My Family Is Sick, It Must Be a Holiday

I thought that we had had the worst of the sick when the kids had croup over Thanksgiving. I thought that I had paid my dues and we were free and clear for at least a week. I was wrong. We caught the family flu that is going around the Deringtons. That's what I get for hanging out with family I guess.

So, we are on day five of awfulness. It is coughs and body aches and fevers and drippy noses and it sounds like a cold... but it is so much worse, it is like a cold from hell. Oh yeah, I said it and I'm not even sorry. The doctor tells me that Nicole and Dano have brochitis while Matt and I have been diagnosed with the flu virus. Sounds all the same to me. Sounds like I am going to in bed for a week is what it sounds like.

But, in an attempt to be positive; if we are sick this week, there is no way we can catch something new during Christmas itself! So, hopefully, we will be healthy for Christmas. Unlike last year where the kids had croup and I had bronchitis the whole week of Christmas and I missed all the fun activities with the Deringtons.

How are Matt and I suppose to alternate families for the holidays if we keep getting sick and missing the holidays all together? Stupid sick.

Not the Worst Thanksgiving

For months, we have planned a trip to Albequerque, New Mexico to see my sister, Sarah for Thanksgiving. I called her an excessive amount of times about the trip and we took weeks prepping Nicole for the prospect as she is very anxious about any change.

And then, the curse happened. Dano got a double whammy of croupe and strep. The day before we were supposed to leave, we went to both the doctor and the ER with Dano because he was so sick. And we thought that maybe he would feel better fast and we could go a day late, but, alas, he did not. His fever persisted through Thanksgiving and we were forced to accept that the trip was not going to happen.

This happened last year too. Sarah came out for over a week for Christmas and the kids got the croupe and I got bronchitis and we did not get to spend hardly any time with her. I am cursed. Doomed to not spend time with my little sister!

So, we spent our Thanksgiving apart. I went to my parent's for dinner, then brought food home to Matt and the kids and then Matt left for his Mom's to have dessert. Even though it was a fairly crummy Thanksgiving with sick kiddos, it still was not the worst Thanksgiving ever.

I can only hope now that Matt and I will be able to plan some other get away to New Mexico to see Sarah and hopefully it will happen next time.

Family Photos

Because I am the worst Mommy ever, I haven't gotten professional photos of my family in two years. Last year I bought a new camera instead of buying new family pics. I love my new camera, but I felt like it was time to get some family pics this year. Plus, my photographer friend Jasmine now lives in Utah which means she could totally take our pictures.

You can check out her photography website here.

Jasmine did an awesome job taking our pics for a totally reasonable price (cuz she was running a holiday special). Check it out.

We took the pics in this really pretty orchard and I love the way they turned out. Jasmine was so good with my kids! Which is not an easy thing with Nicole's anxiety and Dano's need to pull out grass by the handfuls. I am so pleased. She will definitely be my photographer again next year.

Quilting

I really like quilting. I made my first quilt a few years ago after Matt bought me a sewing machine. I made a quilt for Damon before he was born. You can read about it here. I made another quilt a little later for my niece Morgan. And then I ceased my quilting efforts for a bit. Then, I realized that I wanted a quilt for my own bed and I set about making it... two years later, I have finally finished it. I learned a lot about quilting in those two years.

1. Quilting takes a long time, especially if you are making it for a queen sized bed.
2. Quilting is expensive, especially if you are making it for a queen sized bed.
3. Quilting is tricky, especially if you are making it for a queen sized bed.

I don't think I will make another queen sized quilt. I always wondered why quilts are hundreds of dollars. It seemed like it wasn't that much more fabric for a bigger bed. And then I made one and spent 100 dollars on it in fabric and supplies (like thread and batting and glue and such).

So, it took two years because I kept stopping and starting and because I ran into snags like the quilt not being quite the right size because my math was off and I didn't have quite enough squares to make it the length that I wanted it. I was two squares short to add another row. Not sure how that happened. All the squares ended up smaller than I anticipated. I need to be better at my math skills. So, I had to add a significant border which required more math skills and a lot of cutting, pinning and sewing.

I learned this new technique where I could sew a lot faster and use less thread if I chained my pieces together. It was a lot faster!

So, I sewed triangles into squares, then sewed two strips on each square, then sewed for squares together to make my final square.  Did that make sense? No? Okay, just look at the pics.

Right sides together.

sewing the strips to the half square triangles.

Finished product. 

One complete square in the quilt

Okay, there were a lot of steps that I didn't photograph because it took two years to finish, I think it is obvious that I got lazy along the way. And, I tied the quilt instead of machine quilting it because that thing was massive and it just wasn't going to be an easy thing to feed through my machine with as big as it was. But, Matt had bought me a Quicksnap quilting frame last year, so I used that to tie the quilt. And it is a little more youthful looking with the ties, but I am pleased with the results. Even though it took forever.

Then, after finishing the massive queen bed quilt, I decided to make a quilt for Dano's bed as he had no quilt, just the little baby blankets that he had been using in his crib. I looked up patterns online and decided to go with a chevron quilt. I used this website as my guide.

And, I once again had bad math or something because it ended up being smaller than I anticipated. Seems really to make the whole thing smaller. So, I had to add an extra row on the sides and the end and add a border and I thought it was big enough and somehow it still ends up just covering his bed. It doesn't have the overlap on the bed that I wanted it to have. So, he can still use it and it looks awesome, but I am disappointed with the size.

 These are the fabrics I used for the pattern. I bought them at Fabric Mill. I used white from my stock of fabric and I bought the backing at Joanne's. The quilt cost $40 to make because I used designer fabrics.

I love the way it looks. I think it turned out awesome. But the technique that I used from the website I found I did not like. It stretched the squares a little and it turned out that one side is slightly longer than the other because of the stretch. I wouldn't use that technique again. I would just cut regular triangles like I did for the quilt for my bed. It takes longer in cutting, but a lot less time in ironing. So I think it all works out.

So, I shall stop quilting for a bit now since quilting is expensive. But I love doing it. It is fun to see strips of fabric turn into a beautiful quilt. But, I don't think I will ever quilt to sell because it would end up being a astronomical price to account for the time that goes into it. But, Dano's quilt only took two months to make. Smaller is better. And it was a monumentally easier pattern to piece together. I would definitely do another chevron quilt.

Jamming

My parents had a lot of peaches grow on their tree this year and Marie and I took all our peaches and decided to make jam. Because jam is delicious and I thought it wouldn't be too hard... but it was a lot more time consuming than I anticipated. 4 batches and 4 hours later, we had this...

This was only my half of the jam. Marie had her own half as well. It sure is a lot of jam... and it is delicious. I gave away four jars and kept the rest for myself because jam is awesome. Can't give away all the goodness.

Outside Fun

Over the summer, Nicole got really into this show called "Peep and the Big Wide World," which features kids doing various science experiments. Nicole really wanted to try this one where you freeze things in ice and then pour hot water on them to melt the ice.

I put Mr. Potato Head parts in Dixie Cups and froze them. Then I cut off the cups and we took the ice blocks outside.

The kids were interested for a few minutes but when the ice cubes weren't melting fast enough, they gave up and let the sun melt them. It wasn't as entertaining a project as Nicole wanted it to be.

So we started doing other things while waiting for the sun to melt the cubes. Like watering the tree.

And watering our brothers.

Until they finally melted... and Dan was sad.

And then we raced cars down the slide cuz that is the logical thing to do.

And we saw a snake that lives under our porch. It was a big day.