Timothy 2.5

Timothy is officially 2.5 years old.  Hard to believe that I will have a three-year-old by the end of the year!  He is growing like a weed and having the time of his life playing outside everyday and going down to the park.  

We are still using the feeding pump for 100% of his calories, but he likes to try lots of different foods and is getting good at drinking lots of things other than milk.  Favorites right now are juice boxes, lemonade, and he really enjoyed his first root beer float after dinner tonight.  :)

He is very much a little mechanic, watching his cars carefully and figuring out how to attach trailers to all of his little cars, trucks, and tractors.  We are getting closer to being ready to potty train.  He is showing interest in sitting on the potty like his big boy cousin, Eli, and tells me when he wets his diaper, so I am thinking later this summer, after VBS is done, we will give it a try and see how he does.    We have big boy underwear all ready!  :)  He still sleeps in his crib and we enjoy knowing that he is just fine and contained where he is.  We are not pushing the big boy bed for awhile, especially when he is still plugged in to his feeding pump during the night.

According to his speech therapist, he is right on track for his age, making 3 word sentences.  It is really funny to hear him try and tell you all about something that he saw or experienced - he can't spit the words out fast enough and it is usually just nouns with a couple of verbs thrown in.  :)  Jared recently upgraded to an iphone and he can upload his videos directly to youtube, so you may see more videos of the little man more frequently.  Here is one from the other night...

Modern Mini Quilt Challenge

I finished up my new pillow today!  The worst part was definitely keeping all of the pieces straight while putting it together (as I eluded to in the previous post).  Quilting it totally made up for it, I had a blast!  I filled the white spaces in with little loops that are really close to each other and just went a quarter inch from the edges in the colored areas.  It is hard to see in the pictures, but it makes the colored areas pop off of the background.  It is now resting comfortably on our bed, reminding me to get the matching quilt done!

I am linking this up with the modern mini challenge...it was fun motivation for me to get this done and try something new.  In this case, a more challenging block and dense quilting.  I am glad that I did it and I have been enjoying all of the other quilts that have been entered!

Dutch Rose Block 

(tutorial here)

20" by 20" 

For the back I used this print that I bought with the fat quarters I am using to make our bed quilt, but I have lots of it because it is hard to use for pieces when I am using a white background.  I just don't get much definition.  But it works perfect here!

I couldn't resist the peonies...the just opened up yesterday and smell lovely!

nap time = quilting time

Here are blocks #25, 26, and 27 for our new bed quilt!  Yes, I am still working on this thing (I think I am around the 6 month mark), but I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel!  I only need 9 more blocks and then I can be sashing this thing together.  My border fabric came in, so I just need to crank these last 9 out.  The next 3 are cut and ready to go, so there may be another picture coming soon of the next batch!  

You see that blue striped fabric above?  That is the border.  Jared helped me pick it out.  I was going for a floral and he suggested otherwise.  I think it is a better choice in the long run, considering he needs to sleep under it too.  :)  The tutorial for the blocks above is here if you want to make some too!  (A great scrap burner block!)

I have also been working on a little Christmas project...a cute little wall hanging!  (sorry for the sideways picture, you'll get a better one when it is done)  This mini-quilt is for a challenge that our local fabric shop is doing in conjunction with my guild's quilt show in September and I wanted to get it out of the way.  Tutorial is here if you want to see how it is put together (another great scrap burner!)

Final project of the week is this beautiful Dutch Rose block that measures 20 inches squared.  It is going to be a pillow for our bed as I am using the same fabric.  It was a pain.  You have to read the directions very carefully and look at the pictures too!  This is the second one I did.  The first one I  totally messed up the order of the fabrics in the outer ring and it looks BAD.  I'll show you one day, but it is hiding right now...saving it means ripping it out completely and starting over...I don't know if that is going to happen.  :)  I have done a ton of piecing, so I think getting this quilted is going to be next, followed by that tree, and then the next 3 blocks.

Adoption update will be coming soon!  My pampered chef party is closing tomorrow, so I will give an update of where we are when I get that total!

Hopefully Timothy takes some nice long naps this weekend!  :)

Garden Tour, mid-June

Here is a snapshot of the garden this week.  We had over an inch of rain on Saturday and some nice warm temperatures the last couple of days, so the veggies have really taken off!  I think we are going to get some broccoli by next week and maybe even a tomato and red pepper.  Crazy, I know!  We actually have about 6 green tomatoes right now and probably 3 dozen yellow flowers, so I am hoping that we are making up for last year's first tomato not coming until well into August!  We have already been enjoying green onions, lettuce, and a few strawberries.  The asparagus and rhubarb came in really nice, but we won't get our first crops of those until next year.

Could these be flower buds on our raspberry bushes?!?!  Jared and I are anxiously waiting...and pulling out raspberry leaders out of the lawn daily.  It is laborious, but so worth it!  :)

The opposite side of the garage is trimmed in blooming irises after 2 years of waiting!  There are 2 colors - purple and blue (although it is more of a lilac color) that are surprisingly well mixed down the entire bed.  My mom and I put these in when they came to see us over the 4th of July our first summer here.  The irises come from my parents' yard in Michigan and came from my Great-Grandma Gady's yard in Detroit before that.  I love having plants in my yard that have a story.  I have quite a few from my parents' and Jared's parents' yard that I will have to feature in a post one day...

The next two pictures are the Swedish rose starters that I got from my in-laws' yard.  Before that, they were starters from Granddad and Grandmother's yard before coming from Sweden (although there may be another U.S. yard in there, correct me if I am wrong).  These pictures are for you Granddad!  Check out all of the buds (those plants are both waist high)!  Barring any hail in the next week, I'll have more pictures of them in bloom for you soon, I can see slivers of pink!  :)