My 1 year old's vocabulary

Okay, so she IS going to be 2 in 21 days, but technically she is still 1.

Marlee said this to Brad tonight:

"I can do it my beary self, I be careful,

and won't spill it on the table."

17 word sentence, pretty impressive. I don't know ANY 1 year old

that can beat that. Maybe Marlee can beat herself at that tomorrow.

I get to witness her every day, I love it.

Picture Quilt

My sister Brittany got married last Saturday ( December 18). It snowed pretty much all day. We got up way early so I could go help Britt get ready. When we were almost there I realized that I forgot the "picture quilt" that I made for them to have at the reception. I got Brittany ready and my girls ready, then we headed to Logan. It was way snowy on the roads we had to drive really slow the whole way. On the way to Logan I realized that I didn't have my temple recommend with me! It was not turning out to be a good day for me. I don't know why I forgot the most important things for me that day!

So the picture quilts I make I choose a picture that I think is good of them close-up and that has a good shadow to light ratio, like this one:

I put it on my photoshop software and put it in gray scale and flip it so its a mirror image of itself and I mess with the lighting a bit more, and then posterize it to 4 different shades of gray. I print the picture 3 times and get started! I have 4 different shades of fabric and its a lot of tiny cutting and puzzle piecing the fabric scraps back together. I quilt over it to give them a little more detail and wa-la! A beautiful 11 x 16 picture quilt to frame for a wedding reception (or just have in your home).

Short December

I don't think November and December are "blogging seasons", it is so busy even though it doesn't seem like it! I haven't even thought about blogging for at least a month. I've been super busy quilting for Christmas and Brittany's wedding and I set up my new quilting machine and have done some customer quilts. So here is a small update and I promise to be better next year:

We visited Temple Square this year as a family. Brad was going down to the Jazz game so we rode the front-runner with him. We barely made it to the train on time or we would have had to wait 30 minutes and Brad would have been late to the game. Whew! It was so awesome to get on the train after running so hard.

Here we are in front of the nativity!Brad left and the girls and I walked around for a while and went to Deseret Book for a minute-there was a girl in there playing the piano. We got a little snack for the way back and we headed back to the front-runner to go home.

Marlee fell asleep in Deseret book- so we just parked her on a bike rack and sat beside her on the train.

Here is me and Allie eating some Lion House orange rolls and hot chocolate!

I made a king size quilt for Brittany's wedding from some fabrics that my mom had plus a couple more blues. I gave it to her at her bridal shower. It was a lot of work and I'm glad that I got it done in time (Barely-I finished the binding a 1/2 hour before I left!)

Here is a closer up of it(kind of). It was really nice to have my new machine to quilt this one because Kytie's was a queen and it took me 16 hours to quilt on my small machine and no frame but this one is a king and it took me 6 hours to quilt and I didn't have to un-pick at all.:)

I've been making a lot of things for Christmas presents, too. I made this one for my Aunt Kathleen.

Here is a close up of my quilting on it.

This is the one I most recently did, but I didn't make it. It is a customer quilt (for Brad's Aunt's Cousin's Father-in Law) The family made it together, all of the hearts have a different member of the family's message on it for this Grandpa who is dying from cancer. It is the sweetest thing I was crying while I was quilting it because of some of the sweet messages they wrote to their dad or grandpa or husband.

Here are some of the hearts:
She didn't really know what quilting she wanted but something with hearts so I outlined each of the hearts twice and then did hearts and loops around them and in the brown parts and I did a simple hearts border. I love this patch they put on the corner that labeled it.

It was such an honor that they would let me quilt it. I put the backing together, quilted it, squared it off, and made and hand-stitched the binding all in one day. They were so nice to work with and they maybe want me to do a baptism quilt coming up too.

I would like to start quilting a lot for customers soon so I think I will be starting a quilting blog really soon that is different that this one.

The girls and I went to the annual All-Girls-Christmas-Party with my mom and sisters and here is a picture of me and my girls before we left our house in Layton.

Here we are at our "appetizer buffet". We didn't have an actual meal because it was in the afternoon so we had a bunch of appetizers. I made deviled eggs, spinach-artichoke dip, and oreo truffles.

Mom gave us aprons this year and Lion House pies books and red pie plates. We practiced making pie dough and just put pie filling in it and did the edges and tops pretty and baked them.

Allie has been having so much fun at pre-school this month. They have made a lot of things and learned a lot of songs to get ready for a program. And she is writing her letters really good too! She made this gingerbread house one day it was so cute.

For some more quilts:

I quilted this panel for a wall-hanging for my aunt and uncle in Colorado

This is one of my favorites- I sent it to my Grandma and Papas in Colorado:

I love the quilting on this one and the prairie points give it some dimension.

I made this mosaic wreath wall-hanging for myself. :)

This one is my Christmas quilt to myself this year. I planned it all out and got my fabric in July but I just barely finished it 2 weeks ago. It was a way fun one to quilt because I could just roll it and quilt a whole row at a time. I think it really showcases my quilting because each of the prints is quilted a different way.

I put up our Christmas Tree on Thanksgiving night with my sister Chelsy. I wanted white lights this year because I've done colored every other year.

Chelsy stayed the night Thanksgiving night and we got up early to do the Black Friday thing. I wanted to go to Joann for the flannel fabric sale. I like to make receiving blankets for babies and I had some baby showers coming up. I got some other stuff too but it was a long time to wait there to get fabric cut. We also went to Walmart and Lowes and that's all. Then we went to see Tangled in 3D with my whole family and Brad's too. It is the cutest Disney movie ever! Me and Allie love it and go on the website every day. We went to see it again with Brittany when she got back from Virginia for Thanksgiving. Us 3 girls are pretty much the biggest Tangled fans there is.

