meet andrew.
some of you are already familiar with this cool kid from previous posts, my facebook timeline and instagram photos, but others haven't been so lucky yet.
if there is one thing that andrew and i share, it is our love for disneyland (and disney in general)
i like to spoil andrew sometimes.
at one point in time, high school musical was his favorite thing.
i took him to build a bear to stuff a bear.
there was another time i took him to disney on ice to see high school musical on ice with jenny and erika.
oh. and we wore matching t-shirts too.
and had a photo shoot at my old work.
now, andrew's big thing is frozen.
i've made him some pillowcases and pajama shorts from olaf fabric for the past few birthdays.
but for this year's birthday, i want to plan something big for him. and that's where you followers come in! i'm creating a disney/pixar "i-spy" style quilt for andrew, and i'm on the hunt for fabric of all sorts of animated disney cotton prints! i have a good chunk of more modern/current selections of characters, but i'm looking for some more uncommon ones, or things i might not have just yet. i have at least a quarter of a yard of each fabric if you see anything you might like drop me a line and we can make a swap happen! below are the fabric cuts that i have, as well as the quantity per movie. some of the following are multiple cuts from the same fabric in order to get different characters in the mix. oh, and my block sizes are 6 1/2" pre washed :) fabrics
inside out - 6
snow white - 3
lion king - 3
cars - 11
planes - 2
the good dinosaur - 2
tinkerbelle - 2
peter pan - 1
jake and the neverland pirates - 1
101 dalmatians - 2
lady and the tramp - 1
aristocats (marie) - 2
phineas & ferb - 1
high school musical - 1
this is the only "non animated" one i intend to include, due to andrew's past high school musical interest :)
villains - 4
bambi - 2
dumbo - 1
the jungle book - 1
nightmare before christmas - 2
big hero 6 - 3
winnie the pooh - 5
finding nemo - 5
monsters inc/university - 1
toy story - 14
frozen - 12
mickey & friends - 13
the little mermaid - 3
aladdin - 2
sleeping beauty - 2
princess & the frog - 1
beauty and the beast - 3
cinderella - 4
tangled - 2
as you can see, i'm very top heavy on toy story (my favorite), frozen (his/everybody and their mother's favorite), and mickey & friends fabrics. there are a few fabrics i have that i might not include (jake & the neverland pirates) as well as trying to keep some of the pink-ness down to a minimum. anything animated disney/pixar is greatly appreciated! feel free to drop a comment below if you think you might have something to blend with this collection and if you'd want to trade for a chunk of something you see if the mix!
i'm going to try and make this a thing.
clearly, i'm a day off already. ha.
mostly just to hold myself accountable by blasting it all out there for the world (or my tiny bubble of followers) to see. i'm currently in a fitness challenge group for the third time (the last one was december. you can guess how well THAT round went. this time involves a "biggest loser" type challenge, where prizes are involved. i do personally enjoy prizes.
my 3 goals are as follows:
less soda
less meals on the go (which ideally will help the first goal)
creating a work out routine that fits my schedule and stick with it.
anyways, here's a rundown of how things went this week, as well as a few other little tidbits throughout. note: the "calories burned" is according to whatever cardio machine i was on said after entering my age/weight before the work out. clearly, it is likely not 100% accurate. and i should actually be filling this out as i go, but now i'm playing catch up. monday
soda intake: 21oz pibb xtra
water intake: 36+ oz
work out: 33 minutes elliptical/252 calories burned
playlist: guardians of the galaxy soundtrack, which paired well with my raptor bike gang tank. apparently monday is a chris pratt kind of day. tuesday
soda intake: 0
water intake: lots
work out: treadmill & a smidge of bike
playlist: "fall out boy & friends" (their self appointed friends include panic! at the disco, hey monday, paramore, motion city soundtrack, angels & airwaves, etc) wednesday
soda intake: 0
water intake: 64+ oz
work out: dance class. yep, i decided to go back, potentially for one last round of recital. but we'll see. thursday:
soda intake: 0
water intake: 64+ oz
work out: 33 minutes elliptical
food: this day, i made ground turkey with taco seasoning over brown rice to take for lunch. i suppose it is generally a healthier alternative to tacos, and it was actually decent. brown rice, however, may take some getting used to. friday
soda intake: 20 oz
water intake: 64+ oz
work out: when i first signed up, i got this shakeology/work out dvd combo pack. the one i selected was a "turbo fire" kickboxing one, and it had sat forever. i decided i would give it a go yesterday morning, and it was CRAZY how intense it was just doing the basic introductory one where you learn the moves. i work up this morning with my shoulders sore from all the fake punches i was throwing. who would have thought? food: after punching at invisible ninjas for half an hour, i loaded up the crock pot to cook some chicken to make taquitos when i got home from work. usually, i'd get taco bell. buuuuut i'm trying to resist most uber fast food and trying to stick with better ones (yesterday it was panera for lunch with a chicken ceaser salad and small mac & cheese). i also made guac when i got home (chipotle's guac is still the best) and cooked the taquitos. it made 10 altogether, and i contained myself to only eating 3. they were decent, and i'd consider making them again. potentially not with corn tortillas though. bleh. to see the recipe i used, click here :) so far i've been pretty good at keeping on track as far as soda goes. i usually refill before leaving places, but i had 100% refrained and stuck with the one cup that i started with.
