Summary Sunday - Fabric Edition

I have finally finished cutting out patterns for a pile of pre-Christmas and Christmas presents. My right thumb is killing me and apparently is not a super fan of the rotary cutter. I guess that's to be expected after cutting pieces out of nearly 4 yards of fabric.

I am happy to say that I have figured out presents for nearly everyone on our holiday shopping list. Even better is the fact that nearly all of those gifts will be homemade. I did the tallying last night and it looks like I need to make a nice run to the fabric store in the next week or two in order to have everything ready to roll, but I have enough for quite a few presents already at home. Yay!

I will definitely be a busy bee between now and December 24th. I can't tell you exactly what I'm making because it would totally wreck the surprises, but my family & Collin's will not be surprised to know that there will be quilting and scrapbooking involved. In all, including the pre-Christmas presents (can't tell you about them yet either, but they'll be revealed at Thanksgiving), we're talking a grand total of twenty-eight homemade gifts. Whoa. It really looks nuts when you write it down that way. But...I have one finished, one nearly finished, and I cut fabric for nine more today - they're all ready to sew. Oh...and I volunteered myself to help one of my employees make a photo quilt for her mother (Collin says I'm crazy).

Her photo quilt will look a little different, but you get the idea.

As for the rest of this week, as usual it has gone by in a blur. We celebrated Miss M's 1st birthday and my 100th blog post. Dar & I even got a free meal out of it since Emily made some delicious tortilla soup.

Tyler asked if she was turning 9...

Work was work and not my favorite thing so it was nice to have a long weekend. I pretty much spent my Thursday sleeping and reading. I haven't been feeling really great for the last couple of weeks (the migraine that just keeps giving) so it was nice to do pretty much nothing for a day. Plus, I was able to catch up on a LOT of reading this week. You're going to be surprised.

Yesterday started out a little rocky when my carpet cleaner decided that it was going to go ahead and blow a hose. My poor dining room was near flood stage for a good portion of the day, but it seems to have dried out now. Owen & Patti brought Miss K over to watch the BSU game...it was a little rough to watch and we unfortunately lost - not something we're used to. But, I'm a true Bronco fan so I know that we'll just come back stronger at the next game and we'll finish out the season with our heads held high. In fact, I'm sporting Bronco gear today.

For those of you wondering, no...I didn't do a darned thing with pumpkins this week (other than eat pumpkin seeds). I'm pretty tempted to just let the rest go to trash. Besides, I think 30 cups of puree is more than enough for this family.

Recipes I Used : Holy cow I actually cooked this week...slightly. My not feeling so well translated into me not eating dinner and thus general dinner laziness most of the week. I did however try two new recipes that I found on Pinterest. I'll show you pictures, but don't judge me. I always hate the way my food photos turn out. Honestly, they remind me very strongly of this (also found on Pinterest - thanks Erin)...

But...I made some Baked Parmesan Tomatoes and some ridiculously easy Pepperoni Rollups.

The tomatoes were good, but a little thick. The instructions call for cutting a tomato in half...my hothouse tomatoes made this slightly overwhelming so next time I'll be doing thick slices.  The pepperoni rollups were awesome. We ended up having to substitute shredded swiss cheese in a few since Collin apparently ate the majority of our string cheese, but those turned out good too. They're best when dipped in ranch.

Books I Finished : Prepare to be amazed. I finished four books this week!! I finished all three books in The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins - which I found to be absolutely fantastic. I couldn't put them down. Word to the wise though, don't start one of them unless you have the other two ready at hand. She's the queen of the cliffhanger. This morning I finished The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes by Diane Chamberlain. It was also good, though not what I expected. I'm pretty sure I had the premise confused with another book, but it still turned out to be a good read. I recommend all of them.

Projects I Finished : Coming down from the last two weeks of craziness, I didn't really finish much project wise. It was nice to not have a deadline looming. I did however finish one Christmas present yesterday. Nope, I'm not sharing what it is or who it's for. I'm hoping to get started on an advent calendar next weekend. I promised Emily that I would make her one (and I want one for myself too...it's going to be super cute).

Favorite Post of the Week : I actually had quite a few posts that I liked this week (that's what happens when you have 250 backlogged posts to read. So...I'm sending you to two. They both have to do with parenting and hilarious children. Kit at Blogging Dangerously shared a story about her strong-willed 4-year-old and Greg at Telling Dad gave quite a few examples of his son's burgeoning genius. They're both worth the read and each one had me giggling.

Best Things on the Internet : Ok...so this is totally cheating, but I'm sending you to two more blogs. It's worth it. First of all, I just about died listening to Handflapper's quitting song. It was made all that much more funny by the fact that I heard REO Speedwagon's "I Can't Fight this Feeling Anymore" later that day. Secondly...Nodakademic shared a recipe for bacon wrapped tater tots. I know, right?! You really want to go make these right now don't you? I'm not ashamed to say that I do.

And that's finally it for this week. Now, if you'll excuse me I apparently have to go feed the kid...