Like an acorn holds an oak tree

Last night, I finished reading an amazing book, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra. (Really, it's fantastic. Please, go read it right now. You'll thank me.)

The novel is filled with the most beautiful, wonderfully written images, but toward the end is one that really stuck with me, as it so beautifully encapsulates parenthood.

For their entire lives, even before they met, your mother and father held their love for you inside their hearts like an acorn holds an oak tree. You were their rain and sun, their morning and night.

Beckett, I hope you always know just how true this is of our family, how much we love you and have always loved you, even before we knew you or each other. You will always be our rain and sun, our morning and night.

Animal farm

I'm sure I've mentioned it here before, but St. Louis is a fabulous place for raising kids. There are amazing parks everywhere you turn; the zoo, science center, and many of the museums are FREE, not to mention a ton of other attractions that are very reasonably priced; and there are great schools.

Last week, we checked out a park that was new to us, Suson Park, which includes a great animal farm display.

B loves animals, so it was fun to find a place other than the zoo (he already spends plenty of time there) to get up close to a few.

Oh, and did I mention there are bridges? B can't resist a good bridge. The small lake is also stocked with fish and is open to the public for fishing (note to my future self).

"Hey, that horse is just my size!" I didn't take pictures of a lot of the animals because I carried B through most of the stables and barns (so he could see into the pens better), but there were also large horses, cows, donkeys, a bull, turkeys, chickens, bunnies, and lots of goats.

Pigs!

Farm fun!

Matt took him one afternoon during the week, and then we returned as a family on the weekend. We started our family trip with lunch at Kaldi's, B's favorite. Mmmmm ... milk.

Checking out the goats and ducks

There was about a two-second window before he got scared that B loved when the pig came close to the fence. He's a sensitive boy. :)

Where's Farmer Beckett?

Boys down on the farm

After checking out the animals, we finished the day with some time on the playground swings. Swings are even better than bridges in B's eyes.

A great day down on the farm!

Keepin' it real

If you're an avid reader of that little Blogger profile over to the right (as my cousin Savannah apparently is), you might have noticed that until today, I still referred to myself as a "twentysomething Texan..." This afternoon, she called me on it. My 30th birthday was back in April, so I suppose it's about time I updated the profile. Just keepin' it real around here.

Oh, and I updated my pic, too.

Running the table

For several years, we've been using the same table runner in our dining room, a lovely one my friend Rachel made us as a housewarming gift when we moved to St. Louis. I've been itching to make a new one to change things up a bit, especially now that we have a much bigger table in the new house.

I decided to go with a shorter runner (instead of one that goes across the entire table) because it seems a bit more practical and less likely to get in the way. It also required a lot less fabric (we have a big table). :)

The runner is reversible, with a kind of zigzag patchwork on one side and a solid honeycomb fabric on the other.

I like how the yellow on both sides works with our mustard-colored walls. The fabrics in the patchwork are from Violet Craft's Madrona Road collection (Haystack in Slate and Broken Herringbone in Blue), and the honeycomb pattern is from Laura Gunn's Magnolia Lane collection.

I decided not to use batting on this one because I don't like when runners get too thick. I like them to be more like a giant coaster, so I just used a thin flannel on the inside, which is perfect.

It's a nice, sunny, summery addition to our table.

Playing catch up

I have a hard time focusing on one project at a time, even if it's a project I'm really interested in. I started working on B's new nursery quilt, but this week, I kept taking breaks for other little projects. I think in my head, it seems like I can just knock out a few small projects and get them off my to-do list, but the problem is that then the bigger projects take forever to finish.

This week, I knocked out several small projects before my in-laws and niece arrived for a visit this weekend. With these done, I'm vowing to get back to that quilt as soon as their visit is over. Think I can do it?

The bookmark was just a fun, quick project. It was originally going to be part of a friend's gift, but I decided it didn't really work for that and kept it for myself instead. :) You can read more about the process of making these here.

The journal cover was a gift for a friend. I've been planning to make one of these using Rachel from Stitched in Color's great tutorial (in fact, I bought the composition notebook for it almost a year ago).

The cover was a bit looser than I wanted, but I couldn't quite figure out how to snug it up just right.

Still, I think it turned out pretty cute, and I love the fun colors. I hope she does, too!

 

Finally, I finished up a quick dog bed cover for our friends Chris and Stephanie. A few years back, they supplied me with this Wisconsin fabric to make them a set of corn hole bags and a drawstring bag to carry them. I ended up with a lot of fabric left over, and a few weeks ago, they asked if I would use it to make a dog bed for their black lab, Burg.

Even though there was a good amount of fabric left, it wasn't in very big chunks, so I had to do a bit of a patchwork design, which I think worked out okay. The front, at least, is pretty simple, so I imagine they'll mostly use that on top.

Based on the pic they sent me, Burg seems to like it just fine. (Also, side note, big, thick "sports" zippers are really hard to work with. Just saying.)