forcing myself to work out has been not terrible, since i have made my schedule to be when i would be transitioning from one place to another, and not trying to force it in to a window where i might be late. i'm going to keep scouring pinterest for recipes to make to resist the taco bell urges, and when i do, i'll be sure to share.
i originally bought this piece of fleece around 2008/2009, because i had the idea to make a denim rag style quilt with it, paired with some coordinating flannel. why mickey though? i had ripped a pair of jeans that december while getting on to the matterhorn, and felt it would be an entertaining way to memorialize the occasion. needless to say, the jeans were tossed many room cleanings ago and the mickey fabric has just sat around for years. at the beginning of this year, i was inspired to put it to good use and make a quilt that was subtly mickey inspired on the front without feeling too childish, and this is the result!
i made this lap quilt for andrew's mom patty, because without her, i would have no buddy andrew to hang out with! she's very much a disney enthusiast as well, and i felt would be the perfect individual for such a quilt to go to. i had done the triangle quilt along quilt twice before (both times with music fabric) so it was very interesting to see how it would turn out with different fabrics.
when i picked out the fabric, i wanted to focus on the main colors of the back, sticking to primarily one or two colors on each print with a repeating pattern but not too busy. i did find a few that were three of the colors in there, and they blended in quite nicely. i still wanted mickey to be slightly involved on the front, and i found some great red on red mickey heads and black and white ones as well. as i was laying the fabric out, i was afraid it was going to look too much like a circus and not very organized and i started to panic. but there was really no turning back at this point.
once it was sewn together, i felt a MILLION times better about it. i feel like the metallic silver on a few triangles here and there combined with the black on blacks also toned down the crazy of colors. haha.
also, the red quilting wasn't too awful either. especially since it really didn't show too much on the back.
i decided to put another layer of fleece in between the front and the back to make it cozier. it added a little poof to the quilt as well. turns out, two layers of fleece is pretty tricky for my machine to cooperate with, but it made it through the challenge! i kept the binding a solid black to frame it all off.
the tag was sewn on minutes before the clock hit midnight on christmas morning, and it made its way to its new home the following day. doing this quilt right before leaving for disneyland totally put me in the disney mood, and kicked things off to a good start!
i suppose if i have to be back at work today, i may as well post a blog about my favorite place to go...
disneyland!
usually we go as a family every 3 years, which should have put us at going in 2013 and then in 2016, but somewhere since our last trip we just didn't make it down on our usual time schedule. with us all being not small children anymore (or in some people's case, getting married) my dad has been saying this would likely be the last "big" trip to disneyland with all of us. i guess we'll see if we can twist his arm in 3-5 years ;)
anyways, we packed 7 of us in the van and drove down the sunday after christmas. when we were leaving the house, google maps said it should take us 6.5 hours to get there. clearly, everybody and their dog wanted to ensure that didn't happen. we left at 2:30, and made it to the hotel about 9 hours later. ugh. we crashed in to our beds and were prepared for the early alarms the next day.
