My New Stash and Other Fun Gifts

As previously mentioned, my in-laws stayed here last Friday night and Saturday while Andy and I celebrated our anniversary with an overnight trip to downtown Seattle. Having them stay here was fantastic. My father-in-law brought me this beautiful bouquet of tulips, straight from the Skagit Valley tulip fields. Tulips are my favorite flower. My "arrangement" is rather haphazard, but the flowers are still gorgeous. The silver tray was an anniversary gift as well, from Andy's grandmother, directly from her own silver collection. You can't see the details in this picture, but it's really quite lovely.


My mother-in-law is an avid quilter and an organizational wonder. This is good news for me. She cleaned out her fabric stash and brought this huge stack of fabric to me! Again, my photo does not do it justice. My MIL shops only at independent quilt and fabric stores, because she a) always shops for quality over quantity and b) lives in one of those rare and wonderful locations where she would have to travel some distance to get to a big chain store. Don't get me wrong, I do my fair share of big chain store patronization. But all of us who have used both big chain store fabric and independent quilt shop fabric know...the independents win hands down.

I don't really know why they came to babysit for us and we're the ones who got gifts, but I don't fight it.


There were still more benefits to having my parents-in-law stay at our house while we were away. (Besides the very obvious benefit of having someone to care for Elise.) When we returned on Saturday evening, my father-in-law had installed a safety guard on our fireplace hearth (after Elise bashed her head against it right before we left on Friday), fixed our loose kitchen faucet, and purchased doorstops for our bathrooms. My mother-in-law casually informed us that there were tuna noodle casserole leftovers in the fridge.


As far as I'm concerned, they can come and stay at our house any time.