whole lotta stuff going on

fathers day morning
eli thinks his dad is the greatest because "he reads to me.  he lays with me. and takes me to get ice cream."  the certificate says so!

finished baby quilt top
classic, eli + ida in the tub photo

yes, 36

sneak peak of fabric selection for a new quilt.  yes, it will be colorful.
eli on his last day of grade one
very excited to finish up school
this is how ida's hair dries sometimes, er, most of the time.  it is awesome.

we have been very busy lately.  home moving stuff, immigration stuff, lawyer stuff, signing stuff, packing stuff, birthday stuff, sewing stuff, fathers day stuff.  our house is officially sold and we have to be out by the 10th of july which gives us about 2 weeks to get the heck out of here.  immigration "stuff" will probably keep us here another 4-6 months give or take.  it is going to be a bit of a gong show from here on out, but it will all work out in the end.

on the 16th i turned 36.  c.j. brought home the hugest balloons i have ever seen, along with a dozen crave cupcakes and a couple of fancy cards.  nice.  but not nice on my waist-line.

fathers day occurred.  happiest of fathers days dads i know!

i finished a baby quilt top and made a selection of fabric for another quilt along.  i love the quilt design on this one.  working on this quilt will give me some instruction/experience sewing curves.  i cut out 48 12" x 12" squares this weekend to get started. yee-haw!

eli finished grade one.  he was very excited the morning of the last day of school.  you can see from the pictures he was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.  he had a successful year, good grades, made some friends and had a really great teacher.  you can't ask for more than that.

ida is growing, growing.  she is in 6-12 month clothes, sits up without assistance for short periods of time, and is an all-round trooper.  i feel like she is older than she really is sometimes.  oh, also, she is growing up about twice the speed eli did. {tear}  

can i move to a desert island and stop time please?  kids are growing too fast, life is flying by, we are getting older.  time is not being kind right now.  with this whole moving expedition we are undertaking, i just keep thinking that i want to streamline everything in our lives.  what we own, how we think, how our family runs... things need to be simpler, easier, better, worthier.  i don't know how i am going to accomplish this, but that thought process is going to be behind every decision and action from here on out.  it may just help us slow down the hands of time enough to enjoy ourselves and what is going on around us. basically being more mindful. 

on tap for tomorrow:  a date with the US Consulate again... more immigration paperwork for the family... almost done.  

 

 

did you tell him they were the lords chips?

name that film.

tonight eli and i cleaned the church.  

that was a new experience for me.  i have never had the opportunity to do it.  i liked it.  it was quiet, it wasn't too dirty and there was such a good feeling of taking care of the House of the Lord.  

on the way to the church i was telling eli how important and special it was that we got to go and clean.  he thought about that for a minute and said, "well, it is the Lords church and Heavenly Fathers house."   yes, indeed it is young grasshopper.

when we finished up, we shot some hoops in the gym.  hey!  i haven't done that since my mission.  {pres. sager used to give away mcdonalds coupons at zone conference.  we would shoot free throws and whoever sunk them got a $1}.  

eli and i worked on some bounce and chest passes.  it was FUN.  

i need to start doing stuff i used to do, back in the day.  it felt good to run around and shoot baskets just like i was in high school again.  oh high school, the good old days.  envision me: 40 pounds lighter, braces, long permed hair and driving a mandarin orange VW bug.  wicked.

eli was such a good helper/worker at the church.  he vacuumed, organized hymn books, inspected toilet stalls for needed paper and dusted every placard and framed picture on the wall in the whole building.  he read off the cleaning instructions and made sure we followed every point.  i am so glad he was there with me.  good guy.

our trip to the US consulate last week was successful.  ida's US passport, citizen born abroad and social security cards are in the mail.  they indicated that i had to go the airport to talk to immigration services about my situation.  that is what we are going to do in about 6.5 hours. they are only open for 2 hours on tuesdays and restricted hours on saturday and sunday.  we will see what they say.  for some reason i just feel calm about it all.  it will work out fine.

i finally found a long arm quilter to quilt a couple of my quilts.  i am dropping them off on thursday morning with a ETA of july 13th.  they are going to look awesome.  

i am really tired.  my eyes are crossing as i type this.  peace. out.             

c/s

so, last night we conditionally sold our house.

