Minted V-Day Challenge

There's currently voting going on over on Minted for the best Valentines cards - I submitted a couple designs. Minted is a super fabulous website where you can order custom greeting cards and other awesome paper goods. The coolest part is that it's all contests between super talented designers - and the consumers are the ones who get to decide the winners! Have any time to go vote for me? :)

If the answer is yes, all you have to do is find the Minted window on my side bar (under my shop photos) that says "vote for me." It will bring to you one of my designs, and in order to get to the other one to give that one some voting love too, just click on my profile info and you should be able to see it!

Here are the two designs I have submitted. One for a boy to hand out in the classroom, and one for that special someone who has already been your valentine for awhile now (and still is.) 

The voting ends at 11am tomorrow, so there's not much time! I would of course super appreciate your votes! :)

i know how to rock the christmas tunes

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.

Little Climber

We went to visit Daddy at his work.

Gotta start her early!

In other news, I miss blogging. Gotta get back on that. (I think I said that in my last post too.)

Ear hairs

Hello blog.

I've missed writing in here big time. But whenever I think about writing a post, I realize I have no idea what to write about. My life was a lot different a year and a half ago when I started this thing. I blogged about a lot of art stuff, and sometimes posted drawings daily.

Now it's been a VERY long time since I've drawn anything.

Or posted daily.

But it's ok.

Don't worry about it.

Here's a little bit of what I HAVE been doing.

Hanging out with my two favorite peeps.

Putting babies in pumpkins.

Pondering how hard it must be to hold your head up when your cheeks are that big.

Aaaannnnnd here's one more.

Also I've been listening to the new Mumford and Sons album on repeat for like a month now.

Because, honestly. So. Good.


By the way. My baby has tufts of hair that grow out of the tops of her ears. (They are too delicate and shy to be seen in pictures, although we have tried.) Like a hobbit. Except hobbits grow hair on their feet, I think? Maybe an elf. I thought these little hairs would have gone away by now but she seems to be getting more of them. I think I will be sad if I ever discover they are gone one day. I'm not sure where she got the hairy ear genes from. I wish I could say it was me, but alas my ears are bald.

Is it time to shower yet?

The scene is set.

She is sleeping in her crib, and it appears that she is conked out enough that I just...might...have time for a shower.

This is excellent news.

However, despite my speediness, I'm only about half way through when I hear the scream coming through the monitor. Looks like I will have to forego shaving my legs....again. Disappointing, as they were pretty itchy under the sheets last night. By the time I have managed to rinse the conditioner out of my hair, somewhat dry off, throw on a robe and fling my sopping hair into a towel she is screaming like the apocalypse is here RIGHT NOW which makes me feel pretty crappy because what's a mom supposed to do besides make her daughter feel safe and snuggly from everything, ESPECIALLY when it comes to apocalypses? I sprint into her room and discover that she's spit up and it drained down her face and all into her freshly washed hair. No wonder she's upset. How disgusting. She is not immediately soothed as I snuggle and rock her while simultaneously wiping up her mess, probably because in my bright green robe and with my even brighter green towel on my head, I look like an alien. An extra terrestrial brought on by the apocalypse, no doubt.

It quickly becomes clear that the only way to remedy the situation is a mother-daughter dance party. I turn up some of our favorite tunes (girlfriend is a big fan of Band of Horses, just like her mommy) and then we sing and dance all over the living room. Works like a charm every time - soon she is happily looking around and then snuggling into my chest and off to sleep. My wrongs against her have been excused.

Do you think that when the teenage years roll around, and she's shouting at me like it's the apocalypse because I told her that the prom dress that she wants is way too ridiculously expensive, (sound familiar Mom? By the way...my apologies for that.) do you think that when I suggest a mother-daughter dance party all will be immediately forgotten and forgiven? Will we sing and dance to our mutually shared favorite band and then have a happy snuggle afterwards?

Or, when I make such a suggestion, will she stare and blink in silence as if looking into the face of a green alien?

Or maybe there will be an eye roll?

Well. Whatever the case may end up being someday, I will enjoy these snuggly dance parties while I can, as they usually end up being my favorite part of the day.

Legs shaved or not.

Turn it up!

Sitting down to type.

I've been avoiding blogging as of late, mostly because I don't really know what to blog about. The ideas just aren't flowing but I decided to sit down to type and see what happens.

