Lotus Blossom

Snow Day!

2012-01-24T10:02:00.000-08:00

Phew - power's been back for a few days now, the house is toasty, and I can finally post some pictures.

Though we had snow on the ground for several days (and still have a bit) there were really only 2 days worth playing in. Thursday was about the greatest snow you could ask for. Light, fluffy, and DEEP! Sadly, we had freezing rain Friday which made it cold and icy to play in. We still tried, but it wasn't the same. It's tough knowing that we don't get out of school until June 20th now, but snow days hold such a special magic that it's so very worth it to me.

Stella was tring to catch snowflakes and caught a big fluffy one in the eye.

Oh, that face! She was sitting in a patio chair dry and "safe" under cover. She didn't know what she was in for.

She immediately tried to crawl when I put her down. It didn't take long for her to get frustrated and start crying (of course I got pictures of that too)!

While the snow wasn't much good to her she did enjoy tasting it!

I just LOVE the pure delight on that face. It makes those make-up days SO worth it!

She thought she was pretty funny coming at Mama with snowballs. Her idea of snowballs was hilarious. Most of the time she would just scoop up armfuls from the hood of my car and charge me. By the time she'd take a few steps it was gone.

I'm so very grateful that we live where we do. There was a man on the news that had flown into town during the storm. He was 48 years old and from California. He'd never seen snow. I can't even imagine being almost 50 years old and never having seen/played in snow! These memories with our girls are priceless.

Pioneer Women

2012-01-20T08:25:00.001-08:00

We've been out of power for 25.5 hours now and I'm done. I would have been the WORST pioneer woman! If it were just Jim and I it wouldn't be as bad, but it's rough with the littles. (especially Lucy). It's so cold so we decided to all sleep in the front room by the fireplace. Lu has never slept with us before so we couldn't get her to go to sleep and once she did I was terrified all night that she wasn't going to be able to breathe! I don't now how co-sleeping moms can ever relax with wee ones in their bed!

Finally, all 5 of us (the German shepherd too) were scrunched onto a deflating full-sized air mattress. Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep! When we woke up it was 41 in here! The power came back on and I about cried with joy but it was back off within about ten minutes. Thanks for the tease PSE! (seriously though, I'd bring all of those power guys hot coffee and cookies of only I had some way to make them)

We've been trying to make the best of it... Stella and I played with her new glasses, Nutella makes everything just a bit better and daddy read Harry Potter to Stella by the fire (she's still a bit too young). Now everyone except me is taking a nap.

I'm dying for a nice hot shower, coffee and a good nights sleep so I really hope it comes back on. If we don't get ours back I'm hoping one of my parents do so I can at least send the girls for the night!

Hope you're all warmer than we are! (I am kind of enjoying having a sleeping baby on my chest, that doesn't happen much anymore!)

Fostering a sister's bond

2012-01-12T10:06:00.000-08:00

When we found out we were pregnant for the second time, we both thought the baby would be a boy. We really didn't even consider much that it would be a girl. When we found out she was a girl, there was a moment of sadness for me (it was almost like we'd "lost" the boy that we'd been talking about and imagining for 4 months!) and then all I could think about was how great it would be for them growing and how close they'd be. I instantly pictured them going shopping and out to lunch when they're mamas, sitting by the fire in lounge pants with glasses of wine and talking late into the night and sharing laughter and tears.

I know all too well that not all sisters have this special kind of bond. I've seen (and experienced) it first hand. My sister and I are 8 years apart. Maybe it's because we didn't live in the same house growing up or because we were always at different points in our lives, but sadly, we don't have the closest relationship. We love each other, but aren't close. I can't help but think that part of the reason may be because we don't have the same mom. We missed out on doing girly things together (shopping/lunch/baking/crafting).

I look forward to these things with them, but it also adds some pressure! I know that they'll have their issues through their teen years, but I SO BADLY want them to be really close as they grow up and especially when they're grown. It's something that I make a concious effort to foster on a regular basis.

From the time I was pregnant, Lucy was Stella's baby. We often talk about how one of her most important jobs is to always be sure Lucy is taken care of and protected (we'll have the same conversations with Lu someday). We always talk about how they'll always be there for each other and be each other's biggest supporters. As they get older, both Jim and I will have special days with them together to try to encourage them to have fun together and to be friends.

Lucy is getting more fun to play with all of the time now and we're all loving it! The other morning Stella, Lucy and I were up in Stella's room. Stella started pushing Lucy back onto the bed saying, "I'm gonna take you down!" I was about to stop her but Lucy was squealing with delight! They did this repeatedly for about 10 minutes and I just sat watching with a smile on my face.

Stella got a huge cardboard princess castle that you color and Lucy wanted to help us. (I think we spent about 3 HOURS coloring this thing last weekend!)

Stella drinking her cocoa with her blankets is something that happens every morning and every night at our house. (It's not really cocoa, just instant breakfast to try to get some calories in the girl!) Lu is getting big enough to sit with her on the couch.

Trying to get Stella's attention...

I know they're little, but they are so crazy about each other, it makes my heart sing! I was so worried about jealousy issues before Lucy was born but much to our surprise there hasn't been any of that. I feel so blessed that I get to watch the relationship grow and to have been chosen to be in their lives.

What do you think? Any tips on fostering bonds? Am I putting more pressure on myself than I should? It's one of my biggest Mama goals!

Saturday

2012-01-07T12:55:00.001-08:00

Watching Parenthood, kind a wishing our little fam was a bit bigger but trusting that He's given us exactly what we're meant to have.

Listening to a little one waking from a long nap, hubby playing guitar, and Spongebob (ok, ok, I could do without that last one sometimes).

Knitting with Stella snuggling on my lap. I finished Lu's sweater, now I need to get Stella's Drive-Thru done so I can start on some fun/quick little knits.

These are my favorite kinds of days.

Hope you're enjoying your Saturday!

My favorite Christmas gift

2012-01-02T18:50:00.000-08:00

After 2 glorious weeks as a stay-at-home family it's back to work for Jim and I tomorrow. I'm sure we're more upset about this than the girls are, they LOVE going to Sheri's and miss her when they don't "get" to go! It's been wonderful and busy. I haven't wanted to spend a single moment of it on the computer which means no blog updates. Hopefully I'll be back soon with updates about the holidays and the birthday of a very special little girl!

For now, I'm going to share my favorite material gift of the season (because no gift is better than my little fam!) Now that Lu is officially done nursing I can start wearing perfume again. I'm not a huge perfume girl, but it is nice once in a while - kind of like lipstick. Jim got me this perfume sampler from Sephora!

There are a couple of samplers to choose from. I'd heard good things about both Dolce & Gabbana's Light Blue and Jennifer Aniston's perfume. I picked the one with Light Blue because when you check out Jennifer Aniston's was one of the samplers to choose from so I actually got both. The best part of it is that you get a certificate for a full sized bottle of any of the perfumes you choose! I don't know about you, but it's so overwhelming for me to try to go pick a perfume. They all start to smell the same to me within minutes and it's so great to be able to smell one at a time all day long. If you're in need of a present I can't recommend this enough.

Do you have any "Favorite Things" to share?

Denial

2011-12-12T10:29:00.000-08:00

When I was pregnant with Stella I didn't really look that big (all due to her and my height - she was only 5lb 10oz and I'm fairly tall).

When I was pregnant with Lucy Jim told me at about 6 months that I looked as big at that time as I did just before I delivered Stella. This is NOT the kind of thing a girl wants to hear from her husband and I knew I was bigger, but I didn't honestly think I was THAT big...!

I was looking for some old pictures last night and ended up looking at Lucy's newborn pictures. THIS is one of the pictures that jumped out at me. Taken the morning Lucy was born before we headed out to the hospital. That thing is RIDICULOUS - it doesn't even look real! I remember being in Target a few weeks before she was born and I was kind of bent over looking at nail polish. When I stood up and turned a girl walking down the aisle let out a loud (and scared sounding), "AWK!" She tried to cover, but it was obvious.

Yep, I was in denial - that thing was out of control! Still, wish I could feel those little feet kicking around again and feel the anticipation. There's nothing like it in the world!

This post has nothing to do with anything but I know someday while I'm going through old posts I'll get a good laugh out of it again! Plus, maybe it will make some of you girls who are still preggo feel a bit better, "at least I'm not THAT big!" ;)

Advent Fun

2011-12-06T12:14:00.000-08:00

This isn't the first time I've mentioned that I made an advent calendar last year but it didn't hold up well and there was no good way to store it so it was dumped at the end of the season. I went around and around about what kind of calendar to make this year, scouring Pinterest, Flickr, and the web in general looking for ideas. I narrowed it down to two:

Oh, how I LOVE this one! There are two issues however... Virtually nothing will fit in one of those little mittens, I didn't have time to knit them all, I couldn't decide on colors, I kind of want each girl to have their own they can take someday and I REALLY don't have time to knit two! (ok, that's four issues). I think I may work on this for next year just to hang from the mantel because I do love it so much.

This is the inspiration for mine. (found on Pinterest). I really like the idea of it but I wondered how long it would need to be to fit 24 numbers and I wanted their names at the top.

So... I ordered their names and numbers 1-24 in vinyl. I got 2 boards, clothespins, ribbon, and glue from JoAnns. When I got home with the boards I quickly realized the numbers were MUCH too big so I ended up getting 2 sets of numbers meant for board games or something.

I painted the boards white, glued ribbon to the clothespins, and glued everything to the boards.

As I've mentioned, some of our days are activities, while others are small gifts. I got a piece of red/white paper to write the activities on and hung them from the pins.

Here's Stella's finished with her wrapped gifts. It's a bit more jumbled than I'd care for, but it seems to be working well. So far the only issue is that without fail, Stella wants whatever Lucy has. Last night I finally had to tell her that if she whines about what she gets again and wanting Lu's I'll be taking the rest of her gifts down and donating them. We spend a lot of time talking about having a grateful heart and how blessed we are. I need to find some new ways to express that to her because I'm not sure she gets it.

I know "activity only" Advent calendars are big right now, but I like finding little things for them (mostly from the dollar section at Tarjay) and frankly, I wouldn't make it doing activities everyday for 24 days! I like that they each have their own, I'm always thinking that one day I want them to each be able to have things to take with them when they move out. It's crazy because I don't even know if these boards will survive the next year! Like I said, I'm kind of a nutty worrier of a Mama.

Christmas pictures

2011-12-06T10:24:00.000-08:00

I have a whole list of Christmas pictures I want to take this year. I've checked the first two off my list. The first is of Lu's chubby little legs/feet with our 24 days of wrapped books. I can't get enough of those toes, I wish I could keep them forever.

The next shot I wanted to get was of Lucy in a wrapped box. Stella was asleep on the couch, Jim was gone, and the dog was being his normal 'I need to be right in the middle of everything' self. I was trying out a lens that I'd rented and fighting the dog and lack of light so they left a lot to be desired. Sadly, the cutest ones weren't focused on her face.

This is her, "whoa, what the heck am I doing in here?" picture:

Here's, "oooh... it's fun to tear up the paper". I LOVE the tongue sticking out concentration. Stella does this too, so does my Grandpa. Tearing the paper was followed up by tasting the paper. The photo shoot was continuously interrupted by me get up off of my belly and crawling over to her to get it out of her mouth.

Finally, we have, "hey, I can get up on my knees and look over the side..." This is the last picture I got, can you see where it's going?

Yep, baby faceplant (her first but not last of the weekend)

They're not professional quality but I'm ok with that. The memories are better this way. ;)

Polar Express!

2011-12-05T12:17:00.000-08:00

Our Advent calendar activity Friday night was to have a movie night and watch the Polar Express. I think the movie is so beautiful and this year Stella got into it much more than she has previously. She asked a ton of questions about the train and told me that she wanted to go on a train to see Santa. I played it cool, "hmmm, really? Yeah, that would be fun... we'll see..." HA HA - inside I was fist pumping and cheering. She'd fallen right into my plan. You see, the next day's activity was to ride the Polar Express train!

Saturday we'd planned to get family Christmas pictures taken (which Stella was well aware of) and we hadn't told her about the train. She asked for her calendar for the day and I "read" it to her but I told her that we were going to get our pictures taken and then go to dinner. She frowned and said, "well that's not a very exciting activity". Oh Stella, just wait my love!

When we finally got to the train Stella was in disbelief. Check out that, "is this actually happening?" look on her face, I LOVE it! She doesn't get excited about doing stuff like this. You'd think she's not having fun at all. Actually, she's just soaking up every single second of it. She will talk about every detail for a long time to come (she actually told me about going to see Scrooge last Christmas - she remembered things I didn't)

Mama and Lu snuggling. It was SO cold! Thankfully we'd brought blankets for the girls and our picnic blanket was in my trunk. It took the entire ride home for my toes to thaw.

The girls

The whole fam (decent considering we just asked the people next to us to snap one quick pic)

Santa giving Stella her bell.

He gave one to Lu too with a little, "aww..." She loved it!

This is it for our Santa pic for the year. We don't ever do anything with them so there's no way I'm going to take them to the mall for another pic. I'm perfectly happy! We actually got a few and I couldn't believe that Lucy didn't mind him at all. Maybe next year will be the hysterical year - every kid needs to have at least one.

It wasn't fancy, but it was a great outing for our family. I adore making memories with these 3 people, I'm so very lucky to get to be part of their lives.

Wreath mania!

2011-12-01T11:33:00.000-08:00

We're hosting Jim's families Christmas this year so I want to amp up our decorations a bit without spending a lot of money. Stella and I made three new super easy wreaths that I'm pretty happy with overall.
The first is an ornament wreath for the front door. Seriously, SO easy! We untwisted a wire hanger, threaded on our ornaments, twisted it back together. I have seen people who have issues with their balls popping off and suggest glueing the tops on before stringing them onto the hanger but I tested ours and they were pretty tight (and I didn't want to spend that much time on it), so I was a rebel and did without the glue!

The second is my yarn wreath which I think is fitting for any knitter! At first I was trying to be so careful about wrapping the yarn and glueing it every few rows but then when I looked at some on Pinterest I actually liked the ones that were a bit less uniform better so I just started wrapping like crazy and glued it at the end. I've been making felt flowers for headbands for the girls so I had felt on hand and cut some spirals for flowers, glued a pearl in the middle, and DONE! The only thing I'm not thrilled about is that I tried making my own wreath form like I'd seen on Pinterest and it's not perfectly round. If I were to do this one again I'd spring for a premade wreath form. I did turn it so it looks a bit better now (I put the wonky spot under the yarn hanging it.)

You can see our new PB stockings here... I've wanted them for years and when I tried to order them they were gone. On a whim I checked one more time a few weeks ago and they had them! We spray painted the "JOY" letters too.

The last wreath we made was a boa wreath. I saw one on Pinterest and immediately fell in love with the fluffy soft white loveliness. Have you noticed when you take pictures of your house you notice things that you don't notice otherwise? Here I noticed that the blue tealight holders are spread too far apart... I've moved them! (Just a little something that helps me get perspective on things - I do it with my haircuts too!) I'm not in love with the color of the ribbon, I'd picked a cozy copper color but it didn't go with the colors on the mantel and Jim liked the green better. Next year I'll probably change it out for something a bit more subtle. I also have some mercury glass candle holders that I'm going to switch out for the "peace" and "joy" ones because I ADORE mercury glass and they'll probably get some pretty new candles.

Our last Christmas craft so far is our PB inspired NOEL. Note... Check out our nativity. I set it up and when Stella got up she "arranged" them for me. Such a nice little straight row they're all in - yep, she's definitely my girl!

I tried to get a picture to show the finish of the paint but it doesn't show up very well. I really like it in person, it has a bit of a metallic look to it.

I've been taking pictures of Bob's adventures, I'll try to post those soon. Today we get to start our Advent Calendar which I'm so excited for and opening a new book a day. (Stella could tell that they were books and asked me if they were new books or books from our bookshelf. She's way too smart for us and onto all of my tricks!)

Mama guilt

2011-11-29T10:29:00.000-08:00

If I get home and get some pictures taken while it's light out I'll be back soon with pictures of Bob (our elf), our new advent calendars, and our new wreaths! We got our tree this weekend too. Stella had a great time decorating it (I'm refraining from "fixing" it though it looks like someone chucked mardi gras beads at it).

I love this one of Jim and Stella!

For today however...

