Baby delusions

I lose my mind over new babies and get the crazy idea that I can sew. Really I can't, as I've learned the hard way in the past (I once tried to sew a new outfit to wear when Steve came home from a deployment -- the carcass of that skirt is still in my scrap bag).

But as I say, something about babies makes me believe I can do the impossible. On July 20, our new niece and nephew were born, and I raced right out to get fabric to make them each a quilt like the one I made their big sister two years ago. While the kids were reading Harry Potter, I waited out my turn by cutting, pinning, and sewing. This one is Madeline's.


And this is Nathan's. Gregory and my friend YeVette helped me choose the fabric for the squares (Katherine was canoeing) and then both kids helped choose the backing and coordinating thread and embroidery floss.

Gregory wants to go on record as being opposed to the jungle fabric in Nathan's quilt because it depicts animals in nonstandard colors (such as pink elephants) and he wants no part of misleading impressionable young cousins.

Late July

Katherine is ready to go to canoeing camp here. She pronounced the camp her least favorite, but she did learn to lift and carry a canoe, paddle, and recover from tipping over. They took water samples and learned about river ecosystems, which she thought was cool. She also regaled her family at supper with tidbits such as: "If you canoe under trees in southwest Georgia, snakes might get scared, and then they'll fall out of the trees and you'll have to flip over your canoe." I'll keep that in mind!


July 21 was, of course, Harry Potter Day. Gregory graciously let Katherine read HP7 first, since this was the first time she was waiting as anxiously as he was for the new book. It arrived at about 1:30 pm and she read until 11:30 pm, stopping only long enough to eat supper. Then she carefully avoided giving away any details about the plot.




Gregory got it next, reading in spurts on Sunday and getting up early Monday to finish. Then they both waited for me to read it so we could talk freely without worrying about spoilers. We all decided it was a terrific story, but I'll say no more in case any of you are reading the series yourselves.

Maurice Sendak exhibit

When Katherine and Gregory were small, they both loved Where the Wild Things Are. Steve says it's his favorite children's book. So when I learned that the Breman Museum (check them out here) has a Maurice Sendak exhibit going on, I wanted to be sure to see it. Here's Katherine in Max's boat. You can read about the book here.


Another favorite Sendak title in our house is Chicken Soup With Rice. In fact, when we saw that part of the exhibit I realized I could recite some of the pages from memory! Katherine had a great time sliding into the giant bowl of soup in the museum.



Ta Da!
If you're curious to know more about Maurice Sendak, click here. You'll probably recognize other books that he's written or illustrated or both.

Atlanta Botanical Garden

We've enjoyed the Atlanta Botanical Gardens in every season -- except summer. It's always seemed too hot to go. But this week we had a delightfully comfortable day and really enjoyed the gardens in their summer finery. We have several photos of the kids in front of this fountain in the entry; I am amazed to see Katherine is nearly as tall as the second level of the fountain these days.

Check out the giant insect sculpture exhibit here.


There's a new building in the skyline beyond the gardens -- in fact, there are new buildings all over Atlanta. I've never seen so many cranes in one week.







Katherine has always loved the orchid center. She took many photos, and as soon as I help her set up her own new sites, I am sure she'll share them with all of you.






Grandpa also likes taking photos and I enjoyed watching them both exclaiming over the huge variety of beautiful flowers to focus on.

Fun in Atlanta

Katherine had a list of things she wanted to do in Atlanta while Gregory played soccer all day. First stop? Chastain park, which has one of her favorite playgrounds.






The kids came here with Dad & Jan on the day Steve and I went to see U2. They said it was very crowded. On a weekday morning, it's empty. Katherine had the place nearly to herself.






Atlanta zoo is another of Katherine's favorite destinations. You can check out their new exhibits, and see their newest panda, here.

Grandmother's 94th birthday

My grandmother turned 94 on July 3rd. This is the third birthday we've been able to spend with her since she moved to Atlanta. She wanted us to wait and celebrate on the following weekend, when we arrived in Atlanta for a week's stay at Dad & Jan's. Gregory attended a soccer academy at Oglethorpe University (Aunt Cheri's alma mater) all week, so take a good look, because he doesn't appear in the rest of the week's photos!


Grandmother has always loved chocolate, and this cake was for serious chocoholics. It came from Jolie-Kobe bakery on Roswell Road, which Katherine and I returned to for lunch later in the week (they have a bistro for meals as well as the bakery). Gregory & Katherine sampled their eclairs and pronounced them delicious.





Four generations. No, we didn't plan to wear coordinating shirts.

July 4th

Katherine harvests her first carrots of the year. They were sweet and tasty.







Katherine decided that we needed decorations to make July 4th more festive. She designed them and enlisted her dad's help in hanging things up.


She even made a flag which has 50 stars, and a set of pictures to festoon the entry. And she dressed in the nearest thing to red, white, and blue she could find.

New Zealand Meal

We had our New Zealand meal the last weekend in June. Katherine is whipping egg whites for pavlova, which a Kiwi at Habitat told us is the quintessential New Zealand dessert. Maybe it was the humidity, but our pavlova didn't get nice high peaks.





Pavlova is a baked meringue, and it takes a long time to cook. So we turned our attention to lunch. On Saturdays I like to go to the farmers' market early and create a veggie feast at lunch with whatever I've found. This meal included cucumbers, tomatoes, blueberries, sweet corn, and "fried" okra -- sliced and rolled in a little cornmeal, then cooked briefly in a little olive oil. Yum!


Our main dish for the New Zealand meal is bacon and egg pie. Katherine wanted to take the photo of us instead of the other way around, for a change.








Our pavlova, covered in whipped cream and decorated with slices of kiwi. It may not have been very high, but it tasted very good.

Welcome to our new web presence

Well, Steve predicted it several weeks ago when I was having trouble getting a straight answer from Photosite about Windows Vista compatibility. Photosite is no more. I got email this week saying they are going out of business.

We migrated all of our old albums from Photosite to Snapfish, which is what they offered customers. I'll be helping Katherine move hers soon. But I'd like to have a site where people can visit and look at the older entries, and it appears that Snapfish requires me to share albums rather than allowing visitors to choose which ones to see.

So here we are at the new bakers online blog. I am a Google fan and I like Picasa -- great photo editing software, totally free. It looks like I can upload photos here, which I'm going to try in the next post. I can also use Picasa to create online album

I've been fiddling with my new Picasa web albums site, and added some new photos, which you can find here.

Let me know what you think!