Gerber Generation Photos - PLEASE VOTE NOW!

Ok, so I'm one of those moms who enter their babies into baby contests. Of course I think he should win all of them! Anyway...I'm entering Joshua into the Gerber Generation Baby Contest (could win a $50,000 scholarship!!!) and I need help picking the photo to enter because I can just pick one!

I sat Joshua down (new thing--sitting on his own!) on our bed and snapped some photos while trying to get him to giggle. Please comment or like the photo you like best on facebook (I know it's hard to pick just ONE...you can pick multiples if you want...just not all of them, mmmkay?).

The deadline is June 30th! (Thursday!) so please do so ASAP so I can have one picked by Wednesday!

LINK TO FACEBOOK PHOTO ALBUM

Homes

I had the opportunity of going to a few of the parade of homes today with a friend. I'm definitely planning on going to all of them next year with Dave. It's so fun to look at average houses, super green houses, and ueber expensive houses. The only problem is that whenever I look at something and think, "oooh, I like that" you can almost always guarantee that Dave is looking at it and thinking, "ewww, I hate that." So someday when we have oodles of money and want to build our dream home, we'll probably have to have his and hers houses so we can both be happy with the design.

Here are some quick snapshots I got with my phone camera:

This is a master bathroom, believe it or not...the first door on the right was the shower, tub, toilet, counters, etc. Then there was a closet in the second door, storage and a little bench on the left (perfect for putting shoes on!) and at the end of the hall...can you guess?...my friend and I both thought this was a brilliant idea...it's a nursery! Probably the quietest area of the house, still close enough to the bedroom to be accessible in the middle of the night but far enough away that everyone can sleep well. Brilliant idea. And when you don't need a nursery anymore it can be a little reading room sanctuary or something.

This is the master bedroom of that same house. I just liked the window above the bed.

Again the same house, this is a cute little reading nook at the top of the stairs. Wonderful idea.

Ok, so turns out I just took a lot of pictures of the same house (the super "green" house). These were bamboo wood floors and I really liked the way the dark wood was set in the light wood in that pattern. Simple, yet enough to make it interesting.

This is just an inspiration piece. I like the way they used smaller glass tiles to separate the tile from the carpet. I'm not sure if I'd pick those tiles, but something similar would be nice.

Finally, here's a great view from a $1.5 Million house we went through. It had a ton of windows and lofty ceilings. There was so much natural light even all the way down into the basement. This was also a really nice house but I didn't get any pictures of the house itself. Next year...next year...

T Minus X Days

Every year we go on vacation to Tahoe. Now to keep some anonymity I'm not going to post when we're going and how long it is until then. But just know that it's on my mind and I'm SO EXCITED!

Since I've been thinking about Tahoe, I realized that I'm not so ready for it yet. I mean I'm ready for the vacation and time with Dave and extended family. I'm super excited about that part. However, I'm not physically ready.

I've been using giving birth as an excuse for too long, and it's time to give it up. I am on a mission to get back into shape. No, I'm not considering myself fat, I just consider the fact that I huff and puff after going up a flight of stairs a little pathetic. I can't take very big steps any more, Dave always has to slow down his gait for me, and I get headaches from my bad posture.

So today I joined the gym! I even worked out for a little while!

I'm not used to being away from Joshua yet, so it was only a 20 minute workout (plus I left him with my in-laws who were also watching a 6-week-old and a 14 month old as well), but it's a start! I've also found that even though I didn't get to the gym until 10:30 am, it was still a good start to my day and has made me much more productive.

I had found myself in a downward spiral where I'd sleep in, feel bad about sleeping in, bum around, feel bad about bumming around, so I'd surf the net, feel bad about surfing the net, etc. until it was Joshua's bedtime, and then I'd try and hurry and accomplish something to make the whole day not a complete waste, which means I'd stay up late, and sleep in again the next morning...

Not any more! aHA!

Project Finish Projects

We got lovely shelves to put up in the side of the Nursery/Office/Craft Room that's the Office/Craft Room side so that I could get the boxes of stuff everywhere organized and out of the way.

Once I started going through things and putting them on the shelves, I realized just how many projects I have started but not finished. Including: some skirts I tried to make in high school, a fire inspired quilt, a jeans quilt, a wool blanket quilt, my couches, curtains for the dining room, curtains for the living room, too-short pants to make into capris/shorts, etc.

So I decided to dedicate some time to finishing up projects that I've started.

On Monday I had a friend come over to borrow my cutting mat and rotary cutter. I figured while the stuff was out, I might as well do something with it. So I got out the jeans I had started cutting up into squares.

Tangent - I started cutting up these jeans into squares a few weeks ago when I put up the shelves and somehow spending two days holding the ruler in place while cutting squares injured my wrist, and it still hurts! boo...hiss...I need a gypsy gripper!

Getting some inspiration from the zig-zag quilt on my cousin's really cute blog (don't be fooled by the pinwheels in the first picture). I set to work. I matched up all the dark squares with all the light squares to make the zig-zags. What I forgot to take into consideration was that by making a 7" square into a square made of two triangles with a 1/4" seam I lost half an inch, so I had 70 squares that were 6.5" and 60 squares that were 7". Whoops.

But hey, it's my first quilt (rag quilts don't count), so I figure what the heck, who cares!? I'll just try not to look too closely at it whenever we use it for picnics, fireworks, camping, etc.

So all week I've been hard at work sewing the squares into strips, and then the strips to each other and I finished today!

Now the problem is that I don't have fabric for the back or binding, nor do I have any batting...but that will have to wait. So I really just got further along in the process of the project, but I'm considering that done!

I can't decide on what to work on next. I have two of the three curtains in the living room done, so they're unmatching and obvious. The couch takes the cake on unmatching and obvious. I only have one pair of shorts currently and it'd be nice to have another. Shall I put it to a vote? (See poll on right)

Toof!

Today I was feeding Joshua and he fell asleep while eating and chomped down. Owch! Yep, there's a little razor sharp tooth poking through his gums!

Teef

Joshua is officially teething.

I mentioned that he woke up screaming at night at playgroup and a lot of other mothers said that their children did that during teething, so I inspected his lower gums with my finger, and sure enough, there are two little bumps that make him squirm and squeal when I rub them.

I'm not sure how long he's actually been teething, or how long they take to break through, but he's been more chill than usual as long as they're not aching too much. He chomps down on anything in sight though. I was doing dishes while he was in his walker toy and I looked over to see him leaning over munching on the steering wheel. He sure is a cutie patootie.