So Paisley has started singing! Little bits. Here and there. This is something that I've been looking forward to ever since she was born over two shortish-longish years ago. Her first song was...wait for it...Baby by Justin Beiber. Ya girl! Such is the life when you are on the Young Life music team and you play the Beibs fifteen times a day in your house so that you can sing his song well enough to lead it in front of a bunch of teenagers who have probably known it by heart since they were 9 years old.
It was just such a special moment for us, my little girl laying on her changing table crooning to me "baby baby nooooo!" My heart.
The second song I ever heard her sing was "Happy birthday," randomly in the kitchen to no one and so, there's that.
Ahh from the mouths of babes.
Anyway. I've been obsessed with taking fall pictures lately. I love it. Every single leaf! Every tree, every giggle of delight from my toddler. I LOVE our new neighborhood in the fall. I LOVE walking through the piles of leaves at the cemetery and reading all the grave stones, some of which are almost one hundred years old. I LOVE that our yard got completely covered with two inches of beautiful, crisp yellow leaves that were raked into the most perfect and hugest of leaf piles. And I also LOVE that our yard is small enough that it only took one lovely Sunday afternoon to get them all raked up and into bags.
And so I have been taking all. of. the. pictures. Hundreds, probably! Much to your great relief, I have edited the amount down to a fairly reasonable twelve to be shared in this post. All of these were taken around our yard, local park and neighborhood, excepting the very last one which was taken at my mom's house - my sibs' and my fall stomping grounds of years past.
It's possible that I'm running behind because last week I stumbled upon some old music and then I subsequently found myself singing along to a bunch of Dashboard Confessional songs with all the passion of an angst-ridden teen, while temporarily forgetting about blogging.
"And as for me I wish that I was anywhere, with anyone, making out!"
That line always made me chuckle. You are so silly, emo music.
But it's possible there are other reasons for my tardiness, as well.
Such as the war that I've declared on ants. I WILL defeat them.
Even if it means sweeping up the crumbs of toast that fall underneath my baby girls's high chair five or six times during a meal.
That's a lot of sweeping in a 30 minute time slot so now you can see how serious I am about this.
It's times like these that I wish we were dog people. Then we would have an automatic vacuum and mop who is also furry to keep the ants at bay.
These two are too dignified to gobble up our stray crumbs as they fall.
Unless there are goldfish crackers involved. Then they're all like, "Dignity? Never heard of it. MEEEE WAAAAANT TOOOO EEEEEAT CHEEEEEESY FIIIIIIIIISHHHH".
It's that time of year where all I listen to is UNASHAMEDLY the Transiberian Orchestra - the same two albums I've been listening to with my fam since I was a teen. Maybe it's because of the Christmas memories from those years that I hold so fiercely close, maybe it's because when the guy sings it sounds like he is ripping his soul out.
Sometimes I try and listen to other Christmas music, but none of it seems right. None of it satisfies.
So I turn it back and rock out Dwight Schrute style.
Perhaps in order to appease my poor husband who I think would like to listen to something else, I should buy more of their albums. So at least I'm not listening to just the same two over and over.
The good news is that I'm designing again. It feels super awesome as I was worried that my creativity had gone away once I had a baby. But it turns out all I need is a friend to take the babe for a bit and for me to go to yoga and then head to a coffee shop with my computer. I'm excited to share some new designs here soon.
The bad news is my house is a mess. I asked the hubs the other day how many times we had to clean the kitchen before it would just start cleaning itself. He wasn't sure. I'm determined to figure it out.
From there I'll start teaching the cats to clean their own litter box.
And baby girl to put away her own laundry.
She looks doubtful.
But also cute and leg roll-y, so I'll let her off the hook.
I woke up with this song by the White Stripes in my head this morning.
I hoped that it would result in a day full of power and energy.
When in reality I was napping within two hours.
I had a fun weekend. Did you? Friday night we were at a wedding of two great friends and I so totally got my dance on. Granted it was huge pregnant lady dance (resulting in a very embarrassing picture which will...not be shown here.) but it was still dance! And it felt awesome to do something that felt so normal.
The only problem was that even though I had such an fantastic time I completely wrecked my back, which resulted in me waking up that night to go pee and not being able to walk. Wonderful! I thought. Brilliant work, Elizabeth! I said to myself. I slowly lurched my way to the bathroom and back mourning the fact that I had now probably condemned myself to my bed for the rest of my pregnancy.
But in the morning it was much much better. So I was able to breathe a huge, thankful sigh of relief.
And declare my dancing days over until after girlfriend is long out.
Other weekend happenings which did not include dancing but were just as fun:
Birthday parties.
Baby showers, and getting to do a bump to bump photo. I've always wanted one of those. These are our friends Molly and Tim and they are great. Please disregard my disheveled hair and grimacing weird smile. Thanks, you're a pal.
Watching movies with the hubs.
Getting to hang out with the hubs' parents.
Scoring a $10 changing table from Craigslist that matches the rest of our nursery furniture. I'm all about matching over here. Seriously, it's a problem.
Getting special treats from McDonald's. Here's the hubs trying to eat his dipped cone while driving.
Here's the scenario. The hubs tries to eat his cone and drips everywhere. I kind of try to help but I'm also distracted by the three pack of chocolate chip cookies that I'm eating. Like, it's hard to stop eating them for even a second. (The day that McDonald's started selling chocolate chip cookies was the best and also worst day of my life.) Finally I find him some napkins in the glove department and he manages to get the cone down to a manageable and non-drippable size. While driving. Then. As soon as he says, "Well that was quite the adventure," he accidentally somehow flings the cone out of his hand, fumbles with it in the air and then catches it ice cream down in his palm. While driving. Cue very loud laughter and tears streaming down my face. It was totally a Chandler Bing moment, and pretty much made my day.
