Breathing a little easier

 The end is in sight and graduation is just around the corner. Today we gave ourselves a few minutes to breathe and Gary took C on a walk to the mailbox. She loves doing this (in case you can't tell by the look on her face) and I was excited that she got to take her new winter hat out for a spin in the chilly evening air.

Just Popping In For A Shameless Plug

Hey guys. I'm taking a quick break from finals (and facebook. and tv. and pinterest.) to ask for a little help. One of my classes this semester is a blogging course. Since I wasn't allowed to use this blog for my assignments I had to create a new one. Which is cool, because I'm actually super excited about it, and while I'm pretty restricted on how/what I write, in a few weeks I will be FREE to do what I want fer realsies!!

www.OurPatchofGrass.com

Anyway, if you get a chance and want to be cool, maybe you can follow me on over there? And leave a comment if you feel so inclined? It would make me look super awesome and my teacher would probably be impressed. Thanks in advance...I'll put in a good word with the mall Santa for all of you!

My Life This Week

Sick baby.
Family member in the hospital.
Huge part of senior capstone project due (and STILL not done.)
More sick baby.
Not sleeping at night (thanks to sick baby.)
Too much caffeine. 
More homework.

Here's to officially entering "survival mode" for the next three weeks. Huzzah.

Oh, and when you are drowning in a sea of Too-Much-To-Do, you should NOT decided to redo your gallery wall...inevitably you will only get it half-done and the sick baby will want to play with/break the remaining  frames you've abandoned on the floor.

A bit of this and that.

1. I think I am turning into an 80-year-old because today I told Gary that at the top of my Christmas wish list was a really nice iron with steam settings so I can properly iron flat my seams while quilting. I also informed him that I am going to become the kind of person who wears shawls when it's cold and I'm looking forward to a post-dinner treat of ginger snap crisps with a small glass of milk. All I need now are some dentures and a walker with tennis balls on the legs.

2. I'm pretty sure I may be turning the corner on this illness! I'm not sure if I've written about it here but I tested positive for Epstein-Barr virus a few months ago...basically it just makes me tired. And not just tired but exhausted, and I feel that way all. of. the. time. Like, I'll sleep for 8 hours, wake up for an hour, nap for 2 hours, wake up for a couple hours, nap for another hour or two...going to the grocery store felt like running some kind of crazy marathon and just being up and playing with C took every bit of energy in me. Usually this is supposed to run its course in a few weeks but my fatigue has lingered...and lingered...and lingered. BUT, for the last three days I've only  needed one nap per day, which is kind of a HUGE deal.

3. All of this new-found energy is being diverted primarily into school, BUT I did get a few things done around the house! I actually got some Fall/Thanksgiving-ish decorations up on my bookshelves:

 

Candles wrapped with scrapboook paper and twine, a old junky frame strung with wire to pin on paper ephemera, and pumpkins and gourds I painted and glazed a few years ago meant I managed to decorate without spending a dime (hollah!) Also, if you're interested, the "give thanks" sign is just a canvas I wrapped in brown wrapping paper. I do this a lot with extra canvases around holidays...saves me from having to buy/make elaborate seasonal art!

SNL and Seam Rippers

Only a mother's love would compel me to stay up into the wee hours of the morning watching SNL and sewing C a new skirt for church tomorrow.

That and my inexplicable need to match outfits with my baby girl. I don't understand it, but I'm not fighting it.

Too Many Choices!

So I mentioned that C's big girl room needs to come together like, yesterday. We're moving her into a bigger room across the hall which is CRAZY exciting because:
* Um, hello! I get to decorate a whole new room. It's like Christmas has come early!
* The space is already painted with the flooring AND baseboard installed (though I do need to sand/touch-up paint/caulk half of the base still) so I pretty much just have to move in furniture and get to the fun part of decorating.
* Her nursery was painted before we knew if we were have a boy or girl so it was blue. And while I LOVE that blue, I'm excited to do something a little more girly and polished for this room, because frankly, it's only going to be a few years before she decides she is emo or into Pokemon or whatever annoying things the youths are into these days. I'm dreading the day when she gets to decide how to decorate her own space.
*There are FOUR walls!!! And three of them are big walls! Her nursery is the smallest room in the house and it has two normal walls, one wall that is all closet doors, two weird slanty walls and one wall with a window stuck on one side of it. It was a space-planning nightmare. There are so many possibilities with this new room!
* The closet doors are already painted with chalkboard paint so we can start drawing as soon as she moves in!