Here are my two little sweeties. We have been having so much fun together lately I'm just so proud of them and how smart and good they are.

This is another one of my favorite pictures-I was taking a picture of the poinsettia that our neighbor brought to us and they squeezed in and hugged and said Mom take a picture! Turned out priceless.

Have a Merry Christmas!

Little Girl Happenings and Quilt Finishes

Its been a while! Over a month and I haven't updated my blog- aah! Well now I am and I will start with Halloween. Allie wanted to be Rapunzel this year and I made her dress. It was tough but it turned out okay and she was super cute in it. She says next year she can be Rapunzel too but she won't need a wig because she says her hair will be long like Rapunzel's. She got to dress up for a preschool Halloween program.I'm sorry about the picture I guess they really wanted to sit in front of the window and I didn't get a better one than this. Here are all of her kids in her preschool and her teacher. Marlee was a ladybug! She loved it and was super cute in it. Her cousin Taycie was a ladybug too so they were super cute together.

Both of the girls had a wonderful time trick-or-treating in Honeyville. We only went to a few houses of our family but they still scored pretty big and got to see their grandparents and great aunts and uncles.

Allie went on a field trip with her preschool to the fire station. They looked at the fire truck and learned what the fire men have to do to save people in a burning house.

Allie got to try on their big jacket that is really heavy and it keeps them safe in the fires.

Marlee liked the fire station too, they are such cute girls. I especially love Marlee's smile-she makes her eyes disappear because she is 'cheesing' it so bad.

We got a pile of leaves raked up before it snowed and the girls loved jumping in it. Marlee doesn't really pay attention to much else when she is holding her zhu zhu pet. Here are the girls again- cheesing it really big. Marlee's eyes are all the way closed this time but I had to put this picture up of them in their jammies.
I've been pretty busy quilting. This one was a wedding present for my cousin Camille in October. It turned out great (after I had it half done it look horrible because I didn't stretch the back and pin it enough , so I unpicked it for 8 hours and then started again). I think it was colors that she wanted and after my family gave it to her they said she loved it and was amazed.

Here is a closer up of the quilting: And the cute little word applique on it:

I got a new quilting machine basically for my birthday but I've been wanting one for a long time. It is a fast speed machine with a stitch regulator on a quilting frame and it makes it much better with no tucking in the back and no safety-pinning every quilt. I think it will open things up for me more and I'm excited to see what I am going to do with it.

I quilted this quilt for Brad's aunt Missy. I'm sorry about my camera I don't know why it keeps going blurry and stuff.

Here is a close up of the quilting that I did. It looks amazing in person but it is hard to see in the picture because of the white thread on white fabric so I took the picture on the darkest square to have it show up.

This is a quilt that I finished before I got my new machine. I love it so much.
Here is a close up of the borders and the outline of the flowers-I'm sorry it is hard to see.

Well I'm working on a quilt for my sister's wedding present and working on a couple Christmas presents but I will post what I can until then!

Birthday party #3

Allie had a party with our family on Wednesday, her birthday, and then Thursday she had another party at her preschool. On Sunday she sang her I am a Child of God solo in the primary program-she did so perfect! Her grandparents and aunts and uncles came to watch her and she sang it so beautiful and everyone was so proud of her.

We had dinner at our house after. We had lasagna and salad and rolls and frog-eye salad. I made a barbie princess cake last year so this years cake had to be equally as cool. This year she wanted a pink princess castle!

This is at the present opening before it started and obviously I hadn't helped her wash off her face that had lasagna on it! She was so happy to have all the attention on her and be able to open presents.

She first opened a card from her Great Grandma Betty and Papas. It was a Sleeping Beauty card that sang "I know you", one of her favorites!

She loved the princess wrapping paper too and it was fun to watch her open it. She got a book called Silly Sally. It is such a cute book and I remember reading it when I was little. "Silly Sally went to town, walking backwards upside down." We've read it at least once a day since she got it.

Then she opened the present from Grandma Jackie and Grandpa Curtis. She got lots of stuff in there, a paddle ball toy where the ball lights up and flashes different colors when you bounce it!

And she got an outfit for fall/winter, some crayons and coloring books that were Dora and Diego!

She opened the next card from Grandma Bonnie and Grandpa John and the whole family and it was a Sleeping Beauty card!

It was the exact same one from the greats! I love this face-she was a little confused!

She got a super cute outfit that was pink zebra and had fuzzy zebras on the front of it!

Her next present was from Aunt Cassie and Colton and Uncles Zack and Shelby. It was a PILLOW PET! She has been seeing them on tv lately and asking if she could have the unicorn one for her birthday! I'm so glad she got it- she loves it and has named it "beauty".

Now it was time to sing and blow out the candles on her lovely cake!

It was really rich and moist and yummy-the best I've had for a while. It was 4 layers tall, but we fed 20 people with it so I'm glad I made a tall castle!

The birthday girl loved it- especially the frosting!

It was a fun birthday WEEK long celebration. Its so weird to have a 4 year old but I love her so much and she will have a great time being 4. She is already a big helper and loves her new found grown-up-ness. She is always like "I need a drink but you don't need to get it for me, I can get it myself." She is in preschool and loves to be with friends and learn new things all the time.