One Month!

World Traveler

Oliver is one month old. He's adorable. He's still trying to get rid of some of his jaundice so he's still a bit yellow but that will wear off. We've been trying to get over to the American Consolate to get his passport done but have had a few delays. Here is his passport photo session.

Trying to get a baby to look at you is hard work.

But we finally got one. I love his floppy ears.

Now he's ready to travel the world. As a spy?

Drip Drop

So in my humble opinion, there is nothing quite as cute as a little boy in his undies.  Here's Gavin just enjoying a hot afternoon in the backyard with an ice cream after a spontaneous getting his clothes wet in the sprinklers and thus removing them.  I love him so much!

Just Born!

One of the gifts I received was a set of stickers to document the month/month changes in our babe.  This is such a fun idea to me.  Hopefully I'll do a consistent and good job so they'll be easy to compare later.

Bucket List

Every summer we try and make a goal sheet as a fam of things we'd like to do as a family.  Some things on our list this year have included:

• Have a picnic.
• Do origami with Daddy.
• Have a baby (more on that one to come).
• Eat a popsicle.
• Go swimming.
• Take pictures in the canolas.
• Etc.

Well the canolas were so vibrant and we were worried that we were going to miss out on them.  We love the canola fields.  In my mind we were going to have this super fun family experience.  The kids would run through the field giggling with the yellow flowers in the background.  The sky would be a deep blue with wispy, white clouds.  I would snap some photos of them and they would all turn out beautiful and we'd blow one up and have this amazing family photo including our soon to be born baby in my tummy.

As you can imagine, things didn't turn out like that.

First off, we couldn't find a field that wasn't fenced off.  Then once we did, and we got out, it was FULL of thistles that we had to get through to actually be in front of the flowers.

Unfortunately, we had also all worn flip flops because it was so warm so that made all the thistles extra fun.

Luckily all the kids had at least one redeeming shot.  At first, Chloe couldn't open her eyes because the sun was too bright.  I tried to count to 3 and then just have her open her eyes right before but that didn't work out too well.

Tati kept doing a weird, fake smile.  Gratefully she was able to liven up and be herself.

I got creative and got a good shot only to discover I was in some funky camera mode. Too bad b/c this is what her smile really is like.

And she really wanted one of her smelling the flower (which doesn't smell like anything).

And Gavin didn't want to smile or sit or look at the camera or stand or not have Daddy holding him.

It was awesome.

Then at some point we made the kids get in the car and play and just be away from us and we proceeded to try and do a photo shoot of us.  Greg is so funny.  He always resorts to cheesy 80's prom poses.  The fence post was a bit crooked and of course we had forgotten to take the attachment for the tripod but it was fun. 

Looking at the photos now, I can appreciate them even more. I guess that is just what life is like. What I'm learning is that I can't let my kids' rotten attitudes mess with my juju. :-)

Nesting

It's funny how the nesting bug has hit me this time.  Instead of worrying about where our baby is going to sleep or what our new baby is going to wear, I've been worrying about tying up loose ends.  In this case, these loose ends have been some bed spreads for the girls' beds.  These quilts have been quite the learning process and I'm sure in many ways a good parable of life.  At one point I was so angry at these quilts that I was about to set them on fire and burn them in our backyard.  Luckily, with some time, I was able to go back to them and figure out a solution and also finish them off.

I've made 2 quilts in my life.  One I made when I was twelve out of a bunch of scraps that my Mom had.  The lines were pretty crooked and the entire thing was great but very "12 yr. oldish".  Then when Chloe was little I made her a mermaid quilt mostly through long distance instruction from my Mom and then just sort of making it up as I went along.  This was the first time I really used a pattern and was excited to do something that was a bit more challenging.

