Snowy and Cold Days

We had a teeny tiny bit of snow over the weekend.  Barrett is just getting to the age where snow is SUPER exciting (and he doesn't even know the joy of a snow day from school yet!)  We ate breakfast and dressed quickly to get outside and play in it before it melted. 

It was the perfect snowball-making kind of snow.  Dense and wet and juuuuust right.  We had to collect snow off the cars to do it though since it was such a tiny tiny snowfall and all the snow in the yard was pretty muddy.  Barrett got a real kick out of throwing snowballs at mommy.

One thing I hate about winter is being cooped up in the house.  We try to get outside every day, but it's been pretty cold here lately and I've been a wimp about going out in it.  Some days Barrett is good about playing with his toys independently, and those are the days that I have to be attentive to the length of quiet time.  You moms will know what I mean....the moment when you think "he's been quiet in his room for way too long....what's he getting in to?" 

I had a moment like that this morning where I realized I'd been happily facebooking and pinning away without any interruptions for far too long.  I surfaced from lala-internet-land to peek in on him and found this:

He had pulled his easter basket out of his closet and taken all the plastic easter eggs apart and was building towers of them on the floor and then decorating his blinds.  Right after I took this picture he turned and said "Look Mama, I make it pretty!"  He's already crafting on his own!  I love his imagination.

Quilt squares

A year ago I joined a monthly online quilting bee.  There's a bunch of these types of bees out there, you can find a bunch on flickr if you are interested.  Ours is special because it's with a group of mothers I met through Ravelry when we were all pregnant at the same time.  So our babies are growing up together, albeit all over the globe.  It's nice to have a group of women who are hitting all the same milestones at approximately the same times. 

Anyway, the bee ended in August, but I just finally finished the last blocks.  I am so relieved to have them finally done.  While I enjoyed the bee, things got so crazy for me at the end of the year and I felt like it was hanging over my head to get these done.  I still enjoyed making them.  Well, mostly.  The first one is the Flying Circle of Geese block that's been all over quilty blogland lately.  It's a gorgeous block, but I learned while piecing it that contemporary piecing and paper-piecing are not my thing.  I'm much more of a traditional block girl....the "cut two half square triangles X size, then piece to a block Y size" sort of piecing.

If you make four of these blocks you get the circle of geese effect, but after I ripped and re-stitched the block about 4 different times, I couldn't bring myself to do the whole circle.

The other block was for one of the moms who assigned each of us a month and sent us a fabric selection.  The only rule was to incorporate the red fabric (that I used for the stems).  She wanted us to make a block that represented the month to us, in whatever fashion we wanted.

I've always loved fall, so I asked for a fall month and chose to do this leaf pattern.  I found the instructions somewhere online, but the original block wasn't big enough (it was supposed to be a 12x12 block) so I had to do some resizing to make it work.  I hand-appliqued the stems instead of piecing them, which was a first for me.  It was hard to make the stitches seem invisible, but I was pleased with the end result.

I had a lot of fun with the bee, and although I sent some of the blocks embarrasingly late (these were June and July's blocks...sent in January!) I really enjoyed getting to try a number of different styles that I wouldn't have otherwise done.

Welcome

Hello.  So I have started, quit, and restarted blogging about 4 times in the past year.  I can't say for sure whether this time will stick, but I'd like to have a solid outlet for my crafty attempts and parenting wins and failed attempts (now come on, we all have them). 

So....I guess this is the get-to-know you post.  My name is Karen, and I have a wonderful husband and a delightful little boy who entertains me daily.  His name is Barrett and he is 2 and half years old.  He amazes me every day with the things he says, does, and learns. 

We are expecting another wee one (another boy) in April.  I'm both thrilled and overwhelmed by the thought of parenting two children, much less two boys.  Barrett is fearless and adventurous.  He was walking by 10 months, running and climbing by 12 months.  I'm sure they will be great brothers, but I still have daily moments of "what in the heck was I thinking?". 

My other goal from rekindling blogging is driving myself to take more pictures.  I'm a scrapbooker, so you'd think that I would take tons of pictures.  And I used to....before Barrett became so active.  Now when we do anything I always think about how much juggling I can do between keeping up with him and my awesome, but large, camera.  Plus I've never taken the time to really get to know my camera so I experiment a lot with the settings...not so easy to do with a 2 yr old who stays still for about .2 seconds.  Over the last few months, aside from obligatory photo opps like holidays and family get togethers, I only have some blurry cell phone pictures.

I have lots more to share, but I guess that's enough for an introduction post.  I hope to meet some other moms along the way and to swap stories and form some online friendships.  Thanks for stopping by and drop me a comment to let me know you've been here.