35, 36, produce, and a moose

A little mash of this and that...

Blocks 35 and 36 for our quilt are done!  I am officially done with blocks.  :)

I was going to lay them out, but didn't have room...so this is the best sneak preview I can give you.

I have been working since these pictures.  All of the blocks are sewn in rows with sash pieces in between and sash pieces between the rows are sewn together.  Monday's nap time will be sewing my rows together and adding the border.  Pictures of a finished top will be coming soon!

We have lots of raspberries coming in, about 2 to 3 cups everyday.  We have been freezing the ones we  haven't eaten and are up to about 12 cups for future use.  I really thought about making jam, but I can't justify making our overall small haul into jam because we just don't have enough needed to boil down to those small jars.  We are talking about letting them expand down the bed they are in, so that may be in the future.  We are also pulling in lots of tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, and green beans.

Please meet Timothy the moose.  We have no idea where he came up with the idea to make antlers with his hands, but he came out of the bathtub Saturday night with his thumbs on his temples and proclaiming, "Moose!" as proudly as he could.  After he put his pj's on, he was stomping through the house and roaring because he was a dinosaur.  This morning, he was a super hero, complete with a napkin cape.  Life is never dull.  :)

In the midst of VBS

It is VBS week here...between Jared being the Pastor, me directing it, Timothy being his 2.5 year old self, and Timothy and I completely wiped out with a summer cold, not too much else is going on.  I did manage to finish up another block for our bed quilt, number 34.  Only 2 more and I am done with the blocks!

Here is the tutorial if you want to make one :)

And speaking of VBS, Timothy is really enjoying himself, especially the music!

Throwing in the Towel

So, the cabbage worms beat us this year.  We pulled up the cabbage and brussels sprouts.  I think next year we will have to net everything...avoiding chemicals is so difficult at these times!  Oh well, hoping for a better turn out next year.  :)

Meanwhile, Mr. Water has been officially employed by his father...

...and my mid-summer flowers are all blooming!

Check out the height on these beauties!

The coneflowers are out!

And someone is sneaking out to say hi while I am trying to take pictures in the front...

I love my little man and can't get enough of him!

a little sewing

I have been doing a little sewing here and there, but with family in and out, going to the lake for our anniversary, and Vacation Bible School at our church next week (and I am directing it), I haven't got a whole lot, but what is done is cute!

Here is a little quilt for a little girl.  We made a sparkle punch/wonky star (whatever you call it) quilt as a group and I took on the challenge of using the scraps to come up with something.  Our large quilt is a rainbow of colors, and while I certainly could do that, I found an overwhelming amount of pink and purple in my bag o' leftovers.  So I made a quilt only a little girl would love.  :)  It is 34" by 41" (after washing)  and quilted with meandering loops.  We will either keep it in the guild stash to be used in our area for a little girl that we hear is ill, or donate it to project Linus.  It also happens to be my u.f.o. challenge for this month.  Double score!  :)

I really want to finish our bed quilt before the end of the summer, so I sat down and cranked out SIX BLOCKS!  :)  The blocks above use this tutorial and the blocks below use this tutorial.  Now on to finish the last three.  That's right!  Only 3 blocks left!  I started this process sometime last September or October, so I am anxious to get this thing wrapped up before I hit the one year mark.  Looking forward to putting it together!  

The last three blocks will have to wait...I have cardboard grass to paint green, brown paper bags to stuff and spray paint gray, and ladders to disguise into mountains.  Oh the fun of vbs week!

On the Website

Our profile is up on the website!  Here is a link if you want to check it out:

http://www.lsssd.org/family_services/adoptiveparentprofiles/

We continue to pray for our birth parents and future child.  And try to wait patiently.  :)

We did take a quick trip for our anniversary this past week, which was just wonderful.  Grandma and Grandpa Nies took Timothy for the night and we headed to the family trailer on the lake for a night by ourselves.  We had a nice hike around the lake, dinner on the covered deck while a rain shower blew through, another walk around the campground, a cozy fire with s'mores, and we both slept through the night for the first time since last year.  (someone needs to add milk to Timothy's feeding pump every 4 hours, so we take turns throughout the night)  It was pretty amazing!  We are now back home and rested up, hoping that lots of sleepless nights with a new baby will be in our near future.  :)

We were treated with a double rainbow as the rain moved out of our area!

