Double Wedding Ring Quilt Plans

Hey sewing friends!
I mentioned at the first of the year that I have two quilts to sew in the next couple months and the time has come to get started on the first one. The colors for this wedding are Navy, Coral and Nude.

I'm in the gathering and prep stages right now. I have settled on a Double Wedding Ring Quilt and will be following the Free Spirit instructions as well as this tutorial. It is a lap sized quilt but one contributor included fabric requirements for a queen sized quilt and that is what I'll be doing. Crazy pants! A woman at Joann's asked what I was picking fabric out for and I told her, DWRquilt and she said, "Oh, you know those are hard right? I wouldn't attempt one". I didn't even know how to respond to that right off the bat. I just said, "Oh I know, it's going to be a great challenge".

Here are the fabrics I've gathered so far:

I nearly have all that I need. I am just waiting for an online purchase to show up. I thought I had ordered these two fabrics over a week ago but I never completed the purchase.

 

Well they've officially been purchased now and should arrive shortly.

The arches will be foundation paper pieced and I've got to print out 127 pages! That'll be 254 arches total. Gosh, I've got a lot of work ahead of me.

So while I am waiting for the last few fabrics to arrive I'll start cutting what I have and get those 127 pages printed and cut out.


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One thing I've got to decide is, Do I want to have navy rings and coral rings or do I want them all mixed up together:
What do you think? Navy rings and coral rings or mix them up together?

An Escape

The National Parks are celebrating their centennial and one part of the fun is that in 2016 there will be 16 free admission days. Monday was the first of the 16 and as it was Martin Luther King Jr day it was also a day off school. Brett unfortunately had to work but the kids and I managed to escape into the mountains for an afternoon hike in the snow.

It was a first for all of us and we had a great time. The kids were convinced we were on an excellent adventure.

We didn't make it all the way to cub lake. It was too cold and too late in the afternoon. I think we'll go up in April when Brett can go with us and we can try again.
  
Lorelai's favorite thing was finding large boulders to climb and say, "I'm the first girl to ever climb this boulder!" :) There was something about the snow that made it feel like we were the only ones to have ever been there before.

So much fun! I can wait to get out there again.

Date Night & The Weekend

Hey! This weekend was a great one. Saturday night Brett and I went on a date to the shooting range. This is something I've been wanting to do for quite a long time but didn't know how to go about arranging it. Last Monday I opened an email from Groupon and came across this deal for an hour in the lane, gun, ammo, safety gear and two nefarious bad guys. Perfect!

We left the kids with a sitter and got down with our bad selves. Brett went first because I was pretty nervous. I've never shot a hand gun and haven't shot any kind of gun since I was a teenager. I didn't need to fear. When it was my turn I picked it up pretty quickly and that bad guy didn't stand a chance.

When our bullets were spent and our time was up we headed to the car and I looked at the pictures Brett took. I schooled him on the proper angle which to take the shot. His vs. Mine. You can't even tell I'm holding a gun. I felt like the Instagram Wife.

We finished the night at Texas Roadhouse and I was thrilled to find out they have an Awesome Blossom. My night was complete. Perfect date night. I didn't even care Brett kept getting distracted by the Stealers game ;)

Sunday at church I was cruising the halls with my walking baby when nature called and I needed to put him somewhere he couldn't run away from. #momlife is a glamorous one. You're welcome for the visual.

The missionaries came over for dinner and Mark and Elder Lavaka chatted like they were old friends. It was precious.

After dinner all chaos broke loose. Bouncy balls were flying, kids were shrieking, Hugh Puppies were spinning and the baby Hulked out. Another fun evening in the books.

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What have you got going on this week?

What is your idea of an awesome date night?

10k Training Week 1

Monday 2.5 miles- This run felt fantastic. I feel like I've been building up enough strength that running two and a half wasn't intimidating and I was able to just get out and do it! 31m37s, 12:40/mi pace.

Wednesday 2.5 miles- The snow was finally all gone!! This run felt a tad more difficult but we ran it a bit faster! 30m41s 12:17/mi pace.

