The Quiet Book

The quiet book is done! It is probably in the top five greatest accomplishments of my life. Yes, I am that thrilled about it. I must confess, I am not a sewer. And, I'm not one of those people just saying that so you won't judge me to harshly and then you see that I'm actually really awesome. Those people always make me feel very inadequate. I'm saying it to inspire you. If I can do this, anyone can.

I made this book as part of a co-op. We each purchased and cut out the materials for three of the pages for the other girls in the group. My pages were the flower pot, the abacus and the apple tree. We then exchanged materials and assembled and sewed our own books.

I am pleased to say that I sewed everything on my own thanks to the assistance and sewing machines of my mom, mother-in-law, a few sisters-in-law and some friends.

Sam's job was moral support and hammering the eyelets. (It seemed like man's work to me!) When the last eyelet was hammered and the rings were put in, I was so excited. It is so fulfilling to see all of your hard work come to fruition.

Abby has been wanting to play with it for weeks and she finally got to take it to church today. The true critic was obviously pleased as she was very quiet today!

Here it is in all of it's glory...

I'm 24...

I celebrated my 24th birthday. For some reason, 24 feels really old.

In the morning, I tried to convince Abby to watch a movie with me so we could just relax and be lazy. She only lasted until the popcorn ran out. Instead, she decided to do this...



Sam invited a bunch of friends over for cake and ice cream. The always flattering candle shot...



Me and my girl!



I got a lovely sewing machine from my parents. Sam got me fancy fabric scissors and an emersion blender. It's been fun starting to play with my new toys!

Visitors

Philip and Merrick and their little man came to visit us. We had a blast hanging out, touring Philly and stuffing our faces.

Abby and her baby cousin. Don't they make an adorable pair?



We went to Amish Country making our first stop in Intercourse, PA (yeah, I know, I didn't name it!) We ate the BEST pretzels in the history of the world!



Abby enjoying her pretzel!



We stopped at a chocolate factory and I bought Abby a chocolate coin. Yum!



Abby wanted to teach him ALL about this fun toy.



Our next adventure was to Atlantic City.



We stopped and watched a cool water show.





We had to take them to Reading Terminal Market. We tried deep fried mac and cheese and some pretzels. Yum!



Love from Philly!



We ate at Bobby Flay's burger joint, Bobby's Burger Palace. It was delicious and these sweet potato fries were divine!



On their last morning, Abby was very motherly--cuddling and giving him his paci.



We had such a fun vtime! I wish we didn't have to wait until Christmas for some more visitors.

Ponytails

I was finally able to get Abby's hair into pigtails! It's been getting longer but it's so fine it wouldn't stay in the rubberbands before. She looked so cute and big. She kept trying to pull them out, but I convinced her to leave them in most of the day at church.

Sea World

This picture is totally old now, but we finally got the rest of the pictures from our trip to San Diego. I just had to post this one because it's hilarious.



Do you think Abby liked looking at the rays?

Back in action...

We have survived our first week of the dreaded second year and are being rewarded with a three-day weekend. Hooray! Lucky for you, they decided to go ahead and make it a national holiday!

It's been a tough week for Abby and me. She has been going through vacation (especially cousin Bennett) withdrawal. She has a lot of whining to do, which has, thankfully, subsided a bit.

In an attempt to liven up our days and beat the horrendous heatwave, we took a trip to the beach (which I may post pictures of later, no promises) and spent some time at the pool. This week, I am so grateful for wonderful friends. It is so nice to have people to spend the days with doing fun things.

On a totally unrelated, yet very exciting note, we have a new nephew (I know, we have a lot of those!) We are so sad that we just missed meeting him and hugging his cute little guts out.