No wonder my head spins...

...when it is this time of the year.  Love it, but can't wait for the lazy days of summer.

Eureka!

I have found the cutest little '49er ever!  It is my baby girl, Cristina.  She is not so much of a baby girl anymore...4th grade... *sigh*

Well, one of the fantastic things about fourth grade is learning quite a bit of California history culminating in one big end of the year celebration-Gold Rush!  

Look at this beautiful little hard-worker:

Cute as a button, no?

Need a close-up of this adorable bonnet and that gorgeous little face?

Granted!

Cristina's class had great fun taking a few steps back in time!

Hobbit-ual

This thing all things devours:
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel;
Grinds hard stones to meal;
Slays king, ruins town,
And beats high mountain down.


What say you, gentle reader? Have you an answer?


Of course, the answer is "Time."  Time is something that seems to fly at an alarmingly fast rate in our chaotic lives.  I remember only a short few years ago, my oldest baby sitting on his diapered-butt, using his baby board books to "decorate" my living room in San Clemente.  We had a morning ritual that as I finished getting ready for the day, he would sit and read his huge stack of board books and toss them over his sweet little shoulder when he was ready for the next one.  The result left a huge mess that we would happily clean before leaving for our day.  


These days he is as voracious a reader as I have ever known, at his age.  He has read far too many books for me to keep count.   I would guess that half of the books that I buy end up in his hands.  As an example to his reading prowess, I'll share that he read The Hunger Games when he was in 5th grade long before it was the popular series that it became.  He also plowed through the others as soon as they were released.  (Sidenote:  He keeps pushing me to read the series, but I think that I might be a bit of a novel snob.  Just knowing that my 5th grader (at the time) read and enjoyed this series turns me off a tad. I have one word for you:  Twilight  *shudder*) 


Recently, he was out of books, so we went to my bookcase to see what we could find that he might enjoy.  Lord of the Flies was met with tepid interest.  A Tale of Two Cities?  Catcher in the Rye?  Count of Monte Cristo?  *yawn*  Then, I spotted it.... Tolkien.   Ahhh, yes...it was the time.   


As I pulled it from the shelf, with an admitted twinkle in my eye, my heart sank a bit.  
This....

...had become this...

Fear not, the Amazon gods always smile in our favor and in two days we had...

Guess who is reading it now?   Jake!  
Guess who is really liking it?   Jake!
Guess who is probably going to have to quit being prideful and read The Hunger Games series?  Not me! :)

SMGO

The acronym that pretty much describes my life.  So Much Going On.  To be honest, I am unsure where to even begin.  Perhaps I will work backwards.

This past weekend, I was able to get away with my Cabin Fever Quilting friends.  We changed things up and decided to book a cabin in Julian for this retreat!  We had a great time.  The cabin definitely had its own quirky style.  It seemed to meander in so many directions that you could actually get lost within it.
The view was spectacular...

We all brought our sewing tables, so it made setup pretty darn easy...

We did end up heading into town for a bit on Saturday...

Although there were quite a few shenanigans, I actually completed a lot of work.
I finished a quilt top and three background blocks for a really fun appliqué quilt that I started.

It was great to get away with these friends and look forward to our next meet-up or getaway.  :)

Hidden Bliss

This quilt is for my sweet niece, Kelsi. She asked for a quilt many moons ago and has been waiting patiently until her quilt was made. For this lap-quilt, I used Moda's Bliss fabric line. For the hidden stars, I used a winter-white fabric that I had in my stash. I quilted the stars by stitching in the ditch and then quilting a starburst pattern within each star, but it is terribly hard to see that. I stippled the colored squares to complete the quilt.

Backalackish.  (Please excuse the folds.)

Here is a close-up of the free-motion quilting in the middle of each star.  It was fun to do, but I really suck at taking pictures, for future reference.

The important thing is that Kelsi loves her quilt and that makes me happy.  :)