11/52

Our little girl loves to eat.

I love to eat too, so she probably gets it from me. But I think the hubs loves to eat as well, so maybe she gets it from him? I'm not actually sure.

She's been eating solid foods for about a month now (my poor little magic bullet is tired) and I thought it would be productive to list the different types of food she eats and rank them by her enjoyment level.

Yes, a very productive use of my time indeed.

LOVE IT CATEGORY:
Bananas
Spoons

LIKE IT JUST FINE CATEGORY:
Sweet potatoes
Pear
Mango
Oatmeal cereal
Cauliflower
Water from sippy cup

ALRIGHT I'LL TOLERATE IT FOR A LITTLE WHILE WITH MINIMAL GAGGING AND SPINE SHIVERS CATEGORY:
Rice cereal
Peas
Avocado

I'LL EAT IT BUT WHINE EVERY TIME YOU PUT IT IN MY MOUTH CATEGORY:
Green beans

HOW DARE YOU PUT THIS IN MY MOUTH I WILL NOW LASH OUT AT YOU IN ANGER CATEGORY:
Apples, go figure.

These are not the droids you're looking for.

The hubs and I had an unexpected day at home together without the babe last week. Paisley was at a friend's house (my bff and I take each other's kid once a week - it's great, and free!) and Brian got the day off...we could hardly believe our good fortune!

What possibilities! We thought. What elaborate plans we can make! Should we see a movie? Go climbing? Go skiing, even?? Go shopping? Go out for lunch?

We decided to stay home.

All day.

It was a good decision.

We played Rock Band. Everything from The Cranberries to Bon Jovi to Queens of the Stone Age. And I could still play (almost) everything on expert! It's true, we used to play a lot of Rock Band during our pre-parenthood dayz.

We made delicious, gooey brownies and ate them with espresso ice cream.

We watched Star Wars (the old, awesome ones) on VHS tapes that we bought at The Good Will the day before. I tried my very hardest not to say all the quotes along with the movie as it went. But sometimes they all just came out. Have I ever mentioned my love for Star Wars? The old, awesome ones?

"I feel so close to you right now," I told the hubs.

"Oh ya? Why?" He asked.

"Because we're watching Star Wars together!" I answered.

I believe he very sweetly answered with, "....wait, what?"

It was super fun to take off our parent hats for a day and just be goofy "us" at home. And at five o' clock we were refreshed and ready to go pick up our favorite little girl in time for supper!

10/52

The hubs is being featured along with Paisley in this week's photo(s). I captured a couple pics of them playing their special game called "Laying on the Ground and Throwing Jingle Cow Into the Air". 

We're big Jingle Cow fans in this house. Ya'll should meet.

Sketching

I got out my sketchbook the other day. Well. I should say I looked high and low for my sketchbook the other day before finally finding it tucked safely away in my computer bag. And since I seriously do not remember the last time I drew something, I also had to go hunting around for my pencils, sharpener and eraser.

It was quite the ordeal. I almost gave up! But then I didn't. And I drew a fox who is feminine and girly.

It felt nice to get something down on paper but not feel like I had to spend a ton of time on it. As I mentioned last week, my usual perfectionist tendencies are falling to the wayside a little bit. Which is generally a good thing.

Ok see ya!

A peek into the morning of a person who is not a morning person.

I will myself to get out of bed as I hear baby girl's cries. A difficult task as I had been up with her several times throughout the night before and also, because mornings always have been and always will be my enemy number one. The hubs has already left for work in the wee morning hours so it's just her and me.

Somehow I muster my strength and it's all I can do to get her into a fresh diaper and set her out on the living room floor.



Boy am I lucky that my little girl is a morning lark. She's SUPER happy in the morning, and she looks with excitement at the clean slate that is the bottom rack of our bookshelves containing some of her things, all cleaned up and put away the night before. She always goes for the books first (which pleases me because I love book worms and being a book worm and all things worms and books) and then her little box of colorful blocks. And it looks like this time she also had it out for Pink Bear, who is being suffocated under the Bumbo seat.



