pickles and ice cream

Last weekend my amazing mom and sister with a little help from a few other great friends and family members threw me and the baby the most beautiful shower. The theme was pickles and ice cream and all the decorations were done in the colors of our nursery, turquoise and red. The theme was carried out into the smallest detail, from the pickle and cucumber appetizers, to the ice cream dessert bar, the table centerpieces and decorations in every corner of house and yard, to the colors of the candy in the favor bags. I loved every little bit and I can’t thank them enough. Tim arrived early with his camera and got a bunch of photos of the house, so I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

In addition to the beautiful atmosphere, I was very lucky to be surrounded by so many wonderful friends and family. Over 40 people were there to celebrate our new family and I am thankful to have each of them in my life. All of you made the day unforgettable and I’m truly blessed to know you.

I will post more photos of the wonderful people at the shower as I get them, but for now you can just enjoy some eye candy of the decor.

a week of weird

I don’t know what is in the air, but the days since last Thursday has been a bit out of the ordinary and I’m hoping things will get back to normal soon. Let me take you through my week- bear with me this will be a long one…

Thursday: My friend Kristie invited us to join her at the baseball game, which was great except for the rain and a Cardinal’s loss. But before the game I was determined to make it to my yoga class because I haven’t been able to go for weeks. So, in my rush to get home from work, change and make it to yoga I almost didn’t notice that Odie had puked all over his bed and my brand new, birthday present, only been on the floor for 3 days, beautiful rug. This alone is not the end of the world. Besides making me almost lose my lunch, it all came up pretty easily. However when the dog has an upset stomach he’s been known to chew on things. Guess what he picked? Yep, my brand new rug. He took a small, yet very obvious chunk out of the edge. So I flew out of the house, already late for yoga and called Tim to cry out my frustration before trying to block it out with some meditation. Luckily my yoga instructor is wonderful and I had an hour of relaxation before having to deal with the reality of my ruined rug.

Friday: Odie begins his confinement in the kitchen where he cannot access anything valuable to puke or chew on. After work Tim and I went shopping, out to dinner and to the laundromat to wash the dog bed which is too big to wash at home. Outside the laundromat we witness a little white puppy run across the street and nearly get hit by a car. He also has a little puppy friend following close behind. Being the dog lovers that we are, although at this point I’m giving Odie the silent treatment, we catch up with the puppies and check for tags. They both have collars but no identification other than a Humane Society tag on one of them. So we walked around the neighborhood looking for anyone who may recognize them and finding nobody, we put them in the back of the jeep and drove up and down every nearby street. After nearly an hour with no luck, we dropped them off at the Humane Society’s overnight cages. I felt really guilty leaving them in lonely metal cages, but we couldn’t really take them home and didn’t have any other safe place for them. We hope and pray they were reunited with their owners or re-adopted.

Our little puppy adventure took up a big chunk of the evening and so when we got home I just threw on a load of laundry and hoped to snuggle in the rest of the night on the couch. That is until we heard the sound of a waterfall coming from the laundry room. Instead of draining into the pipe that leads out of the house to the sewer, our washing machine backed up into the utility sink and overflowed all over the basement floor. With a mountain of towels, a mop and a bottle of Drano, we seem to have the problem under control.

Saturday: pretty uneventful. We actually had a great day at our niece’s 5th birthday party/carnival.

Sunday: looked like Hurricane Ike made its way north into the Midwest and landed in our back yard. Everything was blowing all around, including huge puddles of water into the basement. So, more towels and mopping. Right after Tim finished cleaning that up and was headed out to the garage to finally paint our bedroom furniture, we got a call from his brother. We learned that late the night before their mom went to the emergency room because of a possible severe kidney infection. She and Tim’s dad were there into the wee hours of the morning only to wake and find that Ike had flooded their dock and yard. Thankfully Tim’s mom is doing fine, but with such little sleep his dad needed some help reclaiming the dock and the boats. So Tim jumped on the road and drove an hour to his parents house to help. The happy ending to Sunday (besides his mom being okay) is that he still came home and painted the furniture so that his crazy pregnant wife would stop freaking out about the baby’s room.

Monday: Tim left his keys at work accidentally and locked himself out of the house until I got home from work. Of course I was working late that night.

Tuesday: I went into work early and left before Tim was out of bed. He called me about an hour later at work to tell me his car had been broken into (right in front of our house by the way) and that the ignition box had been torn out of the steering column. Thankfully they didn’t successfully steal the car or take anything else, but the car was no longer drivable. So, he had a neighbor drop him off at my office so he could use my car for work. Of course this meant I had no car  to make it to my doctor appointment that afternoon and had to have my mom come pick me up. She kindly took me to the doctor, but on our way home discovered that now Tim had MY keys, so I was locked out of the house until Tim came home 45 minutes later.

Wednesday was a quiet one – we were still trying to recover.

