Last week, I finally finished the quilting of Austin's sock monkey quilt.  I still need to bind the edges, though, but he is enjoying it already.  He doesn't know that when I finish the binding, it is going to disappear for a while into a box, to be opened on his 3rd birthday.  

Here he is driving his cars on it, while it was in the frame.  He was loving it even before it was done.   There's a strip of polka dot fabric on it that he calls his "dot road".  He was really upset when I quilted past it and it got rolled under.. he kept saying, "HEY, where's my doootttt road???"

Here it is after I got it out of the frame..

And here he is, enjoying it with his hotwheels.  He thinks all of the strips and borders of fabric are roads.   Or he lifts the edges and makes tunnels.

Yesterday, I folded it up and had it off of the floor for a while, and when he got up from his nap, he immed. noticed that it wasn't in there, and ran to the doorway and started searching the room for it.  Then he says, "Where my sock monkey kilt???"  He was worried that it had disappeared.

He is very conversational now and it is so much fun.  The night before last, I told him, "You are so tired, you can't even see straight!" He looked up at me with a thoughtful (and sleepy) frown and asked, "What that mean, mommy?"

He's starting to be such a "boy".  Loving to rough-house, running around the house, knocking things over, climbing things, etc.  His new thing is that he likes to knock Chris over to the ground, tackling him.  So he will tell Chris to stand in the family room, and he will go all the way into the dining room.  Then he'll say ready, set, GO!  Off he goes, running as fast as he can through the kitchen to the family room, and hit Chris in the legs (at which point Chris plays along and falls down and Austin climbs up on top of him). The other night, they were playing when Chris moved a few feet one way or the other, to which Austin said, "NO, Daddy!  Stay right there in the fanly room, right THERE.  I going to knock you on your FACE."    HUH?  WHERE did he get that?  We have never said anything like that, and he doesn't watch anything on TV except Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and the occasional other Disney cartoon.  He has been watching Toy Story though, I wonder if one of the kids in that says "knock you on your face"?  He says things sometimes that stop us in our tracks and we just look at each other and laugh. 

Sunday morning, I was getting ready for church and I told him to play in his room for a few minutes.  He was in there for maybe 5 or 10 min. playing before I went to check on him and this is what I saw at the door.

Upon further inspection.. chair dismantled, coins from his piggy bank EVERYWHERE.  It was nuts.  So quiet, and fast it happened.  Stealthy boy.

Proud of his work...

Latest sewing project for a little girl who just turned one yr.  I hope her mama will like it and that she will get lots of use out of it.  Her name starts with "R".

And we got his Halloween costume the other day, just needs some tweaking between now and then to make it better.

(Now if we can only get him to wear it on Halloween!  He hasn't been much for costumes~he likes it now, but we'll see.)

We have had lots of fun with sidewalk chalk this summer.  Our back patio has pretty much been covered with it all summer.

We've drawn everything from trains and railroad tracks to street signs and stick people.  The alphabet, numbers, you name it.

I was shocked one day when Austin drew this:

I said, "that looks like a 'P'," and he said, "Yes, it's a big 'P'!" That's his name that I had drawn for him that he drew the 'P's over the top of.

Then just to see if he knew how, I asked him to draw some other letters.  It was fun to see the wheels spin in his little head as he thought about it and then tried.  I was shocked that he could actually draw the A, B, and D when I asked him.

the next 'A' is realllly flat!

..then 'D'

..and 'B'...

He also threw in a "2" for good measure.  Kind of looks like a backward "S".

You gotta love sidewalk chalk!

A photo of the artist: (squirting his mommy with water from a spray-bottle which is also good for erasing chalk lines.)