In an effort to take more pictures and actually do something with them, I tried to take a photo every day in January. I missed a few days here and there, but otherwise was pretty good. I put together this collage and am hoping to do this every month! Most of the pics are of Ollie of course… he’s the most exciting part of our day.
I think my favorite is the one where he’s kissing his stuffed lion. I love my little boy!
So I haven’t really posted recently. I have been under this little cloud called “unmotivated” and every time I thought about doing a blog post I would get really discouraged and I would think of all the posts that I have just waiting to be written and get overwhelmed and then I would just hang out on facebook and watch something mindless on TV. Anyone else ever have weeks like that?
So this morning I had a lightbulb moment… I don’t have to do any of those lined-up blog posts, I can post whatever I want! Yeah simple I know, but sometimes it’s hard to get there. So in the shower I had a fun idea for a post: things that I’ve been thinking about lately.
1. Politics
We’ve been talking about politics, watching every (stupid) debate, discussing back and forth our issues with each candidate, and generally groaning about how crazy people are. I really like Mitt Romney, he’s handsome (hey we have to look at the guy a lot!), and hard working, is an honorable human being, and a lot of his ideals fit into my moderate perspective. Newt on the other hand I want to poke my eyes out every time I see him, and he has an ego the size of… well bigger than Texas (been there, done that). I actually like the sitting president though I feel his hands have been tied on so many things both by congress and his inexperience, as well as his desire to make everyone happy. If it were between Newt and Obama I would surely vote for Obama, but for now I’ll keep dreaming and hoping that Romney gets the bid.
2. Oliver and playdates
I’m always obsessed with my little guy, he’s the BEST! He started walking a few days after Christmas (at 9 months!) and is pretty good at it now. We also started play dates – I actually had 2 this week which is crazy! I have found that he loves to poke other babies in the eyes, and he loves swings. It was a great week! There was also a huge sale at Baby Gap, and I got him a ton of cute new clothes which was sorely needed since he decided to GROW out of pretty much everything else we had. So now he’s in between his old jammies making him look like a stuffed sausage and his new jammies which bunch up on his feet when he walks around. He had his 10 month dr. visit and he’s 21lbs and 30″ tall. that’s 50th percentile weight and 75th percentile height. What a big kiddo!
3. CHA
layouts by Amber Packer
I’m on my way to CHA in the morning. For those not in “the know” it’s the Craft and Hobby Association trade show. My new scrapbooking line (that I haven’t talked about here yet) Miss Caroline is debuting and so I’m going to go and have some fun and see some folks I haven’t seen in awhile and generally just get some inspiration and time away from home (I’m sure I’ll miss Ollie like crazy). I am PLANNING on doing some good blog updates while at CHA so if you’re into that type of thing visit often!
4. Blog Re-design
Up until this point in blog-dom I have had Mr. Project do the majority of the programming of my blog, but I wanted a few specialty things so we’ve turned it over to a good friend who is also an awesome programmer. We are going full-speed ahead on a new look for the blog, and more important better functionality via search and tags etc. Hopefully that will be up sometime in March. I need to get it in gear as far as working on all the new graphics etc.
5. Young Women’s
I just got called in our ward as the Personal Progress Leader. Or something like that. I’m basically in charge of keeping track of and motivating the young women in the ward to keep up with their Personal Progress Program. It’s been so long since I’ve done anything YW related so this should be very interesting. I’m super excited in some ways, and completely terrified in others. But I’m mostly happy to be able to use some of my talents. For me that is so important when I accept a church calling.
6. Pinterest
Who is NOT obsessed with pinterest?
7. Decorating
I spent some time and money getting some empty parts of the house filled thanks in part to these awesome (and cheap) lamps at target. Now to take pictures…
8. iPhone 4S Camera
It takes awesome pictures and I always have it on me which allows me to get quick shots of Ollie and his daddy. ALL of my January pics have been taken with it, which means that I really need to dust off the SLR. It also means that I’ve gotten a lot of cute video too. Love my phone!
This year I…
became a mom
bought a house
moved
designed and renovated
jugged more than I thought I could
lived life through new eyes
made the world a more beautiful place
traveled a little
fell more in love with my husband than I thought possible
was blessed more than I deserve.
A special thanks to our wonderful family, and all our friends who are as close to us as our family, and to God who loves us all. We would have nothing if we didn’t have you in our lives.
Word of the year: JOY
I’m sure you all can agree that it’s been a busy holiday season. At first I was excited about Christmas being on a Sunday… but now it just seems really inconvenient as far as trying to get everything ready by a Friday.
I tried to give myself a break this year and not beat myself up about doing everything that I wanted to, and one of those things that did not get done was our Christmas card. We just never had a good time to get pictures done, and ended up having my friend Gennifer take them on the fly. There was still time to get them printed and sent, but with our travel schedule, it did just not work out… so our card this year is an e-card delivered via my blog, facebook, and email. So really we are just super “green” right? So in lieu of a card in the mail, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
The decorating mostly got done – I couldn’t slack on this since its our first year in the house and I was excited to see how my existing decorations fit the new house. I still need a bit of filler since the house is so much bigger than our apartment, but I can pick some of that up on clearance on Monday! Here are a few snapshots that I took of our decorations this year:
(the iphone 4s takes THE BEST night-time christmas tree photos)
I saw the ruffled tree skirt tutorial that was floating around pinterest. I got everything ready and started to glue all of those ruffles, but only made it a few inches and decided it would be MUCH MUCH easier to just sew the ruffles on (actually my mom was visiting and she sewed them on for me – which is why this is even finished BEFORE Christmas). And trust me, if you do this, SEW the dang ruffles on, you will save your fingers and yourself from going crazy.
I totally need two more cream stockings from pottery barn! And extra points for anyone who spots the baby!
One other exciting thing that happened this week was that our back splash tile went in the kitchen! It looks amazing and I’ll share it very soon!
I hope you all have a wonderful and relaxing holiday weekend!
For the past week, Oliver has been pulling a face that is cute enough to make you laugh until you cry:
It’s his pout face! If you take something away or make a loud noise or just in general upset his balance, he pulls these awesome pouty lips. And as quicky as it comes, it’s gone. So I’ve been desperately trying to get a photo of it because the cuteness cannot be contained, and finally succeeded today! He could not be any cuter. I love this boy!!