thanksgiving

lucy, me, laura

since we couldn't make it back to idaho or utah for thanksgiving this year, i decided to rope my cousins into doing thanksgiving with us. my cousin, lucy, came up from portland with her family for a couple days and we went over to my cousin, laura's, house for thanksgiving dinner. laura lives about thirty-five minutes away (when you don't get lost and end up in an r.v. park, that is), so it wasn't very far at all and made me wonder why it's taken us this long to get together with them. 

we went over a couple hours before our early afternoon dinner and had a great time just hanging out and catching up. laura's daughter, gretchen took my girls under her wing and i hardly heard a peep out of them the whole time we were there. jonathan was a little less cooperative and refused to sleep the entire time we were there. he actually was the reason that we ended up leaving in the end.

don't let the cuteness fool you, this boy was tired.

tired eyes showing through.

close to sleeping on daddy's lap, but still fighting it.

lucy's husband, brian, was great with the kids and also helped entertain them this weekend. it's always nice to have other people sharing the burden of entertaining my children.

randy and laura's husband, loren

thanksgiving dinner itself was delicious. laura and lucy's families are actually both vegan, and since i can't eat dairy right now, it was the perfect year for us to do a vegan meal all together. we divvied up dishes to bring and i was able to eat everything there, which was really nice for me. plus, it really was all very delicious.

it was so fun to get together with cousins and helped to ease some of the homesickness of being away from family for the first time in a long time.

(thanks for the pictures, lucy)

half square triangle quilt

 

started: march 14th, 2012

completed: november 17th, 2012

dimensions: 67"x72"

notes: i asked for fabric for this quilt (original inspiration here) for christmas last year, so in january, my mom and i headed out to find some. i was pregnant (i.e. completely indecisive) and we went to probably five different quilt stores before we finally found the backing fabric. after i found that, it was easy to pick out the other fabrics. my mom liked the fabric so much that she bought her own, although she hasn't started hers yet (something about other projects). it will be fun to have matching quilts.

the pattern is actually just randomly placed half square triangles. it's the most modern looking quilt that i've made and i like the juxtaposition of the very linear quilt top with the very organic fabric for the backing.

i quilted it using parallel lines to the existing grid in the quilt. i really like how it turned out. i've been putting off taking pictures because it's been pretty gloomy around here this week and the lighting hasn't been great. i finally just resigned myself to the fact that we live in seattle and snapped some this morning in the best light i could. here are some pictures:

 

and some pre-washing photos (i was worried that the red might run - thankfully it didn't):

and a behind the scenes, reality picture:

acceptable reasons to cry in public

my cousin not only married a great woman, he married a great woman from a great family. one of my cousin's sister-in-laws (are you following me?) is a great writer and artist and has recently ventured into the public art arena. last february, she did a public art installation about how to write a crazy love letter that i desperately wanted to be part of, but didn't end up doing for various reasons (mostly two and 8/9ths little reasons).

this month she once again did an installation that i once again had great intentions of participating in and once again let some excuses get in the way (three little ones come to mind). but then, just when i had forgotten about it, i received a wonderful email informing me that because one of my acceptable reasons to cry in public was appearing on one of the four broadsides (she had asked for them on her blog and i commented), i would be sent a set of the broadsides without even soliciting them. this really made my day.

the perfectly presented package arrived last week and even though it was close to nap time and even though i thought about selfishly keeping all of the broadsides, i instead threw all three kids in the car and drove to st. edward's. i quickly scouted out possible locations and then tried to post the broadsides and take pictures while no one was looking. it was kind of thrilling.

i kind of wish that i could have done a little more with my posters. i would have liked to take them downtown and post them in a very public place- maybe a place where people might find themselves crying in public. alas, such is my life right now. maybe someday...

i did get to keep one of the broadsides (that's part of the project) and decided to keep the one with my acceptable reason on it (of course). this was such a fun thing to be part of and i hope that emily makes a habit of this sort of thing.

excessively cute

another photo shoot with jonathan because he was being really smiley. lots of them look similar and some of them are blurry because the lighting wasn't great and he was moving around, but they're still fun for me, so i put them on anyway. 

more october pictures

we tried introducing jonathan to solids this month.

he wasn't really sure how he felt about the whole thing.

his stomach really doesn't like rice cereal and oatmeal isn't looking much better. this boy is a picky eater. or rather, i should say that his digestive tract is extremely picky. 

the kids got into the winter hats and were being pretty cute with each other.

proof that we did celebrate halloween.

and that i did use the same costumes as last year (new audience).

and that diane's eyes still don't handle the flash well.

even without the flash, diane is extremely hard to take pictures of right now. she generally refuses to take her thumb out of her mouth. she doesn't constantly suck her thumb, but it seems like as soon as the camera comes out, the thumb goes in.

even when i do get her thumb out, she usually refuses to look at the camera.

this boy is good at hamming it up for the camera. he is also crawling now. he has gotten extremely fast in the last week or so. 

a rare instance when all three of my children were napping at the same time. extremely rare. i took a few pictures and then ran to my own bed and took a nap.

the following pictures were taken by madeleine when i let her use the camera on my phone:

the weather has gotten cooler and it's been raining more, but it's still been a beautiful fall here. the leaves are vibrant and we've gone on a few walks to enjoy it. it may take us forty-five minutes to get out the door, and they only last about twenty minutes, but it's still worth it.

randy and i did applesauce yesterday. i'm so grateful that his mom made him help with canning growing up. he is pretty amazing on an apple peeler/corer/slicer. we did eighty pounds of apples and got thirty-nine quarts worth of applesauce.

a rare instance when all three kids were actually cooperating for a picture. of course the lighting is terrible, but it's still nice to capture it when i can. they'll be grown up before i know it, right? right? promise?

just kidding.

sort of.