We’re going bananas!

My sister-in-law came in town this weekend with her kids. We took them to Zoo Atlanta (www.zooatlanta.org) on Sunday morning. It was chilly, but the animals were active, making the experience much better for the kids.

First stop: Simba, the lion.

He was perfectly perched on the rocks and roaring up a storm. Everyone in the zoo dashed over to see him. Beth and Sean were particularly enamored with Simba, or, maybe with each other.

Next stop: Gorillas.

Nate was his cute, charming self and Caleb, self-proclaimed picture hater, even let his dear Aunt get a photo of him.

We ran around the zoo for a while longer and saw the leopard and tiger. On our way out, the zoo was flying an owl. We had to stand back – the owl was looking a bit irritate – but we were able to see him fly. It was pretty cool.

We checked out the Naked Mole Rats, then the kids played on the playground for a bit.

Pandas

petting zoo

carousels

then the highlight of the day: the TRAIN!!! Or, as they are known in my house. CHOOOOOO!!!

Lunch out at Six Feet Under was the perfect ending to our day.  The kids were exhausted, and exhilarated. We all had a blast!

Peek-a-boo…where are you?

Or more to the point….where have I been? December and January were busy for us. December was full of birthdays, Christmas, then ringing in the New Year, which we happily did at home after whirlwind trips to Blairsville and Pigeon Forge.

I love Christmas with my parents. It’s filled with traditions from my childhood. Every Christmas Eve. Mom, Laura and I would make a pull apart cake for Christmas morning then we’d sit down for a nice dinner. After dinner we’d all get ready for Midnight Mass then we each got to open one present. Usually we’d hang out for a bit, then drive around to look at Christmas lights, eventually ending at church so we could get a seat and enjoy the candlelight caroling.  I loved church on Christmas Eve.  The overhead lights were off and the church had a perfect amber glow from the candles.  Everyone was always smiling, and singing. I love Christmas carols – Silent Night, O Come All Ye Faithful…they’re beautiful and I often get teary singing them. I’m such a sucker!

Christmas morning when I was a child often came at 5 am. Way to early. My grandparents thought it was cute. My parents did not. Eventually my sister and I started to sleep in, and for a few years, our parents actually had to wake us!

We’d go downstairs, put the breakfast casserole we’d made the day before in the oven, eat cake and drink coffee. Oh yeah, and somewhere in there we opened gifts!

This year we we visited my parents for Christmas. My parents gave Sean an Elmo Live for Christmas. It was a hit with him right from the start.

We’re big Elmo fans at the Murphy household, but from time to time,  Elmo can be a bit much. He stays in Sean’s room. We like that. A lot.

Sean was inundated with new toys. Too many, in fact, but it’s alright for grandparents to spoil him.

One of his other favorite games over the holidays was to chase the ball with Uncle Jeremy.

It was really cute watching the two of them run around the house chasing that red ball!  Sean thought it was the greatest game ever, and Uncle Jeremy seemed to get a kick out of it too!

After a few busy days in Blairsvegas, the three of us packed up and headed to Pigeon Forge. We went through National Forest the majority of the way there, and it was beautiful.

Sean slept, well mostly, and I even got to see an old haunt – Cherokee, NC. I spent a good bit of time there while attending camp in Cullowhee, NC. It hadn’t changed much. Brought back memories, like seeing Unto These Hills THREE times.

Our trip to Pigeon Forge was to celebrate Claire’s 60th birthday!  We stayed in a beautiful house way up on a mountain in Wear’s Valley. It was large enough to accommodate all ten of us. We celebrated Christmas with the Murphy’s and took a trip to Dollywood, as well. No trip to Pigeon Forge is complete without it! I’d never been to Pigeon Forge. It is Tennessee’s response to Daytona Beach. Loud. Bright. Neon. It was wild and not at all what I expected.

Dollywood was what I expected. Sean had a blast!  He wasn’t quite big enough to go on a lot of the rides. He did enjoy the carousel and the train was a BIG hit! Pure joy on the train!

A tank of gas to Pigeon Forge: $30

A ticket to Dollywood: $50

Taking Sean for his first ride on a train: Priceless

Out with the old

My dear friend, Ro, was saddened that some quilt photos were missing from my blog. They are older quilts that haven’t quite made it onto my blog – that requires time. I’ve been wanting to add them for eons, but just haven’t found (er, made) the time. So today, while the tot is sleeping, the dog isn’t fussing and my head is on (relatively) straight, I decided to get busy.

Here are pics of some of my favorite quilts:

This quilt won a blue ribbon at the Georgia State Fair in 2006. It is named Firecracker because my husband kept referring to it as such. It’s a favorite of mine. The pattern is Judy Neimeyer’s Fourth of July.