And also, there are about a million more reasons why this is exciting. I think about it all of the time. All. Of. The. Time.

BUT I need some help...I've been planning on a pink and aqua bedroom for a while because it feels feminine without being too girly. And then I started seeing more and more rooms that I *might* like better. Now I'm all confused. I'm like the girl on Say Yes To The Dress who can't pick a wedding dress because there may be a prettier more perfect dress out there.

So here is my starting point with the pink and aqua. Let me know what you think!  

Via Ohdeedoh

Via The Lark Blog

Via Shelterness

Via A Beautiful Mess

Via Lay Baby Lay

Source Unknown (but if you know who deserves credit PLEASE let me know!)

This post is already getting too long, so I'll be back another day with the other color options I am considering...until then, feel free to weigh in on the pink and teal. What do you think? I feel like it may be overdone and I don't want to get tired of it too fast. Is it too girly?

Nursery Recap

The time has come all too soon to move C into her big-girl room. I would gladly keep her in the nursery until we are expecting another kid (which we absolutely are NOT at the moment) but her room shares a wall with the living room; this wouldn't be a problem but recently she has taken to kicking the wall as hard as she can when she is in her crib and it's making my frames fall off of the wall. No bueno.So our solution is to move her into a room where her wall-kicking habits won't interfere with precariously hung sheets of glass and beloved art. Before I get to the inspiration for her room (and before I do any work on it) I wanted to re-document her nursery...that sweet little space I so lovingly slaved over.

***Some time ago my first blog was accidentally and irrevocably deleted. Thanks to my SIL some of the posts were saved though the pictures were lost. This is a repost from that original blog***

ORIGINAL POST DATE: 5/8/2010 (I've edited it here and there since)

I promised a few of you that I would post in-progress pics of the nursery. Originally I was going for clean lines and mid-century minimalism. With vintage fabrics. And a few vintage pieces. And then things just kept changing. So now I think it is looking a little more "vintage lived-in but not shabby chic" which is fine since I have an inexplicable love of what has been loved, and we have a lot of that on hand. Ultimately I think it looks pretty clean and sparse, rather than frilly and overdone. I just keep editing whatever makes its way in to the room to keep the clutter down. So, on to the goods.

To date we have:
*painted the walls a light blue
*painted the ceiling/closet/shelf above dresser a slightly deeper light blue
*refinished the dresser
*removed the closet doors
*purchased and assembled a crib. The crib is Ikea's Gulliver, and we bought it off craigslist for $50 (score!)
*the side table was something like $12 and I bought it about a year ago. It was living in our guest room, but I moved it to the nursery and replaced its spot in the guest room with one of Gary's drums for now (I actually like the way the drum looks, but I don't think Gary is wild about it, so we will see who wins this decor-debate. Me. Probably always me.)
*Gary put in the ceiling fan, and while I would have loved a chandelier or other funky light fixture, in Arizona there is just no going without a ceiling fan.
*I hung a shelf above the dresser. I bought the cast-iron brackets at Hobby Lobby, slapped on some white craft paint, and then wiped most of it off to make it look distressed. I think I paid like $8 for both brackets since they were on sale that week, and the piece of wood was five or six bones at Home Depot. Paint was leftover from the ceiling color.
*we picked up all of the red bins in the closet at Target, and the basket-drawer system thing is from Ikea.
*White curtain panels were on clearance at Target for like $8 for the pair and I also found a cute curtain rod with crystal finials at Hobby Lobby. I had to spray paint the rod white since it comes in a bronzey finish but they were MUCH less expensive than other places I looked (*cough*pottery barn kids*cough*).

 The crib with the fabric banner I made. Some of the fabrics are new and more graphic (like the Amy Butler lotus fabric) but most are vintage sheets and pillowcases from my collection. Oh, and a few doilies thrown in for extra vintage charm. The framed bibs were mine as a baby. I added the pom trim to the curtains but if I had to do it again I would order some of that fancy-pants jumbo pom. Go big or go home, right?

 I love this dresser...even though the drawers stick. 

Here is the mid-century nightstand with the chair I never did get around to recovering. Ah well, c'est la vie, right? I would like to sew up a slipcover for it, at least for the next kid but that's not something I have to worry about now.

 The drawer basket thingy (very technical term there) is from Ikea and we use it to keep toys, blankets and extra wipes/diapers handy. 

