Blankie on a limb

I went a little crazy with the last baby blanket that I made. I'm sending it to my cousin Janie, who's pretty fun and funky, so I hope she likes it. I do, but it is strange. Very Dr. Seuss.

It's light blue with stripes of green fuzzy yarn.

Here's the whole thing.

Here's a side shot so you can see the fuzzy texture,And here it is on a test-drive.

In other news, I have 16 items on my Summer To Do list. I'm trying to be relaxed and ok with not getting it all done.

Today I've been working on the photo projects for the summer. Each year after Anna's Birthday I go through the pictures for the year and pick a picture from each month to print in an 8x10 for her big album, and 4 4x6's for the hall. It helps me feel better about not ever taking professional pictures. I've just finished choosing and cropping and they should be at Wal-Mart in a couple of days. Then I put them in the album and frame and I'm down to 14 things on the list.

If only "Potty Train Anna" were as simple.

An appeal

I'm doing another tech program next year at school. Today we had to sign up for the equipment that we'd like to have in our classroom, and one of the things we could choose was a digital camera, a nice-ish one, for $250. I'd love to have some cameras for the kids to use, but they really don't need nice ones, and it occurred to me that I could donate our old camera to the school, and that would be free! Then I thought, if we have an old camera that we've replaced with something fancier, surely other people do too... If anyone would like to donate a camera to our school, let me know. I'll be glad to help. Or maybe you'd consider donating one to a school close to you? I know they'd appreciate it and use it. I could go on and on about the benefits of technology in the classroom (I just did a presentation on it), but you already know that, right?

Just an idea I had. Let me know if you'd like to help.

Lainey's blanket

Now that Lainey has her quilt, you can see what it looks like.

I enjoyed making it, though I'm not super happy with the binding. It's very uneven in one spot, but I didn't get it back from the quilter until the day before we left, so I was up late finishing it. Sewing the binding on by machine is quicker, but I think the hand sewing is a nicer finish, unless I get much better at the doing it by machine.

I also learned doing this quilt that I don't like doing borders. Once I get the main piecing done, I don't like having to do borders too, but they do look nice.

And I really want a machine so that I can do the quilting myself too, but I think that's a long way off.

The pattern is from a quilting magazine of Mom's...They called it "Atlantic Chain" It's a simplified version of an Irish Chain, done in purple and a white with purple flowers, with a Leopard print back, per Lainey's request.

Here are a few shots.

Marg and Lainey...I forgot to take a picture of the whole thing, could you take one and send it to me? Thanks!

A post without pictures

The other day I was in the shower when I heard Anna say


"Say Cheese, Mama!"







Then we had a conversation about how we don't take pictures of people when they're not dressed.



When did she learn to turn on the camera?

Summer!

It's not quite here for me yet. School was out on Tuesday, but then Wednesday I had to start packing up my room, since I'm losing it to 6th grade next year and moving into the Library. This morning we gave our presentation for the Tech program we did this year, I'll find out in the morning how we did. Hopefully we'll the the full amount of $, since I already bought the tickets to Oregon. :) Then this afternoon Abby came out and helped me finish packing up the room. Tomorrow I need to "check out" officially and get all of my papers signed, and THEN, it's summer. I'm thinking I'll take the weekend totally off, and then get started on my summer projects, etc. Well, except that maybe I'll try to potty train Anna, which is on the list.

I'm going to go ahead and post an unflattering picture of myself here, because it made me laugh so much to see it. Matthew took these on our trip this weekend, when I fell asleep in the car...

Should I maybe add *sleep* to the list?

Anna's Art

Last week Anna drew her first picture that was more than random squiggles. Lions, and birds in the sky.

And here's her self-portrait.