19 Weeks

Howdy Friends! This post is late due to "Peeper's Midwest Tour" to Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana and Tennessee all in 5 days. Phew! I didn't get a chance to take my usual "week of" picture but here are a few from Week 19...

Midwest here we come! 

Aunt Mimi & Anna before bed!
First stop: Louisville, KY

4 Generations present (well, one will be more present in March)
Third stop: Bloomington, IN  

My Aunt Sandy and Gammer (my grandmother) gave the baby two adorable gifts - one is the Owlie pillow and the other is a Noah's Ark with stuffed animals to go on it.  So thoughtful!

Day with my favorites @ Al & D's new house
Fourth stop: Indianapolis, IN

I spent Saturday in Indianapolis with my sisters, Mom, niece, brother-in-law and soon to be brother-in-law.  It was a blessing to see my sister's new home, go to a cake tasting for her upcoming BIG day, visit the church where she will be married and just have family time.

My little pumpkin. Baby is about this size.

So I'm back in Cali - getting settled and getting excited / ready for our Baby/Birthday Fiesta on Saturday! Wooohooo!  More preview details to come!  xoxo 

OH and you can still vote Boy or Girl!  The poll my Mom sent out BOY is WINNING!  However, there is still a chance for Mini Peep to be a girl...  ; )

18 Weeks

Hi Pals! Here's the exciting news of the week - I finally felt some baby movement, little flutters but I'll take it.  With each day this pregnancy is becoming more of a reality and I am loving it.  Living far away from our families has / will always be challenge but I feel so blessed for everyone who calls to check in, my team at work who forces me to nap or rest on a daily basis (no joke), my girlfriends / sisters who text or comment about how much they are DYING to know if baby is a boy or girl and everyone prays for us each week. It is overwhelming (in a happy sense) when I stop to think about it.  Ok, enough sappy preggo gab!

Mini Peep is now the size of a large baking potato and I believe it!

Leggings, I love you no matter what. 

Side note: this will be my last long hair picture. Next week I am my wonderful hairdresser in KY is chopping off 8+ inches and I am donating it to Pantene's Beautiful Lengths Charity.  :)  

Wearing pink in support of my Baby Girl vote! 

Ok dear ones, I'm outta here! Nick has fraternity brothers visiting this weekend and Mama's got stuff to do.  Enjoy your weekend. xoxoxo

17 Weeks

As promised a weekly picture of preggo Peepers!  This week we had a doctor's appointment and got a gold star report from our doctor - always a good thing.  We scheduled our 20 week ultrasound and appointment  for Tuesday, October 25th, this is when we find out the sex of Baby Sass! Eeeeeee! BUT we won't be sharing until the end of the week at our Birthday / Baby Fiesta. Nick's birthday is on the 28th and we decided we'd do a joint event with our friends & family.

Any thoughts of if Baby Sass is a boy or a girl? I'm clueless so I'd love to hear your predictions!

Have a great week everyone! xoxo

16 Weeks

Well here I am, 16 weeks & a few days....  I still feel great but am clearly starting to feel like things are a-changin'.  Nick swears that Dorsey can sense that I am pregnant; I on the other hand am not convinced. We had a super busy week last week but enjoyed a nice quiet weekend.  This pic was taken on Saturday!

Mini Peep, you are the size of a large avacado 

Of course D had to be in a picture too! 

We have a doctor's appointment this week at the 17 week mark. Keep us in your prayers for a good, healthy check-up.

 xoxo 

Happy News!

Dearest Readers (if there are any left!),

I'm so excited to share with y'all that I'm pregnant! Baby Sass will be arriving in March 2012. We are beyond excited about this little, growing miracle. Here are pictures taken around week 12 that we sent to our parents and sibling as our way of announcing the news! 

Here's the scoop:

I'm 16 1/2 weeks now! Time seems to be flying! 
I feel great, no morning sickness - thank you Jesus 
We won't know what we are having until end of October & yes we will be finding out.

