Boos and Ghouls QAL - I love Halloween!

A few weeks back Bryan House Quilts announced a Quilt Along that totally caught my attention.  It was a super adorable combination of a pixelated quilt and a celebration of Halloween.  My boys love Halloween - and so do I!  It's such a perfect kick off to all the fall holidays and who doesn't love chocolate?!?

In the initial design there was a plain ghost (already super cute) and a second variation on the pattern for a girl ghost with a bow.  I don't do girls.  :)  So I decided to try to design a few more variations on the basic ghost so that each of my boys could have a ghost of their own. 

Here's what I came up with using the poor man's version of a design tool - excel

I was able to use all stash for this quilt top - which was destined to be a table runner for my dining room.  The first 2 ghosts were kind of no brainers.  Spencer's fascination with all things mustache and Quinn's distinctive glasses were perfect inspiration.

 

The next two ghosts took a little thinking.  I love the idea of a ghost in a bow tie, but I didn't want to just have a single plain ghost.  I settled on a ball cap.  But when I went to put ball cap ghost together, I couldn't put a black ball cap on a white ghost with a black background.  Soooo...  the hat became orange.  I had briefly contemplated making all the accessories in the boys' favorite colors, but I thought a purple mustache would have been too weird.

 

The final 4 ghosts turned out pretty cute - and I actually love the pop of color on that orange hat.

 

 

Next up - what to do for the back...  I went digging through my stash again and found some Ghastlies fabric I had bought a while back and never had any idea what to do with - UNTIL NOW!  How perfect!

 

 

 

I wanted to machine quilt this project - and actually started that direction - but, truth be told, I'm really not very good at machine quilting.  I hope that someday I can improve my machine quilting skills to the point where I don't feel like I'm going to ruin every project I attempt.  For this one, I abandoned the machine quilting and went back the old standby of hand quilting.  I kept things really, really simple and just outlined each of the ghosts and their accessories.

 



After a simple black binding was added, they were DONE!

 

I loved this project.  I know that this will have a place on my October dining room table for many years to come.  Thanks Becca for a super fun project!

Picture of the Week - 10/16/2014

It's hard to think of a place to start talking about Beckett.  When I start to write something funny, I feel like I'm not being serious enough about our baby turning 3 this coming Sunday.  Like if I don't take this seriously, I will somehow be diminishing the importance.  When I start to write something lovey, it makes me more than a little nostalgic and sounds overly mushy.  And Beck is anything but mushy.  Maybe I should just keep this super simple and sincerely send up a giant prayer of thanks for getting to spend time with this special little dude.

Beckett.  Bucket.  Bucky.  Becky (only Zane is allowed to call him Becky)

I can't imagine our family without the joy this child brings.  Utter, unadulterated J. O. Y.  If you've been around him, you know...  it's impossible not to smile around Bucky.  I can't even tell you the number of people who gush over how cute he is.  We have lots of opportunities to be around people who are (almost always) past the point in their lives where they get the chance to be around a 3 year old.  Most of the families we spend most of our time with have kids who are 10 or 12.  Very few of them have littles at home.  So maybe Beckett is just a nice reminder to them of how things were when their own kids were little.  Maybe...

Or maybe it's the fact that he is ALWAYS smiling.  Always.  From the time he figured out how to curl those sweet red lips into a grin.  From the moment he was born showing off those dimples.  Oh those dimples.  How I love those dimples!  He is a smiley kid.  Always a smile.  I get pictures from school of him laughing and smiling and having fun almost daily.  (I don't get nearly as many of Zane, so I know Beck's hogging the camera!)  And he also seems to have jumped in front of my own camera more than his fair share this year too.  When I was pulling pictures for his collage I had SOOOO many good (or funny) pictures of Beckett.  Many of which I have never even gotten a chance to show.  He's smiley.  :)

We are now done with diapers and pacis.  We packed away our crib.  (Don't talk to me about our house no longer having a crib...  I'm having a very hard time with that.)  Beck can help get himself dressed and can get his own snacks.  He climbs and throws and rides and catches.  He was the first of my boys to get stitches.  (Not surprising really...)  He thinks nothing of climbing to the top of a chain link fence or jumping down a set of stairs.  He talks with the most adorable southern twang.  He willingly goes off to play with kids he's never met before - even when Zane hangs back.  He has the eye/hand coordination of boys much older.  His sports career will benefit from growing up in a house of brothers.  No doubt.  

And boy oh boy does he love those brothers.  Remember my New Year's Resolution this year?  It was, simply, to hug more.  You know what???  I kept it!  You know what else???  It rubbed off on everyone else too - most definitely my littlest Bovy boy.  Beckett hugs all the time - everyone.  No joke, the first thing he did this morning was go in to wake up Quinn with the sweetest of hugs.  To this day it KILLS me when the boys love on each other.  It's common enough that it shouldn't have a big impact, but it does.  Every. Single. Time.  How lucky are they all - especially the littlest - to grow up with so many people to love on and play with.  How lucky are Bob and I?

