the monkey bars at a playground, passing by a 6 year old boy who was crying because he was scared.
We're still working on fearlessness.
And manners, apparently.



She's a good mommy to her babydoll, Baby Laura, the only toy of hers which has maintained the same nickname. The rest of them go through daily name-changes. Even ones that actually COME with names, like Dora.

She loves her new cowgirl boots, and wants to sleep with them.

She thinks jelly beans are a food group.



Most of the time, she's really patient with Salem, already mommying him to his heart's content.

She sing-talks a lot. Still. Mostly in the car about things that she sees while we drive. A few recent songs have been about: cows, Sonic, marshmallow clouds.

She wants to watch Toy Story 3 every day. The part that frightens her? No not the part where the toys are nearly chopped to pieces or burned alive. It's the janitor of SunnySide. Apparently the part where he cleans a spit wad off the mirror is what gets to her. But I've already told you about her irrational fears.



She would literally starve if all I fed her was mashed potatoes. She hates them with the fire of a thousand suns.

She's hilarious. Even when she's not trying to be. Recently, a friend asked her where all the pecans were going when she ate them. She said, "Into my mouth. Down to my tummy. And out my drain."
She understands her anatomy well. :)

She's a handful. A challenge. But such a delight from our amazing Father! Wouldn't trade her for the world!

Trick or Treat --- In Photos

Is there anything cuter in the world than kids in costumes?!





This is a classic Eden face...


The most unhappy but still adorably cute Butterfly, Emory!


Heading out to do some damage...


Woody and Jessie and A Cowboy Dressed as Granddad joined our gang.


Audrey Jessie


Every Granddad needs a Tinkerbell sidekick.