Dragons, Dragons everywhere

Since Nathaniel was nice enough to grace us with extra long naps this weekend, I was able to do a bit of finishing. I have had a few things on my plate to finish for several months now including my german garden, two coffee/tea LHN pieces and my seasonal dragon RR. Last weekend, Nathaniel and I went out to Joann’s to look for fabric for a baby shower quilt for my sister’s shower in October. We didn’t find anything for that, but I did find a cute sampler of fat quarters that inspired me on how to finish my dragons. I also picked up some cubes and viola…here they are!

I really like how they turned out. Maybe next weekend I will frame my two LHN pieces:) Hope you all had a great weekend!

How did it get to be September?

I am not quite sure where the summer went. Last thing I remember, we were saying goodbye to our students and digging in for a boring, pleasant summer. Today the kids all came back to school and the chaos begins. Even Nathaniel had a “first” at school today. It was his first day in the Infant B classroom. He is crawling, pulling up and starting to cruise so he can’t be with all the tiny, immobile babies any more. Fortunately three other babies are moving up with him, so he will have some buddies. The teachers and parents were all a bit teary this morning. I can’t believe he is going to be 9 months old on Friday. Here are some cute pictures of him.

Here he is in a gigantic pile of diapers. Note the crazy hair.

Here he is later that day after his first hair cut. He was very well behaved and looks sooo handsome.

Here is some of my recent stitching. I have been working on Cafe Latte. Yes the border is off. I will be fixing that later:) I really like stitching LHN pieces.

And I also started on Glenna’s RR. It is not much, but it is an Elizabeth Design piece.

I do have some goals for the month of September. I would like to:
1. Post to the blog at least twice a week.
2. Finish Cafe Latte
3. Finish Glenna’s RR
4. Work on Bordeaux Sampler
I also plan to work on learning how to digital scrapbook this month. Allen signed me up to take a class on how to use Photoshop CS3 to scrapbook. It starts tomorrow night and I am looking forward to it:)

Howdy!

Well hello there all. It has been a busy week. It is the last week of summer break before the rest of our staff gets back so we have been busy trying to tie up loose ends. Tons of fun…not!

Today when I got home I found a lovely surprise in my mail. It was an early birthday gift from the lovely Carol. She stitched me an adorable floss tag. We both love our black kitties:) Thank you so much Carol…I love it:)
Now another picture in honor of Carol. I know how much Carol loves the Boston Red Sox so I thought of her when I pulled this outfit out of a box of outfits a friend passed down to Nathaniel. Check out Nathaniel’s new digs.

Sorry the picture is so dark, but we get funky light in his playroom.

I have also been doing a little bit of stitching along the way. i am currently working on Frappuccino by LHN. I really enjoy stitching their kits.

Well off to watch the rest of Batman Begins. Have a great Saturday!

Wendy’s Neighborhood RR

Hey all…
I really am alive and kicking. Life with an eight month old baby boy is a real adventure and he is keeping us on our toes. He started doing a very effective army crawl last weekend and can get anywhere in a jiffy. He stands well with only minimal support and is trying really hard to pull up to standing. He can get his tushy a good inch or two off the ground, but then his arms give out. According to my mom, I was walking by ten months old, and with his current progression I would not be surprised if Nathaniel is does the same. Here he is after a swim at Nana and Papa’s house at the lake.

And here is Wendy’s Neighborhood RR. I did a part of the Counting House by Little House Needleworks complete with sheep. It was a fun stitch and I hope she likes it. I can’t believe that most people’s neighborhoods are only one person away from being done. Glenna’s arrived today and I am the last stitcher. I plan to get to it as soon as I finish up the Frappaccino piece I started 4th of July.

Yippee!

I am so excited…I have a finish:) On Friday, I finished Nathaniel’s birth sampler. My goal was to have it done by his first birthday and I more than made it.

Now I need to start on a Christmas stocking for him. I also have to start working on another birth sampler as Nathaniel will be joined by a new cousin at the end of the year. My little sister is expecting her first child around Christmas. It is exciting that they will be almost exactly a year apart. It will also ease my missing the teeny baby days already. We are way past that stage already. Nathaniel is almost seven months old and almost 22 pounds.

Today we took Nathaniel on his first trip to the zoo. We met my mom and sister and BIL there and had a great day. We saw tons of animals, but Nathaniel was most interested in the pigeons and the waterfall:) He had a great time.

Sorry for the absence:(

I have been such a delinquent blogger lately. Things continue to be busy in our home. Last weekend, I had the world’s worst tummy bug. I didn’t even get sick like that while I was pregnant. Allen was very sweet and took great care of Nathaniel and me. I am pretty sure that Nathaniel missed at least one meal that day. I guess I need to make a basic schedule for him to keep in the house, just in case something like this happens again. Allen tends to rely on me for all kinds of schedule keeping.

This past week I also learned a bit of what it is like to be on my own with Nathaniel. Allen had a radioactive iodine scan to see how well the radiation treatment he had last July worked. This is part of the follow up after having the thyroid tumor removed in 2005. It is no big deal for him, but it means he can’t hang out with us (especially Nathaniel and the kitties) for a couple of days. It reaffirmed how much I appreciate what a wonderful husband and father Allen is. I also realized how much Nathaniel really LOVES his daddy. When Allen got home, Nathaniel would light up and then get upset when Allen wouldn’t hang out with us. They are two peas in a pod. I am more and more in trouble every day.

This weekend Allen’s dad and his fiancee came to visit us. We had a nice weekend despite the heat and losing power for the second time this week. Nathaniel had fun with Granddad and I got some good stitching done. I am now about 3/4 done with the baby sampler. I plan on finishing it up and then working on Wendy’s Neighborhood RR. I should have both done by the end of the month:) YEAH!!

