Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Camera Fun

So while I was down in Texas, Ansley, Hailey and I had some fun with the Photo Booth on my computer. Here are some of my favorites...
Happy girls

Ghost people!!

Mind Meld

Ansley after her nose reduction

Three eyed Hailey

Hailey the goat-girl

Loud mouth

One foot...
...two foot

Spring Break

After a long, gray winter here in Portland, I really needed some R&R in Sunny Texas, and the only time one can visit Sunny Texas without regretting it is in the Spring. I flew down to see Heather and her family on Wednesday and got to stay through Easter Sunday and fly back on Tuesday. The weather was perfect, save a bit of drizzle on Easter itself.

It was a lot of fun (exhausting fun) to play with Ansley, Hailey and Emberly. We had jump-rope contests, races, games at the playground, decorated Easter eggs and then had several Easter egg hunts (same eggs over and over), and a fun fondue party. I don't think I could have kept up the pace for much longer, but I'm at least good for a week-long romp every year or two. Next time I'll bring James to mitigate the energy-expenditure.

Heather and I got to have great conversations about anything and everything, especially after the girls went to bed and wonderful Michael held the fort down while we ladies went out for food and fun. We got to go see "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day," which I wanted to see but knew James would have none of it. Very chick-flick, so we enjoyed it. We also had a fun late-night ("Ladies and gentlemen, the store is closing in ten minutes...") ramble through Target my last night there to get James a present for allowing his wife to leave him for a week. He was thrilled with the Leggo bucket loader, even though I could have bought it down the street and saved myself the sales tax. He also liked the TEXAS magnet I got at the gift shop at the airport.

What a great week!

Bath time for Emberly!


The girls showed me their fancy bikes


Decorating Easter eggs


Vanna Ansley


Easter fashion a la Gymboree


And Emberly, too, who wouldn't sit still for a group shot


Hunting for eggs


Finding eggs


Not even looking for eggs :)

Friday, March 21, 2008

Quilt Top

I've been less than diligent in blogging, so since I'm on vacation this week and next, I'll try and catch up with at least the interesting stuff, starting with my budding quilting skills.
I have completed the top of my first quilt! I saw this pattern on an OPB quilting show and Kathleen drew out the pattern I described, including altering it a bit for ease of quilting (if you look closely, the yellow segments are really three pieces, making it a much easier quilt with the same visual effect). I put the block wheels (I'm sure there's another name for that in "quilters-ese" but I don't know it yet) on the corners of the borders for fun. This was a really fun activity to familiarize myself with my new machine and enjoy the applied arts of geometry (I always liked geometry). Now for the daunting task of quilting it. We have all the materials and I've purchased a few books on the topic, so I'll let you all know how it goes...

The Quilt Top, measuring 73" X 73", Hamlet wanted to show some perspective

The Corner, a bit of whimsy on my part