I tend to be a BIG worrier, and I think I carry a lot of guilt. Not two of my better qualities, but we all have our things right? One of the biggest causes of guilt for me is Mama guilt. I feel bad I don't spend all day everyday with them (even though Stella was sobbing Sunday when I mentioned we may have to stay home Monday if her fever didn't break. She said she missed her friends - love that!), I feel guilty we don't have more fresh homemade meals, homemade quilts/clothes/accessories, etc. The most recent cause for my guilt is Lucy weaning. Stella and I only made it for about 2 1/2 months before she weaned when I went back to work. I REALLY wanted to nurse Lu for longer and was thrilled that I'd be home with her for 5 months before returning to work. I also planned on pumping while at work this time around and let me tell you how much fun THAT was! My goal was to nurse until she was 6 months old. I always said when she's old enough to walk up to me and ask for it or pull my shirt up I was DONE. Each person has their own views on breastfeeding and/or comfort levels, and that's been where I start to get uncomfortable with it.

Lucy was 8 months old yesterday and over the past week or so she's been less and less interested in nursing and I was getting less when I pumped. I was down to once a day at school (that meant I got my lunchtime back) and nursing once or twice a day. Yesterday I forgot the bottles so I didn't pump and then I didn't bring them today. Now, I'd MUCH MUCH MUCH prefer her to wean herself when she's ready so we don't have to go through the trauma and misery of me denying her and I made it past my 6 month goal. She'd much prefer real food to bottles and there's no doubt she's growing just fine, so it's crazy for me to feel bad about it, but I do.

I know it's nothing to feel guilty over, perhaps it's not as much guilt as sadness that it's coming to an end and that means she's getting older and more independent. I'm such a sap! When she sprouts that first tooth I'm going to lose it - those gummy grins are one of my favorite things!

I haven't even touched on my irrational and totally excessive worrying and anxiety, I've been told more than once that I need medication! Do any of you have irrational guilt? What things set you off?

A finished hat!

2011-11-20T16:36:00.001-08:00

I finished a new hat for Jim last week but it's wool so he's decided it's too itchy for his bald head. :( Anyone know of a guy with hair that would like a new wool hat???

I finished one for Lu tonight that seems to be a bit more successful though she's not a fan of wearing hats. I used some Berroco Flicker that I won in a blog giveaway. I LOVE it! It's soft, a little sparkly, and I still have enough for a hat for me - yay! I had to add just a bit of pink so people can tell she's a girl (which still doesn't always clue people in...)

The addition of the brim is what makes this hat in my opinion. It was a great fast easy knit that I highly recommend. Now I can start on Stella's sweater, a hat for me, or a new hat for Jim... I think Jim's going to be last in line. ;)

Crafty crafterson...

2011-11-19T19:34:00.001-08:00

I've been getting my craft on (and loving it) the past two weeks. I've also been on the hunt for the PERFECT advent calendar for the past two years.

Last year Stella and I made a paper forest. While it was cute, it wasn't very functional since not much fit under the trees and I didn't consider how I'd store them when I decided to make it.

Here they are if the link works when posting from my phone.

http://lotus-blossoms.blogspot.com/2010/11/23-weeks-and-something-non-baby-finally.html?m=1

I've been scouring Pinterest for months now trying to decide what to do next. Halfway through and I'm seeing a LOT of potential for things going wrong... I think I should have stuck to one color of ribbon and it looks like its going to be a measuring nightmare for my anal self! What I really want to do is to knit one but I wouldn't be able to fit much in that either... If this doesn't work I'm definite going to try a knit one next year though!

Wish me luck!

Helping an almost four year old wait

2011-11-17T09:23:00.000-08:00

I am NOT a patient person. When I decided I want my haircut, I want it that day. If I want to do a craft I want to do it now. I'm sure Stella has gotten a bit of that from me. In addition, she's not quite four. Waiting for anything is pure torture when you're that age. When we have something fun planned we don't usually tell her until a day or so before just because we know how hard it will be.

She is also a little decorating diva, she loves to help me decorate the house and her room (she always says, "let's step back and see how it looks"). All of this to say she is DYING to start decorating for Christmas! We've been working on a few new things and she wants to put them up so badly she can't stand herself. I feel like I'm always trying to help her with time by saying, "today is this, tomorrow this" etc until we get to the event we're looking forward to.

I decided to make her a little daily countdown. She can't read so I needed a way to help her distinguish between the different days. This is what I came up with:

I put a clipart picture of something happening each day that I could think of to help her visualize (gym, going to Haley's 1st soccer game, Thanksgiving) until finally we get to the last day with the elf representing Bob, our Elf on the Shelf, and the tree. The day after Thanksgiving we get to go cut down our tree and decorate the house. She's getting into it and looks forward to crossing of each box at the end of the day. If I'm honest I'm probably more impatient than she is!

I've also been planned out our advent calendar for this year. I didn't want to spend as much on them as last year. Buying things for 24 days adds up even if you're trying to be careful. I tried to plan some activities and I hit up the $1 section at Target to fill in gaps. Some of the days may change of course, but I'm hoping to make it a bit easier on myself this year to have the days set ahead of time. I'm making them each new calendars this year and it needs to have all of the presents ready from the beginning so I'm glad it's done. Now I just need to finish them up so I can post some pictures!

*Edited to add MORE activity ideas, I can't believe I forgot some of these!!!

~Zoo lights

~make glitter ornaments

~letter to Santa

~sign Stella up for video from Santa

~make magic reindeer food

~pipe cleaner candy canes

~cottonball snow(wo)man

~handprint wreath (fun!)

~paper plate/cottonball santa

2011-11-09T12:22:00.000-08:00

My stint as a single Mama will come to an end tonight and I'm SO stinking excited to have Jim home! Though we missed him desperately, we did manage to do ok on our own (though I didn't get a single fire and I missed them). I just have to get through conferences tonight - YUCK, as my neighbor teacher said, the worst night of the year! :(

Lula bug is now waving "bye bye" to me when I leave in the morning and even almost says something that sounds like "bu bu". She also says, "mamamamamama" which I wasn't going to count as mama, but she definitely says it when she's upset/waking up and it's recognizable to others, so I just may claim it as her first word! Even though it's a sad little whimper, I think it's one of the cutest things I've heard in my entire life!

I finally got around to writing down an interview that Stella and I had during our tea party the week before school started. I look forward to doing these each year and eventually making a book out of them.

Happy Halloween! (I'm already thinking about Christmas!)

2011-10-31T15:21:00.001-07:00

My little Lovelies all done up with matching headbands Mama made last night (and this morning) with felt and feathers. Yeah, I'm that Mom. What can I say, I guess I love having little girls. Jim says they're my little dolls. I say Stella is MUCH too opinionated to be anybodies doll! I'm crossing my fingers that Lula Bug will let me put her in jeans and Toms/Converse! ;)

We will be out Trick-or-Treating with Snow White and a chunky monkey tonight.

Have a fun and safe night tonight and don't forget to pull 24 pieces of candy (per little one) to make a candy garland countdown for December with me!

The little things that get me.

2011-10-22T19:37:00.001-07:00

There seem to have been a lot of changes around here lately. In a matter of days Lucy started feeding herself finger food, clapping, jumping in her jumper, scooching on her belly, and saying, "mamamama" (I know it doesn't count as talking or Mama but it's still darling!)

Stella's changes are less measurable but no less noticeable to me. The thing that's really gotten to me lately are her feet! I've been saying she's not a toddler anymore for a while now but the changes in her feet are making me sad. I'm nuts huh? She has kid feet instead of toddler feet and I haven't been able to get over it, Jim's tired of me talking about it! It's funny the stuff that hits you. Before that it was her coloring. She tries to really color things and much like another type A person in our house she wants things to be 'right'. The poor girl couldn't even color a spider for a contest anything but black because that's the color they are and she wants to win. We tried to suggest purple but that wasn't going to fly.

Time is going MUCH too quickly. They're still little and I already stress over and dread the day they leave. The house is so loud with two little girls screeching and though there are moments I'd like a bit of quiet, I can't stand the thought of a Saturday morning in this house without those sounds.

*Lu's my little bread loving girl. Here she's enjoying some Albertsons 4:00 bread like her Mama has so many times. The picture of Stella is from Jim's phone taken last Sunday when I was at a photography class. I love getting glimpses of their time together.

My Lil Pumpkin

2011-10-11T09:51:00.001-07:00

I'm posting from my phone again. Jim's hogging the computer, Stella is sleeping on my shoulder, and the fire's crackling! I don't mind except that all of the pictures just pike up at the end.

Lu is getting so big! I swear she looked different when I got her home yesterday and all of the sudden today we have a little one who can feed herself finger food and is beginning to scooch on her belly!

This little girl just OOZES love. She squeals, kicks, and flaps her arms when one if us approach her or talk to her. She is just so darn happy!

Stella loves to feed her and surprisingly Lucy likes Stella feeding her. Stella also loves to play with her which I must admit surprised me a bit given their age difference. Initially I'd hoped to have kids about 2 years apart so they would be able to go to school together for a year. Now, I'm so glad that my plan wasn't THE Plan. I think they're perfect! Stella understands, can help, and appreciate having a sister. She's constantly telling me how much she loves Lu, snuggling her, and playing with her. I've also been pleasantly surprised that we've still had no jealousy issues even though Stella was a total Mama's girl. We are do very blessed!

* edited to add: some words are strange due to iPhones lovely autocorrect and I know that 3rd picture is so blurry but I just had to include it because I adore that smile!

The purpose of blog reading and how Pinterest is taking over...

2011-10-10T13:08:00.000-07:00

I first stumbled upon blogs when I was knitting and looking for patterns. Not long after I fell in love with Google Reader and could quickly and easily add new blogs and check blogs. I now subscribe to very few of those original knitting blogs but have added "deal" blogs, a few friends, and a lot of DIY/decorating and baking blogs.

At some point, checking Reader became more of a chore. Now I just mark the deal websites as "read", skim the DIY, and have a few that I save for the end to actually look at. There are even a few that 90% of the time I leave just feeling annoyed. I've unsubscribed several times, but I keep thinking that if it's not someone I care to read about their family or leave feeling inspired/happy I'm wasting my time reading. I already learn FAR more about most people than I ever care to know via Facebook and now we get much fewer interesting and new ideas with Pinterest.

I could share the DARLING headbands I made for the girls this weekend, but anyone who would care about headbands for little girls has probably seen them all over Pinterest. I feel like pretty soon we're all going to have identical pictures/crafts/food because everyone pins the same things. This is another reason I think I could cut down on the blogs I read - if there's a great idea, it will show up on Pinterest!

There are things that I LOVE about the interenet and its effect on me as a Mama. I learn a TON, get questions answered quickly, and get a lot of ideas. However, I also think that it makes us more competitive. People are "sharing" what they do, but sometimes it feels more self-promotion? I can't even come up with a word, but I know that at times it makes me feel like I'm not doing enough. I'm not home with my girls all day, I don't have amazing home cooked meals every night, I didn't even make the hand-decorated sugar cookies that I bought the cookie cutter for for Lu's baptism (gasp - I let it go...), my photos are professional quality, I haven't sewn/knit them all of the things on my list, and ON and ON. In my heart I know that I'm making choices that are best for our family and that I'm enough for them, but it still leaves me feeling like it's not enough at times. I need to remind myself that it's not one mom doing all of these and that what I'm doing is enough.

I realize I'm probably sounding negative, and I don't intend to be. I do enjoy reading blogs and will continue to keep up some of them with people on Facebook, but I think I need to put myself on somewhat of a "tech diet". I'm finding myself wanting to just turn things off and hunker down with my all too rapidly growing girls.

So, for the handful of people who read this, I apologize if I completely bore you, but this lil blog is going to be pretty much dedicated to documenting the wee ones. They're

I'm trying to ward off a panic attack!

2011-10-07T11:22:00.000-07:00

Jim just called me and told me that he's going to be gone for FOUR nights in November! I'm trying not to panic (yes, I know there are MUCH worse things that could be happening), but I'm not looking forward to being a single mama for almost a week! I keep thinking of all of the things I'll be alone for... trying to get myself and two girls out of the house on time in the mornings, bed times, dinner, I highly dislike going to bed when he's not home, and I may go crazy without having him around to talk to in the evenings. (not to mention that there's a really good chance the girls won't get baths while he's gone!)

I'm afraid he's going to return home to this:

Go ahead, tell me what a baby I am. I can take it!

Browsing Etsy

2011-10-05T13:14:00.000-07:00

I'm ordering the silver to FINALLY make my bracelet with Lucy's song lyrics on it and decided that I really want a new necklace too. I made two before Lucy was born. One I wear daily - it's just two tiny circles with their initials on them. I do love it and it's perfect for a girl like me who does not really like big flashy blingy necklaces. I also made one with two larger square pendants and a pearl. I stamped their names on the squares. I liked it when I saw a similar one, but I don't actually like to wear it. It's too loud! The pieces jingle and jangle all day and make me CRAZY! So, I went back to Etsy shopping.

Simple:

This isn't the most exciting, but it's classic and has always been popular in the shop. I like it!

I like this one but I'm not sold and I'm afraid it will be as loud as the two squares.

I know there are still two pieces, but I think I really like this one. I wouldn't put the birthstones though, either pearls or nothing and I don't know if I'd hammer it.

I kind of like how they just threaded the chain through the washers for this one. I'd probably add a pearl in the middle and I'm not a fan of the beaded chains.

This is my sister-in-laws. Again, I like it but I'm not over the moon...

I'm kind of impatient, but then again I guess I should wait until I know what I want. Anyone seen a stamped Mom's necklace that they love? I'd love any ideas! (mine will definitely have the new font on it) :)

Products

2011-10-03T12:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we went to the wedding of one of my all time favorite students (oh wait, teachers don't have favorites). She also just happened to finish college with a math ed degree just months before Lu was born and she was my sub while I was out. She looked gorgeous and the facility was so perfect it almost made me want to get married again, it would definitely be my choice!

Anyway, I'm taking a break from dishes and putting off sewing (I decided to make Stella's Halloween costume and think I'm in WAY over my head). I'm making baby food and thought I'd tell you about something that's making it so much easier this time around. I got this immersion blender from Amazon (love their free 2-day prime shipping!) It's making baby food making process so much quicker and less messy this time around. I can't wait to make butternut squash soup with it too!

I'm also liking Sally Hansen's Salon Effects. I put my first pair on Friday night for the wedding Saturday. They made it through chore day yesterday and still look like they did the first night. I'm hoping they'll make it through another wedding this Saturday. They're a bit pricey, but I'm sure I'll do them again sometime. Here's a cell phone pic of them. Super easy to use!

Walgreens has special edition Halloween ones that Stella and I will most definitely be trying out! How cute are those ghosts? I think if I cut the strips I can use one pack for both Stella and I.

Finally, I got a few new apps for my phone last week and really like one of them. I've been using GroceryIQ for a while now for my grocery list and I've really liked it. I found ZipList though and thoug it's taking a bit to adjust, I think I'm going to like it better because you can link it. Jim has it on his phone and you log on to you account so you can add to the list from either of our phones or a computer. The only drawback so far is that while I was shopping yesterday new things kept popping up on my list. I think I'll need to make sure that he knows that the list needs to be done BEFORE I'm shopping, not while.

Happy Birthday my littlest love!

2011-09-28T20:38:00.001-07:00

Lula Bug is 6 months old today. She's been sitting for about a week and a half now, she's fabulous for Sheri during the day, and she has all three of us head over heels in love with her!

She gets so very excited to see each of us, her chubby little arms and legs go crazy and she gets a huge grin. I think she's going to be a little blend of the three of us. Stella is a little firecracker who loves to be the star os the show. She's dramatic and can rally as late (or later) than most of the adults. Lu is more like Mama. I think she might be a bit quieter and she definitely hits her wall and wants to be home in her jammies sleeping. While she may be less dramatic and a bit quieter (and at only 6 months old it's tough to really be sure), when she does get mad she gets MAD. Nobody will be pushing her around.

She's getting big enough to start playing with Stella and it's quite common for Stella to be running around like a crazy person while Lucy is in complete hysterics. I just can't get enough of these two.

We hit the Dr today and she's 27 inches, 17 pounds 3 ounces. She's the same length Stella was but 2 pounds heavier. It's so strange to have a baby in the 84% for weight, Stella was always in the 20's!

She's happy, she's healthy, funny, and beautiful. We are so very lucky to have the opportunity to know her and to be part of her life.

* On a totally different subject, Stella wants "something new" in her hair and I have no idea what to do. I'm a ponytail girl! I think I need to find a website with ideas...

A little crafty love for the girls' rooms.

