barrett: 44 months old

This little bundle of goodness, eating his banana because he loves bananas, is in love with Paw Patrol!  Anything to do with puppies or fire trucks or really any trucks or tractors makes Barrett happy.  Sure, Barrett has his "I'm three years old" moments, but usually he's a sweet kid who loves getting piggy back rides around the house and going on bike rides in the buggy.  

Barrett enjoys school so much, though he did like having two weeks at Christmas!  He wants to do everything Britton does, which annoys Britton to no end.  But he's got a spark and an imagination and just cracks me up on a daily basis.  

Likes:  bananas, strawberries, piggy back rides, playing tag, dress up

Dislikes:  stopping any fun activity to go to the bath

89 months old

We're down to the last days of Christmas vacation, and Britton is none too happy about it.  I'm not either, as I go back tomorrow morning, and I can guarantee you that after sleeping in most days past 8:00 am, my alarm of 5:20 am is going to be downright painful tomorrow.  Britton loves when we're all home, doing whatever we want all day, and the idea of us getting back into the swing of school and work just hurts her feelings!

To counteract everyone's blues about getting back to the grindstone, I invited our neighbor's first grader down for a playdate today, and the hubs is heating up the pool so they can all go swimming tomorrow.  It's better when there are fun things to look forward to.

Biggest development of the month - Britton can ride her bike now!  I mentioned in before, but this is really fantastic because now I can throw Barrett into the buggy and we and Britton can ride around the neighborhood together.  All of the roads are flat, so it's a nice easy activity that gets us outside and exploring.  

Nella came out of hiding for a photo bomb

One way to deal with the kids at home for two weeks is to let them have the family room.  The hubs and I go against every instinct to pick up, and we just let the kids do what they want, so long as they get along and play together.  This past weekend they wanted to make a fort, so we turned on some "Pioneer Woman" reruns and let them go to town.  After an hour they lost interest and we attempted to go to the library (closed on New Year's Eve?  Seriously?) after cleaning it all up, but what a glorious hour it was!

I loved what Britton said about forts so much that I wrote it down: "I like it when pillows are doors and blankets are houses."  Me too, Britton!

the harvey quilt

Two of my co-workers recently had babies - you saw Nixon's quilt, so here is Harvey's!  I work with Harvey's mom, Rachel, and we had a joint baby shower for her and Nixon's mom, April.  Harvey is Rachel's first baby, and she knew she was having a boy.  I knew her nursery was decorated in grey and navy, so I wanted to stick with those colors, and also arrow accents.  But I also knew that I was quickly running out of time to get a quilt done, and I had the perfect quilt listed in the Etsy shop.  So I deactivated this quilt in the shop, and sent it on its way to Harvey!

The pattern is "Swiss" by Thimble Blossoms.  I used all of the navy and dark blue scraps I had!  The backing is a Cloud 9 arrow patterns from Joanns (they don't have it in stock anymore, so I can't find the name), and the grellow (green + yellow) binding is also by Cloud 9.

I quilted it with horizontal rows of extra large zig zag stitches.  It was a fun way to quilt, that I need to remember for future quilts.

Rachel loved the quilt, and she even cried when she opened the gift bag.  I also made her a small stuffed dog to coordinate with the quilt (pattern is from Shabby Fabrics) since she has three dogs!