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Sweaty and Determined

Posted on by Amy
Yesterday it was 94 degrees here. It was fabulous. Lots of people around here were complaining about how hot it was, but I was just thankful that we had a breeze and relatively low humidity. Having lived in North Carolina and knowing what it’s like to feel as though you have to chew the air when you step outside at 7 am in May, I will certainly not complain about a very warm but pleasant day here in Wisconsin. Except to say that it really wasn’t so nice that our air conditioner stopped working yesterday. That part wasn’t so pleasant. Fortunately, I have discovered my pregnancy uniform for the rest of the summer. The loose, cotton dress is a must-have for hot days while very pregnant. I have purchased several now, and found them to be the utmost in comfort when it’s hot. I was still sweaty yesterday, as was Miss, but it was a what-a-fun-day-outside-playing-hard kind of sweaty, which is a good kind of sweaty. And speaking of playing hard, Miss has been working hard on being able to climb up onto the couch all by herself. She gets so determined to do it and just doesn’t give up. Yesterday my hubby caught some fun photos of her sweaty little strawberry-stained self persistently working to get up onto the couch and right into his lap (I did give her a little boost as you can see). She’s such a Daddy’s girl.








Success!!!

A Great Weekend

Posted on by Amy
This weekend was wonderful. Yesterday was what my mom might call a “Red Letter Day” meaning that it was full of great happenings and special occurrences. I got a great haircut, finally bought some new family room furniture (a sofa and leather recliner), and officially entered the third trimester. To top it all off, my hubby and I went to a great Mardi Gras/French Quarter themed party last night at our local country club and danced ourselves silly to an exceptionally talented local band. Seriously, the instruments they played included the keyboard, guitar, drums and bass to start among the four band members, and then they added in a washboard, two different saxophones, a flute, an accordion, a trumpet, and a tuba for crying out loud! All of these instruments were played by one or the other of the two lead members of the band, plus the bassist played the ukulele as well. Anyway, the music was wonderful, we met lots of nice people, and we had a blast dancing the night away. New haircut and third trimester belly photo (the hair is a bit of a mess as this was taken after the night of dancing):

Although I was quite sore today from all the dancing last night, today was just a good day. It was over 90 degrees here (in May in Wisconsin!!) and sunny and breezy. We went to the country club for a great lunch, got a lot done around the house and yard, had a great dinner at home and of course spent lots of time outside playing. I didn’t take any photos outside, but here is one of Miss this morning. She is so stinking cute in just a tee shirt and diaper, and when she’s outside and all greased up with sunscreen, sweaty and dirty, I swear I could just eat her up, dirt and all!
To top it all off, as I type this my hubby is out buying ice cream for us to eat while we snuggle on the couch and watch a movie. What could be better??

I’m Obsessed

Posted on by Amy
Obsessed with the book “The Girl Who Played With Fire” by Stieg Larsson, that is. I have been spending every available moment (basically just nap times and bedtime) reading this book. It is even better than the first book in the trilogy “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” which was a really great book. So anyway, I am not going to take the time to do a big post because I’m almost done with the book. But I’ll share some fun photos I’ve gotten recently.





This is Miss running, a fairly new skill. Notice she has her tongue out as she concentrates to round that corner. . . She gets that from me 🙂 Now back to my book!

An Anniversary, a Park Playdate, and a Rowing Machine

Posted on by Amy

Yesterday was my hubby’s and my second wedding anniversary. The traditional gift for the second anniversary is cotton. I got him a new (mostly) cotton golf shirt, which he desperately needed. Then we went out for a nice dinner at a local wine bar. I miss wine. But I did greatly enjoy the “Around the World” cheese platter (all pasteurized, I checked!). And the tapenade appetizer. And my entree. And dessert of course. But I digress. In honor of our anniversary, here are some photos of the wonderful day my beloved and I got hitched.





