Baby Quilts... lots of baby quilts

So, I've had fabric with patterns stashed away for awhile. And once I finished with all the holiday table runners I needed a break from quilting. Just so happens I got pregnant right in the middle of the holiday sewing frenzy, so then I got super tired and lazy for several weeks. Now that all the 1st trimester funk is over with I finally got around to the other projects so patiently waiting for me.

Here they are...

The first two are the same pattern. Made from a Layer Cake pre-cut.
The other also used a charm pack pre-cut and sashing.

This is what I've been staying busy with.
I have a few more that aren't quite finished yet that I'll post pictures of soon.

Still Here...

I really do plan to get back in the habit of blogging (if I ever was... ).

Anyway, here are some updates of what's happened in my absence.

The biggest news is that I am 18 weeks pregnant, due in July!! We are wayy excited about this! It was fun keeping the pregnancy a secret for the first 10 weeks! (Hence, why I didn't mention it in my last post). Things are progressing well.
I happen to be one of those super lucky girls that everyone hates that never experiences morning sickness. Which I am soo thankful for and am not taking for granted. Though the pregnancy fatigue I thought was going to kill me. That only lasted about a month though.
I've felt great, Doctors say all is good. We had a 13 week ultrasound to determine due date, and have our 20 week ultrasound scheduled for next month.

I've definitely got a "baby bump" and finding things to wear is sometimes a challenge. I'm loving the sweats and yoga pants these days ;)

So I guess you can expect most of my posts from here on out to be about Baby and pregnancy! ;)

I've been doing some more sewing. Mostly baby quilts. Some will be gifts and of course one or two I'll keep for Baby.
We've been cleaning/organizing/rearranging to get the Nursery ready. It's far from ready, but it's a work in progress.

Things are good and all is well over here in my little corner of the world!

Hello again

Whoops! It's been 3 months since I last blogged. Got busy, didn't have much to blog about and just life in general was happening.

Some highlights from the past 3 months.

I became an Aunt in October

This is my Nephew, Silas!!

For my birthday we traveled a few hours to go see Josh Turner in Concert. Was a lot of fun.

In November most of my family and my brother in law came and stayed with us for the weekend of Thanksgiving. We had a full house but it was a lot of fun!!

During November and December I was very busy sewing table runners and other quilted projects with a friend. We went to two different Christmas bazaars to try to sell them. Sadly we weren't as profitable as we had hoped. But all the sewing kept me busy and it was fun!

Christmas brought snow and very cold weather

We were able to go to see family after new years. It was a quick but fun trip.

Still lots of cold weather. Nights are frequently below zero and days rarely get above 30 degrees.
This is the coldest winter I can remember.

I finally, after all my holiday sewing, got back to sewing again this week. I think I was a little burned out on it for awhile.
Made good progress on two projects on my list to do!

I'll try to be more frequent with post on here.... try :)

Cooking with a different mindset these days

I have heard of the "Paleo diet" off and on for awhile now. Earlier this year we had a couple visit our church and fill the pulpit for a few weeks. She was gluten intolerant and there were a few other dietary restrictions. So she ate according to the Paleo guidelines. I've since heard bits and pieces about it. And it sounded like a good idea.

I generally try to cook and eat a healthy and balanced diet. But fall short in many areas. For the most part my husband and I's health is good, but not perfect. I decided I'd do a little research.

Here is what I have learned so far:
Primal diet and Paleo diet are very similar and many times referred to as one in the same. However, the Paleo diet is much more limited on what is "allowed". The Primal diet follows basically the same idea as Paleo but is much more flexible or variable.

The diet is not strict in the sense that you must eat so many calories per day, have a set amount of protein/carbs/fats, etc per meal each day, doesn't say you have to eat a certain amount of times a day, or how often, etc. There really are very few "rules" to the "diet" if you call it that.

The Broad guidelines are: Eat meat, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds. No processed foods, no sugars, no grains, no legumes. So, eat natural foods that are naturally produced. Dairy is allowed, but should be limited.
The biggest challenge for me is cutting out grains, like pasta and breads.

I've been reading "The Primal Blueprint" by Mark Sisson and while I don't agree with his theology, I do find the information on nutrition to be interesting.

