Picture Wall

Guess who finally finished her picture wall?! Exclamation point! It's been finished for about two weeks but I keep forgetting to take a picture of it when the sun is up and there is light in the hallway. This is our entry way, right when you walk in our front door:

I love it because it isn't perfect. It is a hodgepodge of frames- some we had, some from the Salvation Army, different thicknesses and sizes. Seriously, a few of them were like fifty cents. I spray painted some of them, and others I just dabbed with craft paint to get a distressed look. I sanded most of them too. I'm kicking myself for not taking pictures of the process of this- it was a good project for me.

This is a super easy project to do on a budget. All the frames I bought at a discount or from a thrift store, the mats are from Michael's 40% off sale, and the photos I had printed at Costco. You can never go wrong with Costco. The two goldish frames were my grandma's, and it makes me smile to think that I have a little bit of her style in my house.

I played with the layout on the carpet of our music room for a few days. (It is officially the music room now, fyi, more to come on that.) Finally when I had the shape I wanted, I did a LOT of measuring. Dad always says, "Measure twice, cut once." The hanging was the trickiest part, if it wasn't just right it would drive me completely nutso. Even now, I take the leveler every few days and make sure everything is hanging evenly.

My next project is Isabelle's First Birthday and I'm starting to get so excited, I even had a dream about plates and napkins last night. Obsessed much?

Things I don't want you to know.

I've seen this going around the blogosphere recently and unlike it's popular counterpart, 25 Things About Me, I actually like this little exercise. The point is to erase the shiny facade of the blog and get down to the good stuff, the nitty gritty. Sometimes I read blogs and I think, "whoa, this mom is perfect. She cooks homemade food every meal and is skinny and stylish and she washes her hair everyday and takes kids to perfect playgroups and sews and knits and paints and decorates." I feel overwhelmed easily when comparing myself to these wonder women, but I have to remember that they aren't perfect either! It's nice to find out other people's quirks. Anyway, here are some of mine.

1. I judge people based on their favorite movies.
2. I don't vacuum nearly as much as I should because I genuinely hate it.
3. I bite my lip when I am bored/nervous/anxious.
4. I feel guilty when Isabelle doesn't wear her clothes evenly, or if she grows out of something before she gets a chance to wear it.
5. Some days I'd rather be skinny and ugly than fat and pretty.
6. If I have people coming over and need to clean up quickstyle, a lot of stuff gets tucked in my laundry room. Don't peek.
7. I probably eat a quarter of the vegetables that I should.
8. I'm terrible at keeping up with my old friends, and I regret not being in better contact.
9. I'm very critical slash proud of my blog and often re-read old entries when no one is looking.
10. I have extremely dry feet. Most nights I have to sleep with lanolin and socks on them to prevent giant cracks. Gross, right.
11. During the day my living room looks like rainbow vomit. I don't clean up toys until after Isabelle is sleeping. I never thought I would have so many annoyingly bright toys littering my carpet.

12.  I'm terrified that when we are old, Jazz will die before me and I'll be alone. He is my best friend and is so good to me.
13.  I own a bumpit. And a snuggie.
14.  I check facebook too often. It's like a bad habit. (You know you do too.)
15.  I will confess that I am an emotional eater.
16. Sometimes I worry that I'm forgetting stuff I went to school to learn. Like geography. Or math. Or spelling.
17. One time I came out of my in-law's bathroom with toilet paper sticking out of my pants. And then I trailed it around for awhile.
18. I don't eat tomatoes but I love ketchup.
19. I miss my sisters. That's not something I don't want you to know. I just miss them.
20. I've never ever been a morning person, but it is kind of nice to get up with Isabelle before the sun rises.

K, your turn- I wanna know some of your quirks!

Whiskeytown falls

Saturday morning we left early to go hike Whiskeytown Falls, about thirty minutes outside of Redding. It's a beautiful two mile hike and it was a lovely little reminder how totally and completely out of shape I am. I was kind of like a baby orca, trying to flop my way up a steep beach. Not pretty. Luckily, we brought my packmule dad who carried Izzie in the bjorn all the way up, and all the way down. Warning, pictures follow wherein I am sweaty and makeup-less. Proceed with caution.

Fancy Falls

Check this- Isabelle loved drinking from my dad's camelbak. How cute is that? really!

Can you find them?