Playtime.  Wow!  That's probably the biggest change in Bucky over the last year.  He really plays now.  He takes Zane's lead all the time and Zane is our little imaginative story builder.  The two of them are inseparable and have the best time together.  I love watching them play and listening to their stories.  

I can't imagine life without Beckett.  He completed our family in the most perfect way.  I've referred to him many times as the exclamation point on a story that was already pretty darn good.  I can't think of a better way to put it.  He completed us.  We are so blessed to have him in our lives.  

I wish my Beck the happiest of 3rd birthdays.  I know, from experience, that this 3rd year will have lots of ups and downs.  I know how challenging 3 year olds can be.  I can only imagine how hard this particular smart, determined, thinks-he-can-do-anything boy is going to be.  But I also know how much fun we will have.  How much we will laugh!  I know it's a phase and easier times will follow, so I will work hard to enjoy all of those precious, innocent moments.  And as anxious as I may be to get through the 3 year old drama, I will also pray for time to slow down.  These boys grow up too fast.  

And I will thank God every day for letting me enjoy this little boy! 

Picture of the Week - 10/9/2014

Wow!  That was a fast week!!  Does anyone else feel like someone pushed the fast forward button???

 

I was too busy to take many pictures this past week.  We were doing the usual stuff - plus working a quilt show and traveling to away games and a 2 day training course for me at work to top things off. 

I thought this week I could share an outtake picture from the little boys photo session at school.  They tried a new thing this time around where we got a CD with all of the pictures on it and get to crop/print/use however we want.  I love the idea...  just wish Zane didn't look so goofy in 95% of the pictures.  Here's a funny one.  Beck is so cute in his it makes me want to drive to the school just to hug him!  (You will see more of him in his birthday collage - coming soon!)

 

I also had to share this sweet picture of Rooster and Ozzie.  The other night we were watching TV in bed and Oz was sound asleep.  Rooster hopped up, rubbed his head on Ozzie and then cuddled in with him for a nap.  Bob and I were like "What the heck!?!?!"

 

I filled out our October calendar a couple of days ago.  Quinn took one look and turned to me in horror.  I think there are only 1 or 2 days on the whole calendar without an activity.  (And I don't put the normal - school/work/grocery shop - stuff on there.)  We can do it!!!

 

PS - I promise to get the camera out and take more/decent pictures soon!

 

PPS - Also - just so I can remember some day...  Beck is now sleeping in a toddler bed without a paci.  I am very sad that we packed away the crib.  It's so weird to acknowledge that we don't have a baby in the house anymore.  But man-o-man, it's hard to stay sad for long because Beckett is about the coolest nearly-3-year-old I've ever been around.  (Don't tell his brothers!)

Picture of the Week - 10/2/2014

As we take a short break in our fall birthday celebrations, I thought I might take a minute to talk about Rooster. 

Remember Rooster? 

The first few weeks after he came home, he stayed entirely in our bedroom.  Mostly in our bathroom.  After a few weeks he started venturing out into the upstairs hallway.  Then he started poking his head through the stair rails and watching what we were doing.

During all this time the dogs were mostly tolerant during the day.  They would occasionally run upstairs (especially Ozzie) to see what he was doing.  But mostly they ignored him.

In the evenings, it was kind of another story.  Rooster loved the evenings because (I think) he got bored during the day.  So when we went up to put everyone to bed and watch a little TV, Rooster took it as an opportunity to terrorize Oz.  He would jump over the gate and cause Oz to race around like crazy.  Then they would settle down just long enough for Roo to come over an swat Oz on the face and they would race around again like crazy.  (My house is a zoo...)

One day after the little boys had left and Spencer was the only one around, Rooster wandered downstairs!  He walked right past the kitchen like he owned the place and hung out in the toy room for a bit. 

This cause the dogs to WIG OUT and off to the races.  (crazy zoo)

But Roo had gotten a taste of freedom and he would not be deterred.  He came right back down and spent the day hanging out on the kitchen counters - well outside the reach of crazy Ozzie.

The days that followed had Rooster coming downstairs quite a lot.  He got to the point that he didn't seem to mind the dogs - and in fact I think he kind of made fun of them for not having counter privileges.  LOL  He's a pretty fabulously cool cat.

The little boys got the BIGGEST kick out of Rooster being around them more.  He was starting to feel like part of the family.  And the chaos really didn't seem to phase him at all!

This week Rooster has decided that he should spend his days with Bob and the dogs in the basement.  This makes me laugh for so many reasons! 

I'm really glad that he's gotten so comfortable with our crazy family.  (loud crazy zoo might be more like it...)  Even if we do have at least one fast, crazy dog/cat chase through the living room, up the stairs, around the landing, into the bedroom and into the bathroom - claws scraping and fur flying - every single day.  The evening "romps" add to our special ambiance quite perfectly.