Making a quilt for my boy

 This was my son's sweet little Jenny Lind bed he used from age 2.5 to 8. It was an antique Craigslist find that I refinished the stain myself. We didn't actually know it was a specialty size, and had to have a mattress custom made at a foam store. (It is in between a crib and twin size). He had 2 quilts handmade for him when I was expecting and they were treasured gifts. This one below was made by my Aunt Judy. 

He'd been asking for awhile for a bunk bed, or bigger bed, so we decided to surprise him with one for his birthday. But that meant that he would also need a new quilt as the other ones were more crib sized. 

This winter break we had gone to Utah and the airbnb we stayed at happened to be owned by the quilt stop owner that was under the airbnb apartment. This woman had furnished the bedrooms with all kinds of national park and nature-type quilts and pillows and I just loved it. His bedroom has always been kind of an outdoorsy theme so it was perfect. In her quilt shop she sold quilts, but she also sold the National Park insert sheet, so I just purchased that and kept it in my fabric tote for the future.

October came, with his birthday at the end of it and the plan to get the bigger bed, and I had to get to work!

That top piece with the National Park pictures was what I had purchased from the quilt shop. And it's laying on the batting in the middle, and at the bottom is a big piece of fabric for the backing. A lot of times I just use an old flat sheet for the back, but I wanted something with a pattern, and this year I learned that JoAnns sells a fabric 108" wide, so I wouldn't have to piece it together.

The forest green backing.

I got this blue fabric for the sides, but then decided to add a bit more color blocking. So back to JoAnns!

I got some orange fabric and started measuring and cutting to make a border.

Honestly, I kind of wish I did a yellow instead of the orange. But the yellow at JoAnns had tiny flowers on it, I thought he wouldn't like. I was enjoying texting my Aunt Judy with my quilt's progress and troubleshooting along the way, and she assured me she liked the orange :) and after it's sewn in, it's really too late anyway!

Hours of sewing. 

That big insert piece saved hours though, and I did a lot of long strips, so that made it go a lot faster than a traditional pieced quilt. And when I did the quilting, I just did alternating National Park squares, I didn't do every single one.

The binding is always my least favorite part. But it went pretty well actually. I used a zigzag stitch and didn't seem to miss any of the layers. Although somehow I always mis-measure, and it was back to JoAnns for one more package of bias tape!

Finished!

This surprisingly also took awhile to hand-stitch.

The new loft bed!

Twin-sized still seemed pretty big. A lot of the National Park squares actually are just tucked in. Maybe on a non-loft bed it would just hang off the sides.

Anyway, he loved his new bed. And when I told him that I made the quilt he was very sweet and seemed to really appreciate it. He especially loved seeing his name on it and from mama <3

He was more interested in whatever he was building at the moment than being surprised by his new bed, lol. But he loves it!

September & October catch up

 I've actually been wanting to blog for awhile now. So many things have been on my mind. Buuuutttt, then life happens, and time goes by, and it's not useful to blog about something from 2 months ago. Which is why so many of my posts are just 'Life Latelys". I don't know what to say, other than, "oh well!"

So here is what we've been up to.

September:

The annual bookclub girls' weekend getaway! Wonderful, relaxing, over-too-soon.

Baby girl turned 3.

We went to the apple orchard and randomly saw my sister and her baby there, that was fun!

Picked apples, ate donuts and cider, came home and made 2 pies. 

My garden harvest.

Zoo date with these 2 and a girlfriend and her son.

Went to a 'touch a truck' event in the community. This one was awesome, the lines were either so short or no line at all- and lots of opportunities to talk to people about their jobs and stuff like that (ie policeman, city sweeper truck, zamboni driver)

I also read this book, and it was SO good. I lost 7# and learned a lot about how the body uses food for energy- and even as someone who is a RN, exerciser for the last 25 years, I learned a lot. 

October:

I completed this quilt for August. He'd been begging for a "big boy bed" (he's been in an antique Jenny Lind's child's bed that's in between a crib/twin mattress size) and so we got him a loft bed for his birthday. He had 2 so sweet, precious quilts that were gifts I received when he was a baby and they only fit the small bed. So I wanted to make him a new quilt to go with it. 

My first baby turned 8!

Immediately followed by Halloween.

Pumpkin carving.

Trick or treating, and I think the nicest Halloween weather we've ever had!

His old bed

The new loft bed. 

One more trip to the apple orchard before it closed for the season.

The other big thing for October was Doug & I celebrated (a week early) with 5 days in the Dominican Republic! It was such a wonderful time to getaway, relax, eat food I didn't make/clean up after, walk on the beach, sightsee, sleep in, and enjoy each other. 

We were so thankful for the chance to get away, and so thankful on how much God has blessed us these past 10 years.

Back to school!

 This summer flew by. We started with a new chore chart, expected things like making beds and getting dressed, and then age appropriate stuff like Jeanie unloaded the silverware, August took out bathroom trash and collected eggs. Each week we had a memory verse and a new hymn we sang during breakfast. And we read lots of books and also spent time on workbooks. 

Jeanie finished this one

and this one

We read thru this book

August finished a 1st grade workbook, and had some fun little gems in there like this story.

Jeanie LOVED this scissor skills book and is cutting like a boss now

And we started school last week and celebrated with 1st day donuts!

It was a good summer, but also had lots of squabbles and I was ready for school to start again. We are doing a hybrid homeschool program again so they go to school 2x a week and we do the rest of the workload at home. I am nervous to balance 2 schoolers now and a very-strong-willed-threenager, but here we go!!

Last minute before back-to-school fun

 Checked out a new nature center. They have 100 acres and more than 2 miles of trails. We will be back in the fall for some fall colors, and this time with bug spray!

Turkey feather

August won a free ticket to the ball game after a reading initiative in the spring, so he and daddy and grandpa had a fun afternoon. (most fun: eating hotdogs and getting a new stuffed animal)

Meanwhile the girls and I had lunch at Culvers and home to watch Frozen.

This happened a few days ago, elbow dislocation. Thankfully it had already fixed itself before the doctor even came in. 

I backed into a brick wall with Doug's jeep. I was thankful it wasn't another car!

The kids and I checked out another nature center where I grew up, I hadn't been there since elementary school. It was really nice. 

They had this gorgeous door into the kidscape area

We picked all these veggies from my mom's garden while she was on vacation. And the kids demolished the entire thing in one evening.

Doug and I had a date night, we saw the Twisters movie (so good!) we had the whole theatre to ourselves.

And this was actually our only day at the beach this year (!) The kids had a blast in the sand.

This was the 3rd groundhog caught this summer. Altho not before utterly decimating my zinnias, climbing beans, a lot of bush bean plants, and possibly the melon leaves too. 

And one more playground this morning

We've had a good summer overall. Lots of togetherness. Lots of squabbles. Getting excited for back-to-school, altho not the getting up early/rushed mornings. And still nervous about home-schooling 2 now, while balancing a soon-to-be-3'nager mini-tornado ball of energy. But we shall see how it goes!