christmas in february?

back in early december i got the hankerin' for a large, cuddly, christmas quilt to snuggle my family in. i set to work immediately... and then the christmas crazies stepped in and life got busy with shopping, decorating, wrapping, baking and eating, eating, eating. and the quilt got pushed on the back burner. i had the vision of an allover, scrappy, postage stamp quilt like this one. but after fiddling around with fabric placement i realized that i just had to have some organization. to me, it looks cleaner and more striking. so i cut a few more tiny 2.5 inch squares and sewed that thing up. which kinda took forever. and then i realized something else...this was meant to be a wall hanging. it could've been that i just didn't want to cut one more square and it could've been that i'm just pretty dang impatient but overall i just really liked it the way it was and just couldn't imagine adding more squares and possibly messing up the good thing i had going. 

so the project that was meant to be a quilt for 2012 is now a wall hanging for christmas 2013. it's just the way it is. i still need to quilt and bind this cute little guy but i seriously love it and can't wait to hang it above my mantle in... oh... ten months. (and please excuse the terrible lighting/photo quality in these photos. i'm still trying to figure out ISO and all that jazz and i'd go outside but it's just too dang cold! i know you understand.)

oh and this is how jake feels about my quilting obsessions. :)

valentine's day

an impulse buy late one night had us over the moon excited to start Valentine's early. we just couldn't wait to see the look on J's face when he saw his new train set/table! as soon as we got home, scott set to work building the thing (usually he's quite reluctant to put things together, hence why our dining room chair seats are STILL not screwed to the base of the chairs ;) so i know scott was pretty excited to play with it too.

"valentine's" morning came...and...

it. was. a. HIT.

Happy Valentine's Day!

that day i turned twenty-seven

time is creeping me closer and closer to thirty which is just plain weird. i don't feel older, but i definitely feel wiser. wiser about who i am, what i like, what my strengths and talents are, what i need to work on, what i can accomplish, what i need and what i can give. i wish twelve-year-old-Cristine knew what i know now. even twenty-year-old-Cristine could've used a helping hand in some of these areas. 

so age is a good thing. state-of-mind wise :) so here's to being...

"one year older and wiser too. haaaaaappppy birth.day. to. ME!"

p.s. might i add, that i have major cake eating skills. i polished off that entire german chocolate cake in a little over a week. all. by. myself. it was goooooood. and now i am on a strict diet of sugar snap peas and cuties to balance it all out.

nineteen months

he still hates his sleeves now and then. he turns into the hulk and tries to rip the shirt from his body like a maniac! but i've let it go this month. january in this house has stunk! worst month ever. i feel like we get some new sickness every few days. poor jake has been through the mill! so i know these kind of tantrums are a result of feeling pretty crummy. on the up side, jake has also been super snuggly with me, which always makes a mommy happy.

so even though we kinda despise the month of january at the moment, jake did some cute stuff that can't be forgotten:

• he's become a champion hugger. love it.
• cries when daddy goes to work. sad, but makes scott happy that jake misses him.
• two sundays ago, we were sitting in the chapel just right inside the doors (ya know, to make a quick escape with jake if rowdiness commences). jake was sitting on my lap being so good when all of a sudden he went all limp-fish and booked it off my lap running towards the church doors that led to the parking lot. i ran after him, thinking he was trying to escape! but he stopped at the glass door and started waving at his friend Adam from nursery who was coming through the doors with his mom. when Adam came in he ran to him and hugged him! it was so sweet! he really missed his friend i guess. haha. 
• speaking of nursery and friends: the sharing issue has started to arise. oh boy. and i think it all started with a certain little girl friend in nursery who is quite bossy and confrontational. jake's learning from her that he needs to keep a death grip on his toys if he doesn't want her to steal them. ugh. but then just this last week this same little girl fed him half of her fruit snacks during sacrament meeting....so i don't know. 
• loves to read Humpty Dumpty. a friend back in Tennessee gave him a bunch of little teeny tiny nursery rhyme board books that he just loves. Humpty is his favorite. but he is so worried about him. all through the book (which is like 4 lines) he says over and over again, "oh...." as if to say "poor humpty...he cracked his head." he is very concerned about anyone/anything that falls or gets hurt or breaks. he's a sensitive and compassionate soul, my jacob.
• he has a bop 'em sock 'em inflatable batman thing that he likes to punch. he thinks its funny, but then right after will say, "oh..." then give batman a hug to say sorry. 
• jake constantly thinks there is a hair on his tongue. it's a daily occurrence in our house. he'll stand there and cry and blow raspberries and grab his tongue trying to get it off. he'll even come grab my head and lick it trying to remove the hair. i used to help him because i used to think there really was a hair on his tongue. (i think he's emotionally scarred from the first time it really happened.) now all i have to say is, "It's ok, I got it off," and he's totally fine. it's like a switch is flipped. it's all psychological. haha. such a silly nuthead.
• cap'n crunch has replaced chex mix as the love of his life.
• my favorite words of his: "that's jake's?" yes my love, everything i have is yours.
• went on his very first hike and triumphed.
• loves to pour his sippy cup's contents into a big boy cup and pretend to make me soup :)
• crazy about Legos! scott got out his old set of legos and played with jake, building all sorts of things. jake thought it was the. coolest. thing. ever. now i get to step on tiny concealed legos everywhere i go.
• hates diaper changes.
• and finally...jake is a dancing machine. dance offs in the computer room are his favorite and happen every morning.

