Settling In

Rob's back to school (although he hasn't had a full five day week yet) and we are settling into our new routine of me being at home with Caleb.

When I was working full-time, I felt like I couldn't stay on top of running our home effectively at all. The sink was constantly full of dirty dishes, the laundry pile just seemed to never end... let alone things like dusting our bedroom! I am starting to feel like I have gotten the house back to manageable, and in an effort of making things flow smoothly in the cleaning department, I am self-imposing a weekly schedule. We'll see how it goes!

If you'd like to join me, here's a free printable for you.

Happy Friday!

August Pinterest Club

My new sister-in-law Andrea (she married Rob's brother Mike in the beginning of July) started a Pinterest Club and we had our first meeting a few Sunday afternoons ago. 5 girls, all addicted to Pinterest, got together to complete some projects we had pinned. We're going to meet the last Sunday of every month, and if you follow me on Pinterest, you'll see my "Pinterest Club" board for projects to be considered by the rest of the group. It was lots of fun, some tasty treats and really good fellowship!

This time, we attempted two projects - a doily-pressed dish and herb garden spoon markers. The spoons were challenging! We hammered the spoons down, then hammered the letters in... we got our workout that day, too, doing this project - who would have thought!?

It took about an hour to hammer the letters onto these three spoons! We all contributed spoons that we found at yard sales, Goodwill, and the dollar store, and someone purchased the letter stamps from Harbor Freight Tools for just $5. Now, I've just got to bring them out to the garden...

The second project was really fun and SO easy! We used Sculpey clay, pressed in a doily and rolled over it with a heavy marble rolling pin, and then shaped our dish around an oven-safe object and baked for 15 minutes. Then, we painted the clay! Mine was about 7 inches in diameter, because I wanted it to fit on my windowsill, but you could make these any size really.

I've been using mine on my window sill about my sink to hold my rings and watch when I am doing dishes. So pretty and useful, too.

Really looking forward to our next meeting! 

You can find instructions here and here. 

Follow me on Pinterest!

snip, snip

The time had come. Too many strangers were mistaking my sweet little boy for a cute little girl. I know, it's the bright blue, big eyes. That, and the hair down over his ears, I suppose. And I don't really care what strangers think, but food was also getting stuck in his hair. And so the day before his first birthday, I attempted Caleb's first haircut - from the safety of my kitchen, and with the help of a dear friend!

Here's the before shot.

After gathering up the supplies - a comb, scissors, high chair, spray bottle with water, m&ms and sunglasses, I got started... for I knew I had a short window of time in which to complete the trim!

First cut down.... and maybe a little too far up... oh well!

He had just woken from a nap, and so was pretty happy - and the m&ms helped (his first taste of them, might I add). Here's the after, from behind... not TERrible.

And the sad, sad remnants...

Beach Bums

After a few weeks of working at camp, we "ended" our summer with another trip - family vacation with Rob's parents and siblings to Ocean City, Maryland. Both of us grew up going to OC as kids, so it was fun to go for Caleb's first time! We did lots of sun-soaking, swimming, eating, biking, reading and playing games. 

On the last full day there, it was a little bit overcast and so there weren't as many people on the beach, and we got some pictures of Caleb, just a few days before his first birthday (Is my baby really turning one?!?)...

He's become quite the little ham recently. One night out to dinner, all of the wait staff were swooning over him. One waitress came up and said "I've just GOT to see these big blue eyes everyone is talking about!".

This week, we're in back-to-school (for Rob) mode and party prep mode (for Caleb and me).

Summer Holiday

We just returned from a fantastic 10 days spent in Northern Ireland and Ireland. The purpose for going was because I was a bridesmaid in our friend Kathryn's wedding, but we made the most of our trip and spent some time taking in the sights. Ireland is so lush and green - and very picturesque!

Caleb did so well! I was worried about how the flights and adjusting to the time change would go, and I am so glad everything went so smoothly.

Above is Royal Portrush Golf Course, home of this year's Irish Open and past host of the British Open. Stunning greens right next to the ocean. Below is the new Titanic museum in Belfast (where the Titanic and her sister ships were built). Excellent!

