Jean Quilts!

While I’m feeling all inspired to write about life I thought I’d tell you about my jean quilting project that I did for last Christmas. I had a stack of hole-y old jeans that I have been collecting basically since we were married. So when I say a stack I mean a big one. I’d collected them even before I knew how to quilt since its sacrilige in our family to 1. throw away a watermelon rind (why you ask? You make pickles with them of course! Though these new fangled watermelons don’t have nearly the rind they used to so those ones you can throw) and 2. throw away jeans that can be used to make blankets. Anyway, fast forward 6 years and I’ve learned to quilt, have a huge stack of jeans, a creative urge, and it’s Christmas coming up!

Now, my grandma’s jean blankets are usually squares but in order to maximize the number of blankets I could make I decided to get a bit creative and first start with strips. Also, this had the added benefit of minimizing sewing fabric back together. My other constraint was the fact that I had already procured several pieces of backing fabric at yardsales and the sale rack at Joann’s. This limited the dimensions of my blankets and in some cases made me get creative to use the whole piece of backing. In the end I was able to make 6 blankets! One for each of my female family members (they have to share with spouses) and one for me! Below is more detail on each blanket and the general order I finished them in, though I had them all mostly thought out well ahead of finishing the first.

 

1. Andi’s: Brown corduroy backing, 6” offset strips
2. Jenn’s: Gold upholstery backing, 10” strips with edging strips of 4” squares
3. Mom’s: Blue backing, 10” squares with 6” strip accents and a center of 5” squares
4. Grandma’s: Tan corduroy backing, 10” Strips
5. Amanda’s: Green backing, 6” random strips
6. Mine: Red upholstery backing, 6” squares

 

 

Voluntary Flowers

It was really fun this spring to find that a few of my plants had survived the winter. Here are two fuchsia plants from my hanging baskets that had buds on them this spring. I repotted them and now one has multiple blooms! The other is the mum I bought last fall. It has lots of lovely blooms already!

Judah Update August 19th

Disclaimer: These little updates are more for my own memories than anything, feel free to read or skip as you desire :)

Judah is getting some more words, the most popular of which are “what’s that” and “no”. He says no to everything, and then we ask him if he can say yes and he says “yes”. He is shaking his head yes and no to answer questions now. Like would you like oranges or bananas for breakfast? He is understanding commands like, pick that up and take it to the coffee table. He puts on his croc shoes by himself (though not always the right foot) which fit him mostly now. The other day we got him out of bed and he had removed his shirt so he gets that concept and is learning the mechanics of dressing. He knows how to step into his pants and helps with that (when he wants to wear them, we have a fair bit of “no pants” time). He loves brushing teeth, and mostly lets us do it, though he also loves sucking the paste off. His fork and spoon skills continue to improve and he can drink out of a cup or bottle by himself, though best to not let him carry it around (after I mopped up the spill on the carpet). He understands the concept of screwing on bottle lids and the like, though is still working on the mechanics of doing it. Also relatively new is tantrums when he doesn't get his way and whining to get our attention or when he needs help with something. We’re working on how to ask for help and get our attention without the whining/crying. He has started kissing us, directly on the mouth, but it is super sweet. One new thing that just happened was that he got upset when Brynn and Chloe started playing with his newest toy, the bicycle pump. So now we are getting to start teaching him about sharing. His favorite book is Trucks and he just giggles when you read it. He is doing really good sleeping in his tent in the trailer and loves to “fly” into it before bed to read books and snuggle up. We do before bed downtime play in his room when we read and sing songs. Then we pray and Daddy sings him Amazing Grace or How Great Thou Are or It is Well.

Toy Rotation

The abundance of toys in our house has finally driven me crazy so I finally initiated a toy rotation system, an idea I saw on Pinterest. The hardest part was just doing it, gathering and sorting the toys into sets. It went well once I got started, probably because I had mostly thought through what I wanted to put together a few days before. I decided not to break up the books yet and will leave out his firetruck for each set as well. The rotations are:

1. Guitar, piano, Mega Blocks, wagon, Cabbage Patch doll, bus with little people, tool bag, hardhats, two puzzles, stuffed monkey, remote control, black tablet, cell phone, hole-y ball, tractors, and Ikea cars.
2. Race track, plastic race cars, construction trucks, train, ring stacker, wooden blocks, drum set, soccer ball, stuffed dinosaur and penguin, Melissa and Dug puzzle, laptop, cell phone, and play badge.
3. Plastic trucks, metal race cars, tractor and animals, stuffed aligator and bear, Duplo blocks, xylophone, drawing pad, number puzzle, Lego fireman set, Ikea ball, plastic cell phone, wood ferry boat, and Melissa and Doug pounding bench.

I ended up storing the extra two sets in the plastic bins in the changing table that I already had! I had to move out the diaper/wipe supplies and bedding, but it all fit nicely into the baskets in the baker’s rack next to the changing table.

