Happy Birthday, Mom and Dad!

So, my parents share their birthday... kind of funny, but it's true! They were both born on the 25th of August, on different years though. This Saturday is their big day!

Each year it's hard to come up with something unique to give them. This year I decided to get with my siblings and decide on something to get them as a big group gift. My mom is amazing and has made each of her grandchildren multiple quilts... but she has never made one for herself.

So, we decided that each little family would choose a yard of fabric that reminded us of our mom, and a yard of fabric that reminded us of our dad... and we would put them all together and I would make them a quilt for their bed. After months of planning and working on it... I can finally post a picture to show everyone our top secret birthday present for them! (Don't worry... they opened their presents early since lots of the kids were over at their house tonight and won't be there on the actual day...) Here it is!

As you can tell, this is the quilt before all of the squares were sewn together. It's a really big quilt! I think it measures to be a king size, just right for their comfy waterbed...

I did green and blue framed squares for my dad, and pink and purple framed squares for my mom. Each of the fabrics has a story behind them. Here is one of my dad's. Cars: because he loves to work on old cars... Construction stuff: because he is such a hard worker... and the last one is an inside joke in our family... the lines are supposed to represent rubberbands. I won't go into the details of the joke... if you really want to know, you can e-mail me and I'll tell you. :)

Here's one of my mom's. There's little sewing bags on one because she loves to sew... the middle one has all kinds of candy on it, because she always has sweets around for all of us... especially suckers for her grandkids! and John Deere because she and my dad love John Deere tractors!

The other one for my dad. More construction because he's a hard worker... cars going camping, because he always made all of our family vacations memorable no matter where we went... and a nursing print because he is a nurse by profession... and he's the best nurse around! (I know from experience since he took care of Lincoln and Grace after they were born!)

And the last one for my mom. The tan fabric has little windows that say, "quilting shop" above them, since she loves to sew... the cheerleader print in the middle because she is always front row at all the soccer, baseball, choir concerts... anything. She's our biggest cheerleader... and the puzzle print because there was always a big puzzle being put together somewhere in the house growing up. Mom loves putting puzzles together into the wee hours of the night!And the finished product! I put pink on the back to make it extra cheerful! It's very bright and a little loud... but I think it represents our family well. :) (The picture shows the quilt folded into fourths... it's really lots bigger than that.)

My kids were so awesome these past few months as I sewed my little heart out in the attic! Luckily it was cool enough up there that they were able to play up there along side me. I had SO much fun putting it all together for them! They called me tonight and put me on speaker phone so that I could hear their reactions... and my brother-in-law was nice enough to record some of it and send it to me through e-mail. So, it's almost like I was there with them.

----------------------------------------------------

Happy Birthday, Mom and Dad! I hope you enjoy your new quilt! You are the greatest!