People aren't kidding when they say how difficult it can be to find time when you have a newborn. Some days I am super productive and work on new design projects, get emails sent out, dishes washed, the bathroom cleaned out while she naps, and still have time to load her in the stroller and head out to the park.

AND there's also the days when she refuses to sleep more than 30 minutes at a time and I spend almost all of it holding her and bouncing her and watching so many episodes of Parenthood I don't know how to think anymore, and my biggest accomplishments are keeping her fed and getting a load of laundry done.

There's a learning curve I suppose.

We're figuring it out. Me and the little sweetie.

I'm spending much of my time trying to figure out how to clean the lint or something that builds up in her neck creases. It smells funny and I don't like my baby to smell like cheese. And let me tell you, it's difficult to convince an infant to allow you to clean their neck creases. They don't like people getting all up in their neck crease business.

In other news, it's box elder bug season. They like to cover the front of our house (since it's facing the sun all day) and look disgusting. And since most of the screens on our windows have holes in them we are unable to open any of the windows on the front side of our house for fear that they will invade.

Ugh.

I mean, we should probably find time to fix the holes in our screens sometime so I can enjoy the fall breeze again. But as I mentioned earlier, time can be hard to find.

In MORE other news, my wedding rings fit on my finger again! It's a very very snug fit and I doubt I can get them back off, but it's nice to be wearing them again. Hopefully my digits still have yet to shrink down to their previous comfortable-ring-wearing size.

You can do it digits! I believe in you.

Over and out.

Something about not being pregnant makes me productive again.

I'm so excited to show you my latest note cards for the shop! Now that my preggo belly is gone my creative juices seem to be flowing back to me, which feels great. I'm getting pretty good at snuggling baby girl into her Moby Wrap so that I can wear her around the house while she naps and I can get stuff done. Here are my latest projects!

These are a couple of my animal doodles from last year, digitally colored.

A narwhal thank you note for a pal.

A friendly bunny greeting card for when you just want to say hey. You're cute.

Check them out here!

Cold oatmeal.

This morning I found myself with a small window to make some breakfast.

Which I then forgot about and found 2 hours later, cold and forlorn in it's bowl.

Welcome to motherhood?

It's ok. This little sweetie makes up for any cold oatmeal that I may end up consuming. We are adjusting well - it's definitely a journey learning how to live life with a baby! As you may guess. Or already know.

But it's a super good journey.

I'll be back tomorrow with some new items in my shop that I'm excited to show you!

Introducing...

our daughter! Paisley Rose Points.

She arrived on Friday, August 24th at 10:55pm after a very quick labor. Everyone is doing splendidly.

2 days old:

9 days old:

I'll be back later!

I get by with a little help from mah friends.

The hubs graciously agreed to paint my toenails for me (with nary a complaint!) since doing them myself is virtually impossible. Now do I have a great guy or do I have a great guy?

Plus he did a stellar job. From what I can see from up here.

The Staring People

She's ridin' low low low. The doctor told me that most women deliver in their 39th week. So, perhaps this week it will be! Maybe even tomorrow! Or today! Or Wednesday! The possibilities are endless.

I must look like I am about shoot a baby out immediately because I keep getting comments these days from well meaning strangers in the grocery store or Target saying things like "Just hang in there sweetie!," and "You just look like you're about to pop!"

Throughout my 3rd trimester, I've noticed a funny (and sometimes disturbing) phenomenon: You get a lot of attention when you are pregnant.

From strangers.

There's of course the sweet little comments like "Ooohhhh so cute! When are you due???" which always lead to the inevitable, "Do you know what you're having?" and, "Do you have a name picked out?" Which is all fine, I don't mind chatting and answering them, "August 28th, " "Yes, a girl," and "Yes we're naming her Luigi Mario Kart Points."

Then there's the people who simply gaze at you with a smile on their face, perhaps remembering their pregnancy or simply admiring my excellent and extremely attractive preggo waddle. They give off mostly happy vibes.

But then there's the ones who just stare.

Sometimes it's with a look of utter astonishment.

Sometimes it's a look of "WHAT THE" as they do a double take.

Sometimes it's seems that they are just unable to drag their eyes and lifted brow away from the beach ball that appears to have sprouted arms, legs, and a head and is currently making it's way toward them down the sidewalk.

Now. This leads me to question to myself, "SURELY I cannot be the first pregnant lady they have ever seen?"

And then I ask myself, "Do I ALSO stare at pregnant people like this? Because if so I should stop. It's weird."