Soon to be Parents in March

We have had two doctors appointments with ultrasounds and both went great.Please keep us in your prayers for a healthy baby... I can already feel the love and blessings from out here in Cali. : )  

Dorsey Dog is waiting for bebe

Baby, we are so excited!

I'll be posting a weekly picture so you can catch a glance of the expanding Peepers & Mini Peep. Oh  feel free to start sending your pregnancy and child raising advice - I'm all ears! 

xoxo

Mirror Mirror on the Wall

A few months back my sister was in search of a sunburst mirror to put above her fireplace. I was floored when I started helping her search because the prices range from pretty affordable to ridiculously expensive. There are some fancy schmancy ones such as this one:

Source

After seeing a few DIY versions out here in the blogosphere and I finally decided to jump in. I used tutorials from Third Floor Design Studio and Isabella & Max Rooms as my guides to get going. 

Here's what I used:

4 packs of dowels (99 Cents Only Store)

1 pack of chop sticks (99 Cents Only Store)

1 pack of bamboo skewers (99 Cents Only Store)

1 8 inch scalloped craft mirror (Michaels)

1 8 inch pine wood disk (Michaels)

Gun glue & glue sticks 

Rustoleum Metallic Gold spray paint (Any hardware store)

"99 Cents Only Store" is my most favorite store in California. For those who've come to visit us, they've experienced the fun first hand. I'll devote an entire post to it later. 

So here's how it happened:

I started by doing a dry run to figure out the dowel, bamboo, chop stick pattern / ratio.  I recommend this step before you get out your glue gun.

Satisfied with the look and ready to glue

Note: I used a glue gun and some blogs suggested Gorilla Glue. I tried it with the first dowel and it was a total bust for me... And keep in mind that it won't be pretty on the back with all the glue and sticks but that doesn't matter friends. 

Ready for spray paint 

Confession: the gluing part took me a little while. Ok, well over an hour and it shouldn't have taken less than 30 minutes. I blame some of it on the Masters Golf Tournament that Nick was watching nearby!  I would hear cheering so I would pop in to see what happened... Any who... I wasn't in a rush so my snail-paced gluing wasn't an issue... 

Nick getting some of the excess glue off before we put on the final coat. 

Another note: When you are spray painting start with the back first and be sure to get in between all the sticks and the ends. 

Another Confession: I always end up needing Nick for some part of my crazy project ideas and luckily he is happy to jump in. 

Here she is! 

It's current home is above the daybed in our office / guest room. 

We previously had another mirror up so we used the pre-existing nail for this addition. 

That's what I've been up to out here in Cali.  What's new with you?  My sister Amy has been decorating like a mad woman and I'm hoping that she'll let me do some show and tell soon. (hint, hint) 

xo

Fun with Felt

When was the last time you crafted with felt?  If you are like me - it's been a while (circa your Girl Scout days) but, I hope by the end of this post you are inspired enough to give it a whirl (again).  It's super inexpensive, fun and there are lots of options!

I'll do this a little backwards and show you what I created and then give you the run down on how to do it yourself:

 Yarn wrapped wreath with handmade felt flowers

If you've been reading this blog then you know there is common theme with my projects - I'm a total copycat.  I originally set out to create a felt flower headband that I had seen on Etsy but when I started looking online for how to make felt flowers I stumbled upon a little jackpot and that little jackpot was this:

So sweet

The blogosphere is just too good to me because of brilliant people like Mrs. Priss. She has a great, make that dummy proof tutorial of how she made this little gem (above).

I followed along but added a little bit of my own "flare" and flower options.
http://mrspriss.com/2011/01/18/tutorial-cheery-yarn-wreath/

You need these items:

• Felt
• Glue gun
• Scissors
• Chalk
• Ruler
• Styrofoam wreath
• Yarn 
• Ribbon
• Quilting pins

Ready Freddy! 

