Another April week gone by....

We've been very, very busy at work.  To the point of exhaustion at night, rush, trying to get things out the door, not make customers wait, get it done, and trying to get it done correctly.
Not complaining, but why does it always happen that all the customers send in orders at the same time?  And no way of telling which customers, and what to prepare, besides it's too hard and too expensive to work on 'maybe' work.  We're a small outfit, and we are a niche market, who make custom filters, etc...

We hung out with the kids after work, Jessica started tennis lessons, Matthew put on his baseball uniform and went off to games.  Yesterday we went hiking again, we just love exploring in the huge State Park, now our quest is for antlers, with as many deer as there are in the park, there have to be antlers!

We also saw Jackson, Evan and Andrew yesterday, me met them and their parents at a park where they were riding their bikes.  How awesome it is when the boys are excited to see us, and ask us to come home with them!  And how big Andrew got/ is getting!

I cannot get the pictures to turn.  I turn them in the editor, but they come up sideways here.  Oh, well.
I just thought it funny how fast Andrew changes his expression, these photos were taken within seconds of each other, and that's how fast his expression changed.  Amazing!
He is driving his mother nuts at the moment, he turns from his back onto his stomach, and hasn't figured out how to turn back yet.
(Btw, I made the crib sheet, it's really easy, and the moms love them.)

I am also working on yet another quilt, I'm appliqueing a quilt for Andrew, for Christmas.  It's adorable, and I will post photos soon.

Ruthy, thank you for your comment and your tip to find another Reader!  When I have a moment, I will set myself up on that site.

When I got up this morning, I was fine, and as the day wore on, I realized I'm working on a bladder infection.  No, I'm no hero, I immediately went to emergency care and got antibiotics.  I firmly believe in supporting our pharmaceutical industry, besides, it works immediately, and there is hardly any downtime and I know it gets worse, and I hate the idea of being in pain, not being able to sleep, being miserable....  No thank you, drugs for me!
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 nap in the wilderness

  And those are from last week's hike....

Easter, NYC, Atlanta, and a baby

It's getting more and more rare that I sit down and write something on the blog.  It seems to me that the other bloggers I read are going the same route.  Google reader will end this summer, I believe, and I'm really not sure how to follow everyone after that.
It's harder to blog because I do a lot of my Internet stuff on the iPad, which doesn't allow easy blogging.  I have trouble typing on the glass surface, it's not the same as feeling the letters by touch, and I have trouble, even while looking at the letters.  So anyhow, I have to dig out the laptop to blog, and that happens less and less.

On Good Friday we took Matthew and Jessica to NYC, to meet up with their mom for lunch.

 Of course we went to the kids favorite stores, ToysRus, and American Girl Doll

 And we got to see a really cool lobby.

To Jessica's delight we went to Mood fabric store, which she knows from TV

 enormous choices, I couldn't even think about picking out a fabric, it was overwhelming

What did we do Easter?  We flew to Atlanta.  On Saturday afternoon, and we came back on Thursday.  We spent the days with Michael's family.  It was lovely to see spring, but even as far south as Atlanta spring is having trouble 'springing'.  We did have a wonderful day on Monday, the weather was beautiful, and we didn't want to go into the house it felt so good to feel the sun.
Here are some signs of spring from down south:

 And on Tuesday we went to the Atlanta zoo.

 There are four pandas in the Atlanta Zoo, and my kick-butt camera caught them close-up

Not much

Not much is new.  I'm running out of titles.  I find that holidays I name, etc. attract some anonymous comments that say absolutely nothing.  I haven't even a clue why the writers bother to leave a comment.  That, by the way, is not a complaint.  I see some other bloggers have comments that aren't nice at all, which I don't have to worry about.
Anyway, another weekend has passed, another one is coming up fast.
Last weekend Nicole and Greg and boys came to visit.  It was lovely!  I decided that it would be fun to color Easter eggs, so I had everything ready when they came over.  I even covered my (white) counters in plastic wrap before loading them up with paper towels, good thing too, one of the colors got knocked over and would have left a big orange stain.

What a lovely mess!  

Andrew was there too, of course.

He is growing in leaps and bounds, so adorable

And the cat still loves this:

Week with snow, not much work, and visitors

The beginning of the week we had a visit from a little girl named Story, who brought her parents and her little brother Weston, who looks amazingly like his second - or is it third - cousin Evan.  Story lives on Martha's Vineyard, and was checking out the area since her mom had a great opportunity for a job here, and it looks like they will move here sometime in the summer.

We worked - although it was not overwhelming.  That's fine too, sometimes it just works that way.  It gave me a chance to visit a customer, and assure him that the quality of our work hasn't changed, like he thought, it was a flaw/fault of the material.  I was glad I could fix that misconception.

Saturday we had a visit from Andrew, who was here for the first time, and Evan and Jackson, and they brought their mom - ups, I just remembered, Andrew was here before!  My mistake.

And I worked on table runners.  Lots of fun and lots of work.  I got it in my head to use all the embroidery stitches of my sewing machines.  I had bought a 'jelly roll' of fabric I liked, I had some left over, and off I went cutting strips and sewing them together, then embroidering on the seam.  I really like the way they came out.  I made 10" by 2" strips, sewed them together first, then quilted them with the embroidery stitches directly onto batting and backing.  Lucky me, it worked out, a real quilter is probably aghast at my slap-dash method.
I started a new project as well, originally I wanted to quilt 'broken dishes', but somehow it didn't work with the fabrics I selected.  So I'm going with - I have no idea what it's called - windmills?
Anyway, what appeals to me with quilting is the random fabrics, not the pre-planned look so much.  Maybe I'll have to run the list first.

 Fun, right?

and Andrew, although he smiled a lot during this visit too, I was just far too busy admiring his smile to grab the camera!

Below one more Easter table runner.  I love them!

Oh, and before I forget, Frau Bruellen had a great idea last week, about what bloggers did all day.  Yes, I had intended to participate, but my week started with a doctor's appointment (routine), and I'm not near the Internet during the day, and too busy/tired at night to blog/tell about my day.  So I just enjoyed reading the blogs that participated.

Not so hot

I haven't been feeling on top of the world.  Plus it's been very busy.  My back is somewhat better, but not all the way yet.  We can't even find time to go to the  chiropractor.
I had pink eye!  Conjunctivitis, yup.  Woke up last Sunday with a goopy eye, it was shut, and I knew immediately that I had to go to the doctor.  Plus the cold.... Anyway, it's over, I'm better, and we actually went hiking yesterday.  And loved it!
I spent a lot of time with the new baby the last two weeks, and I enjoyed it.  I even left the camera in my purse, and just enjoyed holding him, getting him to find my face, and then smiling that big gorgeous baby smile!
Michael had an accident, that wasn't very much fun, except for the fact that he walked away without a scratch.  Car was totaled.  We already have the replacement, and it's lovely.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

A week or more later ....................

Better.  Well enough to find out way into the woods today.  The weather was/is lovely.  We changed the clocks last night, and it's already 5:20 - I hate the time change, it messes things up, it takes me a long time to get used to it.

We visited the baby and his family yesterday, everyone is fine, and he is getting big!

 Anyone remember an angry babies face?  My mother called it the 'poison dwarf' (Gift Zwerg)

Michael rough housing with two happy little boys

And Andrew with me and Michael - isn't he big?

Today we went back into the woods.  Tough hike, uphill in the snow and ice, lovely once there, but a very tough return down the mountain, we were afraid to slip and fall.  But oh so satisfying to have made it.

And before I leave all you hanging more time, I'm off on the couch nursing my sore muscles.