I decided I'd give this new approach to cooking and eating. I'm not following it 100% (I had a frozen pizza for lunch this past week). But am using it as a guideline to check that I'm eating whole, natural, healthy foods.

Here is last weeks menu and "experiments" as my husband calls them. I got most of these recipes from a website I found called FastPaleo.com.

 Wednesday Dinner:

Pumpkin Pancakes with raspberries and Bacon

 Thursday Dinner:

Farmers Market Chicken Bake with green salad and grapes

 Friday Dinner: 

Rosemary Chicken with Orange Maple Syrup Glaze and Mashed Butternut Squash with Asparagus

** Saturday Dinner was Smokey Bacon Meatloaf with green salad, sadly I forgot to get a picture**

 Sunday Lunch:

Spinach Salad with Roasted Butternut Squash and Grapes

**Monday Dinner: ate Chicken Spaghetti at a friends house**

 Tuesday Dinner:

Beasty BBQ Baby Back Ribs with steamed veggies

Wednesday Dinner:

Pasta and Vegetable Fritatta (made with spaghetti squash instead of pasta. This a combo of 2 different similar recipes).

I personally thought most of these recipes were really yummy. Lots of flavor. I think I'd almost prefer them over meals I regularly used to make. A few of them were a little different, the Ribs had homemade bbq sauce, which took some getting used to. And the spinach salad had a homemade vinegrette dressing that also was a little odd to my tastes. 

My breakfasts were usually eggs and sometimes bacon, or a green smoothie made with lots of dark leafy greens, fruits and veggies all blended together. Lunches were usually leftovers from the previous night.

Overall I think this first week of eating mostly all natural, unprocessed and sugar free foods was successful! I've enjoyed it so far. It's also really fascinating to me to find out what really is in most of the foods we eat. In some cases I think I'd rather not know.

Bathroom makeover

Back when I painted almost the entire interior of our new home I ran out of time and didn't get the guest bathroom done. So, I've since finished that project after moving in.

I love how this bathroom turned out. And, I think I've decided bathrooms are my favorite to remodel/decorate.

Here are the before pictures:

And here are the After pictures:

 I took mostly everything off the walls, the ugly medicine cabinet, the shelf, toothbrush holder and towel rod. And If you notice from the before and after pictures of the Master bathroom I swapped the mirrors. And of course the vinyl is a huge improvement over the carpet that was there.

And I'm so proud of myself for installing beadboard all by myself, since I didn't really know what I was doing when I started.

TM pictures from the GoPro

We got pictures of the first 3 hours of the course. So there are a few obstacles that didn't get photographed. I'm still waiting on the release of the professional photos.

Anyway, enjoy photos from the GoPro strapped to our teammate's head throughout part of the course.

Headed to the starting line.

First set of walls to climb (8 ft.).

Here we go!!

Very dusty first mile.

Here's the photographer!

Kiss of Mud Crawling under very low barbed wire.

Our Team!

Just a little tuckered out...

Jumped from 15 ft high into cold, muddy, deep water!!

Nice and wet early in the course!

Ice, lots of it! Had to dunk self under center board to get though.

Very difficult! We all failed hard and early.

Mud!!

More running.

Crawled though these tubes full of muddy water.

More crawling under wire.

Yeah!

Here begins the endless steep climb to the summit.

Still a ways to go...

Exhausted and still more to climb.

Steep and dusty.

The view was the only redeeming part.

Whew!

Now climbing 9 ft walls.

Teamwork

Those wires have 10,000 volts of electricity. No thank you! We skipped this. (had to run though same wires, minus the water, at the end).

Getting teased about skipping it.

Pressing on!

Not much to hold on to.

Had to shimmy along the board with fingertips and toes on a 2x4 or less.

Crawling through a dark trench.

Right before camera died. Waiting to scale the 10+ ft wall.

After this we scrammbled over and under logs. Hurdled 3ft walls. Slimmed through several trenches of wet, slimmy, sticky mud. Climbed up and over a rope net.  Went up and over "Everest". And ran through a stretch of wires of electricity. Plus many other things.

FINISHERS!!

We all had so much fun! Looking forward to next year!