Introducing Boy #3

This past week there have been a few deliveries that I/my family have received.

Some of them are quite life-changing, where others were just plain awesome.

The biggest (and most amazing) delivery of the week was this little guy:

He came in a whirlwind, that aside from a few key moments, was mostly a blur to me. Lets just say that I am so so so thankful that it is over, and only took about 3 hours.

This boy was a whopping 9 pounds 2 ounces, a pound and a half bigger than my biggest thus far.

We are so happy that all went 'well' and that the baby & I are healthy.

I didn't take any photos in the hospital (except the few when the kids came to visit), I was way too sleepy and was in vacation aka brain dead mode. Can you blame me? I only had one little person to take care of! Just about every moment he slept so did I.

Welcoming Warmer Weather

Ahh, this wonderful weather has been pulling everyone outside, and away from their bogs.

We have been weeding and preparing our gardens for planting. My youngest daughter (who is 2 1/2) just loves to help in the dirt, and I am ever thankful for it. I'm hoping to get some peas, beets, and sugar snap peas planted tomorrow. The tomatoes need to get started inside this week too.

My brother came to visit three weeks ago and we planted some herb seeds while he was here. They are sprouting up quite nicely! I haven't had an herb 'garden' before (we planted about 3 or 4 together in one large pot) and am very excited to have my very own fresh herbs on hand! I had been thinking about making a cute shelf to hold mason jars with herbs in them, but had been pushing to project off. When I told my brother this he said something like - just put one together now, if you haven't done the other one yet you're not going to. Thanks for the push bro.

In other news, I'm a ripe 38 weeks pregnant. As of today it's only 10 days till my due date. I am getting so impatient. My first 2 kids were born at 36 weeks and because of that I think sometimes that the last month of pregnancy should be optional... I am happy to be healthily pregnant though!

A wonderful package also came this week, which has been making it much much easier to wait for this little baby. A wonderful package with the word Amazon on the side of box (I love those ones... and the ones with fabric.com on the side).

I've wanted an iPad forever, but just couldn't spend that much money on something just for me. A new sewing machine sure, but a 'toy', not so much. I absolutely LOVE my Kindle Fire.

I also got some new books, because of course you need new books when you get a Kindle right??

I've had my eye on these 3 books for quite some time now. I entered just about every website/blog giveaway to try to win the two quilting books when they were 'blog-touring'. Looking forward to making stuff from all these books!

What are you doing with the warmer weather lately?

Helping Hands Mystery Quilt - The Start

The Helping Hands guild is doing a free mystery quilt this spring, and I decided to sign myself up.

What was I thinking, right?

New baby any day now, 4 kids and a husband to take care of on top of that alone is a lot.

Apparently I need a little excitement in my life, hahaha.

Monday of last week they gave out the instructions for the first part. We were instructed to pick out 3 fabrics: main (3 1/2 yds), accent (2 1/2 yds), and background (3 yds). The main fabric was to be the focal and medium, the accent fabric was to be dark, and the background to be light with high contrast to the other two.

I had just the fabric in mind (which is partly why I decided to sign up, trying to use up the stash pieces that I've had forever that were 'meant to be used together for something great'). All I needed to get was the background color, and I knew exactly what I wanted to get. It was almost too good to be true, meant to be I tell ya.

Here they are:

The main fabric is a Marie Osmond print from Quilting Treasures 2007, I can't find the name of it anywhere. The accent fabric is a chocolate with cream dots by Faye Burgos for Marcus Fabrics . The background fabric is Kona Celery. I think I'm officially in love with Kona solids! The main and accent fabric I got from Sauder's in Lancaster in September 2010, 5 yards of both for only $1 per yard - SCORE! And of course I used my JoAnn's coupon for the Kona, it's miraculous that they carry it!

On Friday night, I was determined to cut all the pieces for the first part, and I succeeded! I even got all the strips sewn and pressed, ironing just may be a way to induce labor if done for long periods of time....

In bits and pieces I've cut up all the strips to the sections for each block. I have six of the twenty-eight 6 1/2 inch blocks done, but none of the twelve 3 1/2 inch by 12 1/2 inch rectangles done. All in all I'd say I'm about 2/3 the way through the whole first part. Since all the sections of each block are done, it really won't take long to finish them up and press them. Hopefully I can get the rest done in the next few days, I would like to be done by this weekend so I can make a new diaper bag and so I can have some time to take some decent pictures of my progress and a few other projects I've got in the works!

Bread Anyone?

Today is grey and rainy. I love these days.

I feel like rainy days are some of the best! The kids and I usually stay home, pushing any errands to another day, and do things like: have a dance party, make tons of cookies, play some videos games and playdough, or just hang around in jammies and read tons and tons of books.

Today was a little different than our usual rainy day though, I had an doctor's appointment I needed to go to. Mema came over this morning so I could go to my 36 week check up. I'm doing good, may not 'make it' to my next appointment which is fine by me (my oldest 2 were born at 36 weeks). And, of course, she had some fun prizes for the kids - new coloring books and jumbo crayons- she's pretty awesome like that.

We folded a few loads of laundry, had a dance party, and had lunch with Daddy after I got back.

During all of this I decided it was a perfect day to make some of this:

Oh how I love homemade bread! I'm thinking this is going to become a weekly event, my house just smells SO good.

I'm not quite sure where I'm getting all this energy all the sudden, especially since the past 2 weeks it seems like the minute my kids eyes are closed so are mine (hence the lack of blogging).

I'm also not quite sure how I got to the conclusion that doing a fabric swap online AND a mystery quilt with my guild are wonderful ideas when I'm having a baby in March (which starts tomorrow...). But, I did get all my fabric cut for the swap, and it's already arrived at the hostesses house! I also got the first part of the mystery quilt Monday evening at the guild meeting, and started cutting this afternoon between stages of bread-making. Go me.

I'm not sure how many more days I will have this burst of energy, but I sure am taking advantage of it!!