WHAT?

when i woke up this morning, i felt like i did the day i got married.  kind of stunned/excited/nervous.  that day i felt like i was entering a new phase of my life, taking on new responsibilities, a weight, a heaviness, like i was suddenly older, i don't know, just this indescribable feeling.  i guess the weird thing is, is that i actually pin pointed that feeling this morning as i sat on the toilet staring at the floor, it all came flooding back to me, so vividly. wow.  that is how i feel today.  like i am getting married, but i am moving.  i guess i am marrying the move.

anyhooo, the house is conditionally sold, things should solid up next week and they want a date of july 10th to move in.  

o.k.

i went to walmart this afternoon and bought a sturdy binder, several dividers with pockets, graph paper and loose leaf.  this will be my "moving" binder.  there will be many facets to this move, one must be organized and aware.  

back to how i was feeling...  when i was buying my binder stuff, i felt like i was right back at atlandia design in las vegas, working on the bellagio, organizing orders, getting things DONE. it will all be alright.  things will be smooth.  nothing shall conquer me and my binder!  

{i just drank something i never drink.  COKE.   i feel g o o d} 

{carry me through this, oh cokey one...}

ida got her 4 month shots today.  she was sad.  i have her on tylenol for the next 24 hours.  she is a good seed.  so smart and cute.  kind of feisty and goofy too.  she is going to be fun to have in our family.

tomorrow morning we are going to the US Consulate to apply for idas citizen born abroad yak. we are also going to inquire just how i am going to get back into the states... i may have to sneak in.

i love immigration biz-nasssss. 

wish me luck.  

impressed

getting involved in a project with people you don't know it great.  it expands your horizons. 

as i have been working on my quilt, i have been watching other peoples progress, checking their flickr accounts, reading their blogs.  learning, growing.  there are a lot of nifty ladies out there. so inspiring.  so busy.

this evening i ran across a blog by a retired woman.  she indicated that she makes quilts to give to charities and that her husband was a retired clergyman.  the part that i was most impressed with was at the end of each of her posts she would state 2 or 3 things she was grateful for that day under the heading of "gratitudes".  every post something different was written.  i soon found myself scrolling down, not paying attention to her quilting or blog entries, but reading her "gratitudes". 

how inspiring.

i made a comment on her blog tonight and told her she was such a good example of having a grateful heart.  i also told her i was going to follow her example and add something new to a "gratitudes" section on my blog.  

{i have created a little running list on the right hand side that, as the days go by, will get filled with things that i am grateful for in my life.}  

thanks stranger lady.  you made my day.  

whole living

quilt-along top completed!
me + ida
finding her feet
senior eli, growing up, looks are changing

hair + finger chewing 
sweetest of peas
smacking her lips
hmmmm.  

so we fed pablum and pears to ida tonight.  she is 5 months along now and grabs at anything that is heading to my mouth {which is a lot lately, oink, oink}.  so i thought i would see what she thought of a little food.  she actually didn't mind it.  didn't eat a lot, but tested it out and kept it down.  

while i was picking up baby food at the grocery store, i stumbled upon this magazine.  i am in love.  i subscribe to real simple and used to get domino {which is no longer in circulation}. whole living has everything i have been looking for in a magazine and more.  super stoked i found it, bummed i haven't clued in sooner.  subscribing for sure.

today i finished my quilt-along quilt top.  it is bright, it is crazy and c.j. has a hard time looking at it.  i am not totally in love with it, but i think that it will change a bunch once it is quilted and bound.  i am going to work on the back tomorrow and find a quilter to quilt it so i can bind it and finish it up.  the process has been really fun.  i am kind of sad it is almost over, i like to be working on something with others.  there is a flickr pool for the quilt-along, check it out.

there are some beautiful quilts out there.

o.k., it is late, i better hit the sack.  enjoy the pics.

up and running

we are back on the mls.  you can see our home tour here.  i just got a call and have a showing tomorrow night.  we will see!

weekend

sunday morning, ready for church
c.j. and ida with zanetas dog "chanel", ida LOVED her, she would smile and giggle away
garage sale madness

as i was going through pictures from the weekend, there seemed to be a theme running through them:  c.j. and the kids.  so, that is what you get!

we had a garage sale this weekend that was hilariously lame.  i believe we made $18.00.  it was awesome.  towards the end we just sat in our garage {in the chairs we were trying to sell} and ate donuts and mr. freezes's and giggled about goofy stuff.  it was kind of fun!

the rest of the weekend we kept organizing, cleaning and getting ready for yesterday.  our new realtor sent over a photographer and they retook pics and threw a "newly listed" sign on our front lawn again.  we are back on the market.

i worked on my quilt-along yesterday.  i told c.j. i had gotten my week 3 instructions on monday.  he thought it sounded like spy stuff.  {will post pics as soon as i figure out flickr}