We had a lovely time spent with Kathryn and her family and getting to know her husband Robbie. The wedding day was great, and Kathryn and Robbie are such a wonderful couple! We are already looking forward to their visit next summer.

We're in the middle of unpacking and attacking the mountains of laundry, and preparing for Rob's brother's wedding this weekend!

Cold Therapy

It's here. The dreaded first cold (and hopefully only) of winter. And it's going around - praying I don't pass it along to Caleb or Rob, or anyone else for that matter.

So I spent much of the past weekend sneaking naps here and there, gargling with warm salt water, and spitting out mucus, and taking some tylenol for that nasal pressure headache that accompanies my colds. Gross, I know, but that's real life. I am also trying my best to stay hydrated. Lots of orange juice (empty starbucks cup is the evidence) and drinking green tea (antioxidants!). Haven't had a sip of coffee this week, and I miss it, but when I'm sick, drinking coffee just doesn't appeal to me very much. Kind of like all my morning sickness last winter, I suppose.

My goal for the weekend was to get down all my Christmas decorations and get the house in order, but none of that really happened. Oh well. There's always this coming weekend. And a 3-day weekend to boot! Yay!

New Beginnings

A new year brings reminders of new beginnings. A time to start doing things right, learn something new, kick old habits, change things around a bit. Change is something that has never bothered me, and in fact, I have to admit that for the most part, I like change. So the changes brought by the new beginnings of a new year are always welcomed with open arms. 2011 was a year of major changes in both my immediate and extended family. We began 2011 with the anticipation of our first child who was due to be born in August (we found out we were expecting the day before Christmas Eve so hadn't lived with the idea long in 2010). Then, just a few days later, my grandfather on my mom's side of the family passed away. The hope of a new baby helped to ease our pain and that of our family members. In July, my grandfather on my dad's side of the family also passed away, more suddenly. My dad is an only child, so my sister and I are the only grandchildren on that side, which made that side of the family very tight-knit. In six short months, I went from having four living grandparents to two. My dad lost his job in March, and in this economy, was blessed to find another one just a few weeks later. Two weeks ago, he was laid off again. In August, Caleb was born and after such grieving and adjusting earlier in the year, there was so much joy and more adjusting. So needless to say, 2011 was a pretty big year for us. I am looking forward to many firsts for Caleb in 2012, but hopefully fewer BIG changes. And maybe it will mean that I can blog more.

On to the obligatory resolutions. Change that. GOALS.

I've never been very good at sticking with any of my "new year's resolutions" but maybe by thinking of them as goals instead of resolutions, they'll stick.

Learn how to play my guitar. Last year, Rob taught himself how to play my guitar and consequentially, he was gifted a new acoustic for Christmas (from his parents, but it was my idea!). I got my guitar for Christmas when I was a teenager and was never able to teach myself how to play. Rob's parents and siblings can all play, so he had some good and free lessons. So, now two guitars reside at our house, and it is much easier to learn by playing while watching someone else also play, so one of my goals this year is to learn from Rob! So far, I am pretty good at E Minor. I've got a ways to go...

Blog more. I do enjoy writing and keeping an account of what is going on in our life, projects we have and complete (or don't complete), places we visit and just thoughts of mine in general. I just really need to make more of a point to actually get my thoughts into a post.

Organize the basement and garage. We have so much JUNK. :) Clutter accumulates easily at our house. It's pretty embarrassing. People give us things they think we might need and we say, sure, we could use it. But never do. Time to weed through and donate what we don't use. After all, one person's trash is another's treasure. Why not share the love?

I have other things that I also want to accomplish this year, but I want to be able to actually meet some of my goals. Maybe a monthly "projects" list would help. So maybe another goal is making those to ensure that some things get done - things that I need to do, but also things that I want to do... like going to market and sewing and making/freezing a bunch of baby food for when Caleb's ready to eat his veggies & fruits and reading the Anne of Green Gables series (1912 pages on my Kindle - so far I'm 2% of the way through).