2011-09-27T10:12:00.000-07:00

Stella had a mobile on her crib, but we never really used it. When it was time to decorate Lu's nursery I didn't even bother with one. Then... I saw one on Pinterest (of course) and knew I NEEDED to make her one. Of course, you can't do something for one and not the other little one these days so I made one for each of the girls' rooms.

They're just simple little pinwheel mobiles. Here's a shot from below:

I didn't hang it above her crib, but above the glider. (which I LOVE by the way! Perfect for those middle of the night feedings now that we finally had to move her to her own room). She loves it and it's so pretty when they spin. The only drawback to having it here is that on the rare occasion we actually nurse in her room durning the day she gets distracted by it!

In family news, we braved the Puyallup Fair Saturday evening. What a mistake! We definitely need to remember NOT to go in the evening and NOT on the last Saturday ever again. It was so crowded and Lu ended up getting pretty crabby and tired. It's so funny how different these two girls are. I swear Stella can rally through anything. As long as she's up and there are people around she goes (and happily). Lucy on the other hand is probably more like her mama. When it's time for bed she's DONE and she wants to be home in her own bed. It will be interesting to see how she handles an upcoming wedding and then the holidays. Yikes!

Daddy having fun with his girl:

The third year these two have been able to go on the Giant Slide together - they both love it!

That's the face I get when I tell her to smile... nice!

Stella and her cousin at her grandma's wedding. Someone asked if they were twins. I see the resemblance I guess, but not to the extent of twins! He's a little blonde and she is NOT blonde! ;)

Frivolity...

2011-09-20T10:33:00.000-07:00

Do you have a signature style? I think I have a signature look, but it definitely cannot by called "style". I love all sweaters, but I'm am completely nutball crazy over cardigans! Long-sleeved or short, with or without a belt, cabled or fine knit, fancy buttons, hand-knit, I have and love them all. I was missing my "old-man library sweater that I knit and about had a meltdown. Literally, I was close to tears 3 or 4 times... I actually CHEERED when I found it a few weeks ago and almost cried again! I don't think anyone else who saw it would like it at all but I'm in serious love with it (and the smell of the wool, why don't more wool sweaters smell like wool?)

For school I wear my sweaters with some kind of khaki pants, outside of school I wear them with jeans. JEANS, my other clothing love! Now, I don't not have the typical girl build. I am pretty much the same width from my hips all the way up to my ribcage and it's not the most flattering shape. I don't have much of a backside either. It creates quite a problem when buying pants. If pants fit my hips/rear, I have serious muffin top happening but if I buy them to fit my waist you can grab a full fist of extra fabric in the back (and my lovely husband often does). With the extra baby belly still this problem is even worse than usual. When buying pants for school late this summer I was kind of between sizes but I took a risk and got the smaller size thinking that (hopefully) I'll lose weight when Lu becomes mobile like I did with Stella and I knew I'd lose a bit when I started back to school. These new pants to give me a bit of the dreaded muffin top, BUT enter Gap's Perfect Boot:

I haven't purchased a pair of Gap jeans since my Long and Leans YEARS ago but Katie from Bower Power mentioned how well these work post-pregnancy last year and I kept that little tip in the back of my mind for after Lucy was born. She was so right! They sit a bit higher on the waist and that thick waistband is awesome. A bit more weightloss and I think the love handles will completely disappear in them! I still love my old Sevens and Citizens, but a couple of my favs are getting a bit sad looking and these are nice and dark.

Speaking of that, I saw a blog post where she dyed her favorite capris to get that nice dark look again... I should see if I can find it and try it on mine!

Finally, am I the only grown woman who didn't know that the ridges on bobby pins are supposed to go towards your head?!?! Seriously, the things you learn on Pinterest! Try it, I've had a lot less bobby pin slippage since I made the change!

And just because posts without pictures of at least one of my loves are no fun for me...

A cell phone pic of Lucy sitting this weekend. I swear I was just pregnant! (and as much as I ADORE a little bitty to snuggle with, I was telling Jim this morning that it will be so. very. much. fun. when she is Stella's age. I think that 4/5 age might be as fun as it can possibly get!) I used to kind of think that if God gave us an "oops" miracle 3rd baby it would be so cool... I take it back ;)

Organization and preparation are saving my hide!

2011-09-16T14:42:00.000-07:00

I've been trying really hard to stay organized and get things ready BEFORE they're needed. At night I: set coffee, get my lunch/water ready, set out all of our clothes, get Stella's milk/cocoa cup ready, get dinner for the following day prepped, and get all (4 or 5) of our bags packed. I don't really like spending my evenings that way, but it makes our mornings go so much more smoothly.

Afternoons have proven to be the most challenging time for us. Jim usually isn't home when the girls and I get home. All 3 of us are tired, hungry, and often a bit crabby. Someday when Lu is a bit bigger I envision us all coming home and curling up on the couch together for a bit to unwind before we do anything. For now, I'm tyring to get Stella a snack and a show, Lula bug out of her carseat, possibly fed, and hold/snuggle her while trying to get bags unpacked and dinner started. Lucy usually goes to be between 6-6:30 so that doesn't give us much quality time with her. Because of this, I've been trying really hard to be good about meal planning and utilizing freezer meals as well as our crockpot. The week usually looks a little something like this: Sunday - cook a "real" dinner, weeknights - 2 crockpot dinners, one freezer, one leftover, and one "quick n easy". It's actually been working out really well. We'll see how long it takes for us to get completely sick of crockpot dinners! I warned Jim and apologized, but right now time with my loves is much more important than food. (then again, I could easily live on cereal for dinner 5 nights a week!)

I'm in the process of making a new cooking binder to organize the dinners that we have most frequently. I've made a cover sheet divided into the 4 categories I'm using (crockpot/freezer/quick n easy/"cooking") and the recipes are organized in the binder in sections. In addition to making it easier to find a recipe, I'm hoping that the cover sheet will make it easier for me to come up with menus. I always seem to struggle with figuring out what to have for dinner for a week.

New this week, I planned out our next TWO weeks and I'm going to try to get up early tomorrow morning to do the shopping for the next two weeks. I'm hoping that it will cut out a trip every other weekend and thus scratch one thing from my "to-do" list and increase family time.

I got this from a blog (I originally saw it on Pinterest). I tweaked it for our house (the picture shown is the original), changing the font and the title. I put it in a frame an it sits on the kitchen counter. I write directly on the glass with a dry erase marker and Jim doesn't have to ask me what's for dinner anymore - brilliant!

Now if I could just figure out a way to cut the house cleaning and laundry from our overloaded weekends that would be fabulous!

Happy Friday, I'm headed home to love up on my girlies for a couple of days!

A first...

2011-09-13T20:16:00.001-07:00

My lovely girls got into their first little spat tonight. Lucy took Stellas shoebox and was chewing on it. Stella does NOT appreciate slogged on any of her things and apparently a useless shoebox is no exception. She tried to take it from Lucy. Lu did NOT like her big did taking something from her. She held on tightly and yelled at Stella. I guess Stella wasn't expecting that because she started crying which then made Lucy start crying! seeing Lucy cry made Stella feel bad so she gave up the precious shoebox.

It lasted just seconds but I was laughing and thinking that this is the beginning of so many fights in this house. (Jim was pretty bummed that he missed it.)

I love how much they adore each other already but we've known that things won't always be peachy. The number one thing is that they know we are always a team and we always love and protect each other. We already talk about it on a regular basis.

A picture of Lucy that Sheri sent me while I wad at work. That woman is one of the best people I've ever known!

2011-09-13T19:09:00.001-07:00

Still trying to use my phone to post...

My favorite moments

2011-09-12T14:57:00.000-07:00

Of course I'm a huge fan of things like family vacations, holidays, etc, but some of my very favorite Mama moments are the little everyday things. I thrive on the small stolen moments with my girls. Most nights Stella falls asleep after having her 1 show, 1 book, and 2 hot cocoas (instant breakfast) on my lap. I know I should take her straight up to bed, but I usually sit there with her for at least 30 minutes just snuggling her and smelling her hair. I fear the day will come all too soon she won't want to sit on my lap every night. Last night I took her to bed awake and she tried to stall me by just talking. It was fine with me and I just laid there by her whispering. These are the things I'll miss most when she's grown. She has the sweetest soul of anyone I know.

It's the little things that make me so very grateful to be on this journey with my loves. "Talking" in bed in the morning with Lucy while the rest of the house is quiet after nursing laying down (LOVE that!), rocking her in her chair after she eats in the quiet of the night, feeling Stella snuggle up in her sleep in the middle of the night, Stella coming running into my arms crying MAMA on the rare occasion she gets up on her own in the morning, Lucy's sweet breathe and the feel of her fuzzy head tickling my nose. I love it all, every second.

The rest of this post is mostly pictures because that is, after all, why I'm doing this. I've been putting it off until I get them edited, but things have gotten so busy and I'd rather get them posted unedited than wait and never get it done!

Crummy cell phone pic. Stella runs up to Lucy's room when she wakes after a nap and crawls into her crib to sing to her and make her happy until I get up there. The love between these two girls blows me away every day. I'm so blessed to be able to witness it and so happy that we didn't get the boy we hoped for. I wouldn't want to miss watching this relationship grow for anything.

All 3 girls at the beach on Easter weekend (yes, this picture is that old!)

Happy jumping girl.

Happy cousins - I love the way they're looking at each other and laughing.

Daddy and his girl.

Helping with yard work.

An old pic of Lu, I can't believe how much she's changed!

Jim wanted me to have my camera ready and then fed Stella sour patch kids. We laugh everytime!

And finally, way too many shots of Stella "modeling". I made this bandana dress thinking that she could wear it as a shirt with black leggings and then Lucy could wear it when she gets bigger. I was informed that it is not long enough and doesn't meet her twirl criteria. What a picky little one. I included so many to show the progression of her poses, it cracks me up!

I miss them.

2011-09-06T12:23:00.000-07:00

A LOT. Pressure in my chest, crying all of the time a lot. I thought I'd be feeling better with a week under my belt, but I'm not. I found myself planning our week in my head a few days ago (groceries Monday, gymnastics Tuesday...) then realized we won't be doing any of that. I hope it gets better soon, this isn't a fun way to be.

Gettin lost in my thoughts

2011-08-24T18:25:00.000-07:00

I FINALLY finished painting the hallway/staircase/upstairs hallway! There were TEN doorways and the staircase/handrail to cut in around. This gave me a LOT of alone time with nothing to do but think. I thought about the upcoming school year and how the little one will do at the babysitters (she's still not interested in a bottle), I thought about faith and religion (or I guess faith vs. religion), and I thought a LOT about this little family. I found their blog just days after they lost their little one and I cannot get them off my mind. Their girls are so close in age to my girls and I keep thinking that I just couldn't survive that, I'm not stronge enough. Then I quickly yell at myself in my head not so say/think those things because I do NOT want Him to say, "Yes, you can. Here, let me show you." I try not to spend too much time thinking about it because then I can't breathe, but like I said, ten doorways with noting to do but think... If you're a praying sort of person they should could use some sent their way.

Ok, so on to the results of that thinking time. I'd painted 3 swatches on the walls earlier in the summer and of course we didn't really agree on which color to use.

Jim liked the darkest color but I thought it would make the hallway/stairs feel like a dark tunnel. I wanted the light. So... we decided on the middle. I'd cut in around one doorway with the middle color when he came home and told me it looked like a dirty diaper! At least that means we got to switch to my color!

Another thing that made it take ages is the texture on our walls. I couldn't believe it when I found out that in some places peoples walls are completely FLAT. Painting would go so much more quickly if that were the case for us. The texture on our walls is so thick/rough that it takes a ton of coats.

Before the walls were kind of yellowy off white. It didn't do anything for our white molding. Now, they're coffee. It took a loooong time and 3 coats, but I'm happy with it and so glad it's done in time for Lucy's baptism on Saturday. It will look even better someday when we redo the wood floors. I'm thinking dark treads with white faces - yum! You can tell the color is off a bit in the pictures since the stairs look more orange in the after pic. It was taken with lights on in the evening so I guess it's not really a true read on the wall color either. There's a bit less yellow in it.

I also decided to tackle our mantel finally. First there was the issue of the nasty inside. It's currently not a working fireplace (though we plan to put a gas insert in at some point).

First I decided to tackle the inside. The peeps over at Young House Love painted the inside of their fireplace with heat resistant paint and it made a huge difference. So... I followed in their painty footsteps. The inside was none too pretty, but it's the perfect background for some cozy candles now.

Here's my "after". I'm still thinking of putting some faux paneling over the brick INSIDE the mantel. I like it better now, but I kind of feel like it's a lot of floating white in a sea of brick. We'll see...

You can't really tell in any of these pictures, but our walls are a pale blue. Much too pale for Jim's taste (remember he always goes for the dark/intense colors). I like how the accents on the mantel pick up on the blues now. Just a can of spraypaint for some plain ole candle holders!

I need/want to do some family updates too since my favorite thing about this blog is going back and reading about our changing family but Lucy is up from her nap (at 6:10 and she's supposed to go to bed at 7:30 oops!)

I'm a little stressed, a little panicky, and a whole lot BLESSED!

2011-08-11T18:38:00.000-07:00

Summer is winding down, I've heard rumors that the leaves are turning, and we're watching the first football game of the year. That means school is approaching. I love the excitement of the beginning of school but that also means I have to leave my babies. It's always difficult for me to leave but it's tougher this year with a new little one that I've only been away from for about 8 hours total of her 4 1/2 month life. BRUTAL!

In addition to missing them terribly I keep wondering how I'll find time to get everything done while still having time to spend with my girls. How can I possibly clean, shop, cook, get projects done and maybe even a few crafts for myself while getting enough snuggling time in. However, as I'm gearing up to complain about how terrible this all is for me I realize:

I'm so blessed to have a job that I love that allows us to do the things we want to do, live in the house we have, and put money away for these darlings for school. In this economy not everybody can say that and as a Mama I can't think of a job I'd rather have. I'm able to be home with them half of the time, I get done at 3:00 each day, and when they start school I'll be on the same schedule as them. As much as I miss them I do believe it's the best thing for our family.

I'm so blessed to have to clean a house that we love in a neighborhood we never thought we'd be able to live in (we're SO SO SO happy to be out of a development and out of the crazy traffic and graffiti ridden area we were in previously).

I'm so blessed to have a FAMILY for my girls to spend their days with. There are 3 other girls within a few months of Stella and she absolutely loves the family of the woman who watches her. We don't consider it "day-care". They have become part of our family and Stella has experienced and learned so much more than she would have if she'd just been with me for all of this time. As much as I miss them I actually truly believe that it's a really great thing for them. I've even continued taking her one day a week throughout the summer because I think it's so good for her developmentally and socially.

I'm blessed to have a husband who puts up with my to-do list and a house to do projects on and improve for our family. Again, so many people don't have a house they can work on, the means to work on it, or a spouse so supportive and helpful.

I'm blessed to have things that I love to do (knitting, sewing, baking, etc). I don't have enough time to do any of them, but there are actually people who don't really have any hobbies.

I'm blessed to not be able to get a good nights sleep because of two incredible girls.

I'm blessed to not have enough time for all that I love because that just means that there is SO much! There were days I had plenty of time for all I wanted to do and I can say that I'm so much happier now. I can't imagine coming home from work each day and having nothing to do other than clean/craft/nap. (Although I can tell you I'd really love a good long nap!) Back then I LONGED for a house filled with little ones and the mess that comes along with them. The way my heart aches by missing them is so much preferable to the ache of not having them.

I have a family that I'm head over heals in love with and we're all healthy. Seriously, the thought that I spend a second being down is pretty ridiculous. So, I'm doing my best not to let the anxiety get the better of me. We're trying to come up with ways to make more time. I'm looking into freezer meals and an extra freezer, I'd love to get a cleaner (I have no idea how much that would cost though), and we'll have to get better about getting things ready at night so I can spend my time with my girls.

My happy little 4 1/2 month old: I can't believe this is the girl who Jim once said about, "Is she trying to be the least pleasant baby ever born?" We actually thought maybe she had food allergies or something. How that has changed! She's rolling over, eating cereal (and not liking it), laughing all of the time, loves her big sister, gives us the BIGGEST grins when we get her up and unwrap the swaddle, and is currently hanging out in her bouncer we put together today. She's also figure out if she sticks her left leg out straight and kicks it she can make herself bounce in her chair. The dog has become another source of giggles. He bites her toes and she thinks it's hilarious.