Early July Garden

Today's haul:

Peas, Beans, 2 Raspberries!, 3 Tomatoes, 2 Zucchini, Carrots, Swiss Chard

Things have exploded here the past two weeks.  The squash and pumpkins are officially everywhere!  We have officially moved into the "beating back" stage of the summer.  :)

We have had 5 tomatoes so far, the first picked on the 4th of July (from our 4th of July variety to be exact).  We have DOZENS that are getting close to turning red.  I am anticipating that canning of tomatoes will commence in 2 weeks (which is also VBS at church, of course).  We also have 4 grape tomato plants that are loaded.  Look out members of St. John Lutheran Church!  You are about to be invaded by your Pastor's garden!  :)

Squash and pumpkins are looking good.  There are 4 (2 different varieties) in the picture above; can you find them?

We have picked 4 raspberries.  :)  We are so ready for these to turn and they are taking their sweet time!  Next week it will be all about the raspberries.  We can't wait!

The flowers around here are changing seasons as well.  The peonies, irises, and even the roses are fading and the hot summer blooms are emerging.  For my yard, that means lilies, coneflowers, and these really pretty blue delphiniums.  I love the constant change of the flowerbeds...I always have something to look forward to in the coming weeks as I am cutting away the dead heads of past beauties.  

We are going to definitely need to separate some of the lilies in my yard, so if you want some, let me know!  I have these orange tiger lilies and one huge monster lemon lily that looks like it will bloom sometime next week.  I'll be pulling them up and breaking them apart this fall, claim yours now.  :)

July Adoption Update

We are in the book!  Now we wait...

Please join us in praying for our birth parents and child!  We could get a phone call anytime, which is really exciting and nerve-wracking all at the same time.

Our profile will also be going up on the website, so when I see it up (I just checked and it isn't up yet), I'll throw a link here so you can see it too!

We are officially over the halfway point for paying for the adoption.  YAY!  :)  Our dinner wasn't very well attended, but the people were generous and loved the things in our raffle.  We even had our friends, Paul and Shannon drive all the way from Howard to be with us (which was amazing!).  They are working with LSS and adopting too!  With our local Thrivent chapter matching up to $500, we raised almost $1400!  So on we go, setting as much as we can aside from our monthly budget, and getting ready for some craft shows this fall to pay off the LAST TWO payments.  The first of which is the largest at $7500, and then $1500 at the very end of the process.  We also have sent in applications for a couple of grants that would really help offset some of the cost.

The amazon ad over there on the right as brought in $125 so far.  Not too shabby for doing a little shopping.  :)  Thanks for thinking of us when you make those purchases and stop here first!

I don't know if I have mentioned this already, but we won't be able to post pictures of the baby on here until we have officially adopted him or her, which is 6 months after they come to live with us.  I haven't quite decided how we are going to handle that, but just so you know, things might go completely quiet around here for awhile or the entire blog might go private and you will need a password.  Still working on that one.

That's it for now, hopefully baby news sooner than later!

Fourth of July Week

~ Fun, Busy, Full of Laughter ~

Friends from Chicago stopped through and Timothy had two new friends to play with, Kari and Anna. We are looking forward to going to Michigan this fall and visiting them at their house!

Grandma and Grandpa from Michigan came for a week, yay!

Still a swing guy...

but adding the big slides to our park repertoire.

Pure joy :)

Timothy had a doctor/feeding clinic appointment in Sioux Falls on the first, so we enjoyed the Great Plains Zoo while we were there.  So much fun!

Chief Navigator

The hit of the zoo was definitely the carousel.  His eyes lit up the second it started and he spent the entire ride with a grin from ear to ear and lots of waves for everyone watching.  :)

This is how Timothy waited for the 4th of July parade to start. :)

Caught daddy with a sucker out of Timothy's bucket!  :)