love-ly weekend

some old stash that i hope to eventually make into valentine's bunting - maybe next year?



how was your weekend? i hope it was love-ly and full of valentine's goodness. we wound up our two weeks of marathon hosting and then squeezed in just a bit of hearts and kisses and romance. and a wee bit of quilting, too.

 

 

 



for the past several years, our oldest children have made a special valentine's day breakfast for the entire family. dad takes them shopping for ingredients the night before with an open budget. they get up early, line the stairs with a trail of paper hearts that lead into the kitchen, and make a breakfast feast. probably my favorite part of this tradition is that it was completely their own idea and continues solely on their initiative. for the last two years, they've dubbed this the "lion heart café", complete with signage and menus. it's pretty awesome.

 how many 13 year old boys do you know that get up at 6:45am just to cook breakfast for their families? (yeah, i'm bragging!) our 15 yr old, d1, slept in this year and did not participate, but d2 was the driving force behind making it happen.

that was the extent of valentine's celebrations on the actual day this year because we were hosting two lovely families from Zimbabwe, met through our son's soccer team, for dinner and the local event. yes, my husband planned this. it was the only time he could get tickets that they could go. however, it was a great way to spend the evening, especially since i'd already booked us a romantic interlude for the following night. usually, i do a valentine's dinner for the family, with sweets and hearts galore, but that had to be postponed this year. flexibility, even with dates and holidays, makes life so much easier.

an added bonus to our valentine's dinner for guests - i may have a new quilting recruit/friend! one of the mothers noticed my dining room-turned-sewing-area (we ate outside) and got very excited. she has been trying to teach herself to quilt. i jumped on that quicker than a box of valentine's chocolates! faith is going to become my new quilt friend. i can't wait.

after dinner, everyone left for the event while the baby and i stayed home together. i showered her up to remove all traces of dinner, and then she decided to play on the design board in lieu of getting dressed in jammies. it worked for me.

 she loves to get out scraps to put all over the board. it's so cute to watch her stick them up and rearrange them. it does require some patience, guidance, and redirection from me since she likes to scrunch up or pull on the fabrics. i inwardly wince as i know she's distorting scraps i want to eventually use, but i {try to} just gently get her to treat them better. or take them away completely when she won't cooperate.

 she has also developed a fascination with putting the pins in the board. again, i'm trying to teach her how to properly and safely handle the "pokies". with this child, i know she'll be searching them out and using them with or without me, so i might as well train her how to do it right.

 aren't her little fingers holding the pins just the cutest? i hope someday she looks back on this fondly as the roots of her quilting obsession that she inherited from her mother.

 on saturday, we hosted one more family in the morning and then our life returned to normal. it's bittersweet. we had some pretty amazing experiences with all of those people and have decided we need to host friends and family regularly more often. but it was so nice to know nothing else was required of me for a little while. after a nap, i made myself do a quilting chore. "rain or shine" has been in the wip pile since october. i forced myself to baste it into a sandwich, moving that much closer to the finish. it would have been so much more fun to work on blocks or start something new, but i really need to concentrate on the wip pile. getting the basting done does feel really good.


that's all i had time for, however, before i had to get ready for my hot date. the mr and i were going to a dinner and concert at our local botanical gardens. it's something we did last year and absolutely loved. so i took the initiative and booked us for "romance in the garden" again this year. we walked the gardens a bit before the dinner. i got some photos of different agaves, a plant i've had an interest in lately. i'll only include two:

stem and blossoms

aerial shot of a different variety

 dinner al fresco in perfect weather at sunset with my love. it doesn't get much better than that!

and classical Spanish guitar with violin is about as romantic as it gets where live music is concerned. it was pretty awesome.

 

now all my reporting is done, i'm going to go spend this holiday (happy presidents day!) doing lots more quilting chores. happy sewing, y'all!