Stella continues to be my pal and the best big sister we could ever ask for. She loves to play with Lucy and tries constantly to maker her laugh. When I took them to get Lucy's 4 month check up Lucy started crying when she was given some oral medication and Stella told the nurse, "don't make my baby cry." I'm hoping they'll always be crazy for each other and one anothers biggest support/protectors. She's smart, funny, helpful, and above all my little buddy. I'm still in shock we haven't had an ounce of jealousy, what a trooper! I have some hilarious pictures from a "photo shoot" she and I had. I need to get them posted before she starts school. ;)

So much to blog, so little time

2011-08-08T17:53:00.000-07:00

I really do want to blog more, mostly because I LOVE to be able to look back months/years from now and see what was going on with my girls. I just seem to be so far behind. I've JUST loaded pics from the past three weeks, we've done a ton of projects I could write about, I'm behind on emailing people pictures of our adventures, and school starts in just a couple of weeks.

The girls and I spent 2 1/2 hours doing the grocery shopping today (it included a trip to Costco...) I just kept thinking that once school starts I'll have to use precious weekend time to do that. I've been pretty sad about it lately. I'm going to miss them SO much!

Ho Hum projects

2011-07-17T17:17:00.000-07:00

The weather has been miserable this weekend and we had NO plans, that makes for a project heavy weekend. I still don't have anything finished to show and I've lost a bit of steam because I'm just not blown away by anything. Don't you hate when that happens? No epic fails, things just aren't turning out quite like the visions in my head.

I did have one small happy result though. I wanted to make two extra pillows for our new outdoor patio furniture. I found a pack of 4 napkins at Target. They just happen to measure 20" x 20", and what do you know but Joanns has pillow inserts that are 18" x 18". PERFECT!!!

It only took Stella and I about 10 mintues to do. It honestly took longer to get my sewing machine out and set up. I really liked them outside, but in the end I decided to use them in my family room. Maybe I was just in need of some happy pillows in the house on a dreary weekend. (They're a bit more yellow than they show in this last picture.)

We have had a few other successes lately... 2 batches of raspberry jam, 2 batches of strawberry, chocolate ice cream, and lemon sorbet. YUM! Maybe we'll just stick to the edible projects.

A year in the making

2011-07-07T16:07:00.000-07:00

It's been a year since we moved into our new (old) house. I thought that for the little anniversary I'd list all of the things we've done, what we'd like to do in the upcoming year, and the "someday" things we'd like to do. Probably not a fun post for anyone, but it will be good for me to see all that's changed and have a list of things to come. One thing I've learned is that I'm terrible at taking "before" pictures!

July 8, 2010 - July 8, 2011 DONE:

Living Room:
-paint
-carpet

Family Room:
-paint
-flooring
-fireplace (in progress)
-new light fixture
-window blinds

Kitchen:
-new counters
-new sink
-new faucet
-new flooring
-lights above sink
-painted cabinets
-paint
-tile backsplash
-window blinds

Dining Room:
-paint
-floor
-new light fixture

Nursery:
-paint
-window blinds
-valences
-all of the other decorating!

Master:
-paint
-headboard

Front yard:
-torn everything out
-planted 7 trees
-in the process of planting grass

Back yard:
-torn everything out
-ordered shed

Mud Room:
-shelving

Garage:
-took down cabinets

Plans for the upcoming year:
-do flower beds in the front yard (this summer)
-trees/flower beds in the back yard (this summer)
-redo the back patio (this summer)
-replace siding as needed
-paint the outside of the house
-fence the front yard
-paint the hallway (we have swatches up and we've picked a color so this one will be fairly soon)
-I've seen a few pictures on Pinterest, I want to take out the cabinets and do some shelving.

Someday projects (hopefully that means in the next couple of years):

Powder Room (I'd like to do this this year if I can get Jim on board):
-new vanity
-new light
-new mirror
-paint
-floor? I'd LOVE to do little hex tiles but I'm not sure how that would work since the tile that's in there continues into the hallway...

Girls Bath:
-paint
-new vanity
-new mirrors
-new lights
-new tile???

Master Bath:
-add a door?
-new tile floor
-new vanity
-new mirror
-new light
-new shower - this is the biggie! We want to ditch the tub and do a big tiled walk in shower with a partial glass wall and no door!

Masther:
-expand one of the closets
-change the shelving area BACK to a linen closet... I don't know why he ever got rid of it!

Hallway:
-new front door

Family Room:
-built-ins in front of brick wall
-sliding glass door (or maybe french doors)
-get rid of the ceiling texture
-new wood floor
-move the furnace into the garage

Kitchen:
-you name it! This is the room I'm dying to demo and start from scratch!!!
-add a pantry
-new appliances (move the refrigerator over)
-new tile floor
-knock down half of the wall between the kitchen and dining room
-new cabinets
-new counters
-new sink/faucet
-I want an island, but we'll have to see what the designer says when we find someone to help us
-add a bar to the peninsula if we don't have an island
-add more canned lights
-light above the sink

Dining Room:
-new tile floor
-add a window
-get rid of the ceiling texture
-possibly wainscoting? I LOVE what Centsational Girl did here!

Living Room:
-redo the fireplace, I don't like the tile he put in

Outside:
-new back patio (maybe pavers???)
-new front patio/walk
-new pillars in the front

Again, if I didn't suck at taking "before" pictures (oh yeah, and if I could actually find any of my pictures from last June - September which sadly seem to be missing) I'd love to do some before/afters, I'll have to try to work on that!

For now I'll have to leave you with a picture of my rapidly growing "baby". She's already to the point where she doesn't want to just lie back and she gets BORED! How is it that it takes 9 months to grow a wee one and then when you blink they aren't a teeny tiny anymore? Sad stuff.

Happy 4th!

2011-07-04T07:33:00.000-07:00

I've never really been a huge nail girl. I paint them at times, but nothing serious. However, I recently stumbled upon this blog and I must admit that it's given me a bit of the bug! She does some of the cutest manicures and I saw many posts with cute little designs on her nails. I just assumed that she was using some fancy (expensive) machine to do it. When I finally looked it up on Amazon, the tools cost.... $3.80. Can you believe that? Now, you do need to purchase the designs, but still it's pretty resonable. I still don't think I'll become a serious manicuring girl, but I must admit that this was awfully fun for a holiday (and yes, I still need practice, they're not perfect). The main reason I got it was for the girls. Can you imagine the years of fun they'll have with these? I can see a lot of girly nail slumber parties in our future.

Being a holiday weekend means that of course it's project time for us. Perhaps someday we'll get to relax on our vacations?

Happy 4th!

Summer Activities

2011-06-23T09:32:00.000-07:00

I'm loving staying home with the girls for a while, but one of my biggest challenges has been keep Stella busy. She'll say, "that will make me boring". Gotta love the phrasing of 3 year olds!

A friend of mine posted a list of some summer activities she hopes to do with her girls and I've gotten some ideas from Pinterest (which I'm completely addicted to!). Here's our list, we'll see how many we can check off by the time I have to go back to school. (Boo hoo) I made a pdf, but I don't know how to post it here.

One of our fireplaces

2011-06-17T08:58:00.000-07:00

Why is it that I never come up with witty titles? Ah well...

Jim's been working SO hard in the front yard. We plan on redoing both yards this summer and I need to get moving on our back patio. I've had new furniture for 2 weeks that I haven't taken out of the box! But I also have my eye on some things inside...

The folks at Young House Love just did a mini revamp of their fireplace and now I have an itch to work on one of ours. We have two in this house which I consider crazy awesome! Our last house was a new home in a development and had one of those cut outs for your TV above the fireplace. I thought I'd like it when we first bought the house and it was nice not to have to have a piece of furniture for the TV, but I soon realized that meant no mantel to decorate! I saw so many pretty ones online and there was nothing I could really do with ours. Now I have TWO to decorate and I'm kind of lost. The one I want to work on first it HUGE. One is wood burning which we love and used a ton this winter. The other is non-functional at the moment, but when we reno the room we'll convert it to gas. Until then, I want to do a little something to lighten/brighten it up. We don't like the huge mantel as it is but aren't too sure what we can do now. Here's a picture of our wall o' brick now and the fireplace.

I know the popular thing to do right now is to paint brick white but that's not going to happen. While I agree that this is brick overkill and really darkens the room, we do like some brick. It's one of the reasons we wanted an older house, they just don't do things like this in the new development houses. When we redo this room with the kitchen and dining room someday we have plans to have built-ins built in front fo the brick. The bottom will be completely closed in with white cabinets while on top there will be shelving and lights with some of the brick showing behind the shelves.

I AM thinking I'd like to paint the wood though. We don't like it and as I said it's so dark in here. I tried to do a bit of photoshop work to see what it would look like but it was a mess. The big issue is I'm not sure I'll like the brick on the inside of the mantel once it's painted white. So... I thought maybe I could do some type of panels painted white. This is Layla and Kevin's from The Lettered Cottage. Can you believe that there's is all brick under that beautiful white paneling? Whatever I do must be easily removed since as I said, we'll be removing it when we do the "real" renovations.

Jim's not a big fan of me doing any of this... What do you all think?

Letters to my girls

2011-06-10T15:05:00.000-07:00

When Jim and I decided to try to get pregnant I decided I wanted to write letters to the little one. The first letter is dated April 1, 2003! We were coming up on our 3rd anniversary. It's crazy to think that's when this all started... The next letter is dated July 16, 2007 and I was (finally) pregnant with Stella. This isn't in any way relevant, it just somehow reminded me of how long and hard we worked to have these little ones in our lives! If we'd gotten pregnant then we'd have a ten year old!

Anyway, back to the letters. As with so many other things, I had the best of intentions, but then you get busy with life and the letters have suffered. I haven't written to Stella in ages, and I've never written one to Lucy. How sad! The other day while I was watching TV I saw a commercial that's about to change it all (I hope). It showed emails a man had written his daughter starting with when she was born. The really cool thing is that you can include pictures and videos! So this morning I started an email account for each girl and will email them letters for them to read when they're grown. Can you imagine being 18 or whenever I tell them and going back to read letters, see pictures, watch videos that your parents sent you throughout your childhood? I think it will be amazing. Granted there's something about a hand written letter, but they'll still get some of those and I think it's worth the trade-off. This way I can write whenever I want. I can do it from school at the end of the day, from my phone, etc.

Some of the first pictures I send them will surely be from our little "photoshoot" last Sunday. We've had some sessions scheduled, and 3 times we've had to change them! For now, Stella is too small to hold Lucy, and Lucy doesn't do much except lay there. It makes outdoor pictures a bit tough. My mom and I thought we'd give it a try and had the whole thing planned out with props and all. Several hours and many setbacks later we finally got to a park and thought things would improve... they did not. One thing after another went "wrong" and we laughed until we cried. We didn't get any pictures that I love from a photography point, but there are so many I love because they capture the day and the fun that we had. I'll take that over a session with beautiful pictures anytime! Here are a couple:

Yeah, I tried to get the "feet" shot... it's ok, but nothing like I'd envisioned.

Since Stella can't hold Lucy I thought we could prop her up sitting. This resulted in choke holds, hands on both sides of Lucy's head like a vice, and I think some fingers to the eyes. There were also a ton of laughs with this one. Both girls were SUCH great sports about it!

We finally got Lucy to pick her head up but you can tell she's still not too happy with us. When I first put her down she just face planted and kicked her little feet screaming. More hysterical laughing from my mom and I. I think we were crying by now and there may have been a few ever so charming snorts by one or both of us.

Jim liked the flower pictures, but he also said, "you can tell she was being a stinker." This was the last attempt and she'd had quite enough. She was still trying to be good though, what a sweet sweet girl.

Jim took Stella to the Father Daugther dance for the second year this past weekend. They got to take the big truck after they washed it together which was a big deal to Stella. I wanted a picture of Jim with both of his girls and Stella just HAD to be touching both of them. This one just makes my heart all warm and gooey!

Nothing eventful about this one, just a little glimpse of Lucy being entertained by Stella. For some reason, I just love this one though!

So, the quest for that perfect picture continues. We do still have two mini sessions with two different people waiting in the wings. I think we'll wait until the fall when Lucy can sit up herself. I can't wait to see what the professionals can come up with!

A year later...

2011-05-22T08:47:00.000-07:00

This time last year, we were in quite a different place. We'd just had to put Annie to sleep (after the miserable Murphy incident earlier in the year), we'd sold our house but hadn't found a new one so we were preparing to move into an apartment while we continued looking, and we were on our last two IUI attempts.

I told a friend at work, "I didn't expect to end the school year with no dogs, no house, and no baby." Those are three pretty huge things in my life to be missing!

May 24th I found our house online, we went to see it the next day, and made an offer the following day!

Memorial Day weekend we moved into a tiny apartment.

June 30th we gave IUI one final attempt and were starting to look at adoption options.

July 8th we moved into our new house.

July 15th we found out we were pregnant.

About 2 weeks later we decided to get a dog.

So... in less than 2 months all of that changed!!! For a person who doesn't like change and thrives on the known and routine that's an awful lot, thankfully they were all wonderful things.

This picture was taken for our moving announcements and taken the day we found out we were pregnant. It will always be so special to me since it's the first picture of our family of four and in front of the house we'll raise these two girls in.

When I feel stressed or down I can think back to those days and realize once again how very lucky we are and the baby belly should be the least of my worries! I'm greatful for all we've been through together and the memories we've created, but I'm also so glad we're in a more settled place now!

Operation "Goodbye Baby Belly"

2011-05-19T08:44:00.000-07:00

(and greys and love handles)

Yesterday while I was feeding Lucy Stella poked at my belly and started laughing. I asked what was so funny and she said, "your belly hangs over your belt like this" and demonstrated with her own skin. Ouch!

I'm over it - I've never been on a "real" diet (of course I've had times I've eaten better or less and exercised more, but nothing organized), so this morning I download a calorie counter on my phone and it will help me track how many calories I'm eating and how much exercise. I've ordered some videos from the library because lets face it, there's no way I have time to go anywhere to workout. I've even measured my food this morning. I don't know how long that will last, but it is interesting to see how all of the little things add up. It says that I should lose 7.5 pounds by June 23rd (our anniversary). That's not exactly enough to get me excited, but we'll see if I can do a bit better.

I really don't have a goal weight, I just want to be able to confidently wear my clothes. As of now, when warm weather hits the only thing I'll be able to wear is athletic shorts with baggy Fife t-shirts. That's NO FUN! I've been able to hide under hoodies thus far but with the mercury reading in the 70's that's not going to last long (at least we can hope).

So, I'm going to stop whining to Jim, stop feeling sorry for myself, dye my hair, get a haircut, and work my butt off to feel better about myself. After all, we have so very much to be greatful for I have no reason to feel sorry for myself, it's pitiful.

Other than that, things are going so very well. Lucy has slept through the night for the past two nights and I feel so much better getting a bit more sleep.

Last night we took the girls to see Sesame Street Live and had a great time. No pictures now because we cancelled our internet, had to get it through a different company, and don't have wireless set up yet so the computer is in one room and my hard drive is in another. I'm too lazy to go get it and load pictures (plus Lucy is waking).

For girls around here, happy SUNNY days, for others, happy Thursday!

Sleep vs. Shower

2011-05-03T13:24:00.000-07:00

After 4 weeks as a stay-at-home family, Jim returned to work last week. While I'm eternally grateful that we had the opportunity for him to stay home as long as he did, we loved it so much it was tough to have him go back!

I have yet to figure out how to shower while I'm home by myself, so I try to get up with Jim before the girls (Stella is still climbing in bed with us most nights) and get a shower in/make coffee/start Stella's cocoa. It does wonders for how I feel throughout the day, BUT most days I'd really just rather get an extra half an hour of sleep! I shouldn't complain, two nights ago Lucy slept for 6 hours straight and last night it was 7. I don't know if it's a sign of things to come of if she's luring me into a sense of bliss only to revert, but for now I'm thrilled about it! (Though I'd give a lot to get to sleep kidless in a king sized bed for a night!)

(Stella loving making Daddy's birthday cake)

Lucy is quite different than Stella. Stella ONLY cried if she was hungry. She didn't get crabby, she didn't care if she was wet/dirty, nothing. Though when we talk about the girls as they grow and we seem to think that Lucy is going to be a bit quieter and less dramatic, I have no idea why because so far she's definitely louder and more dramatic! Stella was a champ at the Dr - Lucy screams at you for ages if you dare to let someone look at her. She gets mad when we change her, mad if we don't, mad if she's hungry (which is ALL OF THE TIME, her nickname is bruiser), crabby in the evenings, mad because she wants to be able to lay on her back and stretch, mad because you left her laying on her back for too long. I could go on and on... I thought perhaps she had a dairy issue or reflux, but the Dr seems to just think it's her being crabby. I'm hoping!

