{WiP} Wednesday ~ 28/52

I am very aware of how blessed I am - and how much I take for granted. Really, I am. My life is FULL. Busy. Blurry from all the activity, really, and I know that will only get worse as the kids get older. But it's a good busy, a good full. I know that.

But it's exhausting, too. As an introvert, having 3 people in my face, on my leg, on my hip all day long can add to the exhaustion. So when they're all finally in bed, and the house is quiet, it's my time. My time to sew, or blog, or catch up on blogs, or read.

What? Read? What's that? :)

I'm just saying that it's all good. I wish I had time to sew more, and blog more, but the most important thing I can do every day is take care of my family. I know that. It's tiresome, but it's the right thing to do, and it's what I want to do! But I also want to be creative and productive and make this gigantic to-do list just an eensy bit smaller! :)  That being said, I'm hoping to put a bit of normalcy back into my life, because it's been far from normal lately!

We just got back from a week in LA, visiting friends, visiting the LA MQG, visiting with some of my Bee Happy hive, going to Disneyland...for THREE days... ugh!

We've been home for 2 days now, and we're still trying to get back to normal and acclimate! It's not like we've got jet-lag, really...it's more like vacation-lag! :)

This is what I sewed just before we left. They are called Starburst Cross blocks, and they are for the Faith Circle of the do.Good Stitches bee. The tutorial is by Sew Crafty Jess., and it's going to be a stunning quilt! I just love the bright colors!

And then we left for California. It was a GREAT trip, really. Not long enough!

I took over a thousand pictures over the course of the week, but I won't hit you with all of them. I need to do a separate blog post about the whole trip just so I can remember it all! :)

Here are a few of my favorites, though.

Hugging Cinderella after they twirled together in their dresses (Ramona was kind enough to let us borrow Bean's dress for the day!)

Waving back at Rapunzel who waved first. Starstruck. :)

Here's Buzz at the Mickey and the Magical Map show -- he was mesmerized!!

Our Disneyland passes had a blackout day on July 4th, so we went to the beach instead. It had been a very long while since Mookie had been to the beach, and I don't believe Sprout had ever been! And I know Buzz hadn't ever been! :)

Mookie really enjoyed the water, Sprout enjoyed the sand, and Buzz didn't really enjoy any part of it!

We went to California Adventures the next day, and after we had a spontaneous rendez-vous with Mr The Mouse himself...

...we headed for Monsters, Inc. Here's Buzz practicing his scream. It sounded a wee bit like his tiger roar, but it was darn cute! 

Then after lunch, Dave took Mookie on the Grizzly River Run (think Thunder River...)  She had a blast!

And on the third day, Dave and I split up so he could take Mookie on more big kid rides, and I could keep it simple with the little ones. We happened to see Rapunzel in her tower, which was kind of amazing.

Unfortunately, most of those pictures didn't turn out because, not surprisingly, it's kind of hard to manage an active one-year old while a three-year old meets her all-time favorite princess!

In the afternoon, we got to meet Tinkerbell, which was equally amazing, and equally hard to photograph! Honestly, I think the girls were kinda done having to smile for all the paparazzi! :) (they get that from their father...)

And then on Sunday we went to church and then spent some time with friends from church, and got ready for the journey home on Monday :(  Sad and exhausting journey home.

Yesterday was a lazy, lazy day recovering from our wonderful trip, but last night I needed to really get down to business on the aforementioned gigantic to-do list, so I made my July blocks for the Faith Circle. This time it's Modern Cross Blocks, featured by Faith of Fresh Lemons in her Summer Sampler Series.

And tonight, I've got one more bee block for June, and I've got to piece a back, and maybe even get it loaded onto the long arm. Wouldn't THAT be grand!

It feels great to link up with Lee at Freshly Pieced. Go see what others are doing, and have a great week!