On a lighter note

Willow LOVES water. She drinks gallons a day and loves to hop in the shower with Dan or me. It is so funny to watch her try and drink out of the shower and play in the water. While I won't share a video of her in the shower with us, I was able to catch her this morning playing in the water as I was turning the shower on. Enjoy!

My first Quilt

My very darling friends, the Rhett's are expecting their first baby in just over a month. I decided to make a quilt for her and give it to K at her baby shower last weekend. Here's pictures of the finished product and me with the glowing Mom-to-be!

The front

The back - I had seen another quilt where someone did the line of scraps where they pieced the back together and I loved it, so I did it too :)

The front and back together

Me and the Mom!

I had such a good time making this quilt for their little girl. Quilting is great prayer time and I spent many hours dreaming of what she will be like and of all the great things her life will hold. I hope she feels this love as she grows up wrapped in the quilt! 

Side note - the pattern is an Ingrid Barlow pattern and I love it! It turned out great and was an easy pattern to follow. I highly recommend her stuff!

I'm knee deep in another quilt for my sister who will graduate with her Medical Assistant certification in a few short weeks. I am so proud of her and can't wait to give her the quilt - I hope I finish in time! :)

As seen in... Part I

We've had lots of requests for pictures of the new house, so here starts a series of pictures that will take you through our house. Today I'll take you through our kitchen, which, coincidentally, is the only finished room in the house! We are still waiting on our furniture... but the kitchen is painted (I dare you to guess what color!) and even has decorations! Without further ado, here's our kitchen!

Oops - that's not our kitchen! :) It is, however, our adorable little puppy (with a dirt covered beard) in her favorite spot in the kitchen!

Here's our dining room table. Right now it is home to a puzzle, but we do usually use it for its intended purpose. It's hard to see, but out the windows is a big part of our yard. You can almost make our the hammock between the two big trees. We have a big bonfire pit, too, that is back behind where the stove is.

It's not the world's biggest kitchen, but I love it. The cabinet's look great with my green decor too!

You can see these above the cabinet's in the last picture, but they are so cute I thought they deserved a close up. They are actually planters that Dan's mom got me, but they look really great in our kitchen!

Out this back door is our garage. There are stairs in front of the door that lead you to the basement. One of my favorite ideas was to hang up these beautiful trivets that we got as a wedding present (The three squares by the door) They all have different Bible verses on them and look too good to have hiding in a drawer. We've gotten a few laughs, though, when I pull "art work" off the wall to use for serving dinner!

It's great to have this little extra counter space! Willow loves it here because under her leash is where her food is!

Speaking of Willow's food, I can't resist showing the cute green bowls I found for her. They are actually the same color, but they look different because one of them has water in it. Underneath is one of our placemats. It became Willow's when I tried to wash it and is shrunk big time! (Who makes placemats you can't wash?!) Now it all matches and no one can tell that there is a big size difference :)

I stopped by this great produce market today and picked up some great apples. This bowl is one of my favorite things, and it looks great filled with fresh fruit!

So there you have it - our kitchen! Stay tuned for more tours of Casa de Ritter and a whole bunch of pictures of all the quilting projects I've been up to!

April Madness

Forget March Madness, around our house, it always turns into April Madness!

April started, as it always does, with my birthday. I had the absolute most perfect day! I spent the morning in a quilt store with my mom where she treated me to some fat quarters to play with and I got fabric for the baby quilt I'm making. She also got me some great reference books with most of the traditional patterns in them so I can play around with them. On our way home, she treated me to one of my favorite lunches. She had to head off, but I picked Jake up from school and he and I played with Willow. We all sat down to my favorite dinner of breaded garlic chicken and at my DQ cake while I introduced them to one of my favorite websites: Cake Wrecks. (They show pictures of what people wanted for their wedding cake, and then what they actually got - hilarious!) It was the best birthday I've had. Hopefully that means I am in for a great year!

We've been trying to get unpacked and make the house more lived in. We are STILL waiting on our furniture, which is so frustrating. It's had to have a living room without a couch! If all things go according to plan (HA!) we will have them before the end of the month. 

Our digital camera broke last week, so I've been unable to take any pictures of the house and little Willow. We're working on getting it fixed so I can show you our house!

Speaking of Willow, she was spayed yesterday. I felt so guilty dropping her off, but the nurse called and said she is wonderful and they are all in love with her cute little face. She is getting so big and is so much fun to play with! Dan and I went out for dinner last night and felt like "parents" - we talked about her through a good chunk of our meal! :) I know we aren't really parents yet, but she is our little baby and we just adore her. Dan's even taking a half day to come with me to pick her up this afternoon. Hopefully she won't be too mad at us!

Now a question - Does anyone have good tips on how to politely turn away the door-to-door Jehovah's Witnesses? I was trying to be nice to the ones who stopped by today, but they were quite pushy and made me uncomfortable. He asked me, "What is your understanding of what happened at Easter?" When I told him Jesus is my guy and He died for me and by His grace I'll get to join Him someday! This gentleman didn't like that and started to tell me how wrong I am and I didn't know what to do other than shut the door. Any tips for next time? I'm thinking maybe I'll just start singing next time: 

"I am a C

I am a Ch

I am a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N (Yea Haw!)

and I have C-H-R-I-S-T in my H-E-A-R-T

and I will L-I-V-E E-T-E-R-N-A-L-L-Y!"

I wonder how that would go over... ;)