Excuses, Excuses

Alright, so it's been roughly 100 years since my last post, give or take. But I'll do my best to fill you in on all that you've missed in my absence.

Norah's still growing like a weed, as you can see. I thought this first photo showed her teeth pretty well. She's up to 11 now, and we sure think they're purty.

In the time since my last update, Norah has hit a momentous milestone--she has a set bedtime, and she doesn't fight it! For a solid week, we have maintained a new routine, and she seems to really like it. Before, Jason or I would rock her to sleep and then carefully transfer into the crib, hopeing not to wake her. In the event that she did rouse, we'd either have to stand there with our hand on her back until she fell asleep again, or start over with the rocking. It was fun for a while--sweet time with just us and our baby girl...but sometimes its not a good night to rock, and you just want her to go to bed...so we decided it was time to set a routine.
So here's a break-down of what works for us:
7:30pm, bath time with the duckies.
7:45pm, put on PJs, desitin, lotion, etc.
7:50pm, commence with bedtime stories (read with lights dimmed, night light already on, and noisemaker going...for those wondering, noisemaker is set to either a gentle waterfall or chirping crickets)
8:00pm, lights out, prayer time
8:05pm, place fully awake Norah in her crib, and leave the room

As I said, for an entire week we've had great success with this routine. Sometimes she sniffles a few times when we leave the room, but it never lasts more than about 10 seconds. What an answer to prayer!



So onto my excuses for failure to blog...I've still been staying busy with Princess and Diva birthday cakes...I had a princess cake last week and I went with a little different design and really enjoyed it. You may not be able to tell from the photo, but the necklace and crown have a little rhinestone in them. I thought it turned out pretty cute.



Probably my biggest excuse for not blogging in so long is pictured here. A little over a week ago Jason came home from work exhausted. He had a double-header (softball games) at 9:15 and 10:15pm and Norah was wound up and excited to see him when he got in from work. I decided to take her out to kill some time to give Daddy a chance to take a little nap before his games. While we were out, we went to JoAnn Fabrics with no intentions of buying anything. Little did I know the muse of inspiration awaited me there.

After weeks of perusing Pottery Barn Kids, debating over whether or not to buy the overpriced quilt that had caught my eye, I found some fabric that I liked even better. And then I found several coordinating fabrics..and before I knew it, my basket was full of several bolts of fabric. I just got swatches that night, but as you can see from the photos, I didn't waste too much time in going back and buying/getting started on a quilt for Norah's future "big girl" room. Granted, I have no idea when she'll need a "big girl" room...I also don't know how long it will take me to get all the components together, and you might as well work while you're inspired, right?
Each of the flowers is embroidered, and each of the blocks also has an different embroidered border around it...or at least they all will when I finish. I'm currently up to 15 finished blocks, with a total of 24...so I'm over half-finished.

Once the embroidery is all completed, I'll sew on the outter borders of the quilt (its a solid aqua fabric) and begin hand-quilting it. I plan to quilt 3 nesting squares in each of the plain blocks, and echo-quilt around the flowers in the blocks with the appliquéd flowers in them. I have had so much fun putting this quilt together!


The fabric to the right was my previously mentioned "inspiration" fabric. I've always been a sucker for little prints, and I thought the colors were too fun. I bought more of this floral print to make a reversible duvet cover (with the stripe print from the quilt as the other side)

So, basically, my main excuse for not updating my blog in 100 years is that I've been pre-occupied with quilting. Thankfully, Norah's been in a mood to play contentedly by herself, and Grandma, Great Grandmother, and Grammy have also allowed me to have some quiet time in which to work. (I am so blessed to have such a loving family so close!)

I thought I'd close with a photo I snapped today mid-lunch. Norah had fallen asleep while she was eating---but she kept waking up and taking another bite, then falling back to sleep. It was very funny to watch, but I couldn't laugh, because I didn't want to wake her. She actually makes a habit of sleep-dining, but it never gets old to me---its still funny every time.