Ironically, Will happened to ask what TIME he was born just minutes before the official time: he was born at 7:11 PM. And then we had to sit and wait for 13 more minutes: Joe wasn’t born until 7:24 PM. I’ve said it before, I’m sure I’ll say it again: waiting for Joe to come out was the longest 13 minutes of my life….

We had a family party last night: baseball, pizza, cake, ice cream, presents….

They got lots of books, several games. Will was particularly excited by this chess set: the pawns are actually cannons….

We took them out Saturday night to buy new baseball gloves. They also got new cleats and new sandals last night. I went to a shoe store and couldn’t find anything for myself: I had to use my $15 worth of coupons on little boy sandals. Sigh.

Of course, I had spent the day Saturday shopping (at a quilt shop…) so the day wasn’t a complete loss. Mom and I drove over to Ames and went to Hickory Park for lunch, and then to the Quilting Connection for shopping. Neither of us had been there before — it’s a very nice (big!) shop. They seemed to have a really nice range of stuff — contemporary, lots of the new Moda sets, batiks, Thimbleberries, tons of florals, baby, flannel, 30s, Christmas, etc, etc, etc….and lots of each — not just a token batik or a token bright. Some of the shops that I’ve been to lately seem to be focused on just one thing, and often it seems that one thing is the dark, muddy stuff that doesn’t do anything for me…

Mom saw Jelly Rolls for the first time, and bought a roll plus a book. I bought a Robyn Pandolph needleturn applique book, and a stack fo fabric to go with it:

I like her designs, but I don’t really care for her workmanship. Several times she says something to the effect of “this is folk-art and isn’t supposed to be perfect” — but I’m not buying that: you can see every single one of her appliqué stitches and her points are terrible. I’m not perfect, but my work looks a LOT neater than hers. Instead of adding folk-art charm, I think the workmanship detracts from the look of her work. Well, she’s “famous” and I’m not, so I guess it doesn’t really matter what I think….LOL….

I’ve looked at that fabric line before and have thought it was awfully cute. I think the quilt I’m going to make with it will be very cute: very cheerful. We’re going on a road trip this week, and I’m working on getting some of the blocks ready to go with me, I think I’ll be able to get quite a bit of handwork done while we are gone. There isn’t anything to really see yet, but as soon as I have something interesting to post, I will.

I’m having terrible trouble getting pictures uploaded: I tried to post this last night and lost most of what I typed thanks to a very flaky Internet connection. I think this is finally going to work. Don’cha just LOVE computers? Grrr…….

TTFN-

Suzanne

p.s. While we were at the quilt shop, Mom noticed that they had “my” magazine, so she opened it up and pointed it to one of the employees. I never would have done it myself…LOL……