Blogging on the go

My new years resolution is to blog at least one time per week. I just got my iPhone so perhaps I will blog on the go and actually do it! Crossing fingers. I am going to work on my year in review
Post. I missed doing it last year and really enjoyed doing it two years ago. . Perhaps I should do two years in review. See ya soon.

Happy holidays from our family to yours!

Stationery card

View the entire collection of cards.

Current Events

I think I am going to end up flip flopping between current and past events so that I am not perpetually behind.

Today I took Little E to a historical house (well really the grounds).  It is super pretty there and they have sheep and chickens that we can go and check out.  I ended up taking some pictures of the girl.  I am pretty proud of some of the shots.  I used to take tons of pictures of my friends kids but somehow I never set out to take so good shots of E.  So today was the day.  It was beautiful in the 60s and sunny.  Here are some of my favorites.

Birthday

E's Birthday was one of the highlights of the summer.  I  can't believe that E is two already (although by the temper tantrums I would say not so hard to imagine).  We had her party at Mimi and Bubba's house in NH.  The weather was great and I think everyone had a wonderful time.  The theme was pinwheels and I am proud to say I repurposed a lot of the decorations from Ella's owl themed 1st birthday.  We borrowed a friends bouncy house and had a sprinkler for entertainment.  A nice lunch and some cake and we were good to go.

some pinwheel decorations (I made them all!)

I took the owl off her sign and put a pinwheel on.  How green am I!!  

Party favors of Balls and Pinwheels.

Another repurposed decoration.  The Letters are from last years banner.  I made the pennants out of scrapbook paper and added some pinwheels and put it back on the ribbon.

The tent with decorations!

Street sign.

Ella's pinwheel outfit I ordered off etsy.  She looked so cute!

Yummy Pinwheel Cake!

The family!

Enjoying the spinkler!

Bounce!!!!

My girl loves her some cake!!!!  She ate the whole piece and wanted more!

I

Summer Recap???

Tons has happened since last I blogged...like a whole season.  Geez I really need to get back into this.  Since the only way I think I will remember anything is if I write it in the blog.  Poor E will wonder what the heck happened her second year of life.  Only 17 posts in 2011 so far.  Whoops.  Really E stuff happened I promise.

We had a great summer with lots going on including moving and a nice vacation to P-town.  It was nice to be together as a family although I would not recommend leaving for vacation one week after moving.  The week going into the move was really hard.  The move was really hard.  The week following the move was hard and the week after coming home from vacation...hard.  But we are mostly moved into the new place which is great.  We spent the remaining weeks of the summer playing at the pool and getting used to the new place.

I must say it was bitter sweet moving from our old apartment.  I mean it was beyond time as we had outgrown it a long time ago but it was Shazam and my first apartment together.  We got engaged, married, pregnant and brought a baby home there.  There were so many memories tied their.  It just seems strange that we don't live there anymore.

The new place is great though.  Lots of room and tons of storage.  We have so many closets it is great.  I really love the layout and the kitchen is works very nicely.  I am enjoying having a gas stove again after 5 years.

We are back to the grind here with Shazam in her second year of grad school an me back to teaching 6th grade.  E is in daycare 4 days per week this year and I am doing drop off 3 days per week as well as pick up every day.  I am a very tired woman by the time the end of the week comes around.  Shazam is loving her internship at The Brigham and while is hard work ( she is on the gynecological oncology service) she is learning a ton and it will also be very good on her resume.  School for me is going very well.  I had tons of changes with my team this year but it is going really well.  It is nice to teach something for the second time around.  We also have really nice kids this year which is a total bonus.

Little E is doing great.  She still is a little mini but has been gaining weight and now is 27lbs according to our home scale.  She is wearing 2T tops and 12-18 month pants.  The child has the stumpiest legs and a very long torso.  She is enjoying art projects at home and I love getting projects together for her.

