Easter Baskets and Birds....Must be Spring

I am linking up to Sewjo Saturday again.  I made these fabric Easter Baskets -- I have wanted to do this because we don't have a lot of extra storage space, and fabric baskets will take up much less room than the old wire ones.  I used this tutorial -- I hope Owen's Olivia is okay with me linking to it because mine aren't nearly as pretty (or as well-crafted) as hers.  But my boys don't want pretty anyway.  :)

And I'm hoping that I since I might get a couple extra people coming to this blog post, I could ask your advice.  I have these embroidered quilt blocks from my Grandma -- I would love to make a great quilt with them. So I'm thinking about the Economy Block with the bird in the middle.  As for fabric -- I'm debating between Modern Solids by Handmade by Alissa  or Happy Vintage.  What do you think?  Do I embrace the vintage-ness or go for some more modern solids? 

Birthday Wishes

After a fight over the computer, Eric (and Tanner) had the following conversation with Brian:

Eric:  "For my birthday, I'm going to wish for Andrew never to play the computer again!"
Tanner: "My birthday, me want a giant Minion cake!"
Dad: "What are you going to do with that?"
Tanner: "Eat the eye!!!"

Not exactly things on my birthday wish list, but I'm sure they wouldn't want anything on my list either. 

Lots of sewing stuff

I know, you are so excited to see all of my sewing....all at once.  Well, it is Worldwide Quilting Day, so there!  I have an excuse.

I have joined the Vintage Quilt Revival Block Along.  This means that I am trying to finish a block or two each week, then uploading the picture to Flickr, and at the end of 10 weeks I'll have a bunch of sampler blocks for a quilt.  Each week they have a random drawing to win some quilt stuff...which I was pretty sure I was going to win one of these weeks, but haven't yet!  I was so hopeful.  :)  It has been fun.  Many of the blocks are paper pieced.  I've enjoyed learning the technique, but I do not love all the fabric it uses up.  It is nice to see all those lines matching up so nicely though!  Here are a couple of the blocks.

I am looking forward to spending more time on the quilt that is on my design wall.  I love this quilt -- simple and a little more modern.

I also wanted to make a new pillow cover -- I decided on a rainbow pillow as a nod to St. Patrick's Day.  I didn't have a pattern and just decided to do it "improv"style.  I am linking up to "Sewjo Saturday"-- a link party (I think that's what it's called. :). 

Lastly, I finally finished Tanner's superman quilt.  I haven't loved it -- Superman fabric is not something I get super excited about.  But I wanted to do something that he would like, and he does love his "Huperman blanket".  I machine quilted it with big wavy lines -- it was the first time machine quilting a large piece (only done pillows or table runners a few times.)  I have to say -- it was not very fun for me.  In fact, my sister called while I was doing it and I told her "I hate this!  It is so worth paying someone $$$ to do this for me!"  

After that big quilt I decided to "practice" machine quilting on this table topper.  I started this a while ago, did some quilting on it with invisible thread (read somewhere to do that.)  That did not work out for me.  So I unpicked it (ugh) and then just let it sit for several months.  Anyway, I pulled it out again and finished it.  I showed my boys, thinking they might this it was kind of fun to have houses on the quilt.  But when I didn't readily point out that they are houses, Eric said "Are those H's?" They do look like that too.

After all the pain of machine quilting Tanner's quilt, I am ironically planning on quilting another one....though it's not quite so big and I'm straight line quilting it this time.  This is a quilt I started over a year (or two?) ago.  Lots of little pieces and so I ended up taking several breaks from it.  I think it'll look great when it's finished.

So that's what I've been doing these last several months.  Thanks for letting me share.  :)

Tannerise

I was trying to go to Bloglovin to look at quilt blogs....because I have nothing else to do.  No dishes.  No mail.  No dirty bathrooms.  Nothing.  ha.  Anyway, I accidentally typed "Blogger" instead.  So here I am.  I've been wanting to write a post about Tanner's speech.  Guess this is the time.