Miss Isabelle

 haven't written about Isabelle in awhile and that seems weird to me since she takes up 90% of my life most days.

First off, she is huge. Seriously, she has really chunked up the last couple of months, which is great. Her little legs are actually chubby! Part of that is due to her obsession of solid food- her EIGHT teeth can chomp through almost everything. (Eight teeth!)

It is really nice to just toss her some snackies when she is fussy or chuck a steak at her while I cook. We often share salads when we're out- she loves the avocado, chicken, and egg whites. She is totally a share-er. Not a word, but whatever. We caught this cute moment on film the other night, Jazz was feeding her while she was trying to feed him. Cuuuute.

I have purposely left out discussing Isabelle's sleeping as of late- mostly because I had to just let it go for awhile. I felt like every post was me whining about the middle of the night sessions with Izzie. I'll admit, I let myself get frustrated and upset and it was consuming me. A lot of my friends had babies who slept through the night early on- and only improved from there. I felt guilty, like it was my fault, like I had done something wrong. It was killing me that we weren't even CLOSE to achieving "through the night" status- we were still on a three to four hour schedule. I could not imagine a time when Isabelle would sleep for ten or twelve hours straight. Anyway, I finally had to just embrace it and learn to go with the flow. I had tried all sorts of books and tricks and tips and everything I could think of, and Isabelle just wasn't having any of it. I talked to my pediatrician, who was very kind and understanding but told me simply that this may be how she is for awhile- up to two years. Of course, I wanted to stab my doctor at the time. I also met some women in a playgroup- and they too had babies that didn't sleep "through the night." I felt a little vindicated. I finally realized that it was out of my control, so I let it go.
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I have to interrupt this monologue for a minute to say that the main reason that I was able to function like a human and partly why I could "go with the flow" night after night with Isabelle waking up is because of Jazz. He has faithfully gotten up with her almost every night for months, even now, he takes one night feeding. Sometimes more. He naturally runs on less sleep and has not complained ONCE about getting up to comfort her. How many men do you know who would do that? Point being, Jazz is the reason why I am sane, why I have not lost my marbles. (yet.)

So how is it going? Well, she is doing so much better. Last night she slept from 7:30 to 5:30 in one straight shot, something I don't think has ever happened before.We both woke up and said, "uhhh did YOU feed her?"  Glorious morning! Of course, once she was awake, she was up for the day, but HEY IT IS IMPROVEMENT. She eats more during the day, and she is more mobile now so I think she wears herself out more. Normally, she goes down at 7:30, eats once in the night, and wakes up at 6:30. She takes two good naps during the day- usually two hours in the morning and one hour in the afternoon. I can't tell you how thankful I am that she is sleeping better. I'm sure many of you know how taxing it is, day after day, to sleep in short spurts. One thing that she has excelled at for many months now is the art of falling asleep on her own. We put her down with a couple of favorite soft toys and she plays and makes sleepy noises until she passes out. Good job, Isabelle. Now that she is crawling super fast, she is getting into e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g.

She can pull herself up to the toy box. And pull everything out.

Look at all our obnoxiously bright toys. Agh. Deep breath.

Aaaand she pulls everything off of the bottom shelves.

Notice my body pillow roadblock. She crawled right over it.
What do I, leave the shelves empty?

Isabelle's Nursery

I wanted to share some pictures of Isabelle's nursery now that it is a real nursery and not a guest bedroom/office/laundry room/etc.

Dresser: Craigslist, Mirror: Craigslist, Lamp: free from my mom's DI pile

Glider: On loan from Scott and JaNae, Rug: Taipan

Baby: Not available in stores

Paper lanterns: Party store/homemade, Frames: Michaels

Bedding: JC Penny

Tiny chair and white shelf: TJ Maxx, Large white frame: Michael's

Tiny teapot: gift, doily: family heirloom

Shoes from my infant days

Nightstand: Consignment store, Frame and shadowbox: TJ Maxx

Baby book shelf: Consignment Store

LDS art prints: Etsy, Frames and mats: Michael's

I love this room. It is bright and happy and girly and I feel like it's a room that Isabelle can grow into. I love seeing all the little details come together into one big success.

worst mom ever.