Bahaha! Vanna White has a yarn line! Who knew?! 

Knot and start wrapping - should take about 30 minutes 

Next up: flower time

I took pictures of how I made my loopy flowers but Mrs. Priss' steps are much better so click here. 

Here's the skinny - measure, cut, glue in half (*only one side), cut, roll and glue again.  Then pin onto your wreath.

For the circular flowers - here's how I did it.

Cut circles of various sizes 

I used the bottoms of random household items

 Cut em'

Stack & glue em'

Add a button on top

If you're like me you've got a stash of those extra buttons that come on shirts and jackets from Banana Republic / J. Crew - ya know.

In progress (and me with my new iPhone :) ) 

I followed the steps above with different felt colors and sort of ad libbed as I went along.  At first I made some pink flowers but then decided to keep it neutral. 

When it warms up - I'll swap out and add the bright flowers that I have on hand. That's another good thing about this project.  It's not permanent.  The flowers are merely pinned on so you can easily remove,  move around and swap out! 

So there you have it folks - my fun felt flower wreath. 

Now that I've made one,  I'm ready to make another one or probably try to make this one better.  I've got some ideas after seeing these beauties on Etsy...

Source

Source

Happy Felting Friends! xo

Dear Friends,

I'm alive.  I could blame a slew of things of things on my lack of blogging like - Christmas (crazy), lots of visiting company (awesome), my new addiction to Costco (pricey),  some travel here & there but all in all I've fallen out of the routine (translation - laziness!)

Like I've said before, I really love blogging. And since you are reading this - thanks for coming back and thanks to those of you who have asked if I was ever going to blog again (sisters, B$, et. al)

So I'll jump back in with little glimpse of how we closed out 2010 and how 2011 is shaping up so far. Lots of pictures

Sister Melissa out from OHIO for our 1st Cali Christmas

Waiting on our guests

Christmas Eve with my hubs

Walk on the beach Christmas Day

Family trip to the Zoo 

Happy New Year from Dorsey Dog

CHEERS! 

Night out in Las Vegas - on our way to see Beatles LOVE at the Mirage

Uber tourist shot at the Bellagio

Love the Chinese New Year decor

Sister in Cali - our gift for her 30th Birthday

Family field trip to the Getty Museum in LA

Phew! I wanted to post 100 more pictures but you get it. It's been a fun few months and I could go on and on about the who, the what, the when on everything but I'll spare you. Life has been and continues to be peachy.  

I just completed a fun felt project yesterday so I'll have a good DIY post for you later this week. Thanks again for sticking with me.   What have y'all been up to since November?!  

xoxo

A Rant & Lots of Raves

I arrived at my local Starbies (Starbucks to those of you who aren't diehards) to discover the menu and decor to be changed out for the Christmas Holiday. Come on Starbucks! Can't I just enjoy my Thanksgiving Blend coffee or Spiced Pumpkin latte through Thanksgiving??! Not only is the Thanksgiving Blend not available; they also increased their prices. Double boo.  So listen up Starbies - Michaels may choose to put up Christmas in August and everyone else soon there after but you're above that nonsense.

Ok now that I have that off my chest - let's chat about Fall. I love Fall. The clothes, the cooler temperatures (yes, they've dropped in Cali), the leaves changing and our time we've spent with family & friends.

Here some of my Fall Favs (in no particular order)

My 1st Minnesota Twins Baseball Game in October!

Playing with my favorite niece in Kentucky

Any & every minute w/ my family

Eating carmel apples covered in Reese Cups for Nick's Birthday

Nick's Awesome Pumpkin & Pirate Dorsey in the background

Passing out Halloween candy

Having Nick's brother visit us from Alaska

So Starbucks might have decided that Fall is over but I'm choosing to enjoy the final days because it's way too good to just let go!  With Thanksgiving, more family time & pumpkin pie on the horizon I'm one happy girl.

What's your favorite part about Fall? Tell me before it passes us by! xo