Sunday

What a full day it's been! It's my mother's birthday today. My mother is full-on Italian (well, American, but of Italian descent) so I always found it interesting that the universe had her enter the world on an Irish holiday. It started off with homemade pumpkin pancakes made by my dad, and finished up with some grilled steak with a crab topping, and some linguine in garlic and oil. Oh, and a cake that my sissy and her hubs made--

The cake is not crooked. Apparently my eyes are. I'm such a bad photographer. Not bad for a first crack at fondant and icing flowers. It was a vanilla/chocolate zebra stripe cake inside--very yummy! I've always wondered what fondant tasted like and now I can cross that off my list. It's good to meet your goals :)

Take a look at what my sister made my mother:

Alicia has made a few paintings before (see here) but this is the first, she proclaimed, that wasn't in silhouette. I want to live in that house so bad!!! You just know there's a delicious sleigh and some horses out back, waiting to go over the river and through the woods. My favorite part is the wisp of chimney smoke:

Nothing creative on my part for the birthday--I bought new frying pans. Very sexy, I know. Don't be jealous of my boundless creativity. However, the other night I DID sew the wee 'un a little fabric book (how's THAT for a segue!):

He loves orange and bright colors, and this is so unspeakably cute I couldn't resist ordering it. I used cotton batting for the padding, so it has a nice light feel to it. It has the most darling goofy pictures inside--

Silly walrus in the bathtub. With a croc. Or is that not a bathtub? Because there's bubbles, but what kind of tub is on wheels?

These little birdies on bunting would be really cute as an appliqued pillow top. I might just do that... My mom kept going "Oh, this is beautiful. Oh, you did a magnificent job." My dad asked "Did you make those pictures?" I told him "No, I sewed a bunch of rectangles together and she's freaking out about it." There's a whole quilt line that goes along with this, but the book was all I wanted. I'm doing well at using fabrics and I want to use up a bunch before I add more. I thought Aiden might do his cute little excited face but he didn't. He wanted to discuss the finer points of the lion:

Z-man had to practice his oral report for school. I helped him a bit with the report and his poster, so now I know so much more about Barry Bonds than I ever cared to. He was pleased to be over and done with it so he could spend his afternoon playing some kind of computer game that I (he informed me) "would probably not be very good at." Thanks, bud. I love you too :)

I spent so much time in front of my sewing machine this weekend and all I have to show for it is a very simple bag. But as the shaping and the zipper has eluded me for three years now I consider even those meager results a success. If the sun decides to come out this week I'll be sure to share, though I keep hearing "wintry mix" on the news so I'm not too confident right now. Nighty-night!