Some people have tried to tell me that it's all in my head. But as I was talking to my bump buddy Molly recently, who is due just a day or so after me, she suddenly asked me out of the blue, "Do people just...stare at you?"

Yes. Yes they do. And it's weird.

A room for the behbeh.

We were so excited when we finally finished girlfriend's little room! It feels good to have everything prepared and laid out - gives me a sense of having things together (although I'm sure we will discover there is plenty we do NOT have together once she gets here.)

Lot's of greens and pinks, and a slight "classic" Winnie the Pooh theme. That changing table? That so nicely matches (oh how I love matching) the other furniture? $10 off Craigslist bay-to-the-bee.

Here are some crib details - my mother (soon to be Mamaw to her first grandchild) made the beautiful Pooh Bear bumpers, blanket, curtains (as seen in another post), and even some flannel Pooh Bear sheets for when the colder weather comes. And my aunt made the quilt. Lot's of homemade going on here, which I LOVE. Love love. And that super adorable mobile? Found it at a (rather sketchy looking but turned out to be awesome) garage sale for $15!

Sometimes I just stand in the middle looking around at everything, thinking about the daughter (what?!?!) that we will soon have living in there. Then I feel kind of corny and leave.

But soon find my way back in there again.

Here are a few "before" pics.

This dresser has been passed around quite a bit - it started out as my mom's when she was a kid, then it was mine and my brother's, and now it's here. It's also seen it's share of refinishing!

Babies. Rooms for them. Awesomesauce.

The Skylark Studio - New Website!

After many meetings at Starbucks and Panera (and too many iced chais to count) my business partner Emily and I recently finished putting together our brand spanking new website for The Skylark Studio.

And when I say "we," I mostly mean "she." Because while I helped out with the graphics, it was actually her website producing genius that got the thing put together and running.

We are super excited about how it turned out and will be updating soon with more projects, and at some point a blog feature!

Here's the link if you want to check it out!

www.theskylarkstudio.com

And here's a bit of background story on our little business.

Update

My blog posts these days just seem to be random updates here and there, but I'm a-ok with that for now. Time to just go with the flow!! And eat some cookies.

My 27th birthday was last week and it was certainly a good time. Some of the festivities included a fancy dinner with the hubs, seeing the new Batman movie, homemade dinner with a couple of friends, shuffleboard with the extended fam (though I did not participate but instead sat and watched in a pregnant haze), eating (engulfing?) made-from-scratch chocolate eclairs from my mom (she makes them for me every year - it's my happy place), and dinner at Chino Latino's with my bro, sis, mom and hubs.

Not all of these things happened in one day. That would have been busy. Too busy for an apparently almost 30 year old.

Here's the hubs and I at my birthday dinner at Muffuletta. Delish? Yes. One of our last date nights without having to hire a babysitter? Perhaps. My oh my how life is about to change.

Other things I've been up to are as follows:

Finishing up the baby's room (I'll be sharing pics soon!)

Thinking about all of my old clothes and how soon I might be able to fit into them once my bowling ball stomach is gone.

Trying to run errands and do useful things but often failing because of general fatigue and killer back pain. I complained to the hubs the other day, "It's hard to do things." "What?" he said. "It's just hard to do things," I repeated.

"....." was his response.

Finally making it to the beach with my sister. We've been trying to make it there for awhile but because of a series of unfortunate (although usually comical) events it took us a long time to finally make it happen.

Here's us.

Here's Hannah posing with Lake Calhoun. She approves.

Hope all is well in all of your worlds! Not sure how often I'll be around here for a bit, as I am at 37 weeks and little girlfriend could pretty much make her appearance at any time! Now that's crazy talk.

Conquest!

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.

2 videos in one post! This is a first.

These dayz

I noticed today that it's been awhile since I've blogged. It seems that I have come down with a case of nesting fever and all I think about is preparing for the baby (who is coming shockingly soon, as I have realized.) I would try and make excuses for myself, but I have accepted it must be a deeply embedded instinct that has temporarily claimed my life. So I make none.

Instead I will show you some of my recent obsessions.

Wiping down some garage sale finds.

Getting happy about some Dr. Seuss books I found at a thrift store. I am SO excited about girlfriend's growing book collection.

Hanging up the super cute Pooh Bear curtains that my own mother lovingly sewed.

Here's Geppetto. She's not quite an obsession of mine at the moment, even though she totally wishes that she was.

