Busy...Busy...Busy...

Its been very busy the past few weeks here, but I think I may have a chance to catch up on some blogging now.  Work has been busy as have things at home.  Somehow it got to be July and I have no idea how that happened.

So backing up a few weeks....

In mid-May, we spent the Saturday before Mother's day at my parents' house.  Its become an annual tradition for us to visit the Saturday before Mother's day and we celebrate Mother's day, my Mom's birthday and my sister's birthday.  We typically will take my Mom out to her local garden center and help her buy plants for her gardens and then help plant them before we leave.

I decided to do something a little different and brought a cake with us from a local bakery.  Its a great Italian bakery with traditional Italian cookies, but they also do some awesome cakes.  Here's a picture of it before we devoured it.  :c)


It was very yummy with marble cake on the inside with a mix of chocolate mouse and strawberries between the layers in the cake.  They do a great job with their cakes and they always look too pretty to cut into.

Around the same time, we noticed that a robin had made a nest behind our trellis.  Why it made the nest on the ground is beyond me... but she decided it was a good spot.  Three eggs in the nest initially, but she did lay a fourth egg later on.



It was really cute seeing the first two babies hatch.  Here they are along a few hours out of their shells.


The one downside... something did attack the nest after all four babies had hatched.  Initially one baby was missing, 2 were injured and the 4th was fine.  Then a few days later, only one baby (the uninjured one) was in the nest.  A week later... no baby bird.  We later found the remains of the bird in the lawn.  Since then, we've also seen a fox around the property, so I'm pretty sure the fox got the baby birds.


The good thing is that the rest of our garden is flourishing.  The picture above is from a few weeks ago, but the plants still look great.  These flowers are pretty much done at this point, but others are starting to come out now.

On the quilting front, I did finish all the straight-line and in-the-ditch quilting I need to do on my Mariner's Compass quilt.  I'm removing some of my basting stitches and then will show an in-process picture of the quilting.

Hope everyone is enjoying their summer so far!


Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations