Hudson River Celebration

Before i show the scenery and boats...i wanted to be sure that i had pictures of the people i was with. There were lots of scenery pictures in our house growing up, but not too many of the people looking at it!!! :o)
I can not get a serious face out of this child anymore. There is something about 7 that made her goofy. Every time i say let me take your picture she makes a goober face. Silly girl....now my mom is going to kill me for this next one.
But i took several and i really think they turned out well despite her hating every one. You look so dreamy mom!
And of course the true star of the show Sunday was this little lovey!! She is so delicious. She made a great test subject for the new camera. It went a little like, take a picture of a boat and the river, take ten of the baby!

oh now here are the boats....This year the area is celebrating the 400th anniversary of the Hudson river voyage on the ship Half Moon. So there was a big deal about the ship replicas coming up the river along with its accompanying flotilla.

There were several cool old ships. This fire boat was Mitchell's favorite...especially when they started spraying water everywhere to put on a show for the crowd.

This one is the Half Moon. We just wish it had gotten closer...i had to use the new zoom lens and then crop the picture to get something we could see well. So Happy 400th, you big dirty river!!

This Boy is All Boy

He has a new playground best friend. One of the little boys let him borrow his shooter, and Mitch was certain that they would now be friends for life(i try not to break the realities of military kid living to him). Loving his outfit. Only a four year old little boy can get away with this one. Especially the gun down the pants part!!!

And, girls(Mary and Dee) have you seen this pose anywhere before? Look familiar? How funny is that?

I love him. I wish he was not this big but time keeps going on and my sweet little baby keeps growing up into this handsome, charming and lovably loud little boy.

Update

I know...looks a little like a previous post...but we love our baby birds!

We checked in on them this week, and look how they have grown. They are already getting little patches of blue feathers.

And see who was peeking out at me this morning. I was making breakfast and there he/she was. Checking out his new world. Sorry about the bad picture...i have no excuse, new camera and all. But I had to do it through the screen door

And this was just nearly the best goldfinch picture i have gotten yet...there were 9 of them on this afternoon.

Day 40

The one a day 9 patch at Amandajean's blog is about on day 40. I was way way behind...I only had 24. So i tried to catch up and leave myself a little buffer again today and yesterday. I now have 44...this is all of them. I switched around my fabric combination's so i have extra blocks out of the same fabrics...yellows, pinks, greens and blues.

Trying Homemade

Do you know what you do with all these little ingredients..?.. you make homemade laundry detergent! I have been wanting to do this for a really long time. I should have taken a picture of all the laundry soap bottles i have been saving for this.

Before Avery was even out of her jammies she was wanting to know what i was doing and if she could help. So i put that girl to work grating the soap.

After breakfast she ran upstairs and got dressed, including her apron. We have been giving thought to doing Prairie day once a week or every other and this was a great start because you know those pioneers did not go to the grocery store to buy laundry detergent...so we talked about this a little while mixing it up with apron on.

We found a easy to follow recipe at A Familiar Path, and her links directed me to this blog where I found her recipe simple, fast and fun. Initially i was nervous that i might have messed it up because it was pretty thin and had bubbles on top, but as the day went on and it cooled down it began to gel and thicken. Now i have to do a test run. I am terrified that i am going to walk away and then find my laundry room overtaken with bubbles.

And i did not need to save those bottles because as it is now it will probably not transfer well....perhaps i will just be scooping it out of the big bucket.

Tiny Visitor

Look who i found at my backdoor. I think it is a baby sparrow of some variety. I only knew he was there because he took a seriously wrong turn and accidentally flew right into the back door. The crash was what i heard. His momma was frantically flying back and forth trying to feed him while he sat there and gathered his wits.

A Quilt of Love

I have been planning and working on this Recess quilt (this link is not where i bought the fabric but shows it off the best) for some time now. I planned it before i even knew my wonderful friend Dee was having a baby girl. I was hoping because i thought that this would be perfect for a girl and it was the fabric i had my heart set on.

The sun was shining on it the day i finished so i was able to get some good shots of it. The quilting shows up really well in this light. This was the first time i used warm and natural batting and i think i am hooked. It made so much of a difference and quilted nicer than many of my other quilts.

Chris was doing what i wanted to be doing with it here(which i think is what E tried to do when he helped his momma open the pacpkage)...i wanted to wrap myself in it and keep it, but alas it had a better home. SO off to the post office i went. I know Dee loves it and that it will be loved there for many years to come.

Like Giddy School Girls!

Random...yes...picture heavy...absolutely!! Today we got a new camera. It was a gift to ourselves since our house finally sold.
So i have spent most of the evening since we opened the box taking random pictures all over the house...if it will hold still or pose i'm gonna take its picture
There it is!! The new camera. It is a Canon Rebel xsi. Thank you Mary for the recommendations and advice. Can you tell we are loving it already? I have done a happy dance...a few jumps up and down and many squeals of delight, because these pictures are so much better.
The bluebird was coming out of the house after feeding the babies...doesn't he look mad at me for standing there. How dare I? Reminds me of this picture that i have seen before.
Here is what he was feeding him...a still wiggling grasshopper. Loving our bluebirds of happiness.
Chris took the camera with him to the playground and got some pictures of the kids playing.


This is a chive flower in the backyard...if you click on it and look really close you can see those little blood spiders! I don't think that is the technical name, i think they are aphids, but that is what the kids call them. Isn't the camera awesome?

What could be cuter than a little boy covered in purple chalk dust? The sidewalk chalk has come out for the summer and it entertains them for hours. They grind it into powder and use it for all sorts of things, like rubbing all over themselves. Isn't that what you do with yours? :o)

I just love this one of the flower in his hand. I can not believe how cool this camera is!!!!

Panda Parts 2,3 & 4

I am still playing catch up on this one. I just finished the main body of the quilt this afternoon. Now that more of it is together i can really see the panda...although one of my critics(Mitchell) likes to sit there and say, "hmmm, where is the panda?I don't see it", with a fake puzzled look on his face. I too had my doubts when it was just a head. This is not the kind of quilt i usually would make, but it looked cute and fun and challenged me when it came to the triangle parts...something i have never used in a quilt before.