Here is Nathaniel’s birth sampler so far:)

And a couple of pictures of the man himself. Hard to believe that we celebrated his first half-birthday on Thursday:)

Can you believe it?

My “little” boy will be five months old on Monday (he really isn’t that little…he is a solid 19 pounds, but has grown alot in length, has lost at least two chins and has a neck now). The time has just flown by. Nathaniel is really thriving. Overall he is content and happy and already has his parents propensity to be curious and thoughtful. He is really having fun learning about how cause and effect works with his toys. Developmentally he is doing very well. He can consistently roll onto his side both from front to back and back to front. On three occasions he has rolled all the way over. His legs are amazingly strong as he is starting to support his weight with assistance and when on his tummy will push himself an inch or so across the floor. Nathaniel loves to hear his own voice, particularly at 6 in the morning, has a beautiful laugh and is just starting to try rice cereal. I am so proud of my sweet boy:) Take a look at some pictures we had done of him and of the three of us. They are the first formal pictures we have had done since Allen and I got married almost four years ago.

In other news, I have been stitching a bit. My time is so stretched with Nathaniel and the craze of fourth quarter of the school year at work. By the time Nathaniel goes to bed at 8, I am drained and don’t have much energy for anything. Work should start slowing down soon as we get closer to summer so I am hoping to get more stitching mojo. Currently, I am about half finished with Deb’s neighborhood RR and did four motifs on Alchemical Romance last weekend while visiting Allen’s grandparents. I hope to post pictures tomorrow, but it is contingent on my finding my little camera. It is still packed among all our stuff from the trip:) Traveling with a five month old is an adventure and seems to require a trailer:)

RR progress

Just a quick pic of my progress on Bine’s RR. I am liking how it is coming along. It will have some snow on the roof and there is snow on the groud, which is why it looks weird. You can’t see the oatmeal colored thread well no matter how I photograph it. It is nice IRL. (ETA…okay, I don’t know why the picture is blurry when I upload it to wordpress. It looks fine when I open the original. Oh well… too late to fix now. Check back tomorrow for a better pic.)

With going back to work, things have been pretty hectic around here. It is going well, but I am having a bit of difficulty motivating myself to stitch at the end of the day once Nathaniel is in bed. It is getting better though. I have adjusted to work more easily than I thought. I think sending Nathaniel to daycare a week early really helped since I was starting to get comfortable with the staff and being away from him once my first day rolled around. So far I have been very pleased with the daycare. All the staff is very affectionate with him and he comes home tired but happy at the end of the day. The teacher also noted that he does well with tummy time for her, which he hates at home. I think it is because several babies are put on the floor at the same time and he likes to look at them. I think that is what makes it tolerable for him. Nathaniel is also giggling a good bit now. I have some video I am trying to edit so hopefully I’ll be able to share soon. It is a fun sound!

A Spot of Tea!

The weeks just seem to be flying by lately. Not surprising since the munchkin keeps me very busy these days. This past weekend we went to Richmond to visit some of Allen’s family. Nathaniel finally got to meet Allen’s brother and sister-in-law along with Allen’s grandparents. They were so excited to meet their first great-grandson. Since Nathaniel spent the majority of the weekend being held by his other relatives, I was able to get in a fair amount of stitching. Since none of my current WIPs are particularly portable, I decided to start one of the coffee and tea kits by Little House Needleworks and Crescent Colors. I plan on stitching all six and hanging them in our breakfast nook. I finished most of Spiced Tea over the weekend and put the finishing touches on it tonight. I ended up adding a bit of backstitching around the cup because the ecru silk blended in too much when looking at it from far away. Otherwise I am pleased with how it turned out and look forward to stitching the rest of the series. If the snow clears up a bit tomorrow, I plan on slipping out while Allen takes his day off to shop for a frame

I have also done a ton on German Garden since I last posted a picture, but apparently my little camera “forgot” that I took a picture of it. Our old point and shoot camera still works, but has developed some severe dementia since Nathaniel was born. It will randomly have memory card errors or delete pictures that you have taken. Oh well…for the moment it is still a bit easier than using the fancy new camera when I am trying to upload to my laptop until we figure out why I can’t access photos on our network. Well, I hope everyone is having a fantastic week. I am off to upload pictures to build a photo album for Allen’s grandparents and then maybe work on a motif for Alchemical Romance. Yippee!

Finally Some Stitching

Despite being quite enthralled and busy with the munchkin, I have had some time to do a little bit of stitching. I have made some amazing progress on my German Garden. I am about 3/4 finished now. I am hoping I will have a finish shortly after the new year.

I have also been working on Butterfly Rest and have finished the two small pages with the exception of the second blue triangle. I will take a picture of it once I get a better handle on using the new camera we got since our old camera has started to flake out on us.

As for the new year, I do plan on making a no guilt start on New Year’s Day. I know I really shouldn’t, but it wouldn’t feel like a new year without a new start. I think I will be starting Alchemical Romance by Ink Circles. I figure it is one of those pieces where I can try and do a symbol or two every week and make good progress. If I remember correctly I have even put some fabric aside for this piece already. I will have to check tomorrow and pull out some threads.

And for some goals for 2008…
1. Finish Mystery 9
2. Finish Bordeaux Mystery
3. Finish Baby Sampler
4. Finish 17th Century German Garden
5. Finish Butterfly Rest
6. Finish half of Olde World Map
7. Continue Neighborhood RR
8. Stitch 2 LHN coffee or tea pieces
9. Start Alchemical Romance

I really hope to have some good finishes this year:)