Hopefully she gets along with the new family member! Sometimes she can be a crabby patty. But we still love her.

Today.

Today I quite proudly made it to the gym for the second time this week.

Then I came home and in a moment of self righteousness chided the kitties on their laziness.

They didn't notice. It's good that they have each other.

I ate pizza rolls for lunch but then felt guilty so I ate a banana and strawberries too.

We've been doing some updating around the house. Here's a little window corner as proof.

I did some journaling slash doodling.

I met my bro for dinner so that we could talk and laugh. And eat. He's starting a new adventure this fall going to MCAD (Minneapolis College of Art and Design) and I am soooooo excited for him. It was a nice time and I even got to take home two mozzarella sticks that he didn't eat.

I went to Target to run some errands which ended up taking forever. Because I can't ever seem to run errands without them taking forever. It's because of my disease. My disease is called Unabletomakesimpledecisionsitis.

I rented a redbox movie since the hubs is out for the evening and I sometimes take these opportunities to watch chick flicks that I know I wouldn't be able to convince him to watch.

Now as I'm watching it with romantic weepy eyes I'm wishing he was watching it with me. Ya know?

Preg problems.

I've been meaning to write a post for some time about the funny parts of being pregnant. It's been taking me awhile to get to it...I first started typing a draft way back in like the middle of my 2nd tri. Now that I'm well into the 3rd tri I figure I'd better get going and finish this BEFORE an infant permanently enters my life.

So. On to the prego talk.

The first 16 weeks of my pregnancy were definitely the hardest because of the feeling sick and because of the lack of motivation to do ANYTHING (as evidenced by the many piles of dirty dishes that were a staple in our house during that time and by the fact that the entire month of February and most of March is void of any blog posts.)

But now that there is some distance between now and that horribleness I am able to laugh at a few things that happened during that time. Such as:

- I was constantly out of breath. Especially when taking a hot shower or after eating a large meal. I would just sit down after attempting either of these things and pant like a dog, chug water, and wonder how life could POSSIBLY go on. These are things I would have expected once I was further along and huge - not at the beginning! My friends all thought it was hilarious. I was not so sure.

- I was nauseous a lot - but more than that I had a constant gagging problem that was there whether or not I was actually feeling sick. Meaning I gagged all the time for no apparent reason. I would gag first thing in the morning when I woke up and continued throughout the entire day until bed time. I couldn't talk in funny voices because any change in my throat triggered it. And I couldn't even listen to OTHER people talk in funny voices because knowing what they must be doing with their throat to make that voice triggered it. Weird stuff.

- I super hard ugly cried over lots of VERY trivial things. Some of these things included stubbing my toe, worrying that I couldn't make it to the post office on time (and subsequently canceling ALL of my plans for the day just so that I COULD make it to the post office on time), being afraid of catching a cold, and not having any Saltine crackers.

Oh my dear sweet hubs was so good to me. I would routinely complain to him that my life would always be like this from now on, that I would NEVER get better. That I would ALWAYS be like this. He would calmly smile and tell me that I was of course wrong.

And he was of course right.

At right around 16 weeks or so I started feeling better. HALLELUJAH I was so overjoyed. Being pregnant has QUITE a bit more enjoyable since then I would say.

Funny little things that happen these days are:

-Walking (or more appropriately "lumbering about") like a large, slow, duck-like creature. The later it gets in the day the slower I move and the more I waddle. The hubs likes to mimic this walk with me when we are out and about so that I don't feel as silly. Or maybe he's just mocking me, I'm not sure.

- The inability to get in and out of bed without making lots of loud, labored grunting noises. It's seriously SO difficult. I have to stop to take a breather halfway through the process and can't control the volume of my grunts.

- Similar thing with getting out of the car. Sometimes when I get home I just sit in my car for an extra 5 minutes willing myself to try and get out.

- The clumsiness. And the forgetfulness. I'm always getting super mad at myself for forgetting to do something important, only to remember later that I DID remember to do the important thing. Silly.

- And of course there's the lung squishing. Self explanatory.

This pic was taken at 32 weeks. We're getting there, people.

Right now.

Currently I'm:

Wondering how my itunes made it's way to Elton John covers of Beatles songs.

Eating large amounts of lemon pudding from a large tupperware container.

Feeling excited about finding the EXACT mobile that I wanted for the baby's room nice and cheap at a garage sale this morning.