 

Conrad Visit and Olympic Peninsula Trip

My Aunt Stacy and her family (Rick, Ben, and Hannah) drove out from Fargo to pay us and the pacific northwest a visit. They did all the Seattle sites on Wednesday and then we joined them for some sightseeing Thursday. We all went in the Suburban to the Ballard Locks, Theo Chocolate, Paseo’s for lunch, the Fremont Troll, and Gas Works Park. They rounded out their afternoon with the Meadowdale hike.

Friday we all left for our camping trip on the Olympic Peninsula. As usual, it was not without its maintenance drama. We ended up putting tires on not only the trailer, but also the Suburban at the recommendation of the tire people since ours were not rated correctly for the load we were pulling. On the way to Tacoma we had some scary trailer wagging that made us stop at the next store and question these new tires. They informed us that we had been given a not so good recommendation on tires and made us an appointment to stop at the shop in Bremerton to have them swapped out. So we stopped, unhooked the trailer, got the tires changed, had lunch, hooked up the trailer, and went on our way. But while hooking back up the trailer we realized our emergency brake cable was frayed and actually broke. So slight detour again to an RV store. Except google took us down the wrong road which ended in a ballpark where couldnt’ turn around and we had to back down about a half mile before we could. Back on the road we found the store, bought the cable, installed it, and went on our way again. We arrived about 4 hours late to the campsite and missed out on Hurricane Ridge with the Conrads that day.

On Saturday the Conrads headed to Victoria on the ferry and we did Hurricane Ridge. It was gorgeous, great weather and views. Sadly Judah was not wanting to sit in the stroller or walk, only be held, so our hiking was limited. We headed home and Judah had a good nap while we relaxed. After nap we did the Merrymere waterfall hike, this time with Judah in the pack, which was much better, and good since the last bit is a bunch of stair climbing. Then it was back to camp to meet up with the family for dinner.

Sunday we broke camp and headed to the west side, by way of the Sol Duc Hot Springs. That was a fun time of playing in the pools and soaking up the sun. Judah enjoyed the warm kiddie pool. Then on to Kalaloch, right on the beach. It was cold at the beach with very little sun and onshore breezes, we all got out our pants and jackets. It was a nice campsite though, all in the squiggly trees, and distant from neighbors. We got out the bikes and did loops around the campground. Judah loved riding in the Wee Ride with Stacy (we forgot the trailer, darn).

On Monday we all drove up to the Hoh Rain Forest to hike. Judah again in the pack, which he enjoyed. Back home for nap and beachtime. Judah really enjoyed the beach, as did Ally. She loved flinging her the big rocks around and digging holes. The Conrads were her new bestest friends, doting on her and taking her for walks.

We had to depart for home on Tuesday, which was much too soon, we would have liked a few more days to explore and relax. We got home around 3:30 cleaned up the trailer, put away stuff, washed and vacuumed vehicles, grocery shopped, cooked dinner, did laundry, made banana bread, packed up Conrads, and then enjoyed a few episodes of Arrested Development. Conrads departed early Wednesday morning and were sad to see them go.

Side note: We did a lot of driving during this trip and to help Judah we listened to a lot of They Might Be Giants Here Come the ABC's and 123's. As a result we often had these kid songs stuck in our brain. As I was writing this, naming each day and what we did, I was reminded of one that became quite "popular", the Never Go to Work song. So, for Hannah, our trip theme song:

On Monday, I never go to work.

On Tuesday, I stay at home.

On Wednesday, I never feel inclined,

Work is the last thing on my mind.

On Thursday, it's a HOLIDAY!

And Fridays I detest.

Oh its much too late on a Saturday.

And Sundays a day of rest.

Here's some more great pics!

 

Baker Lake Camping Trip

Judah, Hazel, and Gus

We headed north to Baker Lake to enjoy a camping trip with the Zaehrings and Johnsons at the family’s favorite campsite. On the way we dumped out as part of the attempt to revive the seals on our blackwater tank valve with some special oil. After this yucky experience Jamie decided to see if we could find an RV maintenance place on the way to fix the valve once and for all. We found a shop with an opening in Mount Vernon. So we headed for Walmart to kill some time and let Judah run around the store (literally) for the first time. He loved it and it helped to have two chasers. He got a little box of animal crackers that he carried all around and a new water bottle with a straw. We then headed back and hung out at a great park right by the RV store. Brian’s Mom and her 10 year old friend, Aspen joined us for the weekend. The weather was crazy warm and beautiful, the beach and lake were jam packed with people. The kids loved running around the campsite, swimming, and biking around the campground. Hazel would barely take off the bike helmet and wore it around all over. Aspen took Ally under her wing and wanted to take her home at the end of the weekend. She even got to go swimming in her cute lifejacket. The kids actually did really well sleeping wise, Judah in his tent in the trailer (except when it got too warm, then we realized we needed to run the air for a bit each day). Hazel also got a tent to sleep in and Gus had the pack and play. When we started to head home we realized our tire on the trailer was completely flat. So we pumped it up and kept checking it until we could get to an RV store and get a special chock that allows us to easily change the tire. We were also able to pump out at the store and backfill the tanks for the first time.

Check out our picture slideshow.