Half Square Triangle Quilt

This is the pattern I used to make this quilt - each block is a different arrangement of half-square triangles, each is unique, there are 72 of them.

Here they are finally finished trying to figure out a layout I liked - it took me a half hearted 2 years to finish all the blocks? maybe, I can't remember. I was definitely working on these at our old house. They got pushed to the back burner a lot while I worked on other things, like the couch slip covers.

The blocks with white sashing.

Here is an up close of the quilting - so glad I sent it out to be professionally quilted, it looks so good.

Top Tip: any time you spread a quilt on the ground, all the children in the area will come stand right on top of it. The back is a gentle paisley that magically matches all the pink, blue, green on the front. The binding is a solid pink.

Here it is on the bed. I'm a little neurotic about this quilt, it being so white and new and fresh, very nervous of messy hands and dirty shoes. That will happen eventually, but hopefully not for a few years.

Thanksgiving 2015

by Anna Gaines

Grandma and Rachel were here for thanksgiving, it was a lot of fun having them here.
At pie night i had pop rock pie. It was good. It felt very tingly. There was a pretty Mona Lisa pie. It was awesome.




For thanksgiving we went to Uncle Todd's house. I played super smash bro. downstairs. I ate some mashed potatoes and gravy and rolls and fruit.

Thanksgiving was super fun.




*editor's note: It's fun to have a guest author now and then, Anna is usually willing to write a short blog about what's going on, hopefully we will see more in the future from her. As her editor I'm not sure how much correction to give her, should I leave typo's and grammatical errors because they are adorable or use the opportunity to teach her?

Halloween 2015

For Halloween this year the girls were both bats and Calvin was Dumbo. They all loved their costumes and celebrating everything. Pumpkins, pumpkin houses, decorations, trick or treating, everything!

Friday night halloween party at Gramma Zoo's house, the kids got my phone and took these selfies in the car on the way there:

looking good Eliza

Calvin had already had some candy, apparently.


Anna got a mustache from her class party, so for a few minutes she was a bat with a mustache.


Saturday was a beautiful day, we stayed outside as much as we could, I cleaned out the garden and the girls got excited to carve pumpkins. They insisted on doing the carving themselves which made me extremely nervous and alert. They did a great job.


Anna did a monster, Eliza's was a cat, Calvin instructed me in doing a "funny face pumpkin"



They are sitting next to their pumpkins in this picture. Good thing we had SO MANY pumpkins from our garden, I will have to give more away next time.

Uncle Thad helped us go trick or treating because Ben was out of town, it was fun and Calvin was so so adorable.

Jakers Jack O Lantern

We went twice to Jakers JackO Lantern in Springville, because Anna didn't get to go with us the first time. It's probably the best pumpkin patch experience you can get for the money with kids this age. It was $1 each and Calvin was free. But if you go on a weekday before 2 pm, it's free. I can't believe they do that.

Anyway, Calvin loved everything about it, pumpkin farm, hay ride, corn pit: jackpot.
The girls liked most of it, showing about half the enthusiasm that Calvin did.

Hayriders:

Jumping in the corn pit:

Being the last Saturday before Halloween, the corn pit was extra crowded, but even with my agoraphobia we had a good time.

Toddler Bed Time

This has been one of the most tortured decisions I have made as a parent. Moving a perfectly happy, solid sleeping, mischievous boy from a crib (aka baby cage) that he wouldn't climb out of into a cage free, totally open toddler bed. This move also meant moving him from his own room to a room shared with his big sister Anna.

But he is 3 now and at some point that becomes cruelty. So I made up his bed for him in the morning, I tucked in his toys, Hobbes, Cat the Cat and Pete the Cat so that he would be used to the idea by bedtime.

As soon as I showed him the adorableness, he promptly tossed all the stuffed animals onto the ground and climbed in to get cozy with his blankets. "I need to sleep!" at 10:30 am.

Fortunately, things are going very well. Pairing him with Anna has been a great fit as she has enough mischief in her that she isn't bothered by his. She keeps him occupied and in the room. He is still excited about it. He even took a nap in the bed the next day. 