6:45 hit, and we rolled out to get ready. by 7:20 or so, we started the walk to california adventure, getting to the gate in time for the park to open at 8. dad went and got tower of terror fast passes while the rest of us headed to the back of the park for toy story mania. i started off losing to aileen. but i turned that around, as you can see.
holly, markham, dad & josh jumped on to california screamin' then we got on to toy story. after that, we went to radiator springs racers, where we learned the fateful mistake of not getting passes. the line started at a 90 minute wait, but we got in the line right around 9, and got off the ride around 11:30. the plan was to hit the aladdin show at 11:10, but it is safe to say that didn't happen.
folks, if you want to stay sane... GET FAST PASSES or you'll be stuck listening to these lovely songs the entire time
roly poly was a constant that was sung the rest of the trip. and lets be real...
it still gets sung.
there was a lot of back and forth across the park, since they wouldn't accept the tower of terror fast passes at this point, so they waited in standby while mom, aileen & i did some character hunting. the incredibles left, so we went to where i knew toy story characters were, and buzz lightyear was leaving once we got there (here he is kissing my hand as he went by and jessie showed up)
so we jammed back over to the hollywood backlot for the incredibles, got that picture, then went BACK to the pier, got a picture with woody as he was leaving and then one with my man, buzz.
there was a lot of wandering around at that point as we now waited for the aladdin show at 5, so we went on mater's junkyard jamboree and soarin' over california, and we went over to the bridge by the pier to take some pictures.
i ordered these ears off etsy for us, and even though they showed up barely in time, they were so worth it! you can get a pair of your own (either ready to ship or a custom order like i did) from elephant and mouse shop. holly's are marie, aileen's have mulan characters on them, and of course, mine are buzz lightyear :)
mickey pretzels are the best pretzels. end of story.
we saw the aladdin show for the final time, since it closes this month.
i'm semi intrigued to see how the frozen show plays out (and if it has a run as long as aladdin did) but also wish they picked something besides frozen.
but don't tell andrew i said that...
we left the park to go get dinner at the earl of sandwich in downtown disney, and it was wonderful to finally get some caffeine and warm food. i had the chicken tortilla soup, and it was delicious. we came back, wandered the animation area, and went in to the beast's library where we found out who we are. i got...
pretty sure last time i got mrs. potts. i'm sensing a theme here. after that, we went and met elsa, because there was no line, and i wanted to send andrew a picture.
then we went to turtle talk with crush before heading to world of color's holiday show. after world of color we called it a night in order to get a smidge more sleep and make our day in disneyland a longer day. which is also the day i have less photos for, it seems. so here's day two!
as you can see, we aquired an extra body for day 2 in the parks. aileen's fiance drove down monday, spend tuesday in the park with us before heading back to idaho on wednesday. we started off the day in tomorrowland, then jumped over to indiana jones & pirates. then back to tomorrowland for space mountain & buzz lightyear astroblasters. i'd like you all to be aware that they flipped the scores on this print out...
FINALLY got to ride thunder mountain for the first time in years, since it was either closed or broken down. we also waited in line for matterhorn for an hour and a half, because it also broke down. but it was absolutely worth the wait.
we bounced over to california adventure to get soup and bread bowls for dinner, as well as let the others get one more ride in for those that wanted to go on tower of terror. on the way back over to the land of disney, i was able to successfully cross paths with one of my favorite photographer friends! alas, her first day in the park was the day we left, but it was good to see her for the first time since WPPI 2012 in vegas!
we headed to thunder mountain to ride it one more time, and then were going to do matterhorn single rider, but it was still down and everyone else was good to go. so we watched the parade and called it a night. wednesday morning we ate breakfast at denny's, sent ben on his way and then headed to the science museum where we saw the endeavor
it was cool to look at, but clearly one of those things where i would feel like i learned more with a guided tour or someone there to talk about it. there were little signs all over, and docents giving little facts, but that was it. we went inside the rest of the museum for a little bit as well before heading home.
it was a pretty action packed 3 days, as well as a whole lot of car time, but it was overall enjoyable.
though it's pretty safe to say i'm already ready to go back to disneyland.
who's coming with me??
what? two blog posts in a row?
a year ending/beginning will do that to you i suppose!
(i also got a swift blogging second wind once midnight hit, and now have photos prepared for 3 more posts to come. say whaaaat?)
here we are at 2016, and of course i looked back at last year's post to see what i wrote, and everything that changed or was not accomplished this past year.
looking back can be hard, but it can also be refreshing.
sure, i could easily sit and make a list of goals that may or may not happen, but instead, here are some things that i know will be happening next year:
- aileen's wedding
- trip to alaska
- officially get my degree in ECE
- melissa's wedding
my list of travel places each year still grows. mostly stateside right now, since that's more plausible and affordable. the top 3 on my list are still:
- new york
- new mexico
- colorado (unless lisa ends up moving elsewhere. then that will be the destination in this spot)
another list that keeps growing is my sewing/crafting projects for 2016! as the year goes on, i'm almost positive this list will grow in size. i can't list these ones out individually as of yet:
- 5 people sized quilts
- 1 disney mini quilt (instagram swap)
- handful of cross stitch projects
as far as the photography business side of life goes, i currently have 3 weddings booked for 2016 and a bridal show at the end of january to hopefully get my name out there a smidgen more. 2015 was a great year with 6 wonderful couples and i hope for many more fantastic ones to come in the future.
