Happy Birthday Frances!!

My two sisters and I were all pregnant at the same time and had our three little girls within months of one another. I love that we were pregnant together. It was so perfect when we all had girls. Matilda, Frances and Lou.  My sisters are my best friends and I can only imagine the friendship and bond that will form between our little girls. It will be fun to watch them grow up together. I sometimes have flashes of them as teenagers and college students and I start to panic! Oh the trouble they will probably cause. But for now I will cherish their sweet innocence.

I think these are the only two pictures of all of us together when we were pregnant. I was only a couple days away from having Matilda. 

Here are are the pictures from Frances 1st Birthday party.

We attempted to do a picture of all the cousins together (minus Greta who refused to join the group). It's hard to get them all to look in the same direction. These pictures make me smile.

Crafty! Me?

Yes. I got crafty. The most crafty I have been since elementary school.  I decided to take some of my recent photo prints and put them onto wood for the girl's rooms.  It was a pretty simple project but still a big deal for me. I got the idea from Pinterest.  You can find lots of examples on there (I used this one) or you can attempt to follow my steps below. I suggest you follow mine as I am pretty sure I am the only one out there that included beer. Follow along, you won't regret it. 

Stuff Needed: Block of wood, mod podge, spray paint, a foam brush and 3-4 bottles of beer of your choice. The wood I used was MDF 3/4" thick boards from Mens-nards. 

Stuff needed (minus the beer).

Step 1: Cut wood into size needed. I made them the same size as my photo or you can make them a little bigger if you want a border. I had my handy dandy dad cut them into a 16x20 and 12x12.

Step 2: Paint your wood. I let my husband spray paint them black for me (He wanted to feel important and in on the project).

Great spray paint job by hubby. 

Step 3: Drink a beer and let the paint dry. 

Step 4:  Brush mod podge on the wood and on the back of the picture to glue it down. Once I had the picture on the wood, I used a towel to press it down (trying to avoid finger prints).  

Side Note: If you are like me and had no idea what mod podge is you can find it at any craft store or amazon has it online. I bought mine at hobby lobby. 

Mod Podge on the wood to glue the photo down. 

Step 5: Grab another beer and let the picture dry onto the wood. (About 20 minutes or until your beer is gone).

Step 6:  Brush a thin layer of mod podge onto the picture. Freak out because your picture is now white. Relax, take a drink of your beer, it dries clear.  I tried to brush it down and across to give it a canvas like look. I apologize for not getting a picture of this step because my hubby and I were arguing about whether I was doing it right. We work so well together ;). I admit this is the step I could use some practice on as I was a little unsure on how much mod podge to use. Also not sure if a foam brush is the best tool, but it worked and turned out great in the end.  Optional 3rd beer here while you wait for the mod podge to dry. I really shouldn't don't want to promote binge drinking, use your head folks!

Step 7: Hang your pictures. We use the velcro strips as to not put holes in the wall. They work great.

Step 8: Drink your last beer to celebrate a job well done!

The finished project over the baby crib. The sign I bought from Etsy here.

This sign is from the same Etsy store.

Wow, a post about wood and beer. Doesn't get much better than that! I even managed to talk about both while posting a crafty thingy.  Nice.

Blog Identity Crisis

Warning: I am writing this in a sleep deprived state. If you can’t follow or if I say anything crazy I apologize, but you have been warned.

I could not get to sleep last night. My brain went into overdrive and wouldn’t shut off.  That's where the Blog Identity Crisis comes in. I don’t know exactly why I started thinking about it, but I did at some point in the two hours it took me to go to sleep. When I finally decided to jump in and start a blog I had a hard time coming up with a name.  I was anxious to start and I quickly decided on the name I use now, but I was never 100% happy with it. Last night as I was not sleeping I think I found the name I could be happy with (hopefully for good). I was finally able to fall asleep around midnight but a couple hours later the little one was awake and restless in her crib. I decided I couldn't go back to sleep listening to her cry out every 10 minutes or so. I resorted to bringing her into bed with me.  She did finally fall asleep but I didn’t. I was up the rest of the night. My brain didn't want to shut off and it didn’t help that the husband snored for an hour straight.  It is probably a big blogging no, no to change your name and even worse your URL, but I am going to do both.  I hope you all hang in there and make the move along with me.  Pretty please stick with me! I am excited about it.  In my sleep deprived delusional brain I think it’s a great idea.  If I can get on the computer screen what I imagine in my head, I think you will like it too!  I apologize if this blog doesn’t have any activity for a couple weeks while I move the posts over and design the new look.  I will post the new name here and the URL before stopping posts on this blog URL. 

Stay tuned!

February Photo Challenge: Red

We celebrated my niece's first birthday party at historic Sutliff. I couldn't help but take some photos on the bridge.  I grabbed my older niece, August, and a red balloon and headed out for an impromptu photo shoot. This is one of my favorite shots and decided to submit it for the www.rocktheshotforum.com February photo challenge. This months challenge had the theme of red. I love the way we caught the sun in the background and August is a natural in front of the camera.

