Me thinks this might be paradise...

You might remember a little incident a few months back involving a certain daughter and the letter e? I hate to admit that I have been typing with a defective keyboard since then and probably still would be if not for my husband, who took me to Best Buy and left the store not only with a new keyboard, but a very happy wife. Can I tell you how nice it is to type away without having to give special attention to each "e" that comes up? In fact, I was so happy that I "sharked" the downstairs as soon as I got home. (love the shark, but I can't wait to steam the floor on a cooler day)

How else do I know that Chris loves me? (besides the obvious that he is still here, right?) We have a little dating ritual that has been going on for the past 2 years that includes dinner and a trip to the bookstore. This trip to the bookstore normally involves us perusing the aisles alone, meeting up every so often and us leaving with Chris, empty handed, and me, with at least one new treasure. For the past two years, I have assumed that this is a mutually enjoyable outing as Chris seems happy enough and I know that I sure love a trip to the bookstore. Tonight, the truth was revealed. I forget how it was brought up, but it slipped that Chris doesn't like this at all! (Ok...not COMPLETELY surprising as his reading is normally limited to checking out his websites, but if you know my husband....he normally lets his mind be known on things like this!) Yet still, he took me to Barnes and Noble (thank you, homeschooling discount!) and let me wander through the aisles, enjoying the quiet and leaving with my arms full of treasures....including this fabulous journal, that shouts for me to write in, and a new read. (I'll tell you about Syrie James' book about Charlotte Bronte soon!)

Side note: When Rachel saw my new book, she was bummed because she was going to buy it for my birthday. Isn't that sweet? She saw it mentioned on the cover of the other book and new her mom is a Jane Austen fan. Points earned, Rachel.

Christmas in July

anyone have a fairly easy tree skirt pattern? I am wanting to simple quilt together a top and bottom (with this incredibly adorable fabric that I snagged at Fabric Depot) and bind it with a red polka dot. I would like to start now in hopes of it maybe reaching completed status in time for the holidays. (Yes, that is about how quickly I move over here...so lame.) I would like to avoid the whole cutting out a big gigantic circle in hopes of stretching out my not so cheap fabric. Help??

blueberries

"Would you be able to give me a discount if I ordered 20 flats of blueberries?", I asked. "Are you a restaurant?", the respond. Yes, pretty much. Now that we ended up with 132 lbs of blueberries, we might be able to last until....November? I try to support healthy eating, but sometimes I feel like Chris goes a little wonky when it comes to his favorite antioxidant. If he ever gets cancer, I will know that they are all a bunch of quacks.

Me: Well, with the 24 bags of blueberries in the freezer

Chris: and the 5 in the fridge

Me: No...6 in the fridge

Chris: no...5

Me: (blank stare, followed by epiphany) You already ate one bag?!??!

and this is why I got 132 lbs of blueberries. 4 lbs gone in 2 hours.

banana girl

Our little Banana gets up first thing in the morning, gets dressed and subsequently hops into bed with me for the 2nd half of her night of sleep. This morning, I woke up to the soft snores of a cuddly five year old. She slept. and slept. and slept. When Chloe came in, Hannah popped up and immediately informed Chloe that she woke up WAY before her. (let's just forget the whole going back to sleep for a few hours thing, right?) Apparently, this is a competition.

note to self:

Note to self: you love scrapbooking and really should pick it up again. Just because fabric speaks to your senses a little more, the memories you capture through scrapbooking should bump it up to first place. Now go and scrapbook, you.

(last year at the fair, I promised myself to enter some pages at the fair just to give the craft the respect it deserves. Because I haven't scrapbooked in almost a year, it took some digging to find my scrapbooks and for a brief moment, I thought they were gone. In that moment, I realized that they were much more important than any purse I might sew. My goal next week? Scrapbook. Let's hope I am more successful at it than I was with my sewing, relaxing and reading goal.)

the guest room revisited

Since the guest room is empty again, I decided to start playing with it. We found this loverly writing desk in garage sale land for a whopping $15. Someday I might refinish it, but for now it is happy in its present state and filled with all sorts of letter writing paraphernalia. I love it. Amazingly enough, the desk managed to make the guest room look a little bigger because I moved the bed over closer to the window.