Tanner's speech is definitely coming along.  He still misses some very important first letters of words.  It makes for his own little language that only I can understand (sometimes.)  I become the translator for Brian and any other person that isn't around him all day long.  So if you want to learn Tannerise, here are the basics:

If the word starts with certain letters, just replace them with another easier to pronounce letter.  So for "S" say "H"; "F" say "B", and "V" say "B" or nothing at all.  So for example, some common words/phrases are....

"Ho Bunny"
"Cool Hong!"
"Harry Umpire!"
"Ho Heepy"

Translation --
"So Funny"
"Cool Song!"  (his constant request from the back seat, "RockRoll!  Cool Hong!")
"Scary Vampire!" (That is what he plans to be next 'Happyween.")
"So Sleep"  (As in, "Me not ho heepy, Mom!")

It can be tricky, but believe me, it's an improvement from the yelling/gesturing days.  :)

Valentine's Day Pillow

Okay, so this is the third time I've written this short post.  When I try and upload the photo my browser crashes.  Hopefully I'll manage to publish it this time!

Last year after Valentine's Day I bought some fabric on clearance.  I have few (if any) valentine's day decorations, so I came up with this XO pillow.  I think it's pretty cute!  Might have to make some more.

Semi-Annual Post

I obviously have a difficult time getting around to posting.....maybe it's because my 2 readers are people I talk to frequently.  ha.  Oh well, here's a little recap of the last few months.

October
Happy Halloween!  We took Andrew and Eric to the Utah Symphony Halloween Concert.  They did so well...and it was fun to see the costumes and hear the great music.  Here Brian and the boys are standing in front of a glass sculpture in the lobby of the venue.

For a neighborhood party we had a prisoner, ninja, and rock star.  For Halloween night we had a prisoner, ninja, and Diego (so many great costumes passed on front he older boys and this little vest is what he chose.)  He's already planning to be an "Umpire for Happyween" next year, or in other words, a Vampire for Halloween.

November
I took exactly 3 pictures in November.  Hmmm.  We did have a nice Thanksgiving with my Provo siblings.  And I'm sure there were plenty of holiday preparations.  I did get this one great shot of Tanner -- our super cute preschooler getting off the big bus after school.  He always gives the bus driver a great big smile.  And his speech has improved dramatically.  Yeah!

December

We have had plenty of snow this year.  Tanner had a great time.  And the boys all made a great snowman that only lasted about 20 minutes due to some rambunctious friends.  It was kind of sad to see him smashed so quickly.  But glad they had fun!

Christmas Eve we got together with my Provo siblings.  We had a Christmas lunch, gift exchange, and a very professional Nativity play -- with only very willing actors (ha. ha.)  The boys were the 3 Wise Men.  

 Mom and Dad actually came for the Christmas Even event, then they came and spent the night at our place.  This meant we got to have them for Christmas morning chaos too! (:  I guess I didn't get any pictures of the adults.  We were just focused on the very excited kids.  Here they are in their Christmas Eve Pajamas.

 Christmas morning -- playing with toys -- Legos, Scooters, and Zorro.  It was such a nice day -- hardly any of the usual "I'm bored" and bickering.  If only we could give them new toys every day.  ha ha.

 Over New Years we went to the cabin in Idaho to be with my family.  It was great to see Grandma and Grandpa, Aunts and Uncles, and cousins.  It was really fun to see the frozen lake too -- I have never been up there in the winter and it's pretty spectacular.  The boys loved the snowmobiling of course -- our cabin neighbor has a dog sled he hooked up to the snowmobile and the kids had a great time.  And after years of hearing the men's ice fishing adventures, I actually got to see it in action.  And in the famous words of Eric "I know one thing.  It takes a long time to catch a fish!"  I didn't see them pull any out of the little holes, but I still enjoyed seeing the ice tent, and being out there on the ice I could see why they enjoyed the quiet stillness of the wintery lake.  So different from a cabin with 5 families inside!  (;

September Birthdays

September is a busy month with birthdays -- Tanner, Brian, my sister Karen, a couple of in-laws, and my best friend, Krystal.  Not to mention it was our Anniversary this month too -- our 10th.  Every year I think I'll plan something really fun for Brian and I, but as usual, we just went out to dinner.  But it was still really nice.  And it rained that day which is one of my favorite things.