At 5 weeks I've had my eye on beginning to get her to take a bottle. I've pumping a bit over the weeks and decided to give it a try Sunday. They usually tell you to have someone else try because if Mama is doing the feeding they'll want to nurse. Jim wasn't available so I decided to give it a go. No need to have worried, she doesn't maintain her Chunky Monkey status by being a picky eater! She took it like a pro on the first try.

The other think we're working on is her napping without being held or driving. We're not having quite as much success in this area. Sunday she slept for about 1.5 hours in her basinette and I was thrilled, yesterday it was 10 minutes in her crib. We'll keep working on it. Stella was an AWFUL napper and I really want to get into a better routine with Lucy. It makes a world of difference when I have a little bit of time to get some cleaning done and spend a little time one-on-one with Stella. We are all happier girls!

We spent Easter weekend at the beach with my family. It was so fun to get out of town for a bit, we stayed in an awesome townhouse, and there were tons of people willing to do a bit o baby holding. Stella had SO much fun with her cousins, hopefully there will be many more similar trips in the future.

The little family - Lucy is in a pack under that blanke I promise!

The cousins dying eggs

Ferris Wheel with Mama

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the looks on their faces - having so much fun together!

Happy Easter!

2011-04-24T18:52:00.000-07:00

I was never a big fan of Easter (setting aside the religious aspects anyway). I don't love pastels, the weather usually stinks here, I don't like the little girls frilly dresses, and I can't STAND the hats, gloves and little purses girls have. I couldn't love it any more now though.
Rewind... We'd been trying to get pregnant for 4 excruciating years. It seemed that everyone around us was getting pregnant the instant they thought about it. It was our 8th or 9th (and last) IUI and it just happened to fall on a cold dreary Easter Sunday. I had pretty much given up hope of it working and was trying to figure out how we could pay for IVF with no help from insurance. We made the familiar trek to Seattle that morning and were supposed to go to Jim's moms later that day. I couldn't go. Jim went alone and I laid on the couch in the dark in sweats crying and feeling sorry for us. Pitiful huh?

Little did I know that day that one of the biggest miracles of my life was occuring (ok, well it would occur over the next week or so). It worked and we got our first beautiful miracle girl. I'll never be cranky or negative about Easter again! I still don't like the hats and gloves, but now I just smile and feel grateful that I have two little ones I could dress up that way if I ever chose to. I am so very blessed, and it all began on Easter.

Stella - Easter 2008 (3 months old looking an AWFUL lot like Lucy does at 4 weeks!)
Happy Easter!

Lucille Jean Snider

2011-04-11T09:52:00.000-07:00

Lucille (Lucy) Jean Snider was born on March 28th 2011 at 6:26 weighing in at a whopping 8lb 11 oz and 21.5". It's only taken me 2 weeks to post this, what can I say, I've been just a little bit busy being in LOVE!

I was induced on Monday morning (she would have been a week late on Tuesday) and labor progressed almost identically to the way it did with Stella. Slow at first, pitocin started to kick my butt, epidural was fabulous, and at about 5 pm still only being dilated to a "maybe" 5, I sent my Dad, Step-mom, and Jim to dinner. The next time the nurse came in she told me it was time to push. I had to call Jim to come back. It took a few more pushes than it did with Stella (she was only 5 lb 10oz) and the nurse had to threaten to "help" her out if I didn't do it on the last push as she was in some distress with each contraction. I was prepared for labor to be different this time as everyone says they're all different, but it couldn't have been scripted to be any more similar.

Stella's "babysitter" who is AMAZING and her second family, kept Stella for a sleep-over the first night and brought her in to see her baby. It was one of the sweetest moments I've ever witnessed.

We got tons of pictures of everyone with Lucy and me, but in all of the craziness (the room was packed after she was born), we didn't get a single picture of all 4 of us in the hospital. I can't believe I let that happen and it honestly breaks my heart just a little bit.

She's been wanting to read to her baby for months and is finally getting the chance. We're so very blessed to be able to watch these two miracles grow up together and the relationship they'll have.

If you're a facebook friend you've already seen these all...

The other day I told Jim I can see why people have 6 or 7 babies, they're addicting! Lucy will be our last though, so I'm trying to soak up every second. The first night home we were all at the dinner table and I starting sobbing. I can't believe that after all we've been through here we are with two beautiful girls of our own. I don't think I slept more than 2 hours that night, I couldn't stop looking at her and didn't ever want to put her down. There was also more crying... I even cried watching American Idol! Someone sang "Your Song" and the line "How wonderful life is while you're in the world" made me bawl. I think it will be the quote that I put on my Lucy bracelet. Stella and I had our song the whole time I was pregnant and Lucy and I never had that. I guess I've found it. I just wish I could somehow slow these first days down, the newborn days go by much too quickly!

And.... done!

2011-03-21T15:02:00.000-07:00

The nursery is done! (Ok, it was done last week I just hadn't taken pictures and written a post yet) I know we'll all be spending a ton of time in this room, we already do. I also know that it will evolve with our needs when she actually starts to spend time in it (she'll spend the first few months sleeping in our room)

One of the things that I LOVE about this house is that each of the kids' rooms has two windows (ours has 5 if you count the two in the adjoining bathroom!) The morning light is absolutely beautiful!

Some people have wondered why we have a bed and a crib in the nursery. We had both in Stella's room and actually got a TON of use out of the bed over the years. We'd do a lot of reading, playing, changing, etc on it. I foresee many hours spent in the chair too. Stella has the rocking chair that my parents bought when I was born and I love the sentimentality of it. I have to admit though, this is just so easy to glide in and it's super comfortable. I never did find pillows that I liked, so I made all of the pillows, valences, and the crib skirt.

Here's the view when you enter the room:

View 2 is of the empty crib. I'd love to have some pillows or a cute bumper, but there's no use spending time and money on it when none of it will be in there once she starts sleeping in it. Even the lamb and rabit will be moved when the time comes.

Her mostly empty bookshelf... We'd set out to get the Ikea bookshelf that was 4x4, but they no longer carry it at our store. Thank goodness - this is plenty big! Stella is constantly "redecorating" it which I love. There's a picture of her last ultrasound, a "dream big" print from Etsy, a book of quotes, and some toys for now. All of the baskets are empty and waiting to be filled with her treasures.

This is the view from the closet area. I think that once we start using this room we'll put her changing pad on the dresser. I cannot bring myself to put a changing table in our house, I find it such a waste of furniture!

So, with a day to spare (ok, I'm thinking it will be more like 5-7 but who's counting) you have her nursery. I look forward to hours of happiness here and someday looking back at how it evolves as she changes.

Winding down

2011-03-18T15:00:00.000-07:00

We're a few days out now and I feel like it's the calm before the storm. The nursery is officially done, we don't have any commitments for the weekend, and Stella and I have been doing a lot of snuggling. As anxious as I am to meet this little one, I'm trying to make a conscious effort to savor this time. It's my last few days of feeling a little life inside. It's something that after all of our struggles I am so very grateful to be able to experience. Jim has said a few times, "oh, your poor body. I'll be glad when you don't have to do this anymore." I don't feel that way at all. I'm beyond blessed to have this experience and part of me will be sad when it's done.

I'm also trying to soak up these last few days of Stella being an only child. Part of the reason I fought so hard to have a second was so that she would NOT be an only child, but now that things are about to change I'm cherishing all of the one on one time she and I enjoy. I could never have imagined how much she would become my little buddy. She had a tough time the other night so we were in her room rocking and snuggling. I told her that when the baby gets here I won't be able to hold her all of the time. She said that Daddy can hold the baby and I can hold her. I asked her if she was going to get upset when I held the baby and she nodded. When I asked why she replied, "because then I won't be able to have cocoa on your lap and snuggle." (our nightly before bed routine). I promised her she'd always be able to sit on my lap to have her cocoa and snuggle while I cried and got in some sniffs of her hair because I realized how much her little life is about to change. It will be wonderful and I know that they'll be so lucky to have each other, but my biggest fear is still how much she and I will miss each other. I am completely and utterly head over heels for this little stinker!

I'm going to miss it a little... shhh :)

2011-03-16T09:40:00.000-07:00

I'm so looking forward to spending the spring home with my girls. I was supposed to be done working on Friday, though now it looks as though I may be working an extra week. (We'll see what the Dr thinks at my appointment on Thursday) Though I'm so excited to be done, and March is a rough month in schools, I also know that I'm going to miss the hustle and excitement of the end of the year. I'll miss being there as my Seniors get ready to move on with their lives. One of my seniors said to me, "I've been waiting to take this class since Geometry (I had her as a Sophomore)! Why'd you have to get pregnant and leave this year?" Ah, it warmed my heart and made me a little sad. When I told them they may be stuck with me for an extra week I prepared myself for the groans but they were so happy. Too often we hear complaining, it's nice hear the good stuff too. It's always nice to feel the love.

Three of my classes have taken up pools on date/weight/length. You want a good laugh? Ask a high school boy about babies, they have provided endless laughs!

So as thrilled as I am not to have to return to work this time around, I do know that when June rolls around I'm going to miss the end of the year rituals and especially my seniors.

One week - I'm ready!

2011-03-15T12:46:00.000-07:00

Baby girl No. 2 is due in 1 week and we're all so very ready to love her up. Yesterday, Stella told me that she can't wait for her baby to pop out. Lovely huh? She also tells me often that she wants baby out so she has more room on my lap. She says she can't get comfy on my lap when we snuggle at night. I love that she calls is "her" baby. Friday, when I went in to wake her up she said, "I remember the baby is out of your belly." I asked her if she had a dream about the baby being born. She said, "Yes, and I'll teach her to walk. I'll hold her hand while she walks, walks, walks, (she did a little walking motion with her fingers without ever opening her eyes) and I won't push her." I really can't wait to see them together!

Here's one last picture of the belly. I was doing so well documenting it for a while, but life got in the way. It's HUGE! I've traumatized my poor students with shots of skin, I just don't have shirts that are long enough to cover it all.

Stella "demanded" a photo shoot the other day. She typically does not like me taking her picture, she can't be bothered. The other day she was sitting on the steps and said, "Mama, isn't this pretty? You should take a picture." I then had to take dozens of pictures while she went through different poses. We're shocked daily at how fast she changes. People say that babies change quickly, but nobody prepares you to get your 3 year old up and find a different person than you put to bed that night!

The nursery is waiting on ONE LAST THING and then I'll post pictures. I should finish in time (although I'm ready to start speed walking and inhaling spicey foods!) Ok, enough rambling - my mind is mush!

I can see the future...

2011-03-08T10:54:00.000-08:00

Stella spent a few hours with her Aunt Katie on Saturday. They made the cutest little unicorn for the baby (kind of like build a bear and they put a heart in it). I put it on the dresser in the nursery, and Stella promptly moved it to the bookshelf. After she went to bed, I put it back on the too-naked dresser. I got pretty much chewed out when she found out. I can't believe that this little 3-year old wanted a new mama because I changed her hinges and door knob to her room, and is now in charge of decorating. I can only imagine the power struggles that are going to occur during her teen years! In the end, the unicorn that she made is hanging out on the bookshelf. It's just one of those things that is NOT a big deal and it's so much more important to me to let her make some choices and to be respectful of them. (pictures coming SOON)

I also worked on a little arrangement of frames. They'd been hung, but were empty. I finally decided that until we have pictures of her to use she will have pictures of Jim, Stella, and I in her room. I printed four (two of him, two of me) that kind of went together and let him choose...

(Jim on the left, Julie on the right)

I can't believe how similar they are! Same age, pose, direction - I love it! It's not the first time this has happened. When I was putting together pictures for our wedding I found Christmas pictures from my first, his second, Christmas and they were also the same. Same chair, same Santa - crazy!

So, I want to finish up a couple more things before I post finished nursery pictures. We are two weeks out! Almost everything is ready, just a couple more things on the "to-do" list that lives on the kitchen counter. :)

I should have taken pictures for this "tutorial"

2011-02-28T12:28:00.000-08:00

It looks like I should have taken pictures of the headboard making process - that would have made a "tutorial" much easier! Also... I can't find the inspiration picture which is sad because it was so beautiful! I think it was from BHG, but the link doesn't seem to be working. Here's a picture as a reminder:

Here's my best attempt to explain:

1) We purchased to 36" plain doors from Lowes. They were $26 each with no holes drilled or anything.

2) We got little straight brackets to attach them to one another from the backside.

3) We filled the seam down the middle with wood putty and sanded (and repeated). We probably could have sanded a bit more, but you don't really notice.

4) I'm the planner/measurer, so I laid out the pattern that I wanted with the molding. We got one piece of crown molding for the top, and two pieces to make up the "panels". If we were to do it again, I'd have had the panels go further down as you can see the end of the one on the left a little bit.
5) We cut the molding and attached it using Gorilla glue and finishing nails. The nails were just to hold the molding down flat while the glue dried - that stuff is STRONG!

6) We caulked and sanded the nail holes.

7) Painted, painted, painted. It took 3 coats - yuck!

8) We got the sconces from good ole IKEA. Once I measured and marked for them, Jim had to drill pretty big holes to get the plugs through. Be sure to get ones that have the pull cord and NOT the switch on the electrical cord if you plan to run the cord behind the headboard. We knew we didn't want our cords to run down the front so this was important!

9) Attach the sconces.

10) Time to hang! We found really great hanging hardware at Lowes, but of course I can't find it listed on their website. They were with the picture hanging supplies. They come in two pieces, each about 6" long. One piece includes a level (how handy is that???). You attach one piece to the wall and the other to the back of the headboard. They are angled so that when you slide the headboard (or whatever you're hanging) down, the pieces slip right together. I really wish I'd taken a picture because it's tough to describe, but a great invention. Each one is supposed to hold 75 lbs, but we got two because we didn't want all of the weight of such a wide piece to be right in the middle (and on the seam).

This is one of my favorite things we've built together (probably second only to the pergola). It was pretty inexpensive, super fast, has a huge impact on the room, and I LOVE not having to get up to turn off the lights!

Success!

2011-02-25T10:34:00.000-08:00

I'd say we had a successful little break (with an extra snow day thrown in)!

We had one last ultrasound to check my placenta. While we were there we asked the (SUPER nice) tech to double check to be sure No. 2 IS a girl. She still is, so I can actually finish up the nursery now and I finally cut the tags off all of the clothes we've bought and washed/put them away. We've never had a 3D ultrasound before, and she offered to get a couple of pictures for us. Here No. 2 is covering her nose with her hand:

Here is her face without her hand: (I haven't seen a lot of these, but those cheeks look HUGE) I actually asked the tech if she looked freakishly big. I was assured she looks normal. Wednesday I went in for my weekly check and he said that all of my signs "bode well for someone who isn't going to make it to my due date." We'll see, with Stella, I KNEW she wasn't going to come early. Even 2 days before my due date I wasn't thinking about going into labor. I haven't felt that way this time and now that he's said that I'm thinking it might be time to start the final preps like packing a bag and getting the carseat base in the car. Not that I think it's going to happen today or anything like that, but it would be good to have it all done.

We also got some of the projects done around the house. We made ourselves a headboard! We haven't had an actually headboard for years, and I've been wanting one. Someday we'll buy all new bedroom furniture for grown-ups, but there are so many other things higher on our priority list right now. Though I love our bedroom, it just hasn't felt like we've done anything with it other than paint and move in. Just a few weeks ago we hung a picture frame system.

Here's a picture (terrible quality because I had to get it off of Zillow) of our last bedroom. That quilt was ONLY for staging - we HATED it! We didn't have a headboard then either, but I really liked having the lights above the bed. It was so nice not to have to get up to turn the lights out if someone was reading or something. We didn't like the look for our new room though so the picture and lights were donated.
I saw a picture of a headboard online made out of doors that had sconces built in - I LOVED it and talked my reluctant husband into helping. We're both thrilled with how it turned out. It actually makes the room seem a bit smaller, but adds a ton to the room! So... here it is:

We went to bed early last night just so I could lay there and knit and enjoy the new lights!

Always busy!

2011-02-20T11:22:00.000-08:00

I ALWAYS have projects on my mind. They might be for the house, the girl, or myself, but there is always a mental list. I say I'm tired, and then in the next breathe list all of the things I want to get done. Jim is typically less than thrilled because it often means that he's going to have to help me. He kind of tries to resist and lets me know he doesn't really want to, but I'm so fortunate that he's a great sport and always helps. Yesterday, we drove to Lowes and bought materials to make a headboard. We haven't had one in years, and with everything else going on right now it's probably terrible timing, but we did it.

