I FINISHED MY QUILT!!!!!

Yes, you read correctly, I FINALLY finished my quilt! Now granted, it is only a wall hanging quilt, but it still took a long time! I got the supplies for it and my sewing machine on my birthday of last year, so I managed to finish it before my next birthday! Lots of thanks to my friend Carrie who came over to get me motivated to do the actual quilting part. She and her mom Dawn have done some hand quilting and showed me how to get started on that. Originally, I was going to do machine quilting, but changed my mind as that means I am at my machine more and I like the hand work that I can do while I am hanging out with the family in the living room.

Since this is my first piece of work and there are many, many mistakes, I decided to keep it and hang it over our bed since it matches our comforter. It makes a nice center piece and it is very satisfying to know I made it. My next idea is to make a quilt for Josiah. I hope to make a square for each year of his life up to age 18 and then put them all together to give to him as a graduation gift. This may be a lofty goal, but it would be something special I could do for him. We will see if I can keep it up!

Picking Up Chicks

David took a personal day today in order to spend some quality time with the family as well as to give Mommy a break! The day started off by him letting me sleep in a little bit while he tended to the pumpkin head and then allowed me to have some “alone” time (are Mommy's allowed to have this?) in the morning as well just to do computer stuff and hang out in my room without a baby coming to turn off my computer while I was working. This was a very popular day for me and it got better as it went on.

Then we went to the mall and brought the baby to the play area to play with the other children. At first, he was just too tired to play (he was on the verge of naptime when we left the house) and one of the kids screamed loudly (in playful glee) and it scared Josiah and he started crying. There was some Daddy and Mommy comfort to be found though of course and he soon stopped crying. He then stood still looking at all the planes hanging above the play area and to also take in his surroundings a bit. After he felt completely sure of what he was getting into, he proceeded to play with the other children. I captured a cute moment when he and another little girl were standing on the fried eggs together (pictured above) as well as some shots of him climbing the bacon strips. Another funny thing happened when Josiah pushed a “shy” little boy out of his way (this boy wouldn’t play with the other kids at all) and then the shy boy poked him in the eye. Josiah didn’t get hurt, but apparently the shy boy wasn’t shy about defending himself!

After play time, we went and had lunch at Johnny Rockets (a neo 50’s burger joint) and then went home. Little Josiah was VERY tired by this point and took a nice nap when he came home.

To top the day off, David gave me some time to do some sewing and got most of the curtains finished that I was working on for our bedroom. My Mom came that night to visit with my Dad and she helped me put the finishing touches on the last curtain. The next day I got my quilt done, so I was quite pleased that I knocked out my 2 looming sewing projects in one weekend! While I was sewing, David did a “deep clean” of the kitchen, getting all the crumbs off the counters and doing a nice thorough job if it. I was very thankful for his help! It was a really nice day!

Fall Fun & The Food Stealer

Echo (our dog) has taken to playing in the piles of leaves now that we have lots of them. She brings her ball over to the pile and drops it in so that she can then sniff it out again. Josiah gets a big kick out of her rustling around in there and has to come over and check out what is so interesting about the leaf pile. He periodically picks up the big leaves and chews on the stems of them. It is important to taste test them apparently!

Echo and Josiah are learning to get along in the back yard. Echo is still a puppy (about 8 or 9 months old) and so she sometimes gets a little too playful with Josiah and knocks him over. They fight over who gets to play with the basketball in the yard too. Josiah likes to either kick it around or pick it up and throw it and Echo will sometimes come by and knock it out of his hands or nose it away from him. This is VERY unpopular with Mr. Josiah. It is good “boy stuff” though for Josiah to play with the doggie.

Today, as my Dad was eating his lunch, Josiah kept stealing the fries right out of his mouth. My Dad would take one bite of the fry and Josiah would pull it away and eat it himself. Grandpa was laughing pretty hard as it tickled his funny bone when Josiah did this.

Something fun to mention too…in the morning while I do my Bible study, Josiah likes to climb up onto the chair where I am sitting and “help” me turn the pages and/or tweek my nose or poke me in the eye while I am reading. This is supposed to help me read more easily I suppose (according to Josiah). He will also grab one of his books which are usually close by and he will babble as he turns the pages (reading out loud I guess). He is very good at identifying most anything in his books now. He is a little sponge and keeps sponging it all up!

Truck Face

Lately, Josiah has been pushing his truck all around the house as one of his favorite activities. Before, he would do this, but he wasn't able to manuever around corners and such. Now he is an old pro at turning and making his truck zoom all around the house. I got this shot of him pushing his truck as he was coming up the hallway towards me. I have also been working with him on eating with a spoon and bowl. Today he had some yogurt to eat with his spoon. He is getting the idea, but he isn't quite coordinated to do it yet. We will continue to practice this of course though and he will be good at it in no time.

Rocks, Blocks, & Slides

Josiah has learned how to go down the slide in the back yard now. However, his first few attempts were interesting at best. When he is at the top of the slide, he puts his left leg down, but neglects to put his right down at the same time and so manages to do the splits down the slide sometimes. Recently though, he has figured out how to manuever the right leg around as if he was going down stairs and just heads down the slide as you see pictured here. When we were at a playground the other day, he saw a little girl going down the slide (the normal way) and he followed her (I was on the big toy with him) going down in this same style. It worked well for him and incidentally it is safer, so I am not complaining! In the above picture he is saying, "Oooooo" which he does from time to time when he thinks something is really neat.

Today, Josiah had a "rock sandwich" during our play outside, to which I say at least 3 or 4 times "no eating" and then he throws it on the ground. We also played with the blocks and when we started putting them back in the box, Josiah thought that he would get in the box as well. He discovered towards the end that all the blocks wouldn't fit in the box while he was still in it!

Uncle Jon's Visit

Uncle Jon came to visit us for the weekend and so Josiah had an additional playmate for a few days. Jon brought some clothes and things from Grandparents Carpenter including this cute pair of pajamas he is wearing in the picture. Thank you for the clothes Grandpa and Grandma! While Jon was here, Josiah took every opportunity he could to point out all the "duhguchs" in the house. "Duhguch" is his word for all the cars and trucks he sees. He is very emphatic about how he says it too! I think Jon enjoyed playing with Josiah and feeding him "kaw" otherwise known around here as crackers. Daddy got Josiah to do the sign language sign for "more" a few times for Jon to see as well. We had a nice time visiting with him and he also got to stroll around Seattle to take in all the sites one of the days as well. Thank you Uncle Jon for coming to visit!

Eating the "BALL"

One of the ladies from church brought some apples for all of us to take. Josiah took the liberty of taking one of his own. He saw the box of them and picked one up and showed it too me and said, "BAH" which is his version of "ball." We figured with all his teeth now that he could handle an apple, and so when he started knawing on it, we just let him have at it. He was so proud of himself, as you can see here! In the background is Uncle Jon (David's brother) who came to visit us this weekend.