living right next door to an elementary school sure has it’s perks!

finley chose to make cupcakes to celebrate her potty training success! we’re so proud of her!!

my mom taught me how to sew a basic skirt. i’m not sure whether i should be happy that i now know how to make something so fun and easy or whether to be mad at her that she didn’t teach me this a long time ago!

And hopefully I can post a picture soon to show what Brian and our friend Corey worked on this weekend. It involved moving an insane amount of junk out of our slop room and laying a slate tile floor. I almost peed my pants in excitement when i saw it, because it looks so good, and also because I could hardly believe how stinking huge the room was once you got rid of all our junk.

thanks to all the random craigslisters who saved us a trip to the dump!

This last picture isn’t anything special, but i thought the story behind it was quite funny. Last week I laid down to snuggle with finley for a few minutes, and because i’m pregnant and can fall asleep at the drop of a hat, i fell asleep. i woke up to the click of the camera and looked up and saw….

brian standing on her bed. with the ginormous tripod set up. who does that?! isn’t he hilarious?

I think, well i know, that i desperately want to start preparing for our baby girl. but, the major remodel that’s taking place in 75% of our house is sort of keeping me from doing what i would normally want to be doing…you know, decorating the nursery, washing and putting away precious baby clothes, etc. Basically, since I can’t be doing that I think I’m going a little crazy and finding other ways to use that part of my brain. case in point, i decided that this weekend i needed to learn how to applique. Is that even the correct way to use the word? Shows how much i know about it. Anyway, i made finley a shirt, and i was pretty proud of how it turned out.

Until…

I showed the shirt to my dear husband. This is pretty much how it went:

me: look at what i made!
brian: chuckles
me: doesn’t it look like it could be store bought!
brian: what is it?
me: blank stare. what do you mean?
brian: is it a bird?
me: looking at the shirt trying to see how he could possibly see a bird. Ummmm, no!
brian: oh, is it snail?

*for the record, it is neither. I mean come on, even my 2 year old knew it was a flower.

**don’t feel bad if you thought it was a bird, snail, or something else altogether. next time i’ll stick with something less abstract.

Are you ready for a really long-winded tour of our Christmas celebrations?

Okay, here we go…

This year i wanted to switch things up with the “color scheme” of our tree, but we didn’t want to spend money on new decorations, so we used all sorts of white/silver things that we found around the house. I really liked how pretty and sparkly it turned out.
Here’s my attempt at making a flower out of scraps of fabric i had laying around. why do other people make it look so easy?
And who needs to buy wrapping paper and ribbon when you have rolls of butcher paper for art and twine?

Speaking of money….

Brian and I had decided that we were NOT under any circumstance exchanging gifts with each other. Our new downstairs was going to be our gift to each other. So, you can imagine my surprise when the night before xmas eve finley handed me a big box, covered with brown industrial paper and blue painter’s tape. Brian got me a new camera!! I was so shocked and delighted {and also slightly intimidated by all the buttons and features}.

It was love at first sight when I took my first picture…

Unfortunately, all I had for Brian was a batch of his favorite cookies. But, he was happy.

We had made food for Santa’s reindeer {oatmeal, sugar, and red and green sprinkles} so on xmas eve we went outside to throw it on the lawn.
Later that night we had lots of fun hanging out at Brian’s dad’s.

Finley loves her cousin Maya soooooo much. I love watching them play together.

Instead of spending Christmas morning at my parent’s house, we decided that it made more sense for them to come over to our place. We got to wake up and have time with just the three of us, and then they came over for brunch. This was probably the best decision we’ve ever made. Seriously, it was sooooo much more relaxing! Thanks, mom and dad for embracing a new tradition!
That afternoon we went over to spend time with Brian’s family. More yummy food and lots and lots of laughing.
My sissy and I are so excited to be pregnant together and looking forward to having babies a few weeks apart.
And here’s the cutest thing that I’ve ever laid eyes on. It makes my heart so happy to see that in some part of her little, two year old heart, she understands that Christmas is about “baby jesus”.

Hope you had a very merry christmas too!

We took Finley to see Santa this weekend and, well it was bad. I sort of was planning on her shedding some tears, but I had not anticipated it being so traumatic. We came armed with a lolly (sucker) for her and one for her to give to Santa because I thought that would be a good icebreaker. As soon as we got within three feet of him, she threw it at him and started tearing up. We tried having her sit on a chair at his feet, on a rocking horse to the side of him, and they even tried a “bye bye Santa picture” {Santa says goodbye and goes around back, while the kid sits in his chair and he sneaks in behind the child for a quick picture}. She would have none of it. It seriously attracted a crowd of employees and shoppers. In the end, we threw her on his lap and snapped a picture. Is it evil of me to think that crying pictures are kinda funny? Within seconds of leaving his sight, she realized she was holding a lolly and everything was fine. Maybe next year when she has a sibling with her it will go better? One can hope…

These are just some random pictures from the weekend. Is it me or does she look really old?!
and i couldn’t resist the opportunity to capture a belly shot when i’m actually wearing real clothes and makeup {it’s kind of a rare occurrence}.