What happened to all my play rooms?

Hi everyone, it's me - Willow! I've been happily living with my mom and dad for almost three months now. Today someone brought a whole bunch of stuff into our house and I'm not sure what to think. I mean, where am I supposed to play?! Take a look at all the stuff now taking up my play rooms and tell me what you think.

This is my livingroom. I love playing with tennis ball with dad in here - it bounces off the floor and is really fun to try and catch! Now that this big brown thing is in our way, I'm not sure if mom and dad will still let me bounce my ball in here. This things only saving grace is that I can now look out the window and bark at my best friend Bella who lives nextdoor. 

As you can see, I'm pretty upset with what they did to my basement. Up until today, we would go down there every night and play puppy in the middle. Now all dad wants to do is lay back in the leather recliner and nap. Someone better help me find a new place to play!

Here's my bed. You can't see it, but now there is an annoying piece of wood at the foot of the bed that makes it hard to jump on and off. Mom took a good gash out of her leg tonight when she walked past it, so I'll have to keep my eye on it... I don't want it hurting anyone else! I've also discovered that those lamp table things are great for helping me look out the window - now no matter where I am I'll be able to see who's here and if Bella is out to play!

Can you find me in this one? I'm being a great hider. Probably because I am getting so good at playing hide and seek with dad. We love playing games together - he is such a great dad! These two monsterous things don't make much sense to me, but they do smell pretty good. Mom says the drawers are lined with cedar, but all that matters to me is that they smell like trees and sticks - I LOVE sticks!

So, do you see why I'm upset? Good thing there is nice weather outside and we have a big yard because a Willow needs her room to play! Well, I'm off to bed before mom and dad catch me at the computer. Goodnight everyone!

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... ;)

The best cure for a cold

A can of soup

A new toy for the overly excited puppy

The new book I've been excited to read

and beautiful flowers to look at!

My darling husband walked in the door an hour earlier than usual yesterday with this assortment of goodies to help me feel better. I'm gonna keep him! :)

Driving on stolen gas

My 13 year old brother called me today to tell me I need to update my blog - I guess that means I've been away for too long...

Things are well here in the new Ritter house. Willow had her first day with no accidents in the house, so we are really excited about that!! We are very anxiously awaiting our furniture delivery, so as soon as it comes I'll put up pictures of our place. Furniture also means we'll open this place up for visitors, so stay tuned for info about our house warming party - everyone will be invited! (Oh, and you are welcome to come and visit us now, just know that you'll have to stand the whole time because we have no place to sit!)

Now on to my tale of gas woe...

I went to my Tuesday night class tonight, like I do every Tuesday night. Dan had left the ipod in the car, so I decided to turn up some RENT! tunes to get my singing voice all prepared to sing them when we see the show live on Friday night! (No, I'm not THAT person who will  sing along, but odds are that I will lip sync everything :) ) So I continue jamming and singing my heart out. When I park the car, I notice my gas light has come on. I think, oh, I'll have to fill up on the way home. Then I remember that I forgot my purse. I look at the gas counter thing on my dash board, where the car tells me how many miles of gas I have left in the tank and it says "7 miles". Crap. I definitely live a whole lot more than 7 miles away from school. I'll blame the great RENT music for making me oblivious to the gas light. :) I quickly search the car and find our check book in the glove box from when we closed on the house. So, problem solved, right? After class I head to the nearest gas station where I fill up my car and head in to pay. As I start writing out the check, the clerk tells me he needs to see my driver's licence. Double crap. It's definitely in my purse along with my check card. I tell him I forgot my purse and blah, blah, and he tells me the only way to solve this, since I already have the gas in my car, is to claim me as a "drive off". That's right - as of this very moment, Super America has my name and car info as if I had driven off without paying for my gas. The clerk assured my that as long as I come back and pay within 24 hours they will not prosecute. Obviously, I'll be heading back to pay first thing in the morning. I just hope there is no glitch in the system or that someone comes into work in the morning and reports the "drive offs" from the day before. What a mess that would be! 

I hope Spring finds you well and without the crud that has been running rampant just about every where!