Home Sweet Home

I'm home!!! It was a GREAT trip, but I did really miss Casey and my girls so I was very happy to see them :) This is a picture of Jenn and I at the chocolate bar (mmmmm). It's the first picture of us together since Natalie was a baby!
This is picture of the view on the way to Carson City. It looks a lot like Colorado!
And of course, I have to share a little bit of my loot from the several fabric stores we visited. These will be a quilt soon. Jenn actually gave me the middle print because it is such a perfect match for the two bird prints.
And I had to post a picture of what I'm working on now, but this will be it for awhile because I can't ruin a surprise for someone special.
This is what I brought back for the girls. We LOVE Groovy Girls dolls. We are not going to do the Barbie thing and I think these are such a great alternative. Natalie had gotten one doll for her b-day last year and I wanted to maybe find another doll and an outfit or something to bring back for them. They are pricey, though, so I didn't think I'd find anything. BUT, Jenn and I went to Target and these horses with dolls were marked down from $28 to $6.99 each!!!!! So, I bought two. I still can't believe it, it was such a steal! The girls are in love with them. Nanette and Andie even came to the mall play place with us today :)

Greetings from Reno!

Kelby and I are havin' a grand time here in the biggest little city in the world. We're experienced the sights and sounds, many of which are casino-related ;) Our favorite sights however are the quilt shops and fabric stores, though, and we've managed to visit three in the last two days. There has been some sewing, some blog browsing and some general admiration of the sewing world online and in magazines. Oh, and of course, some American Idol watching.
AND, last, but NOT least, some eating--specifically some In-n-Out eating!!!!!! I'm no longer in the dark. Except maybe about the reason these have not yet made it Colorado???

Some more for the littles

I made this little dress for Natalie, but it turned out to fit Layla a little bit better. Soo cute and she loves it :)
Here's the back. She did a good job runnin' around this tree so I could get some good pictures :)
And, since I bought a five-pack of onesies to make Kelby's tractor one, I decided to go ahead and embellish the rest of them. No sense havin' plain white onesies around, right? The tie one is my favorite by far. I'm not so sure about the bow tie, though. Oh, well.

My friend Jen bought me a plane ticket to come see her (yay!) so tomorrow morning the little guy and I are wishing Daddy and Grandma good luck with the girls and leaving for Reno. I'm very excited. I will miss my girls, but since having Natalie, (who's 4) I've only spent a total of three nights away from the kiddos. It will be a nice break to only have one little one for five days. There will be some sewing going on while I'm there and since I can't leave home without my Mac ;) there may be a post or two even while I'm gone. So, we're off like a terd o' hurtles! I mean, a herd o' turtles ;)

We've been enjoying some nice weather...

There's been playing...
and certainly laughing...
and of course some dancing...
and then some more laughing...

and then of course, some dancing in a swimsuit in the backyard right after you draw a swimming pool on the ground with sidewalk chalk and ask Mommy for a beach towel :) Happy Spring everyone!!!

Flying Geese

I finally finished this quilt, yay! I was trying to think of a funny title, but nothing I could think of made much sense, except to Natalie, who knows what a goose is because of her walks with her Granny among all the "goose poop". But I didn't want to relate the word poop to this quilt because it is FABULOUS :)
I pieced the binding out of the spare strips I had. Love the effect of that.
And this quilt is made super-snuggy by the sooooft corduroy on the back.
I was SO excited to finish this and then get it wrapped up to gift to my dear, generous, encouraging friend Angela. She LOVES it, it was sooo much fun giving it to her. So, Natalie and I said goodbye to the geese and they flew off to Miss Ang's house, with promises to USE it and NOT to hang it on the wall!! ;)

Girl Time

Angela and I tried to go to the Archiver's crop last night, but it was full, so we scrapbooked together at her house instead and it was wonderful. Casey fed the kiddos and put them to bed (such a sweet guy I have) and it's always nice for me to skip the bedtime duties once in a while. I got these two pages done while we chatted and watched Sense and Sensibilty on her laptop. (Even more fun since I just finished reading the book!) It was a great time and much-needed.

As Promised...

Watercolor

I've always loved watercolors. I used to do this more when I lived in Georgia before having kids and haven't touched it since. But I recently realized this is something the girls and I can all do together, now that Layla's old enough not to spill the water :) So, this is what we did all morning. The girls loved it--and so did I. The top painting is one of Natalie's. I love the hearts.
This one's Layla's. Pretty soon all her colors were green ;)
And this one's mine. Whimsical, I think. :)
We look forward to lots more painting in the future!

Purging

I determined on Sunday to do very little if any sewing this week for the sole purpose of purging my house. Somehow adding a fifth person to our family put us over the edge as far as stuff and space goes, so I now have 5 big bags to give away and let's just say it's a good thing the trash truck is coming today :) Today I'm washing and packing up a ton of stuff to sell to the consignment store tomorrow. Whew! It feels good. Anyway, I did sew these little shorts for Kelby. I had cut them out last week sometime and so it really only took a few minutes. I'm going to buy a white shirt and applique a little tractor on there to match, I think.
I'm also knitting him a hat, because I was in a knitting mood while watching American Idol the other night and Hobby Lobby was out of the yarn I need to make a certain gift for a certain someone :) It's sitting on top of a laptop case I made last week out of this GREAT pear fabric my mom bought me a few months ago. I made it because I decided to take my laptop with me when Kelby and I go to Reno to visit my friend Jenn in a few weeks. Yay!
This is a book my parents bought Natalie for her birthday. We read it together a few days ago while the little ones were napping and then I showed her the real Matryoshka dolls my dad got us when he went to Russia. The book has names for all of them and now Natalie thinks these are the coolest things EVER. We can only get them down when Layla isn't around, though, since she's not so gentle. Great book, thanks Granny and Papa!

Casa Bonita

We had quite the birthday weekend for Natalie. Today is her actual birthday, but we had her party at Casa Bonita on Saturday. If you live around here, you know that this place is a Denver icon and even though the food is terrible and overpriced, you have to go at least once. It was great and the kids had a blast, but Casey and I wouldn't mind if another full decade goes by before we go there again :)