'Tis the season

So we decked the halls...

...and woke sleeping beauty in the process.

I don't recall having a tree topper last year.  I have two, an angel and a star, but neither appealed to me last year and so I decided to buy a bow this year.  Went to Michael's and was surprised that they had pre-made bows... for $50!!!  Nothankyou.  We ended up at Target where I scored 100 feet of silver wired ribbon for $10 and made my own.  It's no Michael's bow, but it certainly works.  After using the cuttings from the tree for the mantle, I've decided to try to find some fake green pieces on sale after Christmas for next year's mantle.  I loooove a live tree, but the needles get everywhere and it's oddly more difficult to keep the hardwood floor as clean as carpet - go figure.  I also want to put some green on the banister by the stairs, which I'm not doing with live cuttings (are they still 'live' when they're cut?) because it was be a mess!  We have lots of extra lights so we'll add those to the banister next year too. 

Still deciding what to do about a wreath.  A friend makes gorgeous wreaths with chunky ribbon that I could see adding some ornaments to for a really cute look, but I also have a fabric wreath in mind so not sure which one I'll go with yet... hoping to decide by the weekend.  Stockings are another item on the to-do list.  I have some purple ones with bells but those aren't doing it for me... I found cute green and red ones with snowflakes that are pretty reasonable but nothing for baby boy yet - I should probably forget the whole matchy-matchy thing and just go with what I've found.  So wreath and stockings - TBD.

We've had Pandora streaming Christmas music ALL day - dinner's in the oven and apple pie is in our future....

Side note on THANKFUL - four of my friends are newly pregnant!!!  YAY for babies!!!  Dare I mention four friends and FIVE babies?  Although... still waiting to find out if it could be SEVEN babies!  2011 is going to be a fun year for sure!!!

TIBS - Week 29

Week 29

Happy Thanksgiving!

...may gratitude abound...

VA has a sweat shop...

...and it's at my house.

BUSY weekend of sewing... I ended up with EIGHT stroller blankets (a small sampling below)

and had some fabric and minky left over, so I decided to try a burp cloth: 

I like!  If I can remember, I'm going to pick up some cloth diapers at Babies to make some more with all the extra fabric pieces I have laying around... 

It's been a while since Belle made an appearance, she's enjoyed the cool weather and walks to the dog park we have tucked at the back of the neighborhood.  

 This picture is just for Clarky... my Pampered Chef guru.  Wonder if she remembers this recipe??

(Hint: that's chicken in between the red pepper and broccoli)

The best part, is that I laughed when I was making this because it was a PC recipe and I just happened to be using ALL PC utensils - Clarky could only be more proud if I was a consultant! :)

TIBS - Week 28

Week 28

Several friends remarked that I'm always behind the camera so... voila!

ha! :)

No real changes this week, unless we want to go TMI - I'll save that for its own post.  In other not-so-TMI news, it's increasingly difficult to get comfortable sleeping.  I'm a back/stomach sleeper so being pregnant has definitely put a damper on my sleep positions.  Combine that plus my six pillows with a man and his five pillows (yeah, 11 in total), a dog, AND two cats in the bed and it just makes for a long night.  Cozy, but long.  For the last week, I've been up before 6 o'clock and at work by 8 - super early considering my day doesn't typically start until 9!  While I'd normally look forward to sleeping in on the weekends, it's all I can do to stay in bed until 7:30am.  I'm often bored and just wander around the house piddling around until Chandler is awake.  Last weekend I made coffee at 6am and carried the pot midway up the stairs hoping he'd smell it and wake up on his own... didn't work.  

I'm starting to get more and more excited to meet this tiny boy.  Lately I feel like his personal swimming pool, only instead of swimming he's constantly hitting walls in there.  The nursery is done with regard to furniture - we are still not sure about a bookshelf and the chair should be here in the next couple of weeks.  We rearranged it AGAIN - back to the original 'design' and I'm glad to be DONE.  I'm about to order the items for his walls and then we'll move forward with hanging, pasting, and otherwise just making it nice and classic with a slight twist!

Blog will be down temporaily - will be back up in time for TIBS!

Pebbles!

After drooling for an undisclosed amount of time Chandler spilled the beans on my Merry Christmas slightly early.  Apparently he had a plan for the 'would really love to have but will likely never get' items - I got lost in the chatter when I heard the angels sing.  Not really - but I certainly did NOT believe him.  We went to the dream store on Thursday to ask some questions since it's been since undergrad that I've used a Mac.  He was ready to take the plunge then and there.  I was still looking for some sign of sanity in him.  He spilled the beans on the idea really late on Wednesday (or was it Tuesday?) night so I still wasn't convinced I'd heard him right and that he might have been talking in his sleep.

We asked our questions, played on some systems, then went home.  I was thinking that we'd just wait a while to see what holiday deals may be available - again, he had other plans.  We ended up getting his wishlist item last night so he was determined that we get mine as well - ok, ok... so off to Apple we went early this morning.  I'm still in a state of shock.  AND - let me not forget to mention that we got a free printer!  No joke!  How's that for a holiday deal?!  It's really nice actually - wireless and it prints photos.  We already had a wireless but we moved it to the garage since it had an automatic scanner feed and this one is now in the office.  We tested it out on a sample photo and it's amazing.  AND - the guy who helped us ended up talking us down a model.  I asked him why he'd do such a thing and he genuinely (after laughing) explained that he thought it was just too much for what I would be doing on it - way cool.  His name was Jason.  If you're up this way and need a Mac, ask for him.  He was even sure to include Nola when we were talking about what/who my photo subjects would be.  He would say 'pictures of the dog and baby.'  My kind of guy.

