Shelves are the best.

Progress on the basement! Just look at those beautiful shelves, designed and built by me very own hubster. I know we are both dying to get our organization on and start filling those beauties up, but we both agreed to wait until we can do it together so no one feels left out. Besides, we should probably get the rest of the room painted first, anyway.

That tiny little window is one of the ones I'm planning on sewing curtains for.

What??! You haven't started sewing at all yet?? You ask.

I heard you.

Welllll no. But I HAVE measured all of the fabric so I officially know how much of it I have. The next step is figuring out how long and wide I need to make the curtains, and then somehow figuring out how to cut and piece it all together. Which seems sooooooo hard. (whining.) But once I can force myself to do this horribly difficult task I think the sewing part will go quick.

At least lets hope so, for goodness sake.

1/52

I've seen some other bloggers doing this 52 weeks project and thought I might join in. A picture a week of the little girl - it should be fun to see how she grows. Jolly good fun, in fact.

The cheeks! Will they stay round and plump? Or will they shrink? When will she have teeth? And when will she walk?

And what will her hair look like a year from now? And will she still love to have her neck om nom nomed?

I sure hope she will.

We've all gotten the sniffles over here this week, including the little lady. It's been booger city, folks.

And that's all I have to say about boogers.

The hubs had a sudden and crazy urge recently to watch all the Harry Potter movies in order. So we've been snuggling up on the couch some evenings (snuggling just happens to be one of my very favorite things) and doing just that.

How cute is teeny tiny first year Ron Weasley?? Every time his little face scrunches up we just want to squeeze him.

ye olde basement

The hubs and I made a little goal.

Perhaps a New Year's resolution, but who really knows.

We are finishing the family room in our basement, in a month. And now we can't back down since the internet has been informed.

We've been working on finishing off our basement for awhile now. When we moved in it was all unfinished, rocking the cement floors and creepy insulation (did insulation scare anyone else as a child?). We've since put up walls and ceilings, laid carpet and laminate flooring, painted, put up shelves and doors, and even added an egress window. (And when I say "we" please know that I mostly mean the hubs and his dad, although I have done my fair share of painting and valuable opinion giving.) Our once barren basement now includes a laundry room, storage space, a family room, an art room for me and a bouldering cave for the hubs. And a room that is  someday meant to be a second bathroom but for now we just call it "place where we keep a bunch of crap."

Here's the family room now. First steps include painting the trim and the walls.



The hubs is making some built in shelves for this wall.



I'm getting excited to reorganize and decorate the room so that it becomes a more cohesive space, rather than a pile of mismatched stuff. I think one of the biggest challenges will be to find a way to inexpensively cover the couch and futon so they are at least somewhat matching each other and the rest of the room.



My job, you ask? Well I'm sure I'll get to do my fair share of painting again, but I also have curtain duty. We really want to get them up quickly since the window is at ground level. I've only ever made curtains with the help of my dear mother in the past, and have never come to the conclusion that I am talented in the sewing department. This will be the first time that I'm doing it all on my own. And while I'm not really looking forward to venturing into this uncharted territory, especially when the only time I have to do it is after 8pm when the little miss goes to bed and all I REALLY want to do at that time is....also go to bed, I am excited to have nice curtains.

First step of washing and ironing the fabric is done. I bought a TON of fabric (I had no idea how much I needed) and it took me an entire episode of Parenthood to iron it. That's an hour, in case you were wondering.

And I be like "WOAH. I hate ironing."

For real, I never iron. I have one of those mini ironing boards from Ikea.



Not the best for a very very large piece of fabric. I ended up spreading a towel under the fabric across the table.

Nonetheless. I am DETERMINED to succeed. Take that sewing.

I'll let you know if we make it! We really want to have everything finished by the time Brian's family comes out to visit in mid February. Go us!!!

snow critters

Here's some pics showcasing some of our recent winter fun.

Paisley seems to like the cold. Just like her daddy. Opposite of me.

We went sledding!

And by sledding I mean that the hubs wore himself right out as he tied a rope to the sleigh and dragged us ladies around in the snow in the park across the street from our house.

Then he rested.

You can't tell from the picture, but I have kitty ears on my hat, too!

Crazy cat ladies, the both of us.

You know that thing where you are so desperate to entertain a baby that you just start doing whatever comes to your mind first, no matter how ridiculous it is?

Well the other day that was me shouting out the first song I could think of while trying to entertain the little miss long enough so that I could finish putting away the laundry before I snatched her up. That song happened to be Cher's "Do You Believe in Life After Love."

Not my finest moment but it as it turns out baby girl loves herself some Cher.

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.)