So now, we have a 3 day vacation from school, and on top of 3 Dr appointments, gymnastics, and trips to 4 different stores for returns/last minute things (on top of normal things like the grocery store, house cleaning, etc) our to-do list consists of:

* make a headboard

* oil the counters

* grout tile

* put together the bassinette

* pillows for the nursery

Speaking of nursery, it's been pointed out that a few people are waiting for some new pictures. It's going to have to wait a bit. We still have some stuff to finish up (pillows, mirror, pictures, etc) and currently it's being used as the headboard construction area.

I can say that one thing I've been happy to cross off the list is a hat for No. 2. I never seem to have much time to knit anymore and I miss it! I got one hat done (which I have NO idea if it will fit a newborn), another on the needles, yarn for a third, and a throw for the bed in the nursery also on the needles. It's been so relaxing to get back into that! Here's the first (no pink!):

This is up next - I think you have to be on ravelry to view it, and the third will be a creamy textured yarn hat with earflaps and ties!

Yesterday Stell was invited to a princess party by her cousin. It was awesome and deserves a post of its own!

I guess after seeing that list I should get off the computer and get to work!

Happy LOVE day!

2011-02-14T07:51:00.000-08:00

Catching up

2011-02-07T14:56:00.000-08:00

I still haven't posted about the work we did on the house over Christmas vacation! (In fact, I still haven't posted pictures of the house along with what my plans are) We'll start with flooring since that was the first of our two major projects over break.

We had already replaced the carpet in the front room with new carpet. All of the upstairs is wood and tile, we were planning to do laminate (for now) downstairs, and there is tile. Jim wanted to do laminate in the front room also, but I really wanted one room to have carpet for wrestling, laying on the floor watching movies, forts, etc. Previously, the back of the first floor had terrible berber in the family room and dining room (I cannot STAND carpet in a dining room!!!). It also had awful vinyl in the kitchen. So, when we got home from school Friday afternoon we immediately began tearing out the carpet in the dining room and worked our way through the kitchen and family room. The kitchen was the worst because we (Jim) also had to remove the particle board under the vinyl. What a job! So... here are the durings and afters! I can't believe the difference it made in the way I feel about this old house!

The terrible carpet that was in the dining room and family room. (And the awful light that I talked Jim into changing for me)

Stella loves to help with any and all projects! Demo day was a good one for her.

Kitchen demo day was by far the most labor intensive. We had to rip out all of the underlayment so that the floors would be even, and there was some water damage in one spot in the kitchen. SO worth it! You can see how ugly the vinyl is here too.

Finishing up the kitchen demo - Stella did NOT like the sound of the hammer on the pry bar.

It was a bit tougher for her to help with laying the floor though she wanted to terribly. She loved it so much she wanted to run around the big empty dining room in circles. It was tough to get her to stay off of it and not to pop any of the pieces out while we were working.

I can't believe that we still haven't gotten a better "after" picture. At least here you can get an idea of how much better it flows from the kitchen to the dining room. I love the look of the dark "wood" with the white cabinets.

Stella hanging out and enjoying the new floors!

It's pretty surprising how well Jim and I work together. Not everyone can do things like this together - we're lucky. Our strengths also compliment one another very well. One thing that we learned from doing this project: when we redo the kitchen for "real" we won't be doing laminate floors. They look great when they're clean, but they aren't nearly as tough as our slate tile was in the old house and it looks dirty SO quickly. I'm 98% sure that when we do the major renovation we'll go with slate again (and probably do it ourselves again)!

I still need to put together a post on the other kitchen improvements. I'll try to get some better after pictures of the floors too!

We're getting there little pineapple!

2011-02-01T09:01:00.000-08:00

No. 2 is the size of a pineapple today! So, we've had a bit of progress and I thought I'd do a quick little update.

1) The room is painted. It's a whole lot tougher to paint with a 3 year old wanting to help. SO sweet! I picked the room color and when we were almost done I told Jim it kind of reminded me of the 50's or 60's. He said, "Yeah, a hospital in the 50's or 60's. You could call this an 'asylum' instead of nursery." At the end of the night when it was dark the paint was dry and all we had in the room was a little white twin sized bed right in the middle. Um... it was CREEPY! It looked just like a room in a mental hospital in a horror movie! :( We're not repainting, but hoping that the addition of more color and furniture will tone it down. It's not the turquoise color that either of us had in mind, but I think we'll like it when it's all done.

2) I only gained 0.4 pounds since the last time I went to the Dr (3 weeks) YAY! He did say to me, "Don't expect this baby to be as tiny as Stella." So now of course I'm worried that labor won't be as crazy easy as hers either. Then my mind starts going crazy... we always talk about how different they'll probably be. Will it start with labor and then move into crying and not being a good sleeper? Ugh! Ah well, it doesn't matter we can't wait to hold her!

3) Stella is baby crazy! She wants to shop for baby, sing to her, etc. She's constantly asking, "Can I teach my baby to _______?" I simply cannot wait to see the two of them together!

4) We've resorted to bribery to get Stella to stay in her own bed through the night. I was so exhausted last week that I promised her a toy if she didn't get up during the night. She's been wanting Squinkies (I had no idea what they were before she showed me) for a while and they are tiny, come in a pack of 16 and are less than $1 each so I caved. Now we have them in a bowl and whenever she sleeps through the night she gets to pick one. It may be wrong, but I really don't care. At this point I'd try anything to get her sleeping through the night before this baby is born!

5) Stella is also a bit fragile. The past few mornings she hasn't wanted to go to Sheri's, which is so unusual. She just wants to stay home with Mama. She was so sad that I wasn't going to be taking her to gym and then sobbed when she found out that gym was cancelled yesterday! She even asked if I could just stay with her at Sheri's! Talk about breaking my heart! I know she loves it there and has a whole lot more fun than she would at home with me, but it still hurts. What a nice long spring and summer it will be with my two darling girls!

I go back to the Dr in 2 weeks and then once a week after that. THAT'S how you know when you're close - once a week trips to the Dr.!!!

Progress?

2011-01-21T16:56:00.000-08:00

I chose a paint color today! I just DID it (I haven't even told Jim yet). I'd had two more samples I was going to try on the walls to try to compromise*, but Jim said, "They're all starting to look the same," and I have to agree. I can't tell which - you'll have to wait and see. I got a pillow for the bed and sheets to make a crib skirt but then all the way home was second guessing myself. I saw a blog post about a quilt and the colors were exactly what we're looking for so I ordered fabric today! SO scary ordering something like fabric online - I sure hope the colors are true!

I'm also trying to get Jim to go with me tomorrow to get the dresser and bookshelf and to maybe paint? That may be too much but I'm getting antsy!

I am still working on posts about the "vacation" upgrades we did too - too much going on!

Indecision!

2011-01-18T08:41:00.000-08:00

Stella at her first day of gymnastics! She was CRAZY for it! Here she is getting help from her coach on the beam. (We didn't have a leo, but Sheri saved the day and brought an extra. We changed right there though, so we didn't take off her underwear - like how it's hanging out?) The class is supposed to be full, but they thought they could fit her in so we're crossing our fingers. She doesn't wear anything other than her "lee-lo" when we're at home. I love it!

Anyway, on to the "indecision" portion of the post...

Jim's in the process of patching the holes left by the wiring, and I'm trying to reorganize and clear out the nursery. We have six paint swatches up on the wall. Again, turquoise is SO hard to pick! Three of them were easily eliminated, a fourth is pretty much out of the running, so it's come down to two. As soon as I put them on the wall I knew which one Jim would like and he knew which I would like! (unfortunately, they are not the same one)

This first picture is one of them on one of her walls (I did it on two walls) One of us likes the one in the middle, but I'm afraid it will be too bright and jarring, the other likes the one on the far right, but I'm afraid it will be too light and not have the impact we want...

This picture is actually the room that got me going on our whole color scheme! I love it SO much and would love to just put it straight into our house. It's Robin's Nest (the far right one)

Another nursery done in the same color.

The bottom color of this nursery is Tropicana Cabana (the middle color in our samples)

Here's an empty room in Tropicana Cabana - you can get a better idea of the color, but I think that it being empty might make it actually seem brighter than it will/would when we filled the room.

Any votes? Feel free to leave your input!

Nursery "Art" and more Publisher Love

2011-01-13T10:12:00.000-08:00

So, I've already talked about how I'm too cheap to pay to have cards made. That kind of goes for a lot of things, and I've decided it's not that I'm too cheap really, it's that I see it as a challenge. A, "Why should I pay someone $18 to make something that I could make myself for nearly nothing" kind of a challenge.

I'm planning the nursery, and I want to do an arrangement of white frames. A lot of the frames will have pictures in them, but I also wanted some other things in the frames. Neither of these ideas are my originals (as usual), but I'm a master copier. The first is a quote I saw from someone else's nursery. It's pretty straight forward, I just made it in Publisher and saved it as a JPEG. I'll print it as a 6x4 and pop it in a frame for a sweet little saying and a bit o' color. (Unless I find another quote I like better... for about $0.10 I can change my mind without feeling guilty.)

This is the one I'm really excited about! I did pay for the darling little owl on Etsy, and I had the digital stationary from last year's Valentine's Day pack I got from Etsy. This is NOT the print that will go in the frame. I'm pretty sure we've come up with a name we both love, but with 10 weeks left I still reserve the right to change my mind and we'll wait to share her name until her arrival. BUT - I thought that Joy would be a good temporary word as that's pretty much what we're filled with right now. This print will be an 8x10 and I can't wait to see it together with some of the other things in the nursery!

As far as progress in the nursery goes - there hasn't been much. We still haven't cleared the room out (though I just bought 5 storage bins to go under beds to help us organize some of the stuff), we have to patch SIX holes in the walls before we can paint because the previous owner used it as a media room, and we're trying to pick the perfect shade of turquoise. Do you have any idea of how tough that color is???

Pinkalicious Party!

2011-01-10T18:02:00.000-08:00

I guess this is OLD news... Here are pictures of Stella's Pinkalicious Party. I loved loved loved the theme because it let me be so much more creative than going to the store and buying a certain character theme. We had tons of pink treats on the pink table, some green goodness on the green table, and a few other snacks in the kitchen. We found a Pinkalicious doll that Stella LOVES, and she had so much fun putting the goody bags together for the girls. It's going to be tough to live up to this one next year!

Goody bags: we got cupcake socks, pink chapstick, headbands, push pops, cupcake wands, and Pinkalicious books.

Stella and Kenzie checking out the Pinkalicious book and doll along with some of the pink goodies.

Lanterns that didn't stay lit along with the beginnings of the Italian meat tray/sandwich tradition!

More of the pink table: (You can just barely see the green table in the back)

Thank you's take II

2011-01-05T16:59:00.001-08:00

For Stella's 3rd birthday party we had a Pinkalicious theme. (In my opinion, a FANTASTIC, easy, and adorable theme if you're in need of one!)

I didn't want to do the same type of thank you cards I'd done for Christmas, and I'd seen a card on Etsy, but I'm much too cheap to pay $30 for thank you cards.

This image has lost a lot of quality - I originally saved it as a PDF, then had to save it as a jpeg and crop it to put it up here.

Anyway - back to the subject. I made one, put Pinkalicious in the corner, and then copied to fit 4 on a page. I saved it as a PDF file, uploaded it to Fedex Office and had them print it on cardstock. They were ready the next day. Then I cut them apart, filled them out, and off they went. It's a bit less personal (I wrote a little note on the side of some of them), but I thought it was a cute idea and I liked that it fit in with the theme, so I thought I'd give it a try.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with them. Who knows if I'll do them again... there are so many cute ideas floating around out there!

Thank you's

2011-01-05T16:36:00.000-08:00

I feel like I have so much to blog about and such little time! We way overworked ourselves over Christmas "vacation", but the results made it all worth it. Some home renovations and a pretty little party for a pretty little darling.

But... I wanted to share an idea with you if you are just a bit behind on your thank you cards. I don't do this for ours, but I love the ideas for Stella's thank you cards. I make mine in Publisher (I LOVE Publisher), but you could also use something like Picasa which is a great free program to download and edit pictures.

For each card I opened a 4x6 blank page and inserted a picture (my goal is to have a picture of Stella with the gift). Then I added the rectangle, filled in the color, and finally a text box. I try to have the colors go with the picture and type my little "thank you". Then, I save it as a jpeg and upload to a photo printing site. I used Walgreens today and they were ready within an hour. I typically use A6 envelopes from Michaels, but they're a bit pricey and it's out of my way. This time I picked up a box of 50 invitation envelopes from Wallys and they'll fit perfectly.

While I'm as big a fan of a hand-written note as the next gal, I like to think that the people who took the time to pick out a gift for her enjoy getting a picture with their note.

Since her birthday and Christmas are so close together (4 days), I decided to try something new for her birthday thank you cards this year. If I were to do them again I'd tweak them a bit, but I was pretty happy with how they turned out. I'll try to get those up in the next day or two!

My, what great timing we have!

2010-12-23T09:28:00.000-08:00

We got out of school Friday, and immediately came home to start replacing all of the flooring in the back bottom half of the house. (Family room, kitchen, and dining room) I'll post before/during/and after pictures next week. We're on the final push to get the house cleaned, catch up on laundry, and finish our baking today since we start 3 days of Christmas tomorrow!

So, until next week.... MERRY CHRISTMAS!

25 week fears

2010-12-07T11:48:00.000-08:00

Stella crawled in be with us last night and then I couldn't fall back to sleep. My brain was going crazy about so many things. One of which were some of my fears now that we're 15 weeks away from being a family of four. Recently, someone shared with me the old, "I was worried that I wouldn't be able to love the second as I had the first." I've never had this concern, but my anxiety-ridden self has many other concerns. Here are the top ones at the moment:

1) I'm going to miss both of them. When Stella was born we were able to spend hours just watching her, snuggling her, listening to her, and talking about her. With a 3 year old in the house I'm worried that I won't be able to just enjoy her and get to know her the way we did last time. I'm also afraid I'm going to miss Stella. A little one is going to take up so much of my time. Time that, until now, has been solely dedicated to Stinker. We'll lose a lot of our snuggling time and Jim will be doing more for her I'm sure. I'm terrified that I'm going to miss her!

2) I don't want No. 2 to be the "other" sister who just can't compete. I rolled over last night and told Jim, "I don't want No. 2 to be the '.........' of the family!" You can say it won't happen, but let's face it, we all know those people. Just recently we had two sisters in our classes. The older was DARLING, smart, kind, responsible, funny, involved, etc etc etc. Then there was the second - not so nice, not as smart, not as cute, and so on. She was more althletic, but in the grand scheme of life, how much does that matter??? In my eyes Stella is pretty much the most amazing person I've ever known. She's smart, funny, sweet, and beautiful. I don't want the little one to ever feel like she can't live up to Stella.

3) Lack of sleep! I remember how hard it was for me last time, and Stella already wakes us up many nights, plus I won't be able to take naps. I don't do well with little sleep!

Some of these may be normal, some may be because I'm a worrier by nature. Regardless, they were keeping me up last night, and I'm sure there will be many more that suddenly occur to me over the next 3 1/2 months.

Pinkalicious!

2010-12-05T20:39:00.000-08:00

I'm behind on my weekly updates (again, it's more for No. 2 than the blog - I plan on making a little photo album with them).

Today I finished our Christmas cards, I actually made 3 and we had to choose one, and then finished Stella's birthday invitations. I can't believe my "baby" is going to be 3 just days after Christmas. It's tough to switch gears between Christmas planning and birthday planning, but I'm trying.

Now, I'm NOT a pink kind of girl. I think I can count on one hand the number of pink articles of clothing I've owned. Stella, however, is completely crazy for pink and loves the books about Pinkalicious. So, we're planning a Pinkalicious birthday party for her. I think it will be cute... We got our new 2010 edition of Microsoft Works which included Publisher - I make all of our cards in that program and love it! Want to see the invites?

I set the size to 4x6 and save it as a jpeg. They fit really well in the colored envelopes at Michaels and it's so affordable when you're just paying for 4x6 photo prints!

Daughter(s)

2010-12-01T14:53:00.000-08:00

I was listening to my Christmas playlist today and a song came on that I've never heard before (or at least never paid attention to). It's Perry Como's "The Father of Girls". The song is a bit of a snooze, but I printed the lyrics for Jim, check them out!

23 weeks and something non-baby (FINALLY!)

2010-11-24T21:28:00.001-08:00

23 weeks and getting BIG!