Getting ready to go teach violin lessons.

Looking at old 4th of July pictures. Here's the hubs and I last year, waiting for fireworks to start. We were downtown at the Stone Arch Bridge with some great friends.

This year we decided to skip the fireworks and go to the air conditioned movie theater instead.

In our defense it was very very hot here this week. For Minnesota, anyway.

My feet got so swollen I could barely get them in and out of my Chacos.

We saw Brave. It was fun. And funny. We (meaning me, hubs, my mom, my sis and her friend) had the whole theater to ourselves.

We enjoyed the opportunity to be very loud since we are by nature a very loud family.

Except the hubs. He's not so loud usually. He just shakes his head and says "SUPER!" when we do particularly loud or embarrassing things.

I know that he secretly loves it.

Maybe, I don't know.

How was your 4th? Anyone else decide to stay in and avoid the heat? Just us? :)

Lists.

Ugh. I have a case of the lazies.

I've been trying to remedy it with lots of notebooks and planners (at least 4 different) filled with lists and detailed schedules of my day.

But sometimes my never ending lists and notebooks don't seem to do the trick.

What will do the trick? I'm not sure. I don't think it helps that my designated place to work these days is on the couch. And that the couch is soft and squishy. And that soft and squishy spots to sit are not so comfy these days as my lungs are getting compressed by my growing bowling ball bump which makes me desire to lay down on the soft and squishy couch in order to stretch out and BREATHE.

Which is not conducive to productivity.

Our basement is coming along very quickly thanks to the ever dedicated hubs.

Down there I will have a nice big workspace including a nice big desk.

Maybe my nice big desk will make me a more productive person. I think so.

In other news, I like summer a whole lot. I really do. But I don't like that it's the season that bugs come into your house. I'm always on the lookout for a insect enemy to kill.

CONSTANT VIGILANCE!

I'm also wondering. What do you do to keep yourself on task?

Weekend recap and some other stuff.

You know what's good? Strawberry ice cream with oreos.

Also, large glasses of orange juice with ice in them, but I think I've mentioned that before.

Sorry for repeating myself.

These are lilies in my garden.

This is the first year that they have bloomed. I think it's because I've weeded twice this year, which is more times than the other years we've been here. It must have been just the oomph that they needed.

In other news.

Our internet works again! I no longer have to work in coffee shops. Other nice things that happened this weekend include doing some major spring (summer?) cleaning, a date with my mom and sis, an evening of funnel cake, fireworks and friends at our neighborhood summer carnival, a delicious new recipe of avocado, bacon and basil pasta (I will definitely be making it again! so tasty.) and lot's of time spent catching up with some of my old youth group students at four, count em' FOUR graduation parties on Sunday.

It was indeed a nice time.

Also.

I have finally started visiting a chiropractor. Which really (at least so far) seems to help my ailing old lady back.

And there was much rejoicing!

Pickled People

I wanted to share with you my most favorite recent thrifting find.

The label on the top of the (very old) jar is blurry and hard to read, but if your eyes are very good at reading blurry things you'll notice that it reads "pickled people."

My co-thrifter Jennie and I just about peed ourselves laughing.

I probably should have bought them and displayed them somewhere on our kitchen counter. I definitely could have afforded them since they were only $.99. (That's a lot of pickled people for under a dollar!) But it appears that if I really want to I can make some myself as I believe that all you need are some cotton balls, panty hose, and googly eyes.

In fact I should probably make a blog tutorial for it. Brilliant!

I'm working from a coffee shop today as our stupid horrible internet at home isn't working right now. (It's the worst. Especially since we just had someone out to fix it like, two weeks ago. It makes me very. crabby. Just ask the hubs.)

But I AM enjoying people watching in the coffee shop. There's Seriously-Rocking-Out-Hardcore-With His-Ipod guy, Throwing-Garbage-Everywhere children, and Looks-Just-Like-Someone-I-Used-To-Work-With-But-Turns-Out-It's-Not-Him man.

However I decided to step outside the comfort zone of my usual drink and try the suggestion of the young and eager barista boy. He gave me some strawberry basil iced tea which sounds refreshing and stylish, but after a few sips leaves me longing for my own beloved and comfortable iced chai tea latte.

It's times like these that make me wonder why I ever try new things.

5 Years!

We had a great anniversary.

Starting out with trying to get a nice picture of ourselves. Trying is the key word here.