The funny thing is that the hubs is so not a dropper like Chandler is. He has the reflexes of a cat, or lynx, or some other such quick witted creature. I think that it being so out of his character is why it brought out the big belly laughs.
And when you are almost 36 weeks pregnant the big belly laughs are very big indeed.
Do you ever listen to itunes on your computer, and then mute it when you get a phone call, and then forget to un-mute it until apparently it has silently played through 2 1/2 Ben Folds albums without your knowledge?
That didn't happen to me today.
Just kidding it did.
Well Ben Folds is back on and I'm ready to share a bit about my super fun weekend! The hubs and I had one of my veeery favorite types of weekends - a camping weekend. We ventured off to a nearby state park with a few good friends and got our tents and campfires on.
I was a little bit nervous about going because of the whole baby growing thing and wasn't sure how my body would hold up to sleeping in a tent for two nights since girlfriend has been giving me some pretty severe back pain. But we packed plenty of cushioning (we just car camped this weekend yo, no backpacking trips for us this year!) and I was surprised and so very pleased that sleeping wasn't a problem for my poor back.
The real problem lay in the hiking. We had some great hikes, complete with beautiful scenery, getting up close and personal (and muddy) with the St. Croix River, witnessing some wildlife (including millions of mosquitos), and finding an amazing beach to take a refreshing swim in (it was around 90 degrees all weekend so getting in the water felt GRAND). But by the end I was definitely hobbling around like an old lady.
Or maybe just like a pregnant lady with an extremely sore back, I don't know.
I wasn't the only one who was tired though. This is Sitka, our friends' pup. She was exhausted. And floppy.
The remainder of the time I was able to rest my back as we played fun games, had good chats, ate delicious food (it's true that all food tastes EXTRA good when you are camping) and had great laughs.
Here's the hubs making a Zoolander face. Blue Steel, I'm pretty sure.
So now we are back in the blessed air conditioning complete with a wee bit of sunburn and a tremendous bit of bug bites, and it feels like my body is still recovering. As sad as that may or may not sound. But I'm so glad I got to get a camping trip in this summer in my current state! We'll see if we manage another one.
Something that you may not know about me is that I really enjoy bands in which people are shouting in the background. They can be shouting anything, really. I just like it.
Not to be confused with screaming (although I won't deny that I went through a scream-o phase in my youth). But just good natured shouting. Some favorite bands meeting this criteria are Cake, Edward Sharp and the Magnetic Zeros, and Of Monsters and Men (the latter being a more recent discovery).
Which leads me to my latest find in my search for awesome shouting songs. This is The Lumineers singing "Ho Hey." It's a sweet little tune and the music video is delightful. (And I don't usually use that word.) AND the shouting is just spot on. I highly recommend you give it a listen.
I added some updates to the shop today - I now have a "choose any 6" and a "choose an 12" option for note cards! I know this will make things run smoother and less confusing.
I also retrieved music off of my old ipod today. As I worked I found myself listening to the likes of Savage Garden, Imogen Heap, the Garden State soundtrack, Blink 182, and Green Day's International Superhits (the old stuff.) All music that I don't think I've touched since shortly after graduating college. It made me want to stay up all night writing a research paper I had procrastinated on while eating cookie dough, chatting on AIM, and trying not to wake up my roommates.
Time for another Sunday late night confessional! Continued from two weeks ago.
9.) Lately I've been eating a bagel and cream cheese with almost every meal. Like, just adding it to whatever I am already eating. It's just my new thing I guess but hopefully I grow out of it soon.
10.) One time in high school my bff and I made two large bowls of cake batter (chocolate and vanilla) and ate it in my room until we felt sick. Then I hid the leftover batter in my closet for a few days. My mom was upset when she didn't have any cake mixes when she needed it.
11.) I have an ear problem. As in, I don't like things in my ear. Or by my ear. Makes me CRAZY. In the bad way. Blowing in ears? So not sexy at all. And at night I have to sleep with a blanket, sheet, or my hair strategically placed over my ears so that no bugs or ceiling chunks fall into them. When I was younger (all the way until college I think) I had a special "ear blanket" that I would carefully roll and lay over my exposed ear at night. My bff thought it was hilarious to take it away in the middle of the night and watch my sleep-anguish.
12.) I chew on my fingers. It's my bad habit that I've never been able to kick.
13.) I have a very large collection of rocks. Including Agates. Also shells. Sea glass. Basically anything that you can find along the beach or the road and then put in glass vases or jars in your house. It might be a problem because I'm running out of places and ways to display them without seeming like some sort of crazed rock fanatic.
14.) I don't like many veggies. Especially carrots. They are the worst. But the good news is that I really like mushrooms. But are they even vegetables, after all?
15.) I have a really great man singer voice when I'm sick.
16.) When I find a new favorite song I obsess over it for days and play it over and over and over on YouTube. As I am currently doing with Elliott Smith's Waltz #2.
17.) Speaking of music. I'm always wanting more. I'm never satisfied with the music that I have. I get something new and obsess over it for awhile, but soon enough I'm pining after something else and I can't rest until I have it.
Well I mean. I can rest. But I sure think about it a lot.
Alright, I'm off. Going to bed, extra thankful for my Sunday night small group. It's so good to have encouraging people to talk, pray, and fellowship with. Can I get a big fist pump! For small group!