So, here's one of the crafts we've been working on. Our little coniferous advent calendar. It was so easy and actually turned out cuter than I'd expected. I'd still like to get some "snow" and lights to put around the trees, but I kind of like it. There are a few drawbacks though... With the "calendar" itself - the tape I used to form the cones isn't strong enough to hold them, they're popping open. Second, I can't imagine how I could possibly pack these up and have them come out next winter. That means next year I'll be doing something differently. I think I'll do a felt stocking garland advent calendar. I'd like it to be something that will hold up through our girls growing up so they remember pulling it out each year.

I need to get to work on what we're going to use for the treats though. I don't want to use all candy, but anything more is going to get awfully expensive. The 1st is one week away and I only have a few things so I need to get moving!

Finally, here's the little Stinker's 23 week belly! :) We can't get enough of this little character!

22 weeks

2010-11-18T19:25:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to do house posts, things have just been crazy! We had a little wind storm Monday night - Jim told me that the neighbor said they haven't lost power here for years. That was music to my ears since we lost it several times a year at our old place. 30 minutes later and we were in the dark. It didn't come back until 9am Tuesday morning. I think we've jinxed our new little neighborhood. I hope they don't force us out!

I got a new camera that I am in LOVE with, but I could spend days online looking at tutorials to better learn how to use it. We got the Nikon D3100 - I already have a few lenses on my wishlist. Maybe the rain will stop long enough I can take Stella out for a little photoshoot. It's too bad that all of the leaves have been blown off the trees in the storm.

Monday Jim got his 'monster' truck back. They still have some work to do, but it already looks amazing and he's crazy about it.

We also got new carpet Tuesday. It's wonderful, but... I'm not too thrilled with the color we chose. That's kind of sad. I'm hoping that it will grow on me soon.

Finally, Jim has strep. Stella might have strep. I'm thinking that means I'm next. YUCK! So, house posts are on the back burner for a bit.

I have a few holiday crafts too so maybe I'll be able to sneak them in! I'm SO ready for the Christmas season and all that it entails.

21 weeks

2010-11-10T10:43:00.001-08:00

In house news - we're out of school tomorrow so the plan is to make some decisions on flooring. Thanksgiving is 2 weeks away, and I want at least the front room carpet done before then. (I want my tree up the day after Thanksgiving and don't like the idea of putting it up and then moving it for carpet). Jim and I will be doing the laminate ourselves again at this house. It's about 450 square feet and was going to cost more than $5K to have it installed! I'm not sure if we'll get to that over Thanksgiving break or if we'll wait until Christmas. I'm all for taking a day off work and just getting it done, but it's not as easy for administrators. I'd like to get it done sooner than later so there'll be less interference from the belly! I just cannot wait to get all of that nasty old flooring that someone else has gotten dirty OUT of my house!

Week 20

2010-11-03T12:14:00.001-07:00

19 weeks!

2010-10-29T23:02:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I'm a bit late, but here it is!

And... I'm thinking I'm going to do a little house tour of the new digs. Mostly so that someday (hopefully when this place looks like the picture I have in my head) I can look back and remember how far we've come. Plus, who doesn't like to look into other people's houses? I know I do! It will take a while to get pictures, but I'd like to post pictures of each room along with our (ok, my) plans for them. In addition to documenting the before pictures, it will help me organize what I want and get down what I like/dislike about each room. Plus, I've noticed that sometimes I see things in a different light in pictures. I wish I'd taken pictures before we moved in so we could have some true "befores" and have actual photos of the hideous paint colors, but we'll have to start from here. I wish we could go crazy and do everything now, but I know it will come in time and hope that this house will be whipped into shape before Stella leaves for college! Hopefully I'll get room 1 in sometime next week.

So very very wrong

2010-10-24T13:14:00.001-07:00

We went for our ultrasound Friday morning. (After a VERY rough Thursday night in which Jim and our puppy got attacked by a dog in our driveway. It's a long terrifying story and the dog is still limping, but we can't stop thinking how lucky we were that Stella was with them!)

Anyway... obviously, our first concern was for this little one to be healthy. I've been so paranoid this time around. Since I might be 35 when No. 2 is born, we had extra genetic testing where she described all of the markers they look for which could indicate down syndrome and other birth defects. She also showed us the chart in which birth defects skyrocket after age 35. SCARY!

We were CERTAIN that this one was a boy. Jim's aunt (who predicted us getting pregnant with Stella before we did had told us a boy was coming. Sounds like nothing to you I know, but this woman isn't wrong about things.) We've had a boy name picked out that we are in love with since we were pregnant with Stella, and all we thought about was boy things. How to decorate his nursery, what Saturday football games would be like, how it would be boys against girls. Jim already had plans in the making to take him to watch big machinery work. So, I have to admit, we were both shocked (and kind of dissappointed) when he said it was a girl.

Can you believe that I was sad? What a JERK! I told him that a year ago if I had known I would shed tears when we found out it was a girl I would have honestly punched myself in the face! We didn't think No. 2 was going to happen for us. We were on our 8th or 9th (and final) IUI. I had just gotten paperwork in the mail about adoption the week before. I'd prepared myself to deal with the fact that Stella might be an only child, and here I was dissappointed! Honestly, I could not have felt worse about myself.

I know that it's going to be great. I'm thrilled because I know that they'll be great friends when they grow up and I'm sure be closer than a girl/boy would have. Plus, I feel like girls stay closer to their parents when they're adults. At the time however, all I could think of would be the things we would miss. Stella is such my little pal. We do so much together, she likes to cook, craft, shop, etc. I really wanted Jim to experience that. I wanted to look out in the backyard and watch them throwing the football. I also wanted to know what it was like to have a son. So many people say that sons love their moms differently and I wanted to know what that felt like.

I just laugh at people who say, "Well, maybe you'll have to have 3." Um, no. Neither of us are up for any more trips to the Dr. to get preggo!

We're getting used to the idea (it's taking longer for him), and I know that it will be amazing. We quickly found ourselves saying "she" and "her" after 4 1/2 months of referring to it as he. Jim even said I look different to him now. How funny. He's almost acting like I'm more fragile since there's a girl instead of a boy in my belly. Isn't that crazy???

So, more pink, more babies, and more tea parties are on our horizon!

18 weeks

2010-10-20T20:17:00.001-07:00

We find out if we'll be buying a football or drowning in more pink on Friday!

Week 17

2010-10-13T11:55:00.001-07:00

It would be great if I knew how to make the pictures bigger...

Week 16

2010-10-06T19:32:00.000-07:00

So, not only is my husband NOT a photographer as I stated in my last post, it turns out he's completely impatient and annoyed by me asking him to take these pictures. Granted, I may be a bit bossy about it and the dog and daughter are running around our feet playing/fighting/crying, but still, this is a big deal so I'm going to keep pushing him to take more! (That picture on the right? That's me laughing at him being a big grump!)

15 weeks (a week late)

2010-10-05T17:37:00.000-07:00

So, I saw this series and loved it! We took weekly pics of the belly with Stella, and I tried to write letters to her as we went along, but that never goes as planned. I thought this would be a great way to watch the belly grow and document what's going on at the same time. I'm doing this more for us to look back on (and I think I'll have a little book made at some point), so if it's not remotely interesting to you I apologize!

*Please keep in mind that the man taking the photos in the link is a PHOTOGRAPHER and his wife is ADORABLE! Thus, our pictures will be MUCH less impressive, but again, it's more for us to look back on. (side note - who are all of these people have expansive bare walls to use as backdrops for pictures? We barely have a foot and a half of bare wall in the entire house!)

This was last weeks, week 16 is coming soon. (I'm sure you're holding your breathe waiting!)

It's a BOY!!

2010-09-28T14:49:00.000-07:00

Ok, ok, well not officially - sorry. But according to one of my students. A tiny little Sophomore boy told me today, "I think you're having a boy. When women are pretty they're having a girl, and when... yeah.... um... I mean..." He's appologized at LEAST 3 times, poor kid. They think I'm so scary who knows what he's afraid I'll do!

Honestly, I still have a post about getting preg and one about all of the recent education hoopla brewing if I can ever find time to try to write anything coherent!

Worth the wait!

2010-09-21T11:27:00.001-07:00

I am beyond thrilled to say that Stella is going to be a big sister! It took longer than expected (again), but I'm thrilled we all get to experience this together. Doesn't it look like she's saying, "YEEEEESSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!! FINALLY!" We're due March 22, and I can't wait to have a spring baby this time around. Watch out for lots of little bare arms and legs, YUM!

I have a lot of thoughts about our issues (and the issues of many others) getting pregnant, but I'll wait until another post - I don't want to put a damper on this darling pic!

What really matters

2010-08-19T21:46:00.000-07:00

So, not much has changed except that as Luger grows so is his energy level. Jim laughs on the phone because I spend most of the conversation yelling, "Luger NO, stop biting, OW, drop it, LUGERRRRRR!!!!!" Murphy and I had special relationship. He ADORED me, and the feeling was mutual. I really think now that it might be a one time kind of deal. It's definitely not that way for me right now with Luger. I do see huge amounts of potential in him though and I'm hoping that he'll get more snuggly when he outgrows the constant chewing.

Anyway, as I was going to write in this post, what is really important is that he and Stella are crazy about each other. We've been careful to make sure she's the dominant one and I think it's working. He does freak her out sometimes when he won't stop biting her (he's almost as big as her already). But she can take his food, lay on him, and when he bites her she grabs the skin on his cheek to pull him away. She can pet him, chase him, brush him - things she never could have done with the other dogs. So, if I have to choose between me having a bond with a dog or her, I'll choose her in a heartbeat. That is, after all, why we him.

She is so sweet, she hates if he cries, gets in his crate with him, feeds him, and sweet talks him. We really are blessed. (I'll have to remind myself of that next time I'm home alone with them both, I'm in the shower, she's crying, and he's peeing on my bath mat!)

He loves to sleep on the mantels and she gave him a pillow, her blankie, and her babies. Awwww

Maybe before summer is over I'll get around to posting about a few of the other things we've been up to!

I'm exhausted and I think we're idiots!

2010-08-09T21:14:00.000-07:00

After all we went through with our other 2 dogs we were happy to go without any pets for "a while". I was really enjoying it and had no intentions of getting another. Well, we did miss having a dog and the security you get from one and realized if we didn't get one NOW it was going to be a long time before another opportunity arose. So... we got a sleepy, chill, fluffy black 8 week old German Shephard. Jim named him "Lugar" and he really was (ok, is) darling.

BUT - now I'm exhausted and thinking I made a huge mistake! I'm the dog person, but Jim is crazy about him, and I'm not sure I am. It could be because he's SO MUCH WORK! I don't remember it being like this. All he does is pee, poop, and chew on EVERYTHING. I spend my entire day and night chasing him and yelling "no"! (Jim claims he comes when you call him - I haven't had that happen yet). He has to get up in the middle of the night, he screams in his kennel all night, and have I mentioned the chewing? On us, furniture, shoes, boxes, EVERYTHING!

I really hope he chills out soon, I'm just not up for this. I'd upload a pic so you could see just how adorable he is, but I don't have the energy to get up and get the camera. Maybe next time.

The house is coming along slowly. My mom and I finished painting kitchen cabinets yesterday (which now make the counters look infinitely WORSE). Maybe I'll feel like it's suitable for posting pictures before the year is out.

Hope some of you are finding some time to relax, I'll live vicariously through you!

Busy but good

2010-07-23T22:34:00.000-07:00

Wow - almost 3 months without a post. Sorry, Melissa - I think you're probably the only one who may still read this thing.

We're slowly getting moved into the "new" house. It's so different from last time. Our last house was brand new and we got to pick flooring, counters, etc. This house was built in 1980. The guy who we bought it from (who I happened to go to HS with and is C.R.A.Z.Y), did a LOT of work on this place. The neighbors said he quit work to go back to school, but then didn't go to school and just pretty much worked on it. Some of the work he did is AMAZING and is part of what sold us on the house. He put in wood floors upstairs, new windows, a new roof, new doors, and did a fantastic job putting in trim throughout. However, he (or they possibly) had awful taste in some things. The bathroom vanities are very nice quality, but not even a little bit our style. They're very frilly. His paint choices were pretty shockingly bad too. I'd try to tell you, but can't convey it. When I tell people they are still surprised at how bad it is when they get here. So, the painter is coming next week I hope, I'm going to do what I can with the kitchen until we can save enough to redo it, the floors, ceilings, and built ins around the brick.

We're SO happy here though already. We're not in a mass development, we have a much bigger back yard, and the commute is 1/3 what it was last year. It's 7 glorious minutes to get Stella to the babysitters! Living in the apartment was much tougher on her than I'd expected, so that's another reason we're thrilled to finally be in.

Hopefully I'll get some pictures posted soon (Melissa - there's a moving announcement headed your way).

Other than the house, things are great. And I mean REALLY REALLY great! :)

Updates

2010-05-06T10:35:00.000-07:00

Apparently it's been a while since I've visited and it's been pointed out that a few things have happened that may be noteworthy.

The first is that we sold our house. I was prepared (expecting) for it to take about 4 months. We worked our BUTTS off for two weeks trying to "stage" it. I spent more money than Jim wanted, we took several loads to the Goodwill, Jim's friend took a load to the dump for us, we rented a storage unit and loaded it up. It also involved, painting, mulch, light fixtures, planting flowers, and more. It's nice to know that it all paid off because even in this market we sold our house in EIGHT days! I'm so grateful, getting kicked out of our home so often was really taking a toll on the little one.

I thought that looking for a new place would be the fun part, but so far it's proven to be much more frustrating. I think we'll be renting a place to give ourselves plenty of time to find the perfect place.

I guess the other "news" is that about an hour ago Jim had our dog Annie put to sleep. She was the sweetest ole thing you can imagine. I always joked that she could go home with anyone and she'd be happy if they'd just love her. It was a sudden thing - this time yesterday I had no clue it was coming. In 4 months we went from 2 dogs to none, such a shocker!

So, in memory of our first dog... I love you Annie!

Quite possibly the cutest puppy I've ever seen:

And her happiest moments - camping and a stuffed animal.

Hmmm...

2010-03-30T14:34:00.000-07:00

Jim and I were watching The Pacific last night. A woman was talking about her daughter: "Stella is our only blessing. I asked prayed for more babies, but God said 'No'. There's nothing you can do when God says 'No'."

We just turned and looked at each other. Whoa.

Ever since it's been echoing in my head, "When God says 'No'"

I Heart Faces - Baby Love

2010-02-21T20:32:00.000-08:00

This is my entry for I Heart Faces "Hands Week". One of my favorite pics from Stinker as an almost newborn! Photography-wise it may not be the best picture ever, but I adore it!

Update

2010-01-14T07:42:00.000-08:00

I don't have much time because I know Stink is going to wake up any second, but I wanted to do a little update.

A wonderful friend found a home for my Murph! Her sister fostered him for almost a week and a half (what a blessing!) until I could take him to his new home on Saturday. Mom and Bev drove me to Ellensburg to take him to meet his new family. I'm so grateful that they were there - if I'd been alone I know that I'd have sobbed most of the way. (Plus, we got to check out the Snoqualmie Casino on the way home. What a treat!)

His new family is WONDERFUL! They are a retired couple who have a farm on almost 4 acres. I was worried about several things: they have 2 cats (he does NOT like small furry animals), their yard isn't fenced and he's never been able to run free, and there are a lot of other dogs around (ok, he doesn't really like ANY furry animals). Well, Murph did get a little snarly with a dog while we were there, but the man was SO patient. He didn't freak out (like I did), he just said they'd have to work it out and it would be ok. The cats live outside so I don't think that will be an issue. And... the woman called the next morning to say that Murphy is doing great and they love him. He comes back home when he's let outside, he's been palling (is that a real word?) around with all of the guys, and he even got to sleep on the bed the first night. He loves to be outside so I know he's going to love it there!

I miss him desperately, but I can handle that as long as I know that he is safe, happy and loved!

Stella is doing great and doesn't seem any worse for wear after all of this. It's almost completely healed and although she may have a small scar under her eye I don't think it will be anything that's noticeable.

Maybe someday soon I'll actually be able to post about normal things again...

Progress

2009-12-31T08:00:00.000-08:00

I think we (and by that I mean one of my friends) has found a home for Murph! I get to pick him up this morning, and while it's going to be torture to leave him 2 more times, it's also going to be wonderful to be able to see him two more times! Today I'm taking him to my friend's sisters place in Seattle. She's going to take care of him for a bit until I can get him over to Ellensburg where we're hoping and older retired couple who live on a farm will fall in love with him. If he can't be with me, I think this is a great alternative for him. He LOVES to be outside and chase things. :) The pass to get to the eastside has been bare and dry for such a long time, but of course today it's supposed to get 6-12". So... hopefully we can get him over there next weekend and he can start the next leg of this journey.

