Mountain Musings

It's a....

Thanks, everybody, for voting in our gender poll in the last week - wow, over a hundred votes! We had our anatomy scan yesterday, and we are excited to announce that our baby is what Mommy and Daddy were thinking. Unfortunately, it's not what MOST of you thought - he's a little BOY! Yay! So the polls were wrong, but parental intuition was correct. ;) We sure enjoyed seeing our baby boy on the ultrasound, waving his little hands and kicking his little feet. He's a cutie - although I AM a bit biased. He's also stubborn and did not want to move for the tech - she would be pressing hard with her wand, and every time he would punch at it! :) Haha!

But one thing that they saw on the scan yesterday sent me to the hospital overnight and now I am on bedrest for the foreseeable future with weekly visits to the high risk doctor. Not what I was expecting when going into our appointment yesterday! So I would appreciate your prayers that our little guy will stay put for a good long while and be able to be born full term and healthy. Thanks to all of you who have already been praying! God has been gracious to answer our prayers so far.

~Sarah, Eric, and baby boy

Saturday Night Serenade & Sunday Hymn

Hello on a snowy day-before-spring-arrives Saturday...I thought I'd pop on the blog while we await Sarah's next post that lets us all know whether the girl that most folks voted for is indeed due to arrive in August. Or whether the other guys guessed right. :)

This is National Quilting Day...and I haven't done anything quilty..only in my dreams. What about you? Did you do any quilting or visit a quilt shop? I am expecting a fabric delivery...it even could have arrived today in honor of Quilting Day, but we never made it out to the box to check.

I've mostly been occupying myself today with second priming Jonathan's first 10 cabinet doors.

Back-side prime, sand, prime, sand. Front-side prime, sand, prime...sand. Next up is the real painting job. Back-side paint, sand, paint. Front-side paint, sand, paint. Soon it will feel like we're getting somewhere. Move these out, move more in: And notice the snow outside the windows? Here's today's photo I sent Sarah in Georgia to make her a little homesick...no, not really...it was just in case she was interested, haha: And here's the photo she sent back taken from her front porch. Aaah, slightly different scenario. Which scene would you pick? The springtime one for me, please!: And here's my serenader who likes to pluck out some tunes for us some evenings: Jonathan's playing from The Shenandoah Harmony, a Four-Shape tune book, page #77 titled Collins. And here are the words for our Sunday Hymn post:

1 O hearken, sinners, we have cause To warn you of your danger,

We pray be reconciled with him Who once lay in a manger.

2 A glorious throng have gone before Who shout and sing hosannah;

They stand around the tree of life, And always gather manna.

Chorus:

Ho! Every one that thirsteth! Come ye to the waters:

Freely drink, and quench your thirst,

Ye Zion’s sons and daughters.

 

 Happy 1st Day of Spring tomorrow!

 
~Deb

Boy or Girl?

Can you guess what this post means from the title? That's right, Eric and I are expecting our first baby! :) We're very happy and excited about this little blessing who is due in mid-August! We have decided to find out the gender, and next week's ultrasound should be able to tell us one way or the other. I have gone through a number of the old wives' tales about predicting the gender, and there have been mixed results - some saying girl, some saying boy. Now you get a chance to add your opinions...vote in the poll below and we'll see who wins! :)

Will our baby be a boy or a girl?

Boy!

Girl!

Personality

 

~Sarah

Girlfriends' Quilty Weekend

"She seeks wool, and flax, and works willingly with her hands."

~ Proverbs 31:13

Last Friday my alarm went off at 4 a.m., and amazingly, I jumped up excited to get going! This was traveling day!

My friend, Chris, and I had signed up for a workshop a month earlier with Lisa Bongean who was teaching at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival in Hampton, and this day was the start of a quilty weekend!  Our quilty itinerary:

• attend the quilt show on Friday to get inspired, seeing all the wonderful quilts on display
• shop the vendor booths for fabric and/or sewing supplies or kits we might need
• attend the all-day wool applique table runner class on Saturday and have tons of fun!

I arrived at the Hampton Convention Center and checked in, along with hundreds of other quilt-loving ladies: Here I am with my friend, Chris, in front of a beautiful red and white quilt on display: Chris and her mom enjoyed browsing all the vendor booths for ideas and inspiration: Here's a beautiful floral quilt named Flower Garden on display using Kaffe's fabrics: This was one of our favorites below...an up-close photo of a crazy quilt with lots of handwork, including the spider's web, typically found in crazy quilts (this was new information to me...but we searched, and sure enough, there was the spider's web in one corner!): Here's another section of the quilt featuring a watering can, dragonfly, and beautiful embroidered flowers. We stood there for quite awhile oohing and aahing over every birdhouse, rake, thimble, bee, and hummingbird: A perfect display for me to pose beside:I took a picture of this quilt especially for my accountant son-in-law, Eric. It's called A Piece of Pi, complete with each number circling the quilt: Can you tell we were having a fun time? The next day we began our Wool Applique all-day class with Lisa Bongean: Chris quickly traced and cut out her pattern and was ready to start fusing the shapes to the wool:Here I am cutting out my pattern. It was so fun to take a class with a friend:At the end of class, we were able to get a picture with our very knowledgeable teacher:Here's a photo of the table mat I was working on....it's still not completely finished and needs more handwork done and the backing added: Here's Chris' mom standing beside a quilt she recently finished. We didn't even need to go to the quilt show to see beautiful quilts! She brought this one over to Chris' house for me to see: Our girlfriends' quilty weekend passed so quickly, and soon it was time for me to head back home.

We ended up not having time during the weekend to raid Chris' stash and work on an Easter wall-hanging project she had planned for us to do. But look at this....she worked on hers this week and sent me a photo.

It looks great and makes me want to get started on this one titled He Is Risen from Carried Away Quilting blog.After all the ER trips and medical appointments for Granny going on in February after she experienced another compression fracture, it was good to get away for a fun weekend. I think Granny's recuperating well, and we're very thankful for answered prayer!

I'm also hoping the quilty weekend will get me energized to start back on some quilting projects! We'll see!

~Deb

*Quilt Festival ~ 2013