I am so thankful that she is content to play on her own for awhile in the mornings. (I think it's God's special and very merciful gift to me.) In my head I call it her "independent play" times, and I sit on the couch and watch with some breakfast and check my email and try to recover from the traumatic experience that is getting up in the morning.



By the time she tires of playing on her own, I'm awake enough to deem the prospect of getting the day started not so bad after all, and we head to the window to watch the snow fall.

Because it's been snowing here. And snowing and snowing and snowing.

And snowing.

On second thought, I think I'm going back to bed.


"Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." - Lamentations 3:22&23

Instagram Dump

I recently jumped on the instagram train. And I looove it. I love being able to capture the little moments in life. And edit them all cool without having to open Photoshop. It appeals to my lazy side! These pics are glimpses into the life of yours truly during the last few weeks. If you already follow me there then these are oldies. But goodies.

Plus I still can't find my real camera? And I think I've looked everywhere? Paisley took it and hid it, probably. Little sneak.

9/52

It's a ballerina cat!

I bet you didn't know that ballerina cats were a thing.

Motherhood brain dump

I am giving myself full permission to ramble in this post. Mostly about weird, new mom stuff. There! You have been warned.

Those of you still with me, meet you at the end!

Now that I have a child. I clean our house much, much less than before.

This is new for me. I used to be OBSESSED with having our house spotless for guests. Which proved to be an impossible task with two cats, wooden floors, and lots of natural sunlight to shine on any dusty imperfection and cat hair. We have people over fairly often as we love hosting and have always prayed that our home would be a safe and open place where people can feel free to stop by at any time and be welcome. BUT when we WOULD have frequent and sometimes unexpected visitors I would flip the flippity flip out with embarrassment at the "mess" our house was in and very often was in a state of stress about our visitors noticing the dust on our coffee table.

For realz.

Motherhood seems to have relaxed that part of my brain. Now I try and keep up with the mess as much as I can and when the unexpected youth group student or friend shows up at our door, I am able to welcome them with a (usually) calm demeanor without feeling that I have to apologize for our imperfect home.

Most days.

It's been quite the humbling experience.

Also.

I pluck my eyebrows way less now. I just forget to do it, which can cause quite the shock when I happen to look closely at my face while brushing my teeth. BUT it seems to be working for the best as I was inspired by my sister to grow out my eyebrows as she recently grew out HER eyebrows to try and go for a more natural and full shape. Which means way less plucking and upkeep - hooray! BUT the process of growing out one's eyebrows can be horrifying in and of itself as the hairs start to grow straight out of your face instead of the same direction as the rest of the hairs that are already there, plus it all comes in in patches. Obviously it's upsetting. (Although when mentioning all this to the hubs he remarked that he hadn't even noticed anything different. I decided to be pleased by this lack of observation rather than be offended.) But after being strong and waiting it out for awhile my eyebrows are finally starting to take on a more natural shape and have I been talking about eyebrows for too long now?

Plus there's my hair. Maybe you didn't know this. Maybe you did. But preggo ladies have super nice, full hair that never falls out. Because, I don't remember why. Then after they have their baby their hair falls out in multitudes for months which causes showering to be a generally disgusting experience.

And then, all together, the lost hairs start growing back.

Hence, small tufts of inch long hairs surrounding my face.

I was going to show a picture of the tufts but then I decided instead that I absolutely would not show a picture of the tufts.



Maybe what all of this is boiling down to is the fact that real life is not perfect. But real is better than perfect, in my opinion.

Thanks for the permission to ramble, self. And thanks for hanging in there until the end, reader! Let's do this again.

8/52

The hubs snapped this photo the other night when he put the little miss to bed. She likes her musical seahorse's glowing tummy to help her off to sleep land.

Sleep land is a nice place and I wish I could go there.

More recent work

Another project.

Experimenting with design ideas for bridal showers and bachelorette parties. I am loving simple, square invitations lately.

What do you think?

7/52

Simultaneously helping me with the laundry and playing with a spinny toy. Multi-tasking is one of her mad skillzzz.