The other day I was trying to work on my Almost Finished Photo Wall in our front entry while Isabelle played with some toys in the family room. She was content for a few minutes and then just fussssssy to the max, making these loud screamy whine noises. I looked over from the hallway to see this:

She was trying to CRAWL THROUGH THAT TINY HOLE TO GET TO ME AND SHE COULDN"T FIT. And then my heart blew up. Needless to say, the work on picture wall was promptly halted in favor of  book reading and block stacking.

The day there was scrapple.

Have you heard of scrapple? I hadn't either, until I met my husband of course. My very east coast husband. While we were dating, he raved about this delicious breakfast treat called "scrapple", a good ol' home cooked delicacy. Kind of like bacon... pan-fried and served with eggs or pancakes. I looked for it everywhere we went in Utah, but I never saw it anywhere. Turns out, it is made up of all the leftover pig parts that don't get used for other things- compressed neatly into a square. Scrapple is "pork scraps and trimmings combined with cornmeal and flour, often buckwheat flour, and spices. The mush is formed into a semi-solid congealed loaf, and slices of the scrapple are then panfried before serving. Scraps of meat left over from butchering, not used or sold elsewhere, were made into scrapple to avoid waste." You slice it up into 1/4 inch slices and fry it. I know what you are thinking, "umm leftover parts? that doesn't sound good." I told Jazz that someday I would try it, not thinking that we wouldn't encounter it in the near future. I don't do well with "parts" in my food.

Well, for Jazz's birthday, my brother Scott and his wife JaNae found some scrapple and had it shipped from Amish, Pennsylvania to good ol' Redding, CA. (Aren't they the best!?) Jazz was totally thrilled, he could hardly wait for it to arrive. It came in a freezery-type package, a little brick of meat surrounded by ice packs. So, last Saturday he carefully cooked up some scrapple for me to try and for him to giddily devour.

Peanut Butter on pancakes is a must.

And because I am the Most Awesome, Most Supportive, Most Beautiful wife in the world, I took a bite. Of pork "parts." My opinion, if you can buy your meat off of the internet, it probably isn't meat. Just sayin.

*special thanks to Scott and JaNae for making Jazz's dreams come true..

shut the front door.

So we were enjoying a relaxing evening at home, just the three of us. We had just eaten dinner and we were entertaining Isabelle on the floor with basically all the toys we own, spread out like funfetti on our carpet.

Jazz goes, "Ummmmm, what is that."

And I look. And what I see is not good. A little lizard is scampers across the carpet and scoots under the TV cabinet. Of course, I keep my cool and calmly get some things to trap it. Sike, I scream and grab Isabelle and jump on the couch and scream and scream and yell at Jazz to HURRY UP AND TRAP IT AND GET IT OUT AND PLEASE HURRY FASTER.

You guys, there was a freaking gecko in my house. A GECKO. IN MY HOUSE. So many questions. How did it get in. Where did it come from. Did it have babies somewhere. Has it been living here for months. How did it get in, how did it get in, how did it get in.

Jazz grabbed some Lizard Catching Devices from the garage and proceeded to corner it into a storage bin. Then he took it outside and flung it in my neighbors back yard. I know this thing LOOKS small but that container is 4 feet x 4 feet. So, it's huge. And by 4 feet x 4 feet, I really mean 18 inches x 12 inches.  Jazz took this picture because I'm still standing on top of the couch.

Whatever, it much bigger ON MY CARPET. I had to vacuum after just because those tiny webbed feet gave me the heeby-jeebies. Does pest control spray for AMPHIBIANS.

Maybe it was just trying to sell me some car insurance.

Some finds...

If you know me, you know I'm a bargain shopper. I love TJ Maxx, frequent consignment stores, and pay homage to the gods of Nordstrom's Rack. Lately I've been scoring in the cheap crap department and I wanted to share some finds.

I found these sheets about six months ago on Macy's online website. At $100 for a King size set, they were a tad out of my price range. We needed new sheets, but it wasn't a sheet emergency by any means. These just SCREAM my style. So I patiently watched and waited and stalked. They came down to $70, then $50... and I kept circling like a sheet shark. Finally they were down to $39, so I went to my Macy's store but they didn't have my color. Taupe was nice, but I neeeeeded green. So I passed. The next weekend they dropped down to $29 bucks, plus $5 for shipping- a total sheet steal. I got them last week and totally love them. You may remember from this post that I'm not a fan of the Top Sheet. Well, not anymore- consider me converted.