I didn't know the official way to put all the layers of a quilt together and aside from ever tying a quilt, I had no idea how to actually machine quilt a quilt and frankly also had no idea of the sewing machine parts that all of that would entail.  I was fortunate enough to get some more long distance help from my Mom but without somebody in real life, a lot of what I wanted to know was still too confusing to learn far away.  I tried watching tutorials and videos on the internet, but they didn't work either.  All those people assume that you know way too much and talk in such a not helpful way for me at least.  Luckily I was able to get some real life help from one of the nicest people ever made:  my friend's Mom, Beth.  She taught me all kinds of things from changing the feet on my machine to what foot I want on my machine, to layering the different blanket layers, to how to sew the binding on.  I also learned some good vocab words from her that after having seen her do things in real life, I was then able to use to go to tutorials online and actually understand what they were doing.  


Beth told me I was a perfectionist.  She was right.  She said she didn't think I'd want to finish up these quilts with errors because those mistakes would just bug me later.  Was she ever right.  She was such a pal, she even agreed to do some of the machine quilting for me because she has a special quilting machine. 

The problem arose after the quilting when we got back together so I could learn how to do the binding.  The lesson went well and I loved the way the quilt looked but when I went to try it out on a twin size bed, I discovered a horrible truth:  the quilt was too short.  Not a little bit too short but like 20 inches.  I sat on this bed and just felt so angry and so sick like I was going to puke.  You see it was a quilt kit and I just never imagined that I needed to look at the actual dimensions of it and compare it to what a twin bedspread would be.

Beth told me that when she gets mad at a project, she puts it away for a while and then goes back to it.  So I packed up all the scraps and pieces and pattern and anything else associated with the quilts and hid them in the basement.  I didn't know what I could do because they had already been trimmed (both batting and fabric) and had both been quilted on Beth's machine.  I didn't want to add to them and take away from the beautiful rest of the quilt that was already done.

Then one day I just decided that I had to get it done or else this kid would be born and I wouldn't get to sewing again for months and months.  So Greg and I sat down together and bounced ideas off each other about how to make these quilts 20 inches longer and not have them look dorky or wonky.  In the end, it was by adding some rows with our scrap fabric and then me just doing "stitch in the ditch" (that's quilter jargon) over the straight lines and not attempting to do any free form quilting or stippling (more quilter jargon--see how official I am now?).

Anyway, without any further ado, here is the big reveal. This is Tati's quilt.

  The bottom left is what it looked like before it was quilted.  If you close up on the flower with the embroidery, you can see better detail of the awesome quilting that Beth did.

And here is Chloe's quilt (somehow this pic got all washed out, but you get the idea). I tried to mix up the pattern a bit so each of the quilts were a little different and had a bit of a different personality.

That is my stomach right there getting in the way of the picture.  Ha, ha, makes me laugh.  And here are some more details of Chloe's quilt.

And here is what they look like on the girl's beds:

As I was cleaning up all the scraps and bits of batting, Chloe asked me if maybe I could make some quilts for their doll beds, so I did. They are crooked and totally imperfect, but the girls love them. I also made little pillows to go with the quilts.

I'm really proud of myself and also surprised to learn how much I really enjoy making quilts (despite the challenges and problems along the way).

**Disclaimer:  In case you zoomed in on the girl's embroidered flowers, and noticed that it says that I love Chloe "tons" and on Tati's, I just "love her", let the record show that   I love them both "tons".  I just was sick of embroidering and poor Tati's got done second on that part.**

Burritos

Canada is pretty much like living in the U.S.  Mostly.  One thing that we still miss from the good ole US of A though are the tortillas.  Corn tortillas are so expensive here and even when you buy them at the Latino Market aren't as yummy as even the ones you can buy at Walmart at home.  But we've mostly adapted and still enjoy eating tacos and burritos at home pretty much every week.  Everybody loves tacos and burritos in this family.  But the kids favorite kind of burritos are blanket burritos.

We used to do this when I was little too.  You lay out a blanket on the floor and basically swaddle your victim up.  Somehow Chloe convinced these two to lie still long enough to be rolled up.  Then they enjoyed watching some t.v. all tight and snuggled.  It totally cracked us up.

Chloe was an extra nice burrito maker because she even gave them pillows to lay on.