Yesterday Miss and I also met a friend of mine and her son at the park for a playdate. It was a beautiful day and Miss had a great time playing with my friend’s little boy, who is only five days older than she is. She got to practice lots of sharing. She loved playing in the sand. There was one toy in particular I enjoyed watching her play with. It was a bulldozer-type truck toy that she alternated between making truck noises and pushing it in the sand and putting the handle of the toy over her arm and carrying it like a purse. I couldn’t catch the truck-purse carry in a photo, but it was quite cute. Speaking of photos, I forgot my camera again and only could get some not-so-great photos with my phone. However, my friend did remember to bring her camera and she generously sent me the great pics she took and said I could use them here, so thanks K!! The park we went to had a very cute play area especially for toddlers. Unfortunately Miss and K’s little boy had very little interest in playing on the toddler equipment. They went straight for the big-kid stuff, complete with twisty slides, a hanging bridge, and a climbing wall. They didn’t play on all those things of course, but they enjoyed climbing up and down the steps and crossing the bridge a lot. After lots of hard playing it was time for lunch. We got out a blanket and had a picnic, which was great fun except that Miss really did not want to sit still and eat. The only thing that kept her seated for a short time was the strawberries that K brought. Miss had very little interest in the sandwich, banana, and raisins I brought for her lunch. K was the woman of the hour with her strawberries, which she generously shared (as you can see from the photo in which Miss had her mouth full of them). Overall we had a great time with our friends.





I have recently come to discover that my very favorite pregnant exercise is the rowing machine. Love, love, love it. It is low impact, but really a great workout. It works core muscles as well as targeting some specific muscle groups (shoulders, back, arms). I can get on and row a while as a workout in itself, or I can row a bit and then do some other exercise(s), then row a bit more, etc. It helps me to focus on trying to relax all my muscles except the ones I need to use to do the exercise, and consciously relaxing my muscles is something I’m practicing to be prepared for labor. I love to do pilates too, and often pick a workout from the CrossFit Mom website, but when nothing else is interesting to me, I can jump on the rower, get in a great workout and feel good all day.

P.S. Several months ago I blogged about possibly getting a minivan. I couldn’t do it. Well, I probably could have, but after much thought and shopping, my hubby and I decided that a minivan would not quite suit our needs (very large roadtrip vehicle capable of towing a boat). What you see in the background of the above pictures is our solution to the new vehicle dilemma, the Ford Expedition. I love it and have not had a moment’s regret about getting it. Best vehicle I’ve ever owned. It’s fabulous for roadtripping, and I don’t have to drive a minivan. Enough said. Of course, you could call it a “Swagger Wagon” if you want to try to give it a funny name in an attempt to make it cool. This commercial is pretty funny (click the above link if you want a good laugh).

Spring is Back!!

Posted on by Amy
Hooray!! After several weeks of yucky, cold, dreary weather, spring has finally returned. We took full advantage of it this weekend and had tons of fun. Miss is now running and loves to play with her new ball. She is such an outside girl.
Miss still loves to pick up sticks. Now she picks them up and hands them to me until she has something of a collection.





Miss has had lots of fun with her lion push toy on the driveway. She also learned that it works fairly well on the grass. I have to say I’m quite proud of how tough she is. She was pushing the lion on the grass and tipped it over, doing a face plant on the grass. She didn’t even make a fuss; just got back up, got the lion back on its wheels, and went on her way.






I got a fair bit of weed-pulling done this weekend and my hubby got most of our garden planted. And Miss and I took a long walk this afternoon, just soaking in the sunshine. I love spring here. Bring on the summer! Only about 3 more months until Baby Girl arrives!

Better Late than Never

Posted on by Amy
Happy belated Mother’s Day!! We had a wonderful weekend. On Mother’s Day we had a nice relaxing morning playing in PJs and then got dressed up to go out for a nice brunch. I almost made us late for our reservation, because I couldn’t stop taking photos of Miss in her adorable dress. I love that she can wear dresses comfortably now that she is walking, and she was really hamming it up with dancing, flexing her muscles, and playing while I snapped lots of photos.






Over the weekend I took my camera in to the store where I bought it because I have been having some problems with it. Turns out it just needed to be cleaned a bit and it is working good as new. While I was in the camera store I purchased a new macro lens for my camera, which is something both my hubby and I have been wanting. This lens allows me to take super close-up shots (or not so close up) with a large aperture (very low f-stop setting). I had some fun experimenting with the lens today.