I keep telling myself that there MUST be a reason for all of this. Maybe there's another family who will really need him. Or maybe, just maybe, there could be another little stink joining our family this year and that just might be more than my poor sweet boy can bare. I'm trying very hard to have faith that there's a greater reason for all of this.

Ok, off to see my baby boy!

PS - have you ever had a song come on and at that moment you felt it was just for you? On my way home from running errands I was trying to find my CD with a song covered by Dave Matthews ("Woke up this morning, smiled at the risin sun. Three little birds, on my doorstep. Singing a sweet song, melody pure and true, singing this is a message for you. Don't worry bout a thing, cause every little thing is gonna be alright") I didn't find it, but last night I turned the TV to a kids station and it had been on for a while but we weren't paying attention to it. All of the sudden, that song was on. Of course - I started crying! I've been doing entirely too much of that lately. It needs to STOP!

Complete Misery

2009-12-23T20:09:00.000-08:00

That's what the last 24 hours have been. Stella had been chasing Murphy around the house (which she loves to do and he hates) and he turned and nipped her. We took her to the Dr. to get it cleaned and got her on antibiotics. We were VERY lucky that it wasn't worse than it was.

But... this means we had to get rid of my dog. My first BABY. I know there aren't a lot of people who love their animals as passionately as I do, but I do. I adored that dog and the feeling was mutual. He was MY dog, MY pal. He followed me everywhere. When I was pregnant I had grand ideas of how much he'd love this little girl we were going to bring into the family. That never happened. He never got over the hurt and the jealousy.

So, first thing this morning my husband took him to the Humane Society. He has to stay in solitary confinement for 9 days and then they'll euthenize him. I can't breathe, I can't talk, I can't do anything but SOB. Yes, I know we had to do it but my heart is completely breaking. We have 8 days to find someone willing to take in a 9 1/2 year old dog who doesn't like other dogs and has nipped a young child. Doesn't sound too likely to me. I just keep thinking of how cold, lonely, confused, and scared he must be. I walk out of the bathroom and expect to see him laying by the door, I open the garage door and step back to let him come charging in, there are presents wrapped and waiting for him. I don't know what to do with all of this and I just can't stop crying.

I wish someone who's lonely could look past all of that and see the dog that I know and love so very much. He'd love nothing more than to have someone throw the ball for him, maybe go for a walk, and then snuggle on the couch. He isn't sick, he isn't old, and he isn't mean, this is just so unfair to everyone involved, but mostly my baby boy.

I pray that he can find some peace there and that he knows how in love with him I am. I don't even know how to be in this house without him.

I'm SO SO SO very sorry my baby boy!

Hiding

2009-12-11T09:52:00.000-08:00

I'm hiding some old posts (and not writing a few) because my HS kids found out I have a blog and are on the hunt for it. I found it through google on my second search, so they'd find it eventually. So, for a while just pictures of my girl!

Posing by the tree.

Stella's choice!

Hours of entertainment.

2009-11-21T16:25:00.000-08:00

I can't believe how much fun Stella is getting to be. She changes everyday and it's such a blessing to get to be a part of it! She's having a great day with her Dad today They went for a walk at the park, looked at plants, and watched the big kids play soccer. Right now, they're playing in their fort and telling each other stories. I love listening to them!

Here's a video that's about a month and a half old now, but still provides endless entertainment for Jim and I. (I laugh myself to tears!)

Cereal and frozen pizzas

2009-10-01T14:49:00.001-07:00

If we have to eat cereal and frozen pizza for dinner every night because Stella wants me to hold her and snuggle her - so be it! I'm tired of trying to "teach" her that she can play on her own while I fix dinner after school. I told Jim that I'm just going to enjoy it and not worry about what I'm not getting done. He said, "yes, because someday you'd kill for this." He's right - it brings me to tears thinking that there will come a day when I can't hold her! So for now, dinners are going to be pretty pitiful and I'm ok with that. (She does get progressively better throughout the week. Mondays are ROUGH, Tuesdays better, and yesterday she was pretty happy running around for a while.)

How can I resist this face?
♥

My little Hot Tamale!

and my OCD buddy! It will be great when her organizational skills mature and it's helpful!

I wait all year for this!

2009-09-26T20:34:00.001-07:00

We've been SO busy - it's tough to post with school and trying to get lots of quality time in with Stella. I really do love fall even if it means going back to school. I love the cool, crisp, foggy mornings, wearing sweaters, and baking. (pumpkin drop cookies are my ABSOLUTE favs although I made chocolate chip for Jim this morning.) Stella's new favorite fall thing is "hot cocoa". Hearing her say it is the cutest thing ever! It's also darling when she says, "thanks Mama" without prompting!

One thing I love about fall that I wait ALL YEAR for is my little pumpkin. I get smallish pumpkins from the store and carve it. I never used to bother with a face, I would just carve random shapes in it. This year I carved a happy little face for Stella. I rub the top with spices (cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg,...) and burn it on my kitchen counter. It's the most amazing smell throughout the entire house. They don't last terribly long, but I have 2 more here waiting when this one gets mushy!

I've been trying to do a little bit of decorating. I saw a blog post about using frosted glass spray-paint and knew it would be perfect for a cabinet in my bathroom but also thought it would be fun to try on other random things around the house. I haven't tried it yet, but on a similar note check out my Ross find! A darling apothecary jar with an "S" already etched in it! I found the pinecones with little pumpkins and gourds in it at Michaels and we had instant fall. I'd still like to do more, but at least I have a little bit of fall going for now.

As for my mood - things are getting better. We're finding our school groove (I still wish I had an extra day or two off a week though!)

Here she is with her "hot" cocoa. Too bad I can't get her to turn away from the movie to face the camera!

One

2009-08-22T21:27:00.000-07:00

One week left to:

* snuggle after naps

* go to the park

* watch Yo Gabba Gabba while eating breakfast

* read to her for HOURS on end

* Toddler Gym and swimming at the YMCA

* running errands together while everyone else is at work

* go on field trips

* try to find something nutritious that may also be considered edible for lunch

* hang out in our pjs until 10

* call Daddy at work to check in

* get a lemonberry slush at Sonic

* sew/knit/read/clean during naptime

* sprinkler fun

* movies

* watch my girl talk, play, learn, and grow all day long

* just pal around

* did I mention snuggling after naps? I did? Can you tell that's one of my FAVORITE things?

I've been SO loving being a stay at home mom all summer. I think I'm finally getting the hang of it. I really do enjoy working, I just always have bouts of anxiety before going back after a break. It's so hard to leave her after spending so much time together. I know that I have a GREAT job for a mom. I get to be home with her about 1/2 time if you count weekends/holidays/vacations - still... I miss her.

I know how much she loves all of the kids at Sheri's, and I know how good it is for her. It will be fine. It's always the anticipation that's the worst. I'd better end this before I wind up in full-blown tears!

"Baby baby you're the world to me."

My Loot!

2009-08-12T21:21:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to join a CSA for several years now, I've just never pulled the trigger. They only run from about June - October, you have to drive down to pick up the box, and it seemed pricey. I'd thought about trying to find someone to split with but then you have to coordinate that each week as well.

Last week a friend told me about Terra Organics and suggested I check to see if they deliver (yes, DELIVER) to my house. I didn't get my hopes up - nobody delivers anything except luke warm pizza to my house. I was pleasantly surprised when I was wrong! My interest was peaked and I looked into it further. We decided to have a small box delivered every other week. I'm not sure the 2 1/2 of us could get through more and I wanted to try it out before we got more. Our first delivery was today and I'm thrilled! Check out the fresh, organic produce that was left on my doorstep:

Our first box contained:

* pluots

* blueberries

* corn

* cherry tomatoes

* donut peaches

* cantaloupe

* celery

* green cabbage

* yellow beans

Can you believe that??? I cut up the cantaloupe while Stella was napping so we'd have it for dinner... not quite half of it made it to the table and I must say it was the sweetest/best cantaloupe I've had in as long as I can remember. I can't wait to see what the next box brings!

A couple of other things I really like about them: you can substitute items (although there isn't a lot that I think I'd choose not to get), you can put it on hold if you aren't going to be around or just don't want it for some reason, you can stop at any time (as opposed to buying in for an entire season), it's year-round, and you can add on to your order. And... it's all done online. These people are geniuses!!

She might look like Daddy but she's a lot like Mama! (and what we've been up to)

2009-08-08T13:31:00.000-07:00

When I arrange things Jim says I have mild OCD. (I may... how many other people eat colored candy in pairs arranged by color?) When his darling girl lined up all of the cones he was trying to use for soccer he said she's "linear". Funny how the title is different for different people.
After putting them in a line she paired them up carefully around the yard. This took a while and a LOT of concentration - what could be going through that little mind?

And just goofing off...

She now knows where popsicles are kept and goes to the freezer saying "sicle" many times a day.

We made playdough,

met cousins at the wading pool,

practiced guitar with Daddy,

and helped Mama make homemade lemonade.

The girls liked strawberry best, Dad liked blueberry. (We picked blueberries from a local farm that morning - YUM!) I wish you could have seen how beautiful the colors were. I tried to capture it, but this is the best picture I could get.

Look at her DEVOUR that burger... Oh wait, nope it's a Gardenburger. That's my girl!

And totally unrelated, I've been making belts! This one is probably my favorite. Jim got a navy one and an olive one, I got this one, chocolate, charcoal, and olive. I got the webbing and hardware from an Etsy site (I just searched for "belt buckles"). No tools required, just cut the webbing and crimp the ends of the hardware. I think they cost about 5-6 bucks a piece. MUCH better than the price in the stores!

There are only a few weeks left of vacation so I'm trying to enjoy the time with Stella as much as possible. She actually napped on my chest the other day - AH HEAVEN!!!!

I guess she didn't like it

2009-07-30T13:13:00.001-07:00

Our girl LOVES music. She dances to all of our stuff, Taylor Swift always makes her smile, and when the kiddy tunes (the obnoxious ones that get stuck in my head for the rest of the day) come on in the car her arms are sure to be waving. We really haven't found much she doesn't like... other than one Beyonce song that was on the Ellen show.

Yesterday, Jim's niece was over trying to escape the heat in her apartment. She was playing his electric guitar trying to figure out Cat Power's version of "Sea of Love". I was holding Stella and when I looked down this is what I saw:

I can only assume she isn't a fan!

Just a few of the reasons

2009-07-29T08:58:00.000-07:00

I LOVE LOVE LOVE having a little girl! I'm so thrilled to have a little pal to do things with. At almost 19 months my little lovely loves to help cook, clean, and sew. I'm sure she'd love to do other crafts too if I let her. (Yes, I realize I would have loved a boy, but I'm pretty sure the list would be different.)

I'm not really a girly girl, but it's sure fun to dress her up!

She likes to dress herself up too... She's just now getting big enough to enjoy some quiet cuddling time again. We spent almost an hour that morning with her laying on me. Believe me, I soaked up every second of it!Plus, you can't make nearly as cute of little outfits for boys! I made this dress Sunday and she wore it that night to a family dinner. Sweet Jim says it's his favorite thing I've ever made (any clothes I make for her look SO stinking cute though - that's just what she does!) She's at that age where it's tough to get her to hold still for pics, so here's the best I could do. (She's putting "powder" on Uncle Jeff)

I new I wanted to make a 70's looking dress with this fabric, and I LOVE sewing with the elastic thread. I think I may even use it for a skirt for myself! I know I'll be saving this dress... maybe one day she'll use it for a little one of her own.

There's been so much other fun stuff, but this post is getting out of control. I will leave you with pics of one of our new favorite things... OUTSIDE SHOWERS!!! We hook up a hose to the kitchen sink to get warm water and she takes a shower in the back yard. She LOVES it (and I would too if there weren't neighbors all around!) Plus, I don't have to be up in the bathroom with her taking a bath. It's WAY too hot for that these days.

Not my plan

2009-07-24T09:54:00.000-07:00

I'm facing dissappointment this morning head on. I'm trying to have faith that there is a plan even if it's not the plan I would choose. I am beyond content and things will work out the way they are supposed to.

She did it her way

2009-07-21T07:31:00.001-07:00

One of my closest friends (and college roomie) got married Sunday. They've been together for more than 9 years and are such a great couple. The setting was beautiful! Hannah is not a "bride" - in fact, she wouldn't even let people use that word. She's not religious, hates "crafts", and the thought of a wedding made her break out in hives I think. However, once she started thinking of the day as a party I think she had a blast. It was kind of Day of the Dead/Rockabilly, perfect for them! Check out their duds. :)

She made all of those tissue paper flowers to hang from the tree (and she says she hates crafting!) What a lovely isle.

The priceless look on her face during her sisters toast.

The most incredible cakes ever! I was SO glad she wasn't the wedding kind of girl while I was eating. I had the chocolate mocha, Jim had the coconut lime. We both said they were the best we've had. I think that all "chicks getting hitched" should get several amazing cakes to choose from rather than one big one. (Some of the older guests at several points during the reception asked her if they could help themselves. Um, I realize it wasn't a traditional wedding, but when have you just gone up and helped yourself to cake before it's cut?!?!)

Hannah and I.

And just for comparison - Hannah and I more than 9 years ago at my traditional wedding. UGH!! At least we can look back and laugh. I look forward to laughing at the one above with you 9 years from now! I'm so happy for both of you!

A. MA. ZING!!!!

2009-07-13T08:53:00.000-07:00

I don't know what else to say about the Coldplay concert Saturday. If you haven't been - GO! This is only the second time they've been to the Seattle area, and both times they were simply fantastic. And... if you've never been to a concert at the Gorge Amphitheater - GO! I don't think that there is a more beautiful place to watch/listen to a concert in the entire country. The acoustics are phenomenal and you get to sit and watch the sunset over the Columbia River. These pictures simply do not do it justice. I took them with my phone because I was the only one too chicken to sneak in my little camera. The girls are supposed to email me their pictures so if I get any good ones maybe I'll post those later. This is the view from our "seats". Stage to the left, river straight ahead and all of the way along our right. Check out those sun rays even on a crummy cell phone camera!

I guess I didn't get a good sunset picture. :( This was the best I took (with my finger in it) and believe me, it got MUCH more beautiful than this!

Ah... it begins. We were all giddy. I still don't know what my favorite part was. We all did the cell phone wave when it got dark (I'm not sure the exact # of people, but my friend guessed about 30,000 all doing the wave with the lights on their phones was pretty cool!), the band running half way up the hill to the left and playing an acoustic version of Green Eyes (one of my fav

songs), and then playing

Billie Jean from that same spot, or the entire crowd singing across the gorge. Their concerts are SO interactive! I've basically spent the past 15 minutes going through youtube videos from the concert and reliving it - I could watch them daily.

Sunday on the way home we stopped at Lake Cle Elum which is one of our favorite little stops everytime we drive over the mountains. It's SO quiet and peaceful. We'd love to buy property in Cle Elum and just pitch a tent.
More updates on Stella to come, for now I'm going to go back to watching videos from this weekend.

Busy with all things summer

2009-07-05T14:05:00.000-07:00

It's so great having both spouses have summer vacation off! We're all having ridiculous amounts of fun. Here's a little picture diary of just SOME of the summer activities we've been enjoying:

Hanging out with Dad in the monster truck.

Cooling off in the pool and/or sprinkler.

Sidewalk chalk.

Mama's little helper.

Our new t-ball/bat.

Ice cream cones.

You can't see them very well, but I made hanging candle holders out of shakers from the $ store to go above our patio table. Seriously ups the cozy factor!

Helping a friend with decorations for her blow - out (and by that I mean wedding)

Picking strawberries...

to make 2 batches of freezer jam and to freeze a ton for smoothies!

Picnic at the beach. (one of my personal favorites)

4th of July view from my aunt and uncles deck

Enjoying the show with Nona. I wasn't sure how she'd do but she LOVED them! She kept clapping and saying, "YAY" and "more"

I'm thinking that posts are going to be pretty infrequent - I just can't seem to bring myself to spend the time doing it with so many other things calling me!

Nine

2009-06-23T15:19:00.001-07:00

Nine years ago right now I was driving to the church for pictures. I was SO excited, and not a bit nervous. It was a beautiful day to start a crazy adventure - and I can't imagine it with anyone else by my side. Thank you, I love you, and I look forward to SO many more!