It's going so well, maybe I should try potty training...maybe not.

Fall Gingerbread

I was determined to make a fall gingerbread house this year. When we couldn't find a single boxed kit, I took it upon myself to bake it ourselves.

The girls were excited to play with the dough and cut out some cookies. For some reason we don't have any halloween cookie cutters so we had to get creative, Eliza did some stars.

Here are our baked walls with stained glass windows.

Some of our other cookies. Crabs, ninjas, sharks, a snowman. You know, the essentials.

Here is our assembled house, this was fraught with peril as I had not considered how it was all supposed to go together before I started icing it and was wrong 3-4 times before I finally figured it out. Still, gaps and all but not too bad looking I think.

Here it is all decorated, this picture is right after it started falling apart and right before I told them all to stop touching it and go away. It has survived somehow and it was fun and exhausting to make.

Time\teleport machine

This guest blog post was written by Anna Gaines.

I made a teleport time machine this after noon. I don't now if it works yet.

It looks like this.

this is the computer.it is connected to the teleportor.

I hope it works.

Camping Out

Thursday night we camped out in the yard. We had a small fire and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Then we set up the tent in the dark, the girls found flashlights. We set up the sleeping bags and got all ready for bed then watched The Lorax on the Ipad in the tent. It was not as stressful as I thought, but my hands were busy enough that I did not take any pictures. Either that or Calvin had my phone for a lot of the activities.
Sleeping was difficult for me, Anna slept very well. I ended up back in my bed at 2am and Eliza found me there 4 hours later. She was a little upset to be left in the tent without me.
We spent Friday recovering from our adventure.

Ben was working late/sick so he missed out on all the fun. poor guy.

written by Toni, Anna, and Eliza

Fall Times

We survived Eliza's 5th birthday. It finally came and went and she was outstandingly spoiled by everyone. She got a new twin bed so that Calvin can take over her toddler bed (a task which fills me with immense dread and has not yet been tried)

I took the kids and one friend to Kangaroo Zoo for an hour after school, same as last year. We came back to the house for pizza and cake with family.

She really liked helping with this pathetic pink butterfly cake. I do not have lofty ambitions in cake decor. We couldn't find any candles, though I'm sure they are hidden somewhere. She didn't notice at the time thankfully.

The bat costume she got as a present, she wears it recreationally around the house. Often.

We have been busy visiting all the parks in the area: My kids just figured out that playing at parks is a fun distraction designed for children, it has been so nice to take them and not have to show them what to do and that they are all old enough to not get hurt.
One day it was so beautiful Eliza suggested we have a picnic out on the grass, which was a genius-level idea. Which brings me to the other outstanding breakthrough -

After watching my poor lawn struggle all summer despite almost daily watering, it finally occurred to me that the water must not be getting through to the roots. So I encouraged the participation of basically my whole family to rent an aerator and reap the benefits. My saintly parents spent a Saturday driving this monster machine all over the valley to 4 different houses and we all shared the cost. And GUESS WHAT?! My lawn was resurrected to a state better than we have seen since we moved in and it only took a week. I am so happy about it, I tell everyone who ever saw my poor dead lawn this summer. Maybe I take lawn care a little too seriously, but having a happy, green, well mown lawn brings joy to my little heart. 

Volunteerism

My mom sent an email to my sister and me early this morning asking if we would be interested in trading babysitting for taking some names to the temple for her. 

My husband has been out of town for the last week, so this was my reaction:

I nearly left before Anna left for school, but managed to get her situated before racing down to Gramma's.

As I was walking into the temple, I reminded myself again that I am now 30 (I have to do this periodically) and should probably start dressing like it. Then I ran into the mom of an old high school friend, and suddenly I was 17 again. But with 3 kids I have to admit that it was in fact an unbelievable 12 years ago that I started college.

