grannies, grannies and kites.

whew. what a week. took a mini vacay to forks for about a week, with a small excursion to ocean shores for a few days for anniversary #2. While we were at my parents, my grandmother (from the corn husker state) and my great-grandma (portland) were also there. add in daycare kids, my parents, brother, husband and I, it made for a pretty full house. really full.
Mom, I may never have children after last week.
My mom and I set up a treasure hunt for the daycare kids, which was a huge success. I think mom and I had just as much fun planning as they did finding!
Luckily I didn't have to do any twilight-y stuff with grandma, (there's only so much I can take. and it's not much.) but we did get to the beach and the rain forest (aka, my favorite place in the world). No pictures, bad me. forgot the camera at the beach and it was (shocker) way too bright for good photos at the rain forest.





as for the other 'grannies', I'm working on my first granny square blanket. it's pretty fun, and a lot easier than I expected. Although, like every thing else I've ever tried, I was totally gung-ho in the beginning, but now my interest is waning. I'm such a loser. I'm taking it to work tonight hoping to get a few more kicked out. I'm sitting at a pretty slow radio, so hopefully I can get back into the groove. The pattern I used is called Circle of Friends, which I decided on after seeing this picture on flicker. Gorgeous.
I wanted to try to do similar colors as well, but I'm pretty horrible at picking out colors. I like what I ended up with though. I'm sure when it all comes together it will look alright. the yarn I found is so soft... I love it. the pink is Caron Simply Soft, the purple is Vanna's Choice, and the off-white is Red Heart Soft yarn.

Last, but not least, my new kite we bought in ocean shores. So cute, right?



I'll try and get some more of Greg's kite (an airplane, of course) and other Ocean shores pictures in the next few days, when i get the photos sorted out.

I totally won't blame you if the last picture is your favorite....

-it's certainly my favorite.

I feel like I'm getting the crafty groove back! Well, kind of. I probably could have gotten more done today, but church ran long (sooo worth it though.) and then I got sucked into both a Lord of the Rings marathon and then an NCIS marathon. I've watched the whole trilogy of LotR multiple times and have seen every episode of NCIS, and yet they still suck me in every time. :)

anyhoo, back to the crafty. I have a few late birthday presents to get done before I head to Forks next week. (yay for vacation!!) The first completed gift is for little Edie-girl, so Brandi, if you are reading this between snuggling with your latest most adorable baby in the world, and it's before I get to Forks, you're gonna need to stop here. Thanks.

For Christmas I got Eden a baby doll, so for her birthday I thought I would make her something to go along with it. I just sewed together a simple little baby blanket and pillow. I LOVE the way they turned out. I didn't do any piecing or binding on the blanket, just sewed two fabrics right side together and then turned them inside out.

Then I just stitched around the edges with my favorite stitch, the leaf stitch. I will admit, it was about 50% of the reason I picked the sewing machine I did.

I then free-motion quilted around some of the flowers. My first foray into free motion quilting and it was so scary! I was afraid of ruining the blanket, but I think it turned out pretty good.

The only piecing I did was on the back of the pillow, not complicated at all. I also added lace to the edge. Ahh! It turned out so cute with the lace! I hope Eden likes it.

I now have one day to finish 2 more (late) birthday presents and a little something for new baby Lincoln. I hope I can get them done!

Here's a picture of tonight's sky. Something about the clouds caught my eye. The picture doesn't do them justice at all.

As I finish this I'm still watching the NCIS marathon. Here's one of the main reasons why I'm addicted...

image from here...

Oh, who am I kidding? He is the main reason I watch.

Such a stone cold silver fox. Yum.