I found this clock at Tuesday Morning's for $39. It is large. Larger than my baby.

I really like how it looks above our double bookcases from Ikea.

I'd love to paint these bookcases white and distress them, but that is for another day. PS, See that couch in the clock picture? Well, we found a matching microfiber set- couch, love seat and chair at a local consignment store, still with the tags on them. They had been used in a model home and were no longer needed. $600 for three brand new pieces.  Scooooooore.

I found this little entry table at a garage sale across the street from my mom's. It was ten bucks, already painted. I don't have much blue in my house, so this may end up green or light gray or let's face it, white. But it's a perfect size for our entryway. Across from the table will be the Infamous Picture Wall, completion date unknown. Also, I found that rug on craigslist for $70. It's from Anthropologie! Exclamation point! The owner was moving to New Zealand or something and had to sell everything, even her favorite rug.

And, if you wanna talk about REALLY cheap, I received this *free* necklace in the mail- I won a giveaway from one of the blogs I read. I love free stuff. I love CUTE free stuff even more. A $34 dollar value. (If you wish to purchase one, go here).

 

Anyone else have some good finds lately?

Sorensen's Sealing

We got our pictures back from our sealing day. I'm so glad we had someone come and take a few pictures to remember the day by. It was SUCH a special day for our family.

10 Months

Dear Isabelle,

Yesterday you turned ten months old. This stage in your life is so much fun- your personality is developing so much and you are SUCH a happy baby. One of my favorite things about you is this little contagious laugh- you giggle when you hear a silly noise or see something funny, and soon it is uncontrollable and you give this little sigh like "phew, I can't take it anymore." When you get moving quickly, either crawling or assisted walking, you get this adorable little panting noise because you are working so hard. It's so cute to listen to.

You have six and a half teeth, with more on the way, as evident by the sheer amount of things you put into your mouth. You love to eat puffs, cheerios, ritz crackers, and yogurt melts.  When I feed your meals, you would much rather feed yourself and try to yank the spoon out of my hand every time, causing food to fly everywhere. I can tell you are just dying to do things for yourself, but haven't quite figured out how to yet. You love to stand up, especially holding on the the couch, and walk back and forth, throwing all the toys on the floor until the couch is naked. You are so precise with your fingers and always notice little details- you love to pull on your dad's hair on his arms when you are playing. You've almost mastered clapping and we are moving on to the art of a high five.

To my own chagrin, you figured out that I have been putting bows on your head nearly every day since you were born. Now you can reach up, yank them off and put them in your mouth in about five seconds flat. Soooo I guess we are done with headbands? That's okay though because your lovely dark hair is coming in all fluffy and thick, you are so beautiful already.

Your father came home from work a while ago and you were playing on the carpet. As soon as you saw him, your face lit up, your arms flew high above your head, welcoming him home and just begging for him to pick you up. It's moments like this when my heart is just gooey and the gratitude I have for you just explodes. We are so lucky.

Soon we will be celebrating your first birthday. Before you came, everyone warned me how quickly time would go by, how fast you would grow, how I would ache for your baby skin and newborn smell. I really can't believe how much has changed in a matter of a few short months. I wouldn't trade my time with you for anything in the world.

Love, love love you

xoxo

Momma

Celebrating Jazz

Happy Birthday, Jazz!

Yesterday we celebrated my adorable husband's birthday. We went to the lake and baked on the boat. Some people surfed and wake boarded. Some people (no names) just sat in their life jackets and ate yogurt-puffs. Some people (again, no names) got a few more freckles, courtesy of the sun. We scarfed some burrito bandito, ate some cake, and called it a night. Perfection.

Friday night we went out sans baby for delicious Chinese food and to see Inception. People, you must must must see this movie. It totally blew my mind into bits. Amazering. Ahhh-maze-er-ing.

I surprised Jazz with tickets to fly back east in September to visit his family and see his hometown of Danville. He was totally surprised, and that doesn't happen too often. I'm super excited, I've never been to visit PA with Jazz, and I'm anxious to meet everyone. Jazz hasn't been home in six years, so we are overdue for a visit. So hey Penn people, we will be in the area September 15th for a few days.

I'm kind of sad that birthday month is over now. Unless we can call it Birthday Summer? YES I LIKE IT.

Jazz at ten months.

To my Jazzy, Happy Birthday. I'm so lucky to have you in my life.