Today: I came into work early again, after dropping Tim off at a car rental place to get a loaner until the Jeep is fixed. Nobody was in the parking lot and I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. When people started showing up for work I heard a buzz about a dead body across the street. Apparently after I came into the building the police showed up to investigate a body that was just found steps from our parking lot. Now keep in mind we work downtown and there are usually some homeless people hanging out under the overpass, but we don’t really consider it a dangerous part of the city. People park here for baseball games, walk back here after visiting the local bars and leave their cars here overnight. So it was a bit unusual to find out that there’s been a homicide right outside our building. We haven’t gotten much information so far other than they suspect the man was homeless, was shot or stabbed in the stomach and stumbled to the spot under the overpass where he was found. Very unsettling.

So, that has been my week. On the upside there have been alot of good things about the week, including getting a new laptop and ipod, hanging new artwork and curtains in the baby’s room and a great baby checkup at the doctor.

With any luck, the strange and unfortunate events are behind me and I can enjoy a fun filled weekend. Tomorrow I’m off work for our annual field day,  Saturday I’m attending a celebration in honor of my dear friend Amy’s 30th birthday, and Sunday is a BIG baby shower at my mom’s house. I hope to have some happy stories to share with you on Monday!

i’ve been tagged

My dear friend deffie tagged me to list 6 unspectacular quirks about myself, and since I have a seemingly unending list of these it was a remarkably easy task. Here goes:

1: I can only get out of bed on a multiple of 5.
2: I stare at my belly in the mirror a minimum of 8 times a day.
3: I am endlessly fascinated by pimples, ingrown hairs and other gross skin conditions that “pop”.
4: Netsirk Namrednos was the name of my alien alter-ego as a child.
5: I’m giving my dog the silent treatment for taking a bite out of my brand new rug.
6: I hate talking to strangers on the phone, and sometimes in person too – but email is okay.

In return I’m tagging the following 6 friends:
kristie
joanna
adam
kelly
andy
kim

extreme home makeover

I’m not a big fan of reality shows in general, but there are a select few that I’ve grown to enjoy, specifically The Amazing Race and Extreme Makeover Home Edition.  So, when I heard in the local news that a St. Louis family had been selected by ABC for a home makeover, and there would be a surprise second makeover of a local coffee shop, I was curious to find out who they were. Well I discovered that the home was mere blocks away from where I live and the coffee shop was down the road from my parent’s house! After driving past the blocked off subdivision multiple times, Tim and I finally decided to stop by and take a look. Although the entire subdivision was closed to non-residents, they did have a spectator entrance where you could walk down and see the progress.

We were completely amazed at how many people were there just to see the house and how generous the neighbors were for dealing with restricted access to their own homes and their lawns trampled on by strangers. There were tons of volunteers on the site and even more off site with fundraisers for the family. It seems the whole community really came together to support a very deserving family in need.

The pictures above show the new house two days after the old one was demolished and the reveal to the family is tomorrow afternoon. The episode of the St. Louis home and coffee shop airs sometime in early November.

fall baby

I LOVE fall and I’m so excited to have a fall baby! Look at all the cutie pie clothes I can dress him in. I can’t wait to snuggle him up in the warm and comfy colors.

thank you

As promised, although later in the day than I had hoped, here are the thank you cards I recently designed. The dots and the color scheme are straight out of our nursery decór and the elephant and giraffe are inspired by all the cute artwork I’ve seen and hope to add to the room.

So, THANK YOU to all my wonderful friends and family who’ve showered us with so many cute baby gifts, and hopefully you’ll find one of these in your mailbox soon! Sorry to spoil the surprise :)

30 week update

30 weeks!! Can you believe it?! It has flown by so fast and I can’t believe there are only 10 weeks to go.

The little guy is about 15.5 inches long now, and weighs almost 3 pounds. He has been kicking up a storm and has started to wake his mommy up at night with some well placed jabs to the ribs. With all the moving around its been much easier for other people to catch him in action. He put on quite a little performance for Aunt Anna on monday as well as his great grandma.

The nursery is finally coming together and I can’t help myself from just sitting in there sometimes and imagining what it will be like to see the baby sleeping in his crib. Speaking of which, we put up the crib last week and now I’m working on hanging art on the walls. I also got a couple shipments of Amy Butler fabric last week so the sewing projects are also in full swing.

You may have noticed that the belly photos have been neglected as of late (yikes its been 6 weeks!). There are lots of excuses I could give, but mostly we’ve just been so wrapped up in other things and keep forgetting. However, Tim did manage to get some fun shots of the belly on our apple and peach picking trip over the weekend. I love the close up of my favorite red striped dress and the box of peaches.

new blog header

I’m quickly working on some designs for a thank you card for all the baby gifts – yes I know I’m very late getting them out. I want something sweet and simple that goes along with the decor of my nursery and I think this cutie pie giraffe and ellephant with multi-colored dots is just the thing. So in the meantime I’m trying it out on the blog. Stay tuned for the card designs tomorrow.

congrats sister!

Here’s a quick note to share some happy news. My sister got engaged Sunday! Her new fiance, Cole took her out to dinner at the Forest Park Boathouse and proposed in a row boat near the Grand Basin. She said everything about his proposal was perfect and they are both very excited and happy.

We got to celebrate with they newly engaged couple Monday on a road trip out to a local apple orchard. Tim took the opportunity to snap some shots of that gorgeous ring and the happy pair.

Congrats Anna and Cole!