For the love of quilts!

Last week Samuel got his first package in the mail, a quilt from his Great Aunt Jan who has a blog called www.laughingdogarts.blogspot.com which features her beautiful artwork. She's so creative and thoughtful! We were excited to add this to our collection; Aunt Jan made a gorgeous quilt for our bed after we got married (in our wedding colors even :), made a matching quilt for Hailey when she was born, a very well used one for Joe that he sleeps with every night, and now Sam has one too! Sam also turned 6 weeks old this past week so I took his photos with the quilt.

Here are all three quilts which amazingly, capture the 3 kids personalities perfectly (I don't know how she could have planned this since she made each of these before the baby was born or before she met them. Simply amazing!) On the far left is tranquil sweet Sam, then loud bold Joseph, and pretty princess Hailey on the right :)

Close up of Sam's quilt:

Full view - such beautiful work!

During the shoot, I caught an action sequence of Sam's skillful rollover technique. This is how he avoids his tummy time. Every time. 

Rolling up to the side and flinging his leg over, and...

he made it!

Hanging out on big brother's quilt (shhh!)

Super baby!

Close up of Hailey's quilt from Aunt Jan

And a close up of Joseph's quilt which is very soft and worn in :)

These are a couple of blankets that I made a few weeks ago for Sam and Hailey (Joe's isn't done yet)

And just for good measure, a tied quilt (because I admittedly don't have the patience required to actually quilt anything!) that I made for Hailey's nursery before she was born using fabric from our wedding. The large squares were my centerpiece place mats. 

A Surprise for Nala

Who is Nala? Nala is the naughty... ok, ok, "Spirited" little puppy shown in the photo below!

Yesterday, Nala received a package in the mail. Yeah, she sleeps on the couch too. Spoiled.

Hmmm... what could it be? It appears to be a present from Aunt Jan!

Indeed! Two beautiful, handmade collars! Nala is sniffing at them in excitement. Collars mean walks!

Aunt Jan (technically Nathan's Aunt, although I'm pretty shameless about claiming his Aunts/Uncles as my own ;) and he claims my Uncle Steve, so we're even)! Anyway, she sent Miss Nala these lovely handmade collars (you can check out more of her creations at http://laughingdogarts.blogspot.com/ ) AND the lovely quilt that Nala is lying on was a wedding gift that she made for us 5 years ago :)

 Nala could not sit still enough for the 1/60th of a second shutter speed that the taking of this photo at 9pm necessitated :)

Thank you so much Aunt Jan! I have a little surprise on it's way to you as well :)