Friday 4 miles- The snow is back. It snowed off and on from early Thursday morning until Friday afternoon. Mostly light but still left snow in my way.

An easier week coming up here:
Tonight: 2 mile

Wednesday: 2 mile

Friday: 3

The following week things get kicked up a notch, four runs per week and longer distances. Sounds fun!

Some Saturday Things

Brett and I ran 4 miles last night! That is the furthest I've run since I was pregnant with Kent! It was slow going but it wasn't awful. I felt like if I maintained my pace I could have gone a lot further.

Now for some random photos from my phone:
Did I mention how much Mark loves his doggy? Hugh loves him too. He lets Mark hug and pile drive him to Mark's content. Never gets mouthy or feisty with him. I think Hugh realizes Mark is the puppy of the family.

Mark is very offended by the tea towel hanging from the oven handle and throws it down at every opportunity.

Lorelai and Kent like to play "Spies" and recently wrote up and read to me their list of spy rules.
1. Be Quiet 2. Sneak 3. Hide 4. Don't fart 5. Have a scarf 6. Have a notebook.

Another pic of my favorite snow baby, just for fun!

I purchased this shooting range package from Groupon and Brett and I are hoping to get to use it tonight for date night!

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What are your weekend plans?

Tell me something random from your week....

A Yarn Post Kind of Day

Wednesday I tried to get some knitting in while the baby napped and the big kids were at school but alas I only snapped this pic and knit for about 6 minutes before I got called back to Kent's class for a change of clothes. Oh well, Downton time had to wait until yesterday.


So my brain is a frustrating thing. I'm clearly involved in a serious knitting project at the moment, I am gathering up fabric for uber wedding quilt construction, and I'm busy as heck but I've decided I need to crochet a baby afgan. What?? Well, Rachel and I are throwing a mini- bridal, bridal, baby shower for my brother in laws fiances and I decided the baby needs an afghan. Jason's fiance has already sewn a quilt for the baby so I thought an afghan would be nice. BUUT before I could get started on any of that I had to randomly make a beanie for Mark. I saw this pattern on Repeat Crafter Me and it had to be done. I love how sweet it is!

So now the afghan: I think I'll be doing this free pattern I found on Ravelry by Celeste Young:
I picked up these skeins at Joann's and will be alternating multi and solid yellow with the white in between.

Light Sabers, Piano & Yosemite

Another run on the books. Our pace is rather laughable but we are only just getting going! Training for our 10k is about to get real, 4 miles this weekend!

Kent wanted me to share his new shoes. So Cool!

He says the light sabers make him go even faster!

The boys had a great time getting their energy out at the park today. This picture of Mark swinging was when we first got there.

He burned off all his energy. In his second swing session he fell asleep and slept in the swing for about 10 minutes and then on my shoulder for another 40 min.

Wednesday is my busiest day of the week after all the running around we nearly forgot to go to piano. Which would have been a shame because we love piano. Lorelai's teacher is the absolute best.

Last night I looked at my instagram just before bed and saw this beautiful scene.

I don't know this guy, Taylor Burk, but I follow him because he posts the most beautiful naturescapes and inspires me to get outside and explore the wilderness more. This picture of Yosemite took my breath away and made me more homesick than you can believe. Colorado is great and all, but it doesn't have Yosemite.
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What is your busiest day of the week?

Do you have a favorite National Park?

Ramblings on a Wednesday Morning

Well, Hi! Let's rewind to the weekend. On Saturday Brett and I needed a super easy recovery run so we took the whole family and ran a super chill mile. Kent even ran some of the way though in this picture he is sitting on the front wheel of the stroller.

We moved to the 1130am block at church this Sunday and that means super lazy Sunday mornings. Gives Mark plenty of time for Mark and Puppy snuggles. Marker loves his Hugh Puppy.

I spent some time on Monday delving deeper into the workings of my lovely new Garmin and figured out how to put all my runs between now and our 10k in March into the Garmin calendar. I then synced that calendar to my watch and when it was time to run it was right where I needed it. Perfect!
As you can see in the picture it is also telling me that my next run is tonight!