I have been sewing a lot lately.  I love it.  But I can't seem to find a balance between enjoying my hobby, cleaning my house, and taking care of my family.  But when I'm making something for someone else it at least makes me feel a little better about that time spent!  (:

I made this quilt for my sister, Karen.  It was made from two "Simply Color" charm packs, plus some yardage for the border and back.  It's very colorful and when I got those charm packs I knew I wanted to make something for Karen and her new house.  The pattern is called "Ritzy Cracker" from the Moda Bakeshop.

I also followed a Sew Along on "Ellison Lane Quilts" to make these halloween bags.  They look okay -- first bags I've ever done, and I think they'll at least hold the candy. (:

 I just purchased a generic darning foot...my sewing machine didn't come with one.  So I did my first free motion quilting.  I was thinking my wonky loops looked pretty good on this halloween fabric.....

until I finished the whole thing and looked at the back!  Oops!  Loose strings everywhere!   It looks ridiculous, but since it's on the inside of a bag that will soon be holding lots of candy, I don't think my boys will care.  (:

Tanner turns 3!

Tanner turned three this month.  I love birthdays at this age -- present buying is easy, dinner making is easy (carry-out pizza and grapes) and the cakes are fun.

Tanner is into Superheroes and Soccer and the band "Journey."  Yes, you read right.  He loved Journey -- well, just one of their songs.  He has watched this old 80's video many times and knows all the moves.  I've tried to videotape him because it's darn cute, but he performs much better without the camera.  Wish you could see it!

Although he's not that into Pirates, that is the cake he chose from our Family Fun "Birthday Cakes" book.  Arrrrh!

 Tanner helped set his own birthday dinner table.  When I turned around to see how he was doing I discovered that he was putting the filled water glasses outside.  I guess he wanted to eat on the patio.  Nice!

 A few days after his birthday there was a get-together with Brian's family to celebrate September birthdays.  3 adults and Tanner -- so of course everyone let him blow out the candles.  It only took about 10 blows.  (:

We love our Tanners!

Flashback - the Family Reunion

The weekend after school ended we had a Frankman Family Reunion at Heber Valley Girls Camp.  My sister suggested the location and took care of arrangements, but brother and his wife came up with the schedule.  In addition to some good meals and visiting with cousins we rarely see, we also had several activities focusing on Family History.

Here is Tanner playing peek-a-boo with Clark.

Andrew was the only one in our family brave enough to do the giant swing.  

Tanner followed Max around most of the weekend.  Here they are, with Lexi, playing pirates.  Arrrh!

 On Saturday morning the children were divided into groups and assigned to go to a variety of family history classes.  I taught one on my Great Grandfather and Grandmother.  3 other cousins taught classes on other ancestors.  Here are pictures of the 4 groups I taught -- holding up the props that I had made regarding different aspects of my G.G.'s lives.

 

I'm so grateful for a good and kind family.  Even though I rarely see my cousins, it's always a pleasure being amongst them.  I am reminded of the importance of parenthood and family.  Good times. 

The House

After a bit of a stall with our house project, we're finally almost done.  Yeah!  They were supposed to be done before we left for our vacation, but of course that didn't happen.  They ended up finishing up the rock work while we were gone, and also extending the porch.  It was fun to pull in from our vacation and see the new place.

Before: here is the house as it looked when we bought it a couple of years ago.  When we bought the house we really didn't like the lava rock.  So it was always in our plan to refinish the outside.  We still struggle with our lawn, but seeing these pictures reminds me of how much better it looks now!  Good job, Brian, for working so hard on that.

During:  It was interesting to see the wood paneling that was beneath the siding.  You can see it here about the garage.  The rest of the house is covered with materials to adhere the stucco and rock to.

After:  So here you have the new and improved version of our house.  Yippee!  I do like it.  The lava rock is GONE.  Yeah!