Here is a detail:

Terrible photo of this quilt. Yes Ma’am Damn! Won three blue ribbons at the 2006 Georgia State Fair:  one for best piecing, one for best machine quilting and a blue ribbon because it’s awesome (my words, not those of the judges)!

The quilt was name for my friend, Taffy. Taffy tells me I was “raised right” because I always say ma’am when responding to her. Taffy is in her early sixties, so it seems to me that it’s a polite reply. Taffy is a quilter and got me onto a batik strip pieced kick.  I took all my odds and ends of batik strips and stitched them together, cut the pieces into squares, then triangles, then assembled the parts.

Yes Ma’am is one of my favorites! It is an original design.

Here is a detail:

Ode to Insanity was appropriately named so because I took 10 1/2″ squares of fabric, cut them into four 5  1/4″ squares then cut each of those squares into quarter square triangles. I then matched the quarter square batik with a quarter square of black fabric to make my half square triangles. I stitched, pressed and trimmed each square individually. I’m certain there was an easier way to make the quilt, but I tend to be a glutton for punishment when quilting, so I enjoyed the project. Ode is an original design.

Here is a detail:

and another:

The quilt, Around the World My Way, was based on the book Circle Play by Reynola Pakuisch. The quilt is an original design. I made it to showcase my collection of Oriental fabrics. The quilt is 90 x 110 and adorns the bottom of my bed.

A detail:

and another:

A Gaggle of Geese is an original design used for a block of the month program at Intown Quilters in 2006. It’s a bright, happy quilt that I am now using to teach my Tri, Tri, Tri-angles class at IQ.

Here’s a detail of the quilting:

Bohemian Purse Girl is an original design and the quilt was featured in the February 2007 issue of Quick Quilts magazine. The quilt was made using fat quarters from Anna Maria Horner’s line of fabric, Bohemian Line.

Shine on little shoes, shine on

My girlfriend, Marnie, has four year old twins. One of twins, Alex, is a purse girl. She loves shoes, clothes, purses, you name it. Recently she found some bejeweled Converse shoes that were outrageously priced. Marnie called me to see if I could reproduce the shoes.

Of course I’ll do anything for her and her children, so few Swarowski crystals, ribbon and glue did the trick. I took the shoes to Alex on Sunday. The twins’ birthday party was a blast and Alex chose her outfit based on what would go with the shoes. Is that cute or what?!

The shoes are on top of some receiving blankets I made for my cousin. She’s having a baby girl in January. Allison asked me what some of my favorite things were when I had a newborn. I had to say that one of my favorite gifts were some receiving blankets a quilter friend made for me. The blankets were larger than those you get at the baby superstore so swaddling was easier because I could wrap the daylights out of Sean. I called it making him a taco.

Allison is decorating the nursery in bright pink, orange and green so I thought the flannel I chose would work nicely for her. Now if I can just get the darn blankets in the mail!

Halloween in the Hood

I love Halloween in my neighborhood. So many houses really get into the spirit, and it’s fun for children and adults. I was on a walk the other day and able to quickly snap a photo of this house.

Halloween in Little 5 Points is ALWAYS a big deal. There’s a parade, floats and marching bands. It’s quite the event.Every year we walk into L5P to watch. It’s a blast! The people watching is jaw dropping!

We took Sean last year, but he was too young to remember. We didn’t dress him up this year, but did put him in his cute Halloween shirt. Figure he may as well get as much use out of it as he possibly can!

Sean wasn’t so into watching the parade, but did enjoy sitting on the bottom step at the Bass Lofts watching everyone. He was very proud of himself

Not sure what was going by here, but something caught his eye. Maybe the enormous skeletons??

We had a quick dinner at The Albert, then home. Sean was pooped, and we knew he had a big day on Sunday. Izzy’s first birthday party! We did dress him up for Izzy’s party. He was an alligator.

And Iz was a pumpkin! Is she adorable or what?!

The party started at 1, which is Sean’s normal nap time. We took him down for about an hour. He started to get wobbly, and fussy, so we brought him in for his afternoon siesta.

Busy, busy Bee

I’ve been working fast and furiously on gifts lately. Sean has four birthday parties in the next few weeks, and Christmas is around the corner.  Teacher gifts, play group gifts, family…the list gets long.

My friend, Marnie, has twin girls, Taylor and Alex. They turn four next month, so I made them each a little purse. Perfect gift for little girls!

Alex loves frogs, so her bag has a cute frog print as the lining.

Taylor is not as cutesy. Her favorite color is baby blue so her bag has a blue flower print. It’s more sophisticated and I think she’ll like it. At least I hope so!

Sean’s play group now has seven kids in it. Motley crew to say the least. All the mothers are wonderful, and so are the kids. Sean is one of three boys. I’m making all the kids in play group and the kids on our street pillowcases for Christmas. I’ve been really good and mostly used fabric from my stash. Here’s what I have so far.