So fascinating story for everyone, I have very little to do with Kent's shoes. I can tell him to put them on and put them away and that's the end of it. Except that yesterday one was missing. This one in fact and when I found it I looked inside and noticed this....

No wonder he's been complaining about walking because his foot hurts! We took him straight to the shoe store (that night, after dinner) and he was highly amused with this shoe size chart and made us all test our feet against Chewbacca. Look at that face!

Speaking of Star Wars: I picked up this book at Sam's club yesterday while the big kids were at school and they were ecstatic when bedtime story time came up and I whipped this out. Another point in the Mom jar.

Look at these sweet baby boys! Facebook informed me this morning that this is what Kent looked like 4 yrs ago today. I laughed and quickly took a picture of Mark today, today because they are wearing the same pair of jammies! Kent is 15 mos in this picture and was very sick at the time. He happened to have a bad ear infection but this was also at the height of trying to figure out why he was losing weight (and height) about a month before his kidney failure was discovered. Mark is perfectly healthy and 16 mos old in the picture :)

Here's the last thing I wanted to share. I'm currently knitting a sweater for Kent. Hopefully this one will fit over his big head. When I last showed off my work to Emily we were scratching our heads over how this would end up looking like a sweater. Those little flappy things make it look very confusing especially when there was only 50 stitches between them. It is starting to take shape.

 

Then my mom told me that eventually I would sew those flappy things together and to the back of the sweater and suddenly it started to make sense. I used safety pins to demonstrate what it is supposed to look like. In the picture we can see the back and the shoulders and a little ways down the front. Right now it is as if I am making a cardigan but when I get a bit lower down I will connect the front edges, turning it into a V-Neck sweater.

Happy Hump Day to you all!

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How are your New Year's Resolutions going?

Anyone resolved to get running?

My resolution is to KEEP running.

What craftiness have you got going on at the moment?

NYE RESOLUTION5k Race Report

New Year's Eve was a special kind of fun. Full of cleaning, chilling and endorphin's. In the morning we cleaned away Christmas and got the house back to beauty base zero and ready for a new year. That took all of an hour after breakfast and we had nothing to do but wait for our 5pm race.

I don't think I like evening races. I feel like I spent the entire day just anticipating the race and wishing time would speed up. I've only done one other night race but I think I can safely say I prefer just getting up in the morning and getting it done.

This race was also a little obnoxious because if you pre-registered online, as we did, you couldn't pick up your packet until just before the race.

So, after waiting around all day Brett and I dropped the kids off at a friends house and made it to the venue an hour before the race. Thank goodness registration and the post race party were inside the school next door because it was 26 degrees out and felt much worse. We picked up our packets and hung out indoors as long as we possibly could.

We made our way down to the start line 15 minutes before the start and jogged around. Not because we are serious runners but because it was that cold. I checked the temp 10 min before the race 23?! Ugh as night fell it just kept dropping, I didn't check again after the race but I can assure you it only got colder.

Bang! Just kidding, the announcer only yelled GO! It was a pretty low tech race. There were some gorgeous views of Washington park for about the first five minutes but then the sun went down and everything was dark for the rest of the run.

I was very thrilled that Brett and I were able to run the entire race. We only started running a month ago and I was a little nervous that we hadn't built up enough endurance. We were super frustrated that a couple that kept taking walk breaks kept passing us and falling behind and passing us until they burst out at the end and finished 20s before us? That always drives me a little nuts when I'm working my bum off to run the whole way.

Oh well! We ran the whole way and finished at 36:45! Only 45s off my main goal and a 11:49 mile. I am totally cool with that and excited to train towards our next race.

Over all it was a great experience. I don't know that I would sign up again next year, probably not until I forget just how cold it was or I am living in a warmer climate (That would be AwEsomE!)


I hope everyone has a great weekend! I hope to get in some sewing, napping, and we have a 3.5 mile run on the books tonight :)
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What are your weekend plans?