Close-up of the Hobby Lobby bracket. I love this store. Can you be soulmates with a store? Or with multiple stores (since Target is obviously my first)? On the floor there you can see some of the crap that will eventually go up on the walls: some embroidery I did, a vintage bib passed down from my mom, some prints from the original Alice in Wonderland novels, plus family pictures, some more hand-crocheted doilies I've collected over the years, and two Emily Martin prints that I finally bought. I've also been bugging Gary to whip up some art for the room (since we are trying to incorporate as much handmade "stuff" as possible to pass down to the little girl) but he has yet to get to it. Maybe because I keep him busy hanging fans and building shelves and painting?

We still have a loooong way to go. Which is kinda too bad since C is about to get evicted. We want to get the crown molding installed and all of the trim painted bright white (seriously, all of the trim in the house is pinkish creamy "white" and maybe it looked great with all of the tan and brown they previous owner had going on, but now? It makes me want to barf. Blech.) We got the flooring done but the base still needs to be installed in here.

So:
1. install/paint crown and trim
2. install/paint base
3. figure out chair situation/sew slipcover for vintage rocker

Daily Dose of C

Even when she is sweaty and cranky, this little girl takes my breath away.

Making My List

I cannot wait for the cooler weather to set in! Every day I press my hands against the windows to feel if it is cool outside...because obviously this is a)the most scientific method and b)the weather app on my phone *might* be wrong. We had a few days of chilly weather (chilly=highs in the low 80's) but the triple digits are back with a vengeance. Le sigh. Until we are get consistent overnight lows in the 60's I'll be dreaming about my Fall To-Do List:

 

Pumpkin Festival

Buy Matching Sweaters For Me & C

Halloween Party

Midterms

Weekend up North

Smores

Corn Maze

Fall Garden

Al Fresco Dining

Fire Pits

C's First Trip to the Zoo

Pumpkin Gingerbread Trifle

 

What are you excited about this Fall?

Mustache Bash!

A couple months ago I helped throw my friend April a baby shower (her crazy cute little boy has since arrived) but I couldn't resist showing you how adorable her shower turned out. I had nothing to do with the food (I can eat with the best of them, but coming up with menus is not so much my bag if someone else is willing to take that on), but I was in charge of the decor and theme. I'm not going to lie, I L-O-V-E-D it!

 I started with this PERFECT invitation:

The seller is bnute (the invitation is available as a digital download on ETSY) and you guys, I'm not being perked or paid to say this but I was extremely impressed with this shop! The invites are creative and the turnaround was within 24 hours from placing my order. I will absolutely be using this shop again!

Candy Bar party favors! The sign says "Thanks for coming! If you 'mustache' please grab a bag a sweets!" Get it? Mustache? Must-dash?!

April's mom and Grandma put out an ah-mazing spread of food!

Seriously, how adorable is this girl?

See the "floating" mustaches? I'm not going to lie, that was my favorite of all my ideas.

Even the sonogram we framed had a mustache. I don't mess around with themes.

I had this at my shower too and loved reading through all of the great (and often hilarious) advice from friends and family.

More mustaches of course! That is the mom-to-be on the left and the dad-to-be on the right.

Thank you so much for letting me a part of such a special occasion April!

Happy Birthday C

 

12 Month Stats:

29 inches tall, 22 pounds (50th percentile for both)

Hair: still very red but getting lighter in the back

Eyes: still blue but mommy thinks they may end up green

Favorite Foods: blueberries and graham crackers

Can Point To: nose, ear, toes, bellybutton

Can say 16 different words: daddy, doggie, Carly, Abbie (ah-dee), Logan (lo-gee), Hunter (du-tuh), Mama, thank you, hi, all done, ear, nose, piggy, meow, kitty, yeah

Favorite Toys: toy cell phone, pink sunglasses, stuffed doggy, books (especially books with flaps or pop-ups) and sleepy-time bunny

Skills: taking some steps, can feed self with spoon if I put the food on it, points, sleeps 12 hours at night, EXCELLENT at mimicking, drinks from sippy cup, very chatty, claps and high-fives

Loves: Yo Gabba Gabba, Auntie Abbie, Aunt Carly, seeing doggies, mommy and daddy, eating, mommy's laptop (a BIG no-no!)

I am so proud of this little girl and all she is learning! Sometimes she drives me nuts with how independent she wants to be, and if she wants something there is just no compromise that will make her happy, BUT she is so smart and her happy, loving personality is completely infectious! Happy (belated) birthday C--I can't wait to see what the next year brings!

Love, 

Mommy

Daily Dose of C

Hey C, show me your toofies!*

*teeth, of which C now has 4 with two more poking through!