Also while at the temple I kept thinking about the stampede that happened yesterday during the Hajj near Mecca. Over 700 people were killed and over 800 injured by their fellow worshipers. Astonishing and heartbreaking. They aren't sure how or why it happened, but apparently deadly stampedes are common enough during the Hajj that "safety precautions" have been taken.

This was the summer...

Instead of blogging every activity from our summer, i will do what I hope will be a short summary.

This was the summer that we:

Drove to Newport Beach CA for vacation with Gramma, Grampa, and Thad.

We did the beach, Disneyland, San Diego Zoo, and a whale watching tour

Went on lots of mommy-daughter dates

Played a lot with cousins because Jan was up here with her kids, so every day was a party at Gramma Zoo's house.

Got a new pony bike for Eliza, training wheels for now, but so grown up.

Painted the playhouse! Lots of hard work, but very worth it, this place will be super fancy in no time.

Family Reunions! Stayed in a cabin in beautiful Pine Valley with all the family. It was super fun! Here the girls are doing minute-to-win-it games

Henna'd the back of my legs.

Got a smoker, Ben started smoking every Saturday, which meant a meat-feast every Saturday night.

Planted a lovely garden that I love to watch out the kitchen window. Here is a big carrot we got a few weeks ago.

Ben took the girls to Boston to visit their Gramma Lynne. So I was left home alone with Calvin boy.


Took Calvin to the Dinosaur museum a lot, he runs full speed through the whole building several laps until I drag him out.

Calvin turned 3! I made him a truck cake. He received puzzles, trucks, and clothes.

Calvin learned about pumpkins and became enthralled with them. Our pumpkins ripened super early so we have several carve-ready in mid August. But more are growing, maybe we'll just replace them every 3-4 weeks until October.

On the last day before school started we walked through the Thanksgiving Point Gardens to look for hummingbirds and butterflies. and I got this amazing picture of these beauties.

Recipes That Don't Work - CheeriOreo Peanut Butter Krispie Treats

CheeriOreo Peanut Butter Krispie Treats

Directions:
In a sudden fit of domesticity (an urge unfelt in several months) decide to throw together a treat for the afternoon.

Ingredients:
1 bag marshmallows
1 moderate scoop of butter
1 large scoop of Peanut Butter
Half a box of Honey Nut Cheerios
1/2 C Oreo crumbs

In a large pot melt together marshmallows, butter and peanut butter. Dump Cheerios into a large bowl. Drizzle melted goo into the Cheerios, mix until well covered. Spray a cake pan and dump the delicious concoction in and press down.

Mess around, waiting for lunch, checking the pantry several times to make sure you still have bread for sandwiches. Notice the bag of Oreo crumbs left over from a project from last weekend. Mentally kick yourself for not remembering them earlier and think obsessively about how good they would be in those krispie treats...
Eventually dump the Oreo crumbs over the already cooling Cheerio treats, rationalize with yourself that the mallow to cereal ratio is high enough that the Oreo will be absorbed and stick to it.

Serving Instructions: Cut into it and shake off all the Oreo crumbs. Maybe they didn't stick, but at least you tried.
Do Not Let Children Eat These Inside the House.

Congratulations! You tried to make something amazing and it turned out looking like garbage!

4th of July Urges

I've written before about inexplicable Springtime urges, Ben bought cracker jacks just as baseball season started, I felt drawn toward watching the 3 hour epic "The Ten Commandments" because it was Passover season. naturally.

Yesterday I found myself, for the 4th time this week thinking about the movie "1776" if you haven't heard of it, let me give you a brief synopsis. It's a musical about John Adams (played by Mr. Feeny), Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson (played by a young, trim, Hank Hooper) in their quest to write and pass the Declaration of Independence. It's a barn burner. Actually I usually fall asleep while I watch it, but it's the 4th of July, and that's when we watch it. So I need to hunt out my copy and get it watched soon.
Today I also found myself CRAVING a cold root beer in a glass bottle. If that's not 4th of July, I don't know what is.

Anyone else craving things because of the time of year?

PS I found the whole movie on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugTBktqhcIk
enjoy.