She is talking so much more these days (although it is often hard to understand her) and is coming up with more and more multi word phrases.  Her favorite right now is "That's cool."  She is two and is filled with tantrums over the smallest things but is also filled with so much joy. She loves to dance and sing.  She is enjoying books with real plots which is such a nice change from the books with one word and pictures on a page.  I am happy to report that some of her favorites are some of mine as well.  My sister got her Crictor at some point last year and she finally loving it.

 She is also a fan of More Spaghetti I say. 

 I love that she asks for books and our nightly reading sessions are such a nice way to wind down the day.

My goal is to write the blog two to three times per week.  I think I will have to do a bit of a photo dump to highlight the summer at some point.    I really need to find a way to document our time together as a family.  Until next time...

I am a ridiculously bad blogger

I totally fell off the 30 day challenge wagon but June is never a good time for me to start a project.  I am always so tired at the end of the year.  I have been on vacation for about 3 weeks now and am feeling recharged so back to the blog I go.  We are deep into getting ready for the move.  Boxes are piling up around the apartment and with one week to go I really have to get a move on.  Shazam is over at the new apartment painting the living and dining room.  It is turning out well although it is a little bluer and less grey than I expected.  I guess we are in a blue faze since Little E's room will also be blue.  We bought a new rug for the living room and the study and picked up a nice desk on craigslist.  Shazam's study should be a nice little retreat.  I really can't wait to have more room to work with.  I mean our dinning room is currently our only place to eat, our office, and play area.  We have a table and chairs, credenza, china cabinet, bench, computer desk, cat climber, and wing chair in there.  I can't wait to send all the non dining items to their new homes!  There is still so much to do but it is going to be worth it.  I was in our bedroom and Shazam was in the living room and with me yelling she hardly heard me!  This is going to be nice for when one of us gets up with Little E in the morning and lets the other sleep in.  Currently it doesn't really matter who gets up because with the layout of our apartment once E is up it is impossible to sleep.  The kid is loud!  Last night we tried to eat at the new apartment but all E wanted to do was run around and with wet paint around we had to bail and finish eating at home.  No worries we will have tons of time to eat at the new place in the future.  Well the little lady is awake so I must run.  I need to catch you all up on E's 2 year appointment and birthday party.  I will do that over the next few days.

Little E's Big Girl Room

Now that we are moving I have begun to think about changing things up and giving E a big girl room.  I love E's nursery and was very happy with our choices but in some ways that room never developed into what I dreamed it to be.  I never really had the intimate moments I imagined in the room.  Most of my dreams of quietly nursing a newborn Little E were lost in the months following her birth.  Even when she was home we just never spent much time in there.

Since we were team green we have a very gender neutral room of browns and light green with an elephant theme.  It is super cute but I want a little girls room.  I love the color combination of light blue and red.  I just love the idea of a tranquil pretty light blue room.  So I started looking for bedding.  Since E is not close to leaving her crib (I would keep her there forever if I could) and it converts into a toddler bed I started looking for some cute toddler bedding.  I must say it is very lacking.  Most of it was cheap character crap from places like Ta.rget.  I found several sets I liked at a place called babybedding dot com.  The sets are not too expensive and they have some cute modern patterns.  Last week I was hot to trot on the following patterns.

While I think the patterns are cute they just were not what I was looking for.  Obviously I liked the bird patterns.  The first one seemed too busy.  The second had a solid black back on the comforter that I didn't love.  The third seemed like it might be too baby and cutsie.  So off to Etsy I went.  I found loads of places that make custom bedding for babies and toddles but many are soooooo expensive.  Also I just couldn't find any fabrics that I loved.  I did find that the 2nd fabric came in different colors and went searching for a blue version of the Starling pattern.  I found it but it was more purple than I liked.  This lead to that which eventually led to.....

Sherbet P.ips

Oh how I love thee she.rbet pips

The whole collection is super cute and I love that it is girly but not overly so.  So now I have to find someone to make some bedding.  I think it will be so cute.