There were so many cool and fun things to there.

I just love new finds.

We got to look at some X rays of all sorts of different things.

We got to bounce around a soft area.

and crawl through a really long tunnel

 Play dress up in the closet.

We got to sit on a giant hand and one of the most fun sections was this flying machine. Basically you were give a paper plate, coffee filter, paper cone cup and some tape and you were suppose to make some thing that could fly. And what you did was put it over the “wind”machine and turn it on and see if your design could fly.  Landon had the best design.

there was so much to do at this museum.  This is just a small sample of the many wonderful areas.

Carley and Hayden really enjoyed the  turtle they had out front.

Landon really like the bear!

They had this really cool totem pole.

And no museum in Texas could be complete without a texas longhorn!

I really enjoyed putting this quilt together. I did not particularly enjoy quilting this big of a quilt. It is approximately 96″ x 76″. It was a monster to man handle in the sewing machine.

It is also a little shorter width than I was hoping for. I paired it with a random top sheet that i had laying around with no fitted sheet. i hated to see a good sheet go to waste so i put it on the back of this quilt. it feels soft. but it was harder to quilt because it was a tighter weave.

Close up of binding.

close up of quilting. i did a meandering random pattern. It is fairly easy to do and it looks and feels good.

For my next quilt, i am trying this one:

Over at my local fabric shop this years block of the month program is completing this Civil War Tribute Quilt. I saw it in their newletter and then I thought I would drop in for a peak to see if I was interested in doing it.

They had one on display that was absolutely beautiful. so I decided i would try it. So this one is done just a little bit at a time throughout the year. so don’t expect it to be completed for quite some time. Also, it is going to be a monster: something like 112″x100″ when complete. I don’t know about quilting this one myself. Quilting is very hard work and rough on the hand, wrist and arm muscles.

Jeff and I caught them being nice to one another and cuddling in a blanket while watching Dora.

And you can’t take a picture of only two of the children. You must take a picture of all of them.

There is one in every crowd.

But since they were getting along, I thought I would catch up on a little bit of this:

This is the first ever, Kristi Bag.

I really did not like this one very much. It did not turn out so well. Not good enough for a gift anyway. So I gave this one to Carley to play with. Which I immediately took back from her and began using myself. I don’t mind poor sewing quality.

But I made a second one:

It even has pockets for doodads and such.

Here is close up of the fabric to show the texture.

I showed it to a friend/fellow converted sewing-quilting enthusiast at work and she loved it. I may try to whip one out for her soon.

Let me tell you that I am really close to “Sliced-the quilt” being done. Keep you fingers crossed but I may produce finished product this weekend.

Also, I am in the mood for trying to make Carley some clothes. I am looking for free simple little girl dress patterns for her this spring. I really want to try and use up my stash as much as possible.  I also want to try smocking…..must go to library soon for reference material.

Have you ever had the experience of being suddenly awakened in the middle of the night by a loud noise.  You get out of bed to see what happened, only to realize maybe it was just a dream.  Something similar happened to Jeff and I a few weeks ago.  Something really loud woke both of us up one night about 2 am. I forced Jeff out of bed to investigate the situation. He went outside but did not see anything. I told him I thought maybe Landon had just kicked the wall really hard again in his sleep or something to that effect. So we went back to sleep.

The sun came out the next day and we learned the origin of our bump in the night.

As you can see, someone slammed their Toyota into our fence. We know it was a 99 Toyota to be exact because they left behind some of their vehicle.

Punks.

The best part of this stories lies within this picture. You see, after Christmas this year we decided it was time to get a new tree. Our tree had really seen it better days. So I just took it and sat it out on the back porch until I decided what I was going to do with it. But since there are not many trees in Midland I thought it might look nice as a lawn ornament. But in the mean time, I have left it sitting on the back porch.

When Jeff came out to investigate the bump in the night, he could not see the fence around the Christmas tree (or he did not think to look) He just sort of assumed nothing was out there and it was something else. 

We decided to burn the fence in our fire pit. Which really is not a pit at all but an area in the backyard that we make fires in on a regular basis and sit around the campfire and roast marshmellow. The landlord calls us pyromaniacs.

Hayden in playing his wood guitar with a peice of broken fence. Such a imaginative mind that boy has.

By the way, as of today, that Christmas tree is still in the back yard.

so I did not get my goals for the year down yesterday. Because I was actually working for a good part of the day.Which left very little time for computer work. I should have suspected the first day back after a long holiday would be like that.

But get real monday was of little success. I did not get out of bed on time which resulted in me being late to work (again). Which ironically coincided with my supervisor letting me know I have a performance evalution coming up at the end of the month. 

Have no fear dear friends, I am not worried. but I do need to get on with it because I have an instrument 40 miles up the road in need of some TLC…..

For 2010 I have decided I need to set some goals. Typically I don’t like the set goals ( I would just break them anyway) and statistically speaking most new years resolutions are forgotten by about middle of February. Which may hold true for me also, but hey, I just need something to work towards this year.

As I stated in a previous post about getting the kids to eat their veggies. This has been only mildly successful. I think I may need to put a lock on the refridgerator to keep the two youngest children out of there. They are filling up on milk, cheese, and yogurt (all good things) and still not eating any veggies.  I have put veggies on their plates every night in some fashion and they won’t touch the stuff. They have even gone to bed hungry and that has not even worked.  But I am hoping to get them to slowly change over the course of the year. There is still hope for them.