R.I.P. Green Crayon – Part Deux

It occurred to me that the title of my last post didn’t quite make sense. Well, it does, IF you understand there was a whole point to me naming the post after the crayon and I completely forgot to go into it. DUH!

Previously on “Paco and the Tomato”…. I was watching Cade for the night about a week ago. He is a short napper. I was fully prepared for that, knowing Sean would zonk out for two and a half to three hours and Cade would be McShorty.  I had things prepared to pass the time. We could paint with water, a favorite activity of Sean, color, play ball, etc.  Sean has a gigantic coloring book and crayons. The book is big because, well, let’s face it, toddlers aren’t exactly into fine detail work. The crayons have a triangular shape, making it easier for little hands to hold them.

I put Cade down with the crayons and coloring book. He found that tremendously interesting. And, as it turns out, he found the crayons particularly tasty!  Now, Sean isn’t a crayon eater, so I wasn’t prepared to find Cade and my deck covered in green crayon. There is a reason that the fine people at the Crayola company mark the boxes NON_TOXIC!! Guess there is also a reason they are marked 24+ months!

The crayon must have been a delicious treat because Cade darn near ate the entire thing!  I stripped him down, doused his shirt in Shout, and we went on our merry way. Without a shirt, and sadly, without the ability to color. No crayons for Cade. At least not while he enjoys them as an appetizer. Or until he turns 2.

Two for the Road

Yeah, yeah. Not talking about alcohol, but the two quilts I made for Susan. Over the years she kept all her sons’ soccer and basketball jerseys. I’ve assembled them into quilts for them for Christmas. I finished sewing borders on the quilts today.

You can barely see it, but in the corners of the quilt are pieces of a baby blanket. The green outer border will have all basketball and soccer patches on it once the top is quilted.

Quilt number 2.

I loved making each of these. Such fun!

R.I.P. Green Crayon

My cousin Julie is an actress and model. Tall. Thin. Blonde hair and blue eyes. She’s gorgeous! The kind of woman you see and think, “She’s probably a self centered witch.” to make yourself feel better, but of course, she isn’t. Julie is a lovely person, inside and out. She’s talented, funny, artistic. The kind of person that you know you are truly blessed to have in your life. She makes everyone around her feel great. You WANT to spend time with her.

I am five years older than Julie. We weren’t super close growing up because of the age difference. And we lived eight hours apart. Eighteen and going to college is much different than thirteen and starting high school. Now, post college graduation, all these things start to matter much less. Life experiences become the same, or similar, and your similarities start to outweigh your differences. Soon, the ties that bring you together are more than just family lines. You not only embrace that you are cousins, you learn to love one another as friends. Good friends. Really good friends.

Julie moved to Los Angeles after she graduated college. She was there for five years. She and her husband, Matt, moved back east to Atlanta when she was pregnant with her first, and thus far only, son, Cade. Cade is four months older than Sean. The two boys have, for all intensive purposes, grown up together, minus a few months on either end while they were in utero.

When Julie and I were pregnant we talked about letting the boys have spend the nights. We thought each of us could let the other go on a “proper date”. You know, the kind that includes alcohol, a late night and general over indulgence. At the time a date with ones spouse seemed like a novel concept, particularly because we were fat, tired, whiny pregnant women. Finally, it’s coming to fruition. Of course, neither of the spend the nights have actually yielded a proper date. My night out allowed me to spend time that the Crawford Long ER with Michael, and Julie’s night out was because she was working.

Cade was with us last Friday. He and Sean ran themselves ragged! It was hysterical to watch them. I take this, no you take that, no I’ll take that again. Too much toddler chaos!

One highlight of the day was watching the train go by the house. I think Cade was trying to call his parents to let them know how much fun he was having! Notice the phone in his right hand.

Amidst the chaos, Sean, my little lover, was giving kisses to Cade. Julie laughs at me and tells me that there is one in every class. He’s mine!

Much more playing and insanity, then dinner. After both boys COVERED themselves in Chef Boyardee, Michael and I wisked them off to the bath.

I think they both had a good time!

Michael and I loved every minute with both boys, but were certainly ready for bed time that night.

Maybe next time we have a spend the night, Julie and I will actually be able to have “proper” dates with our husbands! Wish us luck!

I fall for fall

Fall.

The perfect season.

Cool, crisp mornings. Breezy afternoons.

You can smell it in the air.

Leaves are starting to change.

And I cannot wait to wear my new fall goodies!

I love fall afternoons. The weather is perfect to take Sean outside to play.  And, the mommies on the block turn it into cocktail hour. Vodka tonic, anyone?

Just in time to ring in the new season, I finished Karen’s quilt. The colors scream October wedding.

I hope she likes it!

Gotta run. The baby is up!