Spring Has Sprung

Spring has sprung here in Madison. Talia got her first big girl bike, we celebrated Passover and we can finally spend some time outside! We have lots going on in the next few weeks. Alex is going to be one year old next week, can you believe it? More visitors, a garden to get started (I don't know how to start!) and a few major quilting dealines. I'm trying to take things one step at a time...

How do you spell "come back"?

We just had a great visit with my sister Jo and my niece Marley. It's great to get the cousins together. As a kid I didn't have first cousins that were close in age so I always felt I missed out on that. After they left yesterday Talia was coloring a picture for my sister and she said, "How do you spell Jojo"? A few minutes later she said, "How do you spell "come back"? My sentiments exactly.

Holland

Bluegrass for kids CD Review: Astrograss - Let Me Stay Up All Night

We're listening to a great CD these days: Let Me Stay Up All Night by Astrograss. The title track is clearly Talia's favorite while I like the first track, "There Their They're" and baby Alex prefers "Drunken Sailor." It is Talia's most requested CD at the moment. It's great to listen to something OTHER than princess songs and seriously, bluegrass for kids- what a great idea! We saw Astrograss perform in Philadelphia once and they are based in Brooklyn so there are lots of shows there. Their first album has lots of Shel Silverstein poems set to original bluegrass tunes. Fun for everyone. Check it out!

Cheese Auction- Alkmaar

Botanical Garden- Keukenhof

Windmills- Zaanse Schanse

We're Back!

We are back from Amsterdam and almost back to a normal schedule (almost a week later). We had a fantastic time with our friends in Holland. We hung out in the city, took day trips to a village of windmills and an amazing botanical garden (the tulips are in bloom!) and saw a cheese auction in a small northern town. The weather was cold but sunny (I think that's all you can possibly ask of Amsterdam)... The kids got along GREAT. I was still sick and Alex of course got sick but all in all it was a great trip. It feels like an accomplishment to have taken two small children to Europe! Now... where should we go next!?

See you later Alligator

We're off on a much needed vacation to Amsterdam! We'll be back later-- I promised Talia it would be spring when we returned so it better be! Actually, it's going to be much nicer weather here than in Amsterdam this week. Oh well.

Spring Fling Round Robin: 1st border

I received the first quilt block for the Spring Fling Round Robin. I was paralyzed by fear as to what I should do with it! I don't want to mess up someone else's work! People might not realize this about me-- I can't really sew a straight line very well (I'll blame my crappy machine??), I'm disorganized, I know nothing about quilting, I rarely make anything that isn't only squares and rectangles, I rarely follow a pattern, and I don't really know much about lining up seams, the right way to press etc. I've been overwhelmed with the amazing results ofthe other quilters in the round robin. This challenge has really shown me how borders can enhance a block. I never knew! Please check out the website and see the fantastic transformations from "center block" to "center block plus 1st border." I came up with a lot of different ideas for the block in my sketch book but of course, I hadn't really read the directions and had not realized that I could only add a few inches to each side. Some of the designs I came up with couldn't have been done without adding 6 inches on EACH side, thus more than doubling the block size. I don't know what I was thinking. I stressed and stressed and then suddenly it came to me in the middle of the night: prarie points. Now, I've never done prarie points and they are usually added as a final border instead of binding to a quilt. I have seen them added to interior borders here and there so I decided to give it a try. I googled prarie points, read a few instructions and got right to it. I had no idea how it would look in the end but I'm very happy with the result. Of course, I never meant to add the pink border but somehow my math was off and I ended up an inch short all around. So I added the pink border fabric, which I think was the color inspiration for the original tulip blocks (see, pink, orange, yellow and purple!). Now I have to choose some fabric to send along, make a label and send it out. I'm relieved to be done and glad to have tried a new technique. Actually, when you are a self taught sewer/quilter, everything is pretty much a new technique!

New Baby Quilt

Trying to get my act together after T's spring break and some trips and visitors. I'm dealing with some seriously bratty/ sassy behavior now that Talia is 4. I'm so shocked by it that I'm not sure how to deal. Time to revisit those "gentle discipline" books I looked at about 10 months ago, which was the last time we went through a rough patch. Let's not forget that everyone in my house has been sick and this winter is never ending.

Anyway, made this quilt a while back for a friend and I'm happy to say it has now been delivered (no pun intended?). It's the first time I ever made a whole cloth quilt-- I thought it would be quick. It wasn't quick because I did a lot more quilting on it than usual. I hand quilted around select fish with orange and then did closely spaced waves throughout the whole thing. It's pretty cute and just right for a new healthy baby boy (over 10 pounds!). I have a bunch more ideas for whole cloth quilts. Perhaps I'll get to them someday...

Overwhelmed

Once again Talia's school break somehow takes me by surprise. Maybe because it's not exactly the kind of "spring" I'm used to, maybe because Ron worked on Sunday so it seems like even a LONGER week but I'm totally spent by full time childcare of two kids. I don't want to go out in the morning because I certainly don't want to miss Alex's nap. That means we're homebound until about 1:30, where lately my kids seem to need CONSTANT entertainment. I can't take a shower, clean the house, cook, etc. and I CERTAINLY have not stepped foot into my craft room. Then it's like pulling teeth to get to one activity (Talia is such a homebody--she never wants to go out, even if it's to someplace fun). Since I want to do something enjoyable with the kids each day I put off running my errands. They don't want to go return stuff, pick up groceries or stop by the bank any more than I do and the list just keeps piling up. I don't HAVE to get that stuff done now or this week but I want to cross it all off my list. If I do go somewhere, for example today we went to Michael's to get some craft supplies for the house and for our trip in two weeks to Holland, it's just too much trouble to have to say "no" to every request for items and treats that I'd rather just go another time without T. Alex isn't so happy to be running errands either. I didn't even really get to look around that much to try to find stuff for the airplane ride, or even to keep her occupied during our trip to Chicago this weekend. Wait, I've been so stressed about this trip to Holland that I forgot to be stressed about the trip to Chicago. I need to pack and get the house ready for a weekend away. I guess I should either go and do that or at least go to sleep so I can have more energy to do it tomorrow. I feel extremely overworked. Oh-- and both my kids have snotty noses and are a bit on the cranky side. When does school start again? Not for almost another full week!

We're free!

It felt GREAT to be outside yesterday! Talia (a tank dress and snowboots-- nice, right?) and some friends jumped off the remaining snowbanks (almost gone today!), used sidealk chalk on the driveway and ran around. I didn't really know what to do with Alex. I let him crawl around the driveway a bit but he put rocks in his mouth. I think it's going to be a harder spring/summer than I thought! What do you do with kids this age?

Feeling Better

It's been over a week since I took Alex to the doctor and discovered he had a "raging" ear infection. He absolutely HATED taking any medicine but luckily didn't notice it slipped into his bottle. He's still taking the antibiotics, which I'm not sure if I support or not. I guess he's still a little guy and he was so sick... he perked up the next day after starting them so maybe they helped. Now that we took him in to see the doctor I wonder if he hasn't had other ear infections as well. I bet he's had at least one or two others. He has a cold on top of the whole ear infection thing. Ron had it, then Alex, now Talia too. Early this morning Talia wet her bed (for the first time since she started sleeping in panties) - totally my fault- because I gave her a huge glass of milk about an hour before bed. Anyway, she came into my bed at 5:30 and basically had her face right next to me and coughed ALL OVER ME so I'm sure I'll get it next. I'll be happy just as long as we're all healthy for our trip to Holland next month!

Four