We finally got one with two nice smiles, no double chins, and both our faces.

Activities of the weekend included delicious homemade ice cream at Crema Cafe. (I got chai tea ice cream, and yes the word you are looking for is YUM.)

Dinner and bowling at Bryant Lake Bowl. I tried not to bend or twist my back at all (it's been a-hurtin' lately) so I looked preeetty silly trying to bowl like that. Very stick straight. But in a basketball belly type of way.

In other news, it turns out that I score better when I bowl pregnant lady style.

The hubs bowling and keeping score. He's having a good time, I swear!

Me complaining after realizing that I had no socks to wear with the bowling shoes. This was a large bummer. The second picture is of me making the most of a stinky situation.

The hubs was the perfect gentleman and offered his socks for me to wear...but I wasn't sure that would make things any better. All boys as a rule have very sweaty feet. But I did appreciate the gesture.

Other activities included playing Ticket to Ride at least six times over the course of the weekend - my new favorite game and one of my anniversary gifts. My other gift was a gorgeous new glider and ottoman for the baby's room! What a great (GREAT) hubs I have. I've been enjoying sitting on it out in the living room since the baby's room is no where close to ready yet.

We'd better get on that.

The weekend was such a blast and as it came to an end I felt very happy and blessed. Not only with a fantastic marriage that is still going strong, but also with wonderful and generous family members who have been supporting us all along and are still supporting us as we step into a new chapter of our lives.

Thanks guys.

I documented last year's anniversary too, here!

Summer Doodles

As I've mentioned before, I haven't been spending much time in my sketchbook lately. Part of it is just that there's other things taking precedence right now, but also because every time I sit down to sketch I end up making big elaborate drawings. That take a lot of time. So it's daunting because I don't always want it to be such a huge time commitment.

As I was lamenting my very serious and horrible sketchbook troubles to the ever so wise and understanding hubs, he was all like, "just doodle around, yo." Maybe he didn't say yo, that's not actually how he talks. BUT ANYWAY I took his advice and as we watched an episode of The Office together I doodled some little summer doodles.

Even though there was no purpose to them it was nice to be creating something.

My memory flings me back to freshman year in college when we had to complete a certain amount of "items" in our sketchbook per week. It was tough for me as I am QUITE the perfectionist (you can ask the poor hubs if you don't believe me) and as I mentioned before, my drawings usually take FOREVER. Add that to me being one of theeee most ridiculous procrastinators on the planet and you can guess that I was often up into the very wee hours of the morning the nights before my drawing classes. Working on what were simply supposed to be quick sketches in my sketchbook.

But in other news. College is over and so is drawing class. I'm not sure where I was going with that.

And so I'm off to a fun weekend with the hubs - it's the most special of weekends because it's our 5 year anniversary! I'm supposing that we can call this some type of a milestone. I'm comfortable with that. Fer sher.

Healthy Desserts.

I've tried a couple "healthy" dessert recipes lately. You know, where you substitute the awesomeness that makes the dessert awesome for something weird and it's not supposed to taste any different.

But I haven't had very good luck.

First I tried that "chocolate chip cookie dough dip" that's been going around the web - the kind you make with chickpeas. "Wow, chocolate chip cookie dough flavored hummus?" I thought to myself. "Let's do this!" I was especially excited since cookie dough has been off limits for me as resident pregnant lady these past 7 months or so, and I pictured myself eating this healthy option with a spoon all day.

But no, no. Maybe I made it wrong but I'm pretty sure I didn't make it wrong and it turns out that there is no way that chickpeas will ever taste like cookie dough.

Oh well. Moving on.

So then, recently I heard that if you take a brownie mix and substitute a can of pumpkin for the oil, water and egg that it's amazing and way healthier. So of course I tried it.

And it tastes bad. And not good. I was so sad to have wasted a perfectly good brownie mix. I had to buy a new one immediately.

Maybe my sweet tooth is too picky? I'm not sure. But I'm pretty sure I just need the real stuff.

Case in point - it's quite possible that I ate an entire container of mini cinnamon rolls from Target today. Which I'm not sure but pretty positive were not healthy at all.

What?

I won't confirm or deny it. Although the hubs is going to be preeetty surprised when he gets home tonight and finds no miniature cinnamon rolls.



PS. People, don't worry. Of course I eat lots of healthy things. But I guess not healthy desserts because I just can't be fooled.

Camping!

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.

How was your weekend friends?