Below is an apron I found on said garage selling excursion and was pronounced "the most beautiful apron I have ever seen" by a sweet five year old that I know. I must say that I agree.

a clamming we will go...

What is one of the only things that will get me

out of bed before 4 am?

You guessed it! The opportunity to dig in the sand for a food that I despise. Clamming! Chris went into work a little late and we received a little tutorial from some friends on the art of clam digging. We came home with a few under our limit, but with all of the girls helping us, our limit was a little large. (120 clams, to be exact.) The one that looks like it has an elephant trunk is a gaper. Yum. I think maybe I should change this post to : the things I will do for my family. ;)

matchies

Do you know what I love? Picking up a familiar dress at a garage sale, one that a big sister has already but in a smaller size, and having both sisters thrilled to match each other as soon as they can. As a matter of fact, when I asked Chloe to get her pj's on the other night, she said she couldn't until I took a picture of her and Rachel together in their matchies. Thank you, girls, for being so sweet to each other. (most of the time.)

the good, the bad and the ugly

cute things:

Lilly running away from Chris at church to the primary room, climbing on my lap and waving to Chris, saying "bye, bye!", until he left

seeing my 11 year old "oh and ah" over vintage patterns and spending her own money on said patterns and a set of vintage suitcases

Elise doing her mini jumps on the trampoline

watching the girls clamor over the harvest from our garden

Hannah informing me that she still loves Lilly, even though she did bang her head into her neck.

Lilly scrunching her eyes closed while scrunching her nose, just because we laugh at her when she does it

not so cute things:

Elise flooding the bathroom

Hannah slamming the door like a teenager

a daughter that takes an hour (or two) to do the dishes

a house that just won't stay clean

a mom that probably should spend some time in her own little time out

last leg of the marathon

tomorrow:: the last day of the marathon aka my crazy June/July. sewing camp, camping camp, beach trip with in laws, girl scout camp....whew. Makes me tired just typing it. Next week I would like to sew, embroider and read a good book. And do laundry, dishes and feed my kids. (only because I kind of have to do those ones)

This year, our venture into the world of girl scout camp was done with a little bit of hesitation. I had to volunteer to garauntee a spot for all of the girls. I had to sweet talk my mom into coming down to play with Elise and Lilly while volunteering. It just seemed like a lot. I have had a slight change of attitude as I plan on volunteering forever more (as that is how long it will be before all of my girls have gone through camp there). A fun time was had by all and it was wonderful experiencing it with the girls instead of just hearing their summaries each evening. I'll post pictures....when I finally get pictures up from the beach. Can I tell you how pooped I am? I just remind myself that next week=sewing, embroidering and books. (and maybe some potty training? Dang. Mom lists never stay short. )

beach trip numero dos

We are back from beach trip take 2 of this summer, although this one included a house instead of a yurt and more importantly, a washing machine and dryer. (Oh, and a mother in law cooking yummy Korean food 24/7) I haven't had time to upload pictures yet, but here is a breakdown of our trip:

Day one: tillamook cheese factory, clamming, eating seafood

Day two: Newport Aquarium, crabbing, seal watching, clamming, getting large fine for

naughty clamming activity, eating clams, sleeping very well

Day three: crabbing, blue heron cheese factory, hike/pick salmon berries, tillamook cheese

factory, home

So, as you can see from the above itinerary, this trip was pretty much all about seafood and dairy products, although mainly about seafood. I hate seafood, but I am convinced that this makes me a formidable adversary of the clams. I do not smell of seafood so they do not fear me. Sorry for betraying you, little ones, but you make my husband and my kids so very happy.

(which is why we managed to clam beyond the legal limits and not enter one antique store or flea market. Clams bring more smiles than antique stores do. Dang.)

the infamous zig zag quilt

{a las, the infamous zig zag quilt. stripes of blue, green and white.}

If you are new to quilting, this is the quilt for you. If you have a one year old who likes to toss quilt squares around while you are doing quilting yoga (aka: laying out many, many squares), you might want to lay this out during sleeping hours.

