Spring-a-Ling-a-Ling Time

Spring is finally here!  At least kind of.  Although, I looked ahead at the forecast and it's supposed to turn cooler again this week, but I'm trying not to focus on that right now.  The sunshine and warm temperatures of the last couple of days have been a balm to my soul.  And an added bonus is that the kids have been spending so much time playing outside that there hasn't been NEARLY as many electronics going on and by the end of most days they've worn themselves out nice and good for bedtime.  

To back up a bit, though, our Conference experience from last week was MUCH better than anticipated and, as a whole, the weekend was rather enjoyable!  Ethan and Sophie watched almost all of the Saturday morning session with me {and took notes!} and our Sunday morning Conference Breakfast was a hit as well.  After getting Alex down for a nap on Sunday after our Breakfast/Brunch, we were able to successfully corral the rest of the children into listening/taking notes or playing with the various packets, games, and activities that I had pulled out for the occasion for all of the morning session.  And some of them even came back to participate in the afternoon session as well.  All in all, it went pretty great.  Definitely an eye in the hurricane of our regular daily life!

Before Conference started last Saturday, we also participated in a not-so-successful Easter Egg Hunt at the church where Jane goes to preschool.  Alex was the only one who got any eggs and that's only because he was let loose to scavenge with the rest of the babies and toddlers on a small playground where there were eggs literally all over the ground.  And since none of these babies were all too quick, Alex got a bucketful.  Thankfully, we were able to divert a few of his eggs into the girls' baskets without any trouble and in the end they were all mostly appeased.   The whole experience was lame enough, though, that we ended up promising to have our OWN Easter Egg Hunt in the backyard at some point so they could all get the full hunting experience.  Haha. 

Alex -- rocking a pink pluggie and a Halloween bucket as an Easter basket.  Keepin' it classy since 2011.

In addition to Conference watching and Easter Egg Hunting, we had a couple of other projects going on last weekend as well.  Grace worked on her 3rd Grade Sale Product -- Word Rocks -- and created the poster to go along with it during most of Saturday afternoon, and I spray-painted our front door wreath, yet again, to give it a more spring-y glow.   

Dream, yo!

"Gumdrop" color by Krylon.

Sophie's notes from the Saturday morning session.  Adorable.  And pretty accurately taken from the talks she actually sat and listened to.

Ethan scribing away.  He ended up taking notes on pretty much every speaker from the Saturday morning session and then the Sunday morning and afternoon sessions as well.  We were very impressed.  As was he.  :)

As for the rest of this past week, nothing huge is jumping out at me to remember to put on the blog.  The biggest items of all are that Jane's lip is looking MUCH better -- thank goodness -- and I think we have officially "lost" Alex's last remaining pluggie.  Very noteworthy indeed!  Hahaha. The week was finished off with gorgeous Spring weather and we have fully enjoyed reveling outside in it.  It was so nice today, in fact, that we decided it was the perfect day to do our backyard Egg Hunt.  Ethan eagerly helped Scott to fill all the eggs and hide them for the kids to go and seek --  and fun was had by all.

We invited our next door neighbor friends to join in the fray as well.  They gave Alex a 15 second head start...

...then let Jane and Katelynn go next for 15 seconds of their own before Sophie and Grace hopped in the race a well.  It didn't take very long for all the eggs to be found.  :)

How could I resist the batman and spiderman eggs I found at Target???  Hahaha.

And that is basically a wrap.  To close, I'm posting a picture of a quilt that I finished a couple of weeks ago for a good friend of mine who had a little boy a couple of months ago.  I had pieced the quilt top a year or two before because I really liked the fabrics and wanted to do a "boy" designed Disappearing Nine Patch pattern, but then never got around to finishing it.  I had grand plans to put it in my Etsy store to try and sell it, but what I've discovered about myself and quilting is that if I don't have a person in mind to make the quilt for or a hard and fast deadline to finish it, it's never going to happen.  And I'm okay with that.  I really enjoy trying to customize quilts to the people I know they are going to.  It's just more fun that way.  So, since this top was already pieced {AND I thought it was the perfect match for this particular friend I had in mind} it was pretty easy peasy to throw together with some batting and solid grey backing {Kona Ash -- my fave} and quilt it.  And I love the way it turned out! 

Disappearing Nine-Patch pattern.  Featuring a lot of prints from Sarah Jane's "Children at Play" line along with other prints and solid colors to complement the overall orange and blue theme of the quilt.  

And that is that.  Happy Spring!