Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Last year

 



Last year at this time Amy and I were in the windy city of Chicago for the La Leche League conference. We shared a room with friends Laura and Heather and their daughters Emily and Haley. We had so much fun it was like a big slumber party.
One of the highlights of the conference was listening to Dr. James McKenna speak on co-sleeping. After the session someone asked him if he'd ever thought he'd have such a following like a rock or movie star. He just laughed. If you never heard him speak or read one of his articles you don't know what you are missing. We met Dr. Sears and his wife and attended their session. A few sessions we had to leave because there was only so much a 14 month old could take and that was okay too because you could always find someone else chasing a toddler in the hallway. It was so amazing to talk to people from around the world. We had lunch with some LLL Leaders from Ireland and talked about all sorts of interesting things. The world bazaar was exciting a lot of the groups had tables with highlights from their area and goods for sale and lots of freebies.
We did get out to see part of the city. We rode the bus and the trolley visited the Bean, Millennium park, The Cultural Center , Trader Joe's and much more. One night we went out to eat and stopped at this diner and the manager asked if we were going to nurse in the diner. I said maybe. I'd left my ID on plus the sling and you have those crazy ladies.
So he goes on to say "We'll seat you in the family section" right by the kitchen a real family spot. not. We waited for about 20 minutes and nobody took our order so we finally got up to leave and he caught us at the door. Why are you leaving? Nobody waited on us. "Let me give you a free meal" blah, blah, blah So we went back in and ate our free meal. There was another family sitting by our table that was from the conference too. I should have wrote them a letter but we didn't. Most of the moms I know are pretty discreet about nursing so that place left a bad taste in my mouth. Luckily that was about the only bad experience we had.

Starbucks every morning- Mochas, iced mocha's, frappuccino's it was hard adjusting when I got home. I could go on and on but it was an amazing experience. We also met almost all of the founders of LLL. The ending ceremony Billy Dean sang "Let Them Be Little" It was amazing to be around so many nursing families and feel
normal.
I can't forget the funniest part. Laura and I ended up walking from the hotel to the L station. We each had a child in a sling pulling a suitcase and carrying a couple tote bags. The first block wasn't too bad, than we started laughing and had to stop and take a break. It reminded me of a Lucy and Ethel moment. We finally made it there in one piece, thirty minutes later.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Summer doll quilt swap and baby gifts



The summer doll quilt is finished and mailed. I used some of my 30's reproduction material and made two nine patch blocks and than cut those blocks into the disappearing nine patch block, which made eight blocks and with the sashing made it too big so only 4 blocks were used. While shopping for binding we stopped at Whole Foods and someone stuffed their raspberry on top of it, leaving a stain. So I appliqued three circles on the top to cover the stains and finished it with a decorative stitch on the binding. Next time I will make my own binding and hopefully have bi-focals by then.




Some friends had a baby girl a couple months ago and we finally delivered this quilt and knotted doll to them. The top was a patchwork piece bought at Joann's a couple years ago and the back is a cute fish flannel also from Joann's.

I'm so far behind on the Star quilt along with Crazy Mom Quilts. Those triangles gave me some problems and have been ripping out stitches. Now I need to take the time and match up the squares and get to sewing.

Saturday, July 12, 2008


One guess where we ate today. We dressed liked cows and had a free dinner thanks to
Chick-fil-A
I'm actually embrassesed to say we had a free sandwich there for lunch and Melissa went home and started making a cow t-shirt and ears in the hope of going back for the free dinner. Jaime grabbed a shirt and started on her shirt, needless to say everybody but Jim dressed like a cow. It was fun looking at everybody dressed like cows and luckily Kaitlyn didn't run into anyone she knew.

Friday, July 4, 2008

Happy 4th of July






Happy 4th of July!


I finally finished the twirly skirts just in time for the 4th of July. I made three of these skirts but only was able to get Amy's picture. The shirt with the Charlie Brown character's was for Kaitlyn, I didn't make her a skirt. I used a stained t-shirt so that's why the applique is up so high.

Amy did pretty good with all the madness. While we were at home when she heard the loud booms she'd come running to me but they didn't seem to bother her when we were outside. We spent the evening at our church helping the youth. The church lets people come in and shoot off fireworks in the parking lot for a donation to the youth group. The youth have to clean up the parking lot afterwards which is quite messy. We passed out hotdogs, pop and water and were able to see a lot of fireworks all in one place. We had a nice very loud evening.