Finished!!

I finally finished a quilt for our living room!  This is my second quilt (baby quilt class was my first one).  I love love love this fabric by Denyse Schmidt.  As soon as I saw it, I knew I needed it in a quilt for movie and tv night watching.  I got a little creative on the back of the quilt too.  I used a bunch of leftover for the binding.  It was so fun to make.  The hand stitching for the binding took a little longer than necessary.  I prefer the machine to needle/threading...

Feeling like fall out there!

All of a sudden, it is gorgeous out the last few days!  Not sure if it will stay, but I will take this little piece of autumn!  Chilly, sunny, pretty days...Bought a mum and made a pot of steel cut oats for the week.  Thinking about pumpkins, sweatshirts, soups, and applesauce...

Oatmeal with peach perserves and rasberries

Moving our home

The last few weeks have been exhausting.  Packing, lifting, moving, unpacking, heating pad, ice packs, advil...we are getting close, though, to being completely settled into our new home.  And today, I had enough room to actually use my kitchen!  And use some of the million peaches I just picked up at my CSA this week. We still have a few more spots and corners to work on, but we made some real progress.  We had some serious moving helpers these last 2 weeks and we are so grateful for the help.  I will share some photos of our new rooms soon,

Early grey Peach Perserves

Peach pie in the making!

The 'Maine Event,' as they call it

Well, after a long wait, we finally all met up in York, Maine, as a big happy family, and vacationed for the week in a huge house by the sea.  We celebrated Mo's 60th birthday, had a professional family photo shoot, celebrated Declan's 5th birthday, and stared at the ocean a whole lot.

The best part of the house was the 12 or 14 rocking chairs on the huge front porch, with a beautiful and peaceful view of the ocean.  The best part of the day was all of us sitting in those chairs in the morning with a hot cup of coffee.  Oh, and doughnuts.  (there were a lot of doughnuts this week.)  There were also massive ice cream frappes, a little shopping, date night with Mike, misty morning breakfast out, chilling by the pool, and more sitting on the porch rocking chairs. I didn't take a whole lot of photos, I guess I was enjoying the down time...but here are a few snapshots of our week:

balloons!

I remember going to the hot air balloon festival in RI many years in a row and have been wanting to make it to the NJ one for years.  For one reason or another, the last few years never worked.  So after an extremely busy and tough week, we decided to set our alarm and make it happen.  Mike and I got up at 4:30am yesterday and drove to the NJ Hot Air Balloon Festival.  We got there around 6:15, got a spot adn watched the 120 hot air balloons get filled up and lift off.  It was SO amazing and beautiful!!

this moment

an oldie friday ritual inspired by soulemama:

this was not this week, but during our vacation week.

summer vaca with little mike

We were lucky enough to be given a week at my grandma's beachhouse for a little R and R.  We did this a few years ago, and since Seneca is a little unwell, we wanted to have a dog-friendly vacation this year so she could stay with us.

I slept in every single morning, started at the ocean all day, swam a tiny bit, got in a kayak ride at sunset, and ate out at some yummy resturants all near the Mystic River and drawbridge.  We played Quirkle every night and read some great books.  We went to a bar and ate homemade prezels, dipping sauce and beer.  We walked around, let Seneca swim at the dock, and listed to the fog horn.  We walked around an old lighthouse built in 1850 or so.  Just what the doctor ordered.