In the History of Birthday Presents...

My ukulele has to go down as one of the best, most thoughtful gifts I have ever received. On one of our first dates, I told Bret that I wanted to learn to play the ukulele and he remembered all these months later and surprised me with a ukulele for my birthday! I've been playing it everyday and LOVE it! My good friends, Josh and Amanda came to visit last week and Josh and I had fun playing guitar and ukulele together.

Here's one of our first attempts at a duet.

My Sweet Ellie is ONE!

My sweet niece turns one today. ONE! How has time flown by so quickly. I love this girl so much it hurts a little.

My Latest Project

Now that I'm a doctor and not writing that pesky dissertation, I have a more time to spend on being crafty and leisurely! For graduation, Mom and Dad got me a fantastic new sewing machine! I love it! It's so fancy and runs so smoothly!

My first project was a quilt for my niece's first birthday. The inspiration for my quilt design came from here. It's probably one of the simplistic quilt designs ever and I'm so happy with how it turned out!

My fabric:

                                                

Next, cut your fabric into strips. It's easy cause you don't have to make them all the same width. I think mine varied from 2"-5." Here's what it looked like after I pieced it together.

                                                

And the finished product (Don't mind the cat, he insists on laying in close proximity to me at all times).

The birthday girl with her new blankie!