Eight is Great!

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Happy Birthday to Me

 Today was a pretty good Birthday!

A couple of weeks ago I treated myself to this quilt stand...

 

It is a Morgan Telescoping Craft Stand...and is exactly the tool I need for my hand quilting. 

Mat took the boys to the park while I treated myself to a pedicure (ahhh) and got us

Zachary's!!!! (mmmm)

 

My coworker's got me a Halloween-themed Birthday cake which had a bunch of themed rings in it.  One was this ghost:

Arlo saw it and said "marshmallow".  

(think Ghost Busters)

After eating and wearing his share of the cake he is now running around with his towel making swooshing noises...saying "oh yeah"...."Superman"!

Happy Halloween

 

On Saturday we carved pumpkins with our neighbors.

 

Arlo has been very excited about all things Halloween this year.  Each night he has had to go out and "see Halloween".  We walked through the complex to see the decorations, and to say goodnight to our pumpkins.

 Wyatt as the Headless Horseman

 

Arlo gearing up for trick-or-treating!  

 

Spoooky Ghost!

We trick-or-treated through a neighboring sub division.  Arlo was more interested in the decorations than he was the actual "treat" part....until we got home, of course!  We saw a few of Wyatt's classmates, and even his teacher! 

 

We thought Arlo would freak out at Barney, but he was more in awe than anything...checked out his nose, feet, tail...hm...how does he move?

 A few moments to chow down and enjoy their haul....

...and to watch a few scary tv shows....happy candy coma to everyone!!!

(PS...I'm tossing all of the DOTS...no need to replace another crown this year)

Finished!

 I have finally finished Nolan's Quilt.!  The stars were made using Paper Piecing.  The piecing was done by machine, the quilting was done by hand.

 Back

 Back close-up. 

 Saturday was the Fall Carnival at Wyatt's school.  His favorite "booth" was the obstacle course.

For breakfast...a Dutch Baby!  This was really good.  I got the recipe from here.  I baked it in a Pyrex pie plate instead of an iron skillet.

Back to School and More Crafting

Wyatt's school had a picnic to get everyone together before class started.  He was very excited to get back to school.

Arlo is in it for the playground!

First day of 2nd grade!

We went school supply shopping..I had to capture Arlo's "California Boy" look...flip flops and swim trunks-and we're not at the pool.

With a nephew on the way, I decided to undertake yet another project.  I got inspiration from this blog post. This is two skeins of Fisherman's Wool from Lion Brand Yarn.  (about 900 yards).   I wound them into hanks and  soaked them overnight in a 50/50 water and white vinegar mix.   

Wyatt and I used one package of McCormick food coloring.  After re-reading the inspiration post, we should have purchased two...but for a fist try, I'm really happy.  Wyatt squirted the food coloring in a stripe pattern along the width of the hanks.  We alternated colors so that red was next to blue to make purple and so on.  Wyatt squirted water on the yarn and I used my hands to work the dye into the yarn.   I then put the yarn in a bowl, covered with saran wrap and microwaved it for 5 minutes.  I let it cool, and microwaved again for 5 more minutes. 

I only had one glove...this isn't a one-handed project!

After the yarn cooled, I rinsed it in cold water and hung it to dry.  It took 2 days in the garage to dry.  Seeing it hung, I was a little concerned that this would look too much like a tye dye t-shirt, but it doesn't!

I wound the first hank into a center - pull ball based on some tutorials I found on line.  It took a long time to wind it and my arms hurt!  I had a 50% off coupon to Michael's, so I treated myself to an electric winder.   I'm glad I didn't pay full price, though.  It certainly was much faster to wind, a lot less labor on my part, and much neater (I'm guessing I'll have a lot less tangles) but I wish it had a larger capacity as I had to cut the 2nd skein into three balls.  I started an afghan for soon-to-be baby Nordwall, which you can see on my hooks.   

Last night I made this recipe from French's.  This was a success at our house and it was nice to add something new to the menu!  It took about 30 min to make and was delicious.

I went to Seattle for work back on July 25-26. Mat took the boys to the park where they discovered rope swings.

They also cooled off at Central Park.

The weekend after I finally fixed the irrigation system in the back yard. It's nice to know it still takes 3 trips to the home improvement store to finish a project!

I think it turned out pretty nice.

Arlo saw a pineapple on the counter. He kept pointing in the direction of the pineapple requesting to "try it". I asked him what he wanted to try. He replied "Sponge Bob"!

My very generous friends gave us a TV. They helped restore peace in the house! Though the next day Arlo broke the DVD player, delaying peace until it could be replaced.

Yesterday I took the boys to the rope swing park.

And couldn't stomach the idea of them playing on it.

The tree is awesome....but the hill is way too steep!

Beautiful views of Mt Diablo.

And a BMX tack.

I got a good amount of quilting done on Nolan's quilt.

This is the back-I'm pretty happy with it!