Happy Nineteen J! 

Dear February, Please be sick-free!

peanut butter jelly time

jake decided to have a dance party in the kitchen last night. this kid's moves are fantastic. i love when he spins in a circle while looking behind him and his rocker-head-banging move. (i taught him everything he knows :) we're dedicating this video as jake's birthday present to his grandpa great! happy birthday grandpa gary!

january hike

up til about a week ago, the weather here in north carolina was fab-u-lous. warm and sunny and just beautiful. so while the conditions were ideal our little family headed to Morrow Mountain for an afternoon of hiking and picnicking. i love hiking. i didn't always. in fact, i'd say that i hated it once upon a time. but that's all changed and i crave it now more than ever since the weather turned sour the past couple of days and the temperature has dropped to the 20s. yuck. (but at least we're not in Idaho's negative degree weather, right? oh that place, i don't think i would survive if i went back. too cold for my blood.)

like a couple of idiots, scott and i brought the stroller along. we thought the trail would be more stroller friendly since it was a family nature trail. ya live and learn. we ditched it for the second hike around the lake. j was such a stud on that trail and walked about half of it by himself. he was loving picking up all the leaves and sticks and poking at moss. he was thrilled every time we had to walk across a bridge.

the second half of the hike, he was dog tired. he rode on daddy's shoulders the rest of the time. such a precious sight. this kid of mine is just downright awesome people. and these little family outings just make my heart burst from all the love and togetherness. here's to the spring and more garrison family hikes!

kaleidoscope

The kaleidoscope quilt took more than eight months to complete. It was my wedding gift to my sister and her new husband. Though it felt like it took forever to finish, I loved every minute because I love my sister. 

Majority of fabrics are from Henry Glass

Tutorial by Film in the Fridge.

The piecing was simple but time-consuming since it is a paper-pieced method. But it was so gratifying to see the blocks come together to make the diamond pattern all over the quilt. I might end up making one for myself.....once I've forgotten the time commitment that this quilt required. 

I free motion quilted for the first time, using an all-over larger stippling pattern. There is definitely a learning curve and my shoulders were most definitely in pain by the end of it. I quilted it over a three-day period which isn't bad but anything larger than a throw size will be going to a long-arm quilter here on out!

Since the whole quilt has a scrappy look, I made the binding scrappy as well. Though it takes longer, the end result was so cute and well worth it. That was my favorite part: sitting on the couch, watching Downton Abbey and hand sewing the binding down. So much more relaxing than hunched over the sewing machine. 

And so, with all that work, you'd think I'd take a good decent picture of the quilt right? Wrong. I was pretty much sewing up to the day before we left for California and so an awesome full length shot of the quilt was put on the back burner and then forgotten about. But the quilt got lots of love before it was sent to live with Brittany and Cardon.

the block stack

putting the blocks together

 attaching the binding!

quilt cuddles

 *And I'd like to thank Sesame Street. Without it, I never would have found time to quilt sans Jacob.