of course, it is still fun to throw in a few personal challenges each year. nothing too intense or heartbreaking if they don't get met. if you've seen my goodreads challenges the past few years, you know what i mean...or this past year's "sew your stash" attempt. ha! but seriously... i'd like to give myself some more serious fitness/work out goals, or even some organization/anti-hoarder looking goals. i do keep attempting to find a decent blog challenge as well... so if you see something pop up on my pinterest under those categories, now you know!
oh and that always failed goodreads challenge?
i totally set it up again this year.
will i make it to 10 books this year?
stay tuned to find out!
ack! i saw lisa post her yearly review, and realized 2 things.
1. i didn't blog as much as i had anticipated i would
2. today is the LAST day of 2015!
well, here's a summary in look back of some projects and events that happened throughout the year. january
i said i was going to participate in the "sew your stash" following.
but didn't.
BUT it wasn't totally wasted, because i went from fabric in tubs, to fabric stored like this:
it is SO nice to be able to see everything! february
i jumped in as a swap angel on craftster and made some beauty and the beast pillow covers.
this was my first fandom in stitches pattern, and as you'll later see, i'm hooked. march
went to colorado again to hang with lisa and her peeps.
visited the lovely quilt cabin and hung out over spring break before heading back to the real world of work again. april
i sent off my first instagram swap mini quilt (it was cat themed, of course - kitten mqs)
also cat related, i made a middle school friend of mine a baby quilt for her little one. i love elizabeth hartman's cats... that's for sure (daffodils and kitty cats) may
my pudge cat quilt was finished!
see? i love those cats...
and i suppose this one...
june
this is apparently the month of actual events i didn't post about.
we had our first family reunion in 10 years, and while we were missing a few cousins and an aunt, we still managed to party pretty hard. for us being 14+ cousins that are rather spread apart, we get along quite well when we're all back together. we got pedicures and jamba juice at one point to just chill.
we also had our 30th anniversary dance recital this year,
which was a LOT of work and chaos.
but i got to dance with a handful of my old classmates again as well as some of the "big kids" that were there when i was growing up. i also got to perform "make someone happy" with my students and my favorite andrew. :) july
apparently nothing worth blogging.
or remembering... august
erika and i saw fall out boy again.
never gets old <3
i made this turtle quilt for my aunt to give to one of her coworkers.
and then, we threw amy a surprise baby shower!
thanks to lisa, i found a car seat canopy tutorial, which turned out wonderfully
and then, the main project was finally revealed.
probably my favorite outcome of 2015 was this quilt, which took hours upon hours in construction
but SO worth it.
this lion king baby quilt was perfect for the lion king lover that amy is, and her enthusiasm for it was well worth it :) fandom in stitches totally rocks. october
this was the last that i blogged anything, which was those lion king projects.
so i'll just skip to november.
oh wait! this was the month melissa got engaged and asked me to be in her bridal party next year. so that's something :) november
i had a birthday. whoot.
i also took a painfully long road trip to idaho and froze my butt off doing this.
yep. aileen got engaged this past september, so my mom and i trekked out to idaho over thanksgiving break to go dress shopping with her out there as well as take their engagement photos. we got really lucky with a fresh coating of snow the morning of, and even though we froze, they were worth it. (no, you didn't miss out on a blog post. they were posted on my website here: freeze frame - aileen & ben) december
it totally zoomed by, that's for sure!
i made about 20 pillowcases this year for various gifts, and all that good stuff.
baby leonidas was born on december 19th - just one day after his due date!
2 quilts were given at christmas, with a third one finished as we drove to disneyland on the 27th.
i'll do a full disneyland post soon - but here's a little disney goodness in the meantime :)
overall
it may have not been a post filled year like the last one, but i'd have to say some of the things done were pretty monumental. and with 2 weddings that i'm in next year, it is safe to say some crafting will absolutely be going down for bridal showers & wedding gifts! hope your 2015 was fabulous, and i'll have more posts to come soon :)
after world of color we called it a night in order to get a smidge more sleep and make our day in disneyland a longer day. which is also the day i have less photos for, it seems. so here's day two!