Finally, my last post gave me the kick in the rear I needed to just get the growth chart project done. I got out my practice canvas and experimented a little and then jumped in and painted the growth chart in two evenings. I used stencils to put Miss’s name at the top, but otherwise I did the rest freehand. It’s obviously very amateurish, but I am quite proud of it (the right side isn’t cut crookedly, it is kind of curled up a bit, not sure how to get it back to flat). It will match pretty well in her room and she will always know that her mom made it for her. Now on to the next projects: ruffly summer pants for Miss, crib sheets, a dust ruffle, a Boppy slipcover, and other nursery decor for Baby Girl, and eventually, another growth chart for her room too!

Update and Cuteness

Posted on by Amy
Okay, so I promised a while ago to give an update on the projects I blogged about several weeks ago. For starters, the growth chart. I got canvas and dowels and ribbon, gessoed it the canvas and cut it to size, painted the dowels, sewed pockets for dowels in each end, and attached the ribbon. Pretty good progress, except that it has been in this stated for weeks now:

I am completely stalled out on the final and all-important step of actually painting the design and the measurements on the canvas! I’m terribly artistically impaired, at least when it comes to this sort of painting. So I am very afraid that I will completely mess it up! My painter friends have assured me (and logically I know this to be true) that if I do mess up I can just paint over it. No biggie. Yet I continue to put off the last step in completing this project. I have gessoed an area on a leftover piece of canvas to practice on, so hopefully I can get past my fear and just get it done soon.

On to my bedroom project. I had mentioned that I bought a pattern and was going to find some fabric to make my own duvet cover for our master bedroom. Here is the fabric that I fell in love with.
And here is the finished project
Lucky for me, I didn’t actually sew a stitch in this project! See, I found the fabric I loved, but then could not justify the cost of purchasing the amount of fabric that my pattern said would be required. It would have cost over $400 just for the fabric, and I still would have had to sew the darn thing! So, I made the decision that I just had to look harder for an already made duvet that I could live with. I had almost decided on one that I found on clearance from Pottery Barn when, in a last search online, I stumbled upon the duvet in the above photo! I was thrilled to find it for less than half of the cost of buying the fabric to do it myself. And none of the work, of course! How serendipitous! Mark another project “Done.”
Finally, I just couldn’t resist adding some of today’s cuteness to the end of this post. We had a cold rainy stay-inside kind of day today. Miss woke from her morning nap with the funniest bed-head and bewildered look. And I can never resist the opportunity to take pics of her in a cute diaper and baby leg warmers.




Cinco de Mayo Fiesta!!

Posted on by Amy
Several weeks ago I did a post about the St Patrick’s Day celebration Miss and I had with my friend and her daughter. We all dressed in green and got together at an Irish restaurant for lunch. I brought along some fun St. Patty’s bling for the girls (big and small), and it was a great time. Recently we were talking about getting together for lunch again and my friend suggested carrying on the “tradition” and having a Cinco de Mayo Fiesta, complete with Mexican food and playdate at her house. When I asked what I could bring to contribute to the festivities, she jokingly said it would be great if I had a line on some baby sombreros. Well, I’ve never actually seen a toddler-sized sombrero anywhere for purchase, but why would I let that stop me?? Can I come up with baby sombreros? You bet your buttons I can. Check ’em out (Miss’s adorable fiesta pants aren’t too bad either if I do say so myself!!):

Here’s how they started. The one on the right hung on the wall in my bedroom when I was a little girl, and I happened to see it at my parents’ house when I was there last week and decided it would work nicely as a sombrero. The one on the left was part of my antiquing score in Hazel. $1.50!! All I had to do was rip the flowers/lace/ribbon off, pick off 20-year-old hot glue that still wanted to cling to those things for dear life, and then add my own ball fringe and colorful rick rack. I had originally thought I would put lots and lots of gaudy ribbon and rick rack in different colors on the hats. But honestly after I added to ball fringe, they almost didn’t need anything else. They practically screamed “Sombrero!!!!” I did want to add a little color though, so the band of rick rack went on and I decided to quit while I was ahead.

The hats were a hit! Mi hija es muy bonita!!!
The food and company of my friend and her daughter were fabulous as well and made for an all around enjoyable afternoon. My friend said she went a little nuts in the local supermercado, and she had the spread to prove it. I ate cactus for the first time, and it was delicious as was everything else. And my pregnant craving for all things burrito was happily satisfied today. So Happy Cinco de Mayo to you all!!