Weekly Happy

Happy things from our week.

• Playing volleyball.

• Not getting hurt while playing volleyball.

• Not peeing my pants while playing volleyball (Side Note - Peeing my pants is not a normal occurrence, only when sneezing, running, jumping etc. One of those wonderful results of having two babies). 

• Drinking Blue Moon after playing volleyball.

• Grandparents watching the girls so we could do the above.

• Our creative daycare person who does crafts with the girls...because their mom is not so crafty.

• Cool new shades.

• Great shoe sales at Von Maur. 

Girls VD project at daycare.

Cool new shades!

Greta being her silly self.

Blog Love

I love blogs, as you might have guessed.   I will add a page to my blog soon that lists some of my favorites. It is a list that will continue to grow as I find new ones all the time.  Today I want to share one that really inspired me to start my own blog.

She has thousands of followers compared to my two (special thanks to you two!) Her name is Kelle Hampton and her blog is Enjoying the Small Things. She writes and shares pictures of her beautiful family.




Her writing is amazing and refreshing.  Her photography inspires me.  Before I came across her blog I read her book titled Bloom.  It touched me like no other book has. I read most if it with tears running down my face. I can’t even explain where they came from.  Bloom is the birth story and journey of her younger daughter's first year. Her daughter, Nella, is now an adorable 3 year old who has down syndrome.  Most of my readers know this already but for those few out there that may not, my brother Abe is one amazing guy who just happens to have cerebral palsy.  If you haven’t met him, you should. He WILL make your life brighter.  Believe me when I say you cannot be around my brother and not be happy. I am one lucky girl to call him my big brother.  I think having a brother with special needs may be one reason why I loved the book so much. While I haven't had to go through the experience of loving someone with special needs from a mother's perspective, I felt I could relate. It made me think of what my own mom and dad might of been going through when they were told Abe had cerebral palsy. I wonder if they had some of the same feelings, struggles and fears that Kelle experienced. I have always known my parents are great but not until I became a parent myself did I realize how truly amazing they are.  One of the concerns that Kelle Hampton had when her Nella was born was how a child with special needs was going to affect her older daughter’s life.   What she knows now, and what I would have told her if I had known her, is that perfect baby is one of the best things that would happen to her older daughter.  It will make her more accepting of all people, more understanding and open her world to things she never would have known and got to experience. Sure there will be challenges along the way as with any child, but it’s all part of an amazing journey.  If you haven't read Bloom or visited Enjoying the Small Things, I encourage you to go check it out.  Today's blog post "where there is love there is life" was awesome. Her video was great and of course brought me to tears!! 

Go...enjoy!

More Baby Sol

As promised I had to share more pictures of baby Solomon.  How can I not when he is so adorable? As is his big brother. They both did great!

Can you tell I like baby feet?

Weekly Happy

Happy things from our week.

• Baby Solomon.
• Perfect sign for our entry way. 
• Pigtails.
• Playtime Outside.

Perfect sign for our entry way. 

Pigtails.

Outside playtime. 

Baby Solomon

My good friend welcomed a new baby boy on Monday.  I begged asked if I could come take some pictures at the hospital after he was born.  This was my first attempt at taking photos of a newborn and for someone not related to me. I had so many ideas running through my head of what I would like to capture.  Little baby Sol was not totally into my photo shoot and I only had my lunch hour to do it. He preferred to be nursing or held closely to momma, but he still allowed me to get ninety a few shots of him. Cute, sweet baby boy!    

I hope to share more of baby Sol soon as I think I have his mom convinced to let me come to their house for a mini newborn shoot.

I had to make myself leave the hospital room so mom and baby could get some rest. I could have taken pictures all day. If there are any new moms around or soon to be moms that would like a non-pro but photo loving mom to come take some pictures, please let me know.  I work for free cheap!!

Real Life

Things at our house can be far from perfect.  This is a glimpse into our crazy Friday mornings. I work from home for a few hours meaning the girls can get away with a lot while I try to get work done.   Dad doesn't really know what goes on those days, until now! The secret is out.

All of this in about an hours time.

This mess can happen in a matter of minutes. Yes, that is a piece of firewood in the middle of the room!

More Mess.

She said her baby was sick and she gave it a bowl to get sick in.

Helping herself to a snack. I used to have this food down low but moved it up out of the reach of little hands. Obviously it isn't working. Maybe I will have to move it back down for safety reasons! She is a little monkey.

Eating crackers big sister got down.

Getting picked on by big sister. Don't worry I am NOT that bad of a mom, I picked her up after  I took the picture.

There are a couple quiet moments.

If only you could hear the audio...

"Turn the music down!!"

"Stop pushing/hitting/(insert anything you can think of here) your sister"

"Off the counter"

"Get out of the fridge"

"Stop playing in the dog food"

"Greta.....Greta.....GREEETTTAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"