I'm still pinching myself a little - and am totally in love!  Both with my Chan for being so sweet (and sneaky with his $ plans) and with Pebbles.  Yeah, it has a name.  I figure that if cars have names and computers can cost the same as cars, it needs a name.  No, it wasn't quite that much - but it needed a name.  Truly, it did.

Chandler's Day

Today was supposed to be Chandler's day, but we ended up running around on errands (his favorite).  Chili's had free lunch for vets (thank you Chili's!) so that was our first stop - YUM! - then we headed to the mall for a quick Target run, which led to a Norfolk run to play with apples, and finally to Kohls ($10 gift card in the mail, fun!) and Walmart (did you know Reece trees are already out?!).

HAPPY DAY CHANDLER! - and ALL veterans!

In honor of Chandler's day, I thought I'd share a picture from the day my husband met my boyfriend:

Yes, Tony Blair is my boyfriend.  No, he doesn't know this - and I doubt his people would approve, but that's another post for another day. ;)

Happy Veteran's Day!

TIBS - Week 27

Week 27

Hard to believe this is my 15th post of 'the infamous belly shot' - and in less than 15 weeks, we'll have a baby!  Thirteen weeks to be exact...

Baby boy is still as wiggly as ever and in meetings, if awake, he often distracts whoever is beside me - that has been fun. ;)  The nursery furniture is almost all here, still waiting on the chair and we're hopeful that will arrive before the end of the month.  My boyfriend happily obliged to take the recliner upstairs so we could arrange (and re-arrange) different configurations.  I don't love what we settled on, but it's the best way to maximize the space, so we're going with it.  (Unless I change my mind, which is highly likely.)

The Forgotten Project!

My friend Jill has inspired me to declutter - she posted a challenge last week to find 5 things to toss each day.  I forgot every single day and finally over the weekend, I did it.  There were 25 items - 5 for each day of the week (minus the weekend obviously).

It was a great exercise and I'm thinking this could be a monthly challenge - to either find 30 things/month or 7 over the course of each week.  There were TONS of things I found I was willing to part with and while I didn't really notice much of a difference from this small pile, I could see how slowly weeding through junk could be an excellent exercise... especially since our family is growing very soon!

If you counted this pile, you would find only 24 items, there was an old film camera behind the Humira bag.  Chandler decluttered his things as he unpacked and put things away... and I did too, I had TONS of things I tossed when I packed and unpacked, he just had less than I did period so it was way easier for him.  No excuse, I know - but I'm really excited about all of the things I was able to pass along.  I'm sure post-birth there will be another massive toss pile, until then, I'll work on these smaller ones. 

TIBS - Week 26

Week 26

We are very wiggly - so much that I can now distinguish a knee from a foot - oy!  I fear it's only a matter of days before he finds my ribs - ouch.  Maybe another week, depends on when the innards move up again.  I've started to feel him much, much higher when I sit down.  He's most active in the mornings when I wake up, I'm convinced he knows when I'm awake because I don't feel him at all when I'm still deciding how much longer to snooze.  Interesting.  Sleeping has just started to become an issue - rolling over is now a chore and the only reason I do it is usually becauese my ear hurts on that side.  SO excited to sleep on my back in 90 or so days!  Baby boy is going to LOVE Reece cups - I am sure of it.  I'd never admit to how I know... ;)

The nightstand came in this week so we'll pick that up tomorrow and I'm sure I'll post a picture of the set - the chair won't arrive until the end of the month, although I really hope sooner than that as I'd LOVE to know which arrangement is going to work best.  Wonder if I can convince Chandler to bring the recliner upstairs to give me an idea of how big the chair will be.  Hmm... Most people use flower petals to decide if he loves me or loves me not, me - I use big chairs - it defines real love for sure! :)

Now that we're in the final few weeks it's really starting to feel REAL - yeah - it did take that long.  I have love, love, loved being pregnant!  It has been so much fun - all lovey mushy stuff aside, I am so, so thankful to have had this opportunity and I know  it's a tremendous gift.

Weekend Projects - Complete!

Ever had a weekend so busy that you were SO ready for Monday?  That's about what we felt like Sunday night.  Between Halloween festivities and projects, we were exhausted.  My feet were on fire and I was ready for bed by 6pm.  The fruits of our labor?  Voila.

I had been trying to find something to keep necklaces in, but nothing seemed to do the trick - so I took matters into my own hands.  I'm LOVING it!  When we moved we had a ton of extra frames that we weren't using, so I took removed the glass and replaced it with some garden wire.  Thanks to my trusty staple gun and some 's' hooks, we finished this in about oh 10 minutes.  Easiest project I've ever done - and it's so functional.  I didn't have enough hooks for everything so I've added that to my list for later, but until then my favorite pieces fit and that's good for now.

The looooongest project was  repainting the living room.  I loved the Ben Moore gray we originally painted it, but it was most definitely not working with the light in this room, which made it seem cold and sterile.  We warmed it up with some Valspar from our best friends at Lowes and couldn't be happier with the new color.

Before:

After:

Next up - the nursery wall - it is going to be SO fun, I can't wait to share what we have in mind!!!