Did I tell you how much I love fabricdepot.com? This quilt did not require a single trip to the fabric store. I even used batting from a garage sale! Thanks to Bend the Rules, I never prewash my

quilting fabric. This leads me to my favorite part of making a quilt. I love to pull the quilt out of the dryer, finding all of the cute puckering magic from the fabric shrinking that gives it that vintage feel. Sigh.

I can't believe that I neglected to give Amanda credit for this beautiful pattern, even if it did take me 3 months to make it a reality! (beautiful and easy....a winning combination!)

house guests

Instead of cleaning my house in preparation for our barrage of house guests this week, I decided I would spruce up the guest room for them. (See? Doesn't that sound like more fun?) This room was originally supposed to house the royal Lilly Lu, but seeing as she has shown major preferences to the closet, I thought I should change things up for our guests. The quilt was from sewing camp (for moms), as Lia and I had a little quilting class that included us both making a simple quilt from Material Obsession. And then there is where Sarah went a little crazy with her can of Cherry Red spray paint, painting anything that came too close while the can was in her hand. frames. (lots of them) a shelf. a chair. I'll call it quits for now, but I really am liking the room. You'll notice the chair has all of our Portland touristy books on there. In the nightstand, we made up a basket full of those things you might forget. (besides underwear. don't forget your underwear!) We also put a bird feeder outside the window and have a bird book in that nice little stack. Our guest room is now open for business. (if only those naughty girlies would stop unmaking the bed to cuddle up and read. and no more leaving your toys in there!)

our frumpy date night

What do you do for a hot date after 12 years? Thai food and a stop at the garden of Eden (aka: Forest Grove Community Garden) for a little weeding. And no, that isn't some crazy code for make out lane.

If anyone is out on this side of town, let me give you a tour of our amazing community garden! It is lush and bountiful and every day that I go to water, it seems like things have doubled in size. Although I love having the kids there to get excited about all of the vegetables that are growing, it is much more peaceful to go there with just Chris and me. I am also enjoying the social aspect of it all, talking with our garden neighbors about what they're growing and gleaning all of their gardening secrets. Yes, my garden at home is much more accessible but I will still be doing the community garden next year. (that full sun is making those veggies look like they are on steroids!)

Oh, beautiful...

Being out in Forest Grove made us have to shake up our Fourth of July traditions a bit. When we were in Portland, our celebrations included a ward picnic and a killer fireworks show that night. I guess we could have done the same thing, but what is the fun in that? This morning I took the girls to the Hillsboro Parade and then we just had a nice family bbq. I am not sure if I went to 4th of July parades as a child as I don't have a stellar memory, but I am pretty sure that

this parade will always hold a special place in my vast memory tank. (I remember a lot of things,

just not always the most important things) We got there right as the parade was starting and with all the chaos of parking and unloading 6 kids, we got their feeling a little hurried. All of that disappeared as one of the 1st floats was full of veterans. You know those chills I talked about? This was beyond chills. My eyes filled with tears as my heart was overflowing with gratitude for these men who gave such a priceless gift to our country. It seemed like for the 1st half of the parade, every other float was honoring our veterans. And like clock work, the crowd would stand to honor these wonderful men. And I would start crying again. No, I am not pregnant. I am just feeling extra appreciative for the sacrifice so many make for us.

{note the skirts that made for a sleep deprived mom this independence day. I am grateful for a land that allows me the freedom to make such a bad decision.}

red, white and blue

I am a down right proud American. Every time I drive into Forest Grove and get a glimpse of our oversized (to some) flag, I get chills. Singing a patriotic song (especially with a large group of fellow patriots? chills. I will always remember the day that I got to see a navy ship roll into the Puget Sound, lined with sailors in uniform, standing at attention. I am off to finish up Lilly's red, white and blue skirt for our 4th of July happenings, but a big thank you to all of you brave service men that have helped protect the freedoms that my family enjoys everyday and to their families that sacrifice a normal family life.

{and shame on you politicians that are so darned set on taking so many of those freedoms away!}