So here is the run down–

1. Eat more veggies. I am not sure what is the recommended requirement for amout of veggies per day but I need to get there. Alittle more brocilli and a little less chocolate. This should be a little better for my thighs.

2.  Start running again. I use to run. I would never classify me as a great runner but I could run. I would run even when not being chased.  So I want to work on trying to run a 1/2 marathon by the end of the year. The Dallas/White Rock Lake marathon in is the beginning of December. I will work toward that. This too might work wonders for my thighs.

3.  Finish all works in progress and NOT START ANYTHING NEW! I have 1 quilt that I need to finish quilting and then bind. I have another that is in the beginning stages and I just signed up for the block of the month club over at the Quilting Patch.  If that does not keep me occupied all year, I don’t know what will. I also have all of 2009 to scrap. Oh yes, I still scrapbook. It was my orginal hobby love. Now it comes in a close third after cooking and quilting. This will not do anything for my thighs but will do something for my peace of mind.

4. Stay more organized. When 5 people live in 1150 square feet you have to be organized or things get messy really quickly.  Jeff and I had a spring cleaning day on Saturday. It was marvelous. I had the boys scrubbing baseboards and bathrooms. House looks great. but it needs to stay that way. So my moto for 2010 “Everything has a place, so put it there!” 

5.  I am going to be taking a computer break for a bit. I need to decided if I want to keep this blog going for another two years.  I may be gone until after spring break which is the third week in March. I might be back sooner. I have not decided yet.  but I need to refresh and clear my brain. You will still be able to reach me by email.

I guess that is it. It seemed like more when it was in my head.

So tomorrow is GET REAL MONDAY.  Not today. I am not entirely sure what that is going to mean for me tomorrow, I just know that I am going to be getting back to business but I am going to think about some changes.  Just thinking about my routines and getting out of bed before 9 am  frightens me just a bit.  I have grown acustom to staying up late and then sleeping in the past two weeks that tomorrow is going to be a rough morning. As the saying goes, “The early bird gets the worm”  Well,  I use to get the worm all the time and now I really like my warm soft bed. Who needs the worm. Don’t even talk to me about daylight savings time. But I am digressing from the point.

I am going to try a few new things this year. They have been swirling around my head for about a week now. Tomorrow I am going to officially put them down on paper and then post them here. 

I will see back her tomorrow.

Which leads me to day number one in trying to decide how to incorporate left over turkey with veggies.  And get the kids to eat it. 

Coincidentally, I saw the movie Julie and Julia recently. It was a very cute movie and Meryl Streep did a fab job portraying Julia Child.  It inspired me to read her (Julie Child) most famous cookbook “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.”  I checked it out from the library and read the whole thing.  It made me hungry.

No offense to the French, but I will not be eating sweetbread or calf brains anytime soon. But, I did love the cookbook and was wanting to try something from it.

So how do I you get your kids to eat veggies, use up left over turkey and make something French(ish)…. you make turkey pot pie with handmade Pate Brisee (pastrycrust) from the mastering the art of french cooking.

It was very good.  The crust was so awesome.  I give the dish a 5 star rating and will put in my file of all time favorite dishes.

Landon ate some,  Hayden and Carley would not touch the  stuff. So much for getting them to eat their veggies.

Jeff loved it too.  He also unknowingly thought it was “healthy” because of all the veggies.

I had to burst his bubble when I said there was 2 1/2 sticks of butter in the crust alone.

There is a story to the naming of the quilt.

While I was making this quilt, Carley decided she needed to cut some fabric with my rotary cutter. For anyone who may not know what a rotary cutter, it is basically a razor blade on a stick used for cutting fabric in very straight lines.

Well, she sliced open her index finger on her left hand. We had to make a four hour trip to the emergency room for some stitches.

So in memory of Carley trying to use the rotary tool (And to mama’s who fail to close them like they should and then walk away) I named this quilt “SLICED”.

We took the kids to ride the polar express!

Yes the real polar express!

With Tom Hanks and everything (just kidding on the Tom Hanks part, but the conductor did try to look like Tom and wanted to be called Tom Hanks!)

The train was very loud- It was very scary according to Carley, who kept repeating, “its scary” over and over again.

Riding the Polar express was so much fun. Notice the bandage on Carley’s finger. She had to have two stitches a few days before that. I will go into that later.

They served us hot chocolate and cookies and told us they magically took out all of the calories. And we sang all the songs from the movie and Christmas carols.  All the children were encouraged to wear their pajamas. (but I forgot that part)

And when we got to the North Pole, Santa and his Elves got on board and made a visit with all the children. He even gave everyone their very own bell from his sleigh.

Hayden got to dance with an elf named “Marshmellow”

It was lots of fun to ride the polar express.

We had a birthday over the weekend. He picked out a christmas cake from the local bakery for two reasons. Mom was too sick to bake and he wanted one.

but it really goes against what I like to do. Because baking and cooking are my thing. I pride myself on it. But alas, when the boy wants a cake from the grocery store…. you get him a cake from a grocery store. He originally wanted a cake like one he saw at church during a marriage celebration with tiers and everything. But I’m not that good.

So we settled on this one. (But my cakes are much tastier than this cake)

He wanted to go to Mr. Gattis which is a pizza/arcade place. They even had bumper cars. I would have taken a picture but I was too busy riding them.

And he got the best gift from Grandma, “lasar tag” just like uncle Robs. He was most excited about this.

All in all it was a pretty good week.

Happy Birthday Landon.