Fun in Fall

Fall soup: sausage and pasta with spinach, yum! Plus I made homemade buttermilk biscuits for the first time and they turned out wonderful!

Fall flowers from my friend and coworker Ellen to celebrate my last day of work (and baby's due date):

And a little bit of the fall decor around my house. I was in a hurry and only got these two shots but I also have some adorable mini pumpkins on the dining room table and various other fall items sitting around:

And of course, what makes this fall the most fun:

Kathryn Church Designs

My good friend Kathryn is hosting a give-away on her design blog, you can check it out by clicking here!

I can't believe I never posted about this on our blog, but Kathryn is also one of the two gals who threw my baby shower! It was such a fun time, and since I was silly and forgot to take pictures I'm very happy to share a link to the post, click here for pictures. Isn't she talented?

2 Random Comments

Yesterday Joel and I went to the Farmer's Market and picked up ingredients to make salsa. Joel is a salsa-making king, I could eat it non-stop! While at the Farmer's Market we also grabbed some honey crisp apples from another vendor, and they are delicious. The only problem is we can't finish one in a single sitting. To demonstrate how big they are I snapped a shot of a farmer's market apple next to a Winco one.

And I am also finally able to post a picture of the seat cushion I made for our rocking chair! I sewed up this pillow cover many weeks ago but never got around to hand-stitchin the back shut. So my mother graciously helped me out yesterday, and so that's one more nursery project down!

I think the back is particularly cute.

And in other exciting news, all except for finding one floor lamp to add a little more light, we are completely finished with the nursery!! Pictures are hung, curtains are up, bedding is washed and ready to be used, hurrah! So I plan on showing it off here in the next few days, I can't believe it's finally done!

Baby Whiskey

I think a certain somekitty is starting to feel insecure about her place in our family. She's realizing that I didn't convert the study into a beautiful retreat for her, and it's rubbing her the wrong way. Which is probably why, when I left the nursery door open for all of ten minutes, I came in to find this (on my freshly laundered sheets, nonetheles):

Nursery Decor and a Baby Belly Shot

Here we are again, late with our 38 week shot. Oh well! Better late than never! But since it's almost Friday I decided to make it 38 1/2 weeks. It makes me feel better about the amount of time left before we see our little girl. We're both getting seriously antsy to see what she looks like and discover her personality.



And the nursery is ALMOST done! Now we're down to the decorating which is a good place to be. At least if she's born before we're done she has freshly washed clothes and a place to sleep. Here's a shot of our dresser with our most recent decor project: artwork.



Mom and I searched high and low for artwork for the baby's room. We were very picky about colors, not to mention what the artwork actually depicted. Finally we gave up on finding the perfect picture, and I decided to try another Young House Love idea: frame notecards. So while at the Fall Jolly this year we picked up three note-cards with three different animals on them. Then we went to Michaels and found this adorable card-stock that matched the nursery's color scheme. Throw in a few white frames from Walmart and there you go! Cheap and easy wall art.




Sorry about the picture quality, the lion is a little hard to see in that shot but here he is in a close-up:



Very fun, eh?

I'm still working on getting the other two pictures hung, but once I do I will show you our cute elephant and turtle frames as well.

The Fair!

Every year when the trailers and trucks roll into town towing the rides and booths that will make up that year's fair, Joel and I get practically giddy with excitement. What part of the fair do we like the best? The elephant ears? The dizzying rides (which I was forced to refrain from this year)? The bright, gaudy lights and music? The farm animals, some cute and little, some large and grotesque? It's really hard for us to choose (although if pressed I think Joel would land on the elephant ears).

We realized that this is the 5th year we've gone to the fair together. In fact, the fair was one of our very first dates and our first lesson in fair etiquette. We both ate an elephant ear and then decided to go on the spinning rides... the result was almost disastrous. Neither of us rediscovered our elephant ears, thankfully, but we were close. So in the years to come we've been much more careful.

This year as we toured the crafts section, I couldn't help thinking about pumpkins. I've always loved pumpkins, they are one of my favorite decorating pieces. But this year they're doubly special because that's what the baby books use to describe your baby at full term. One week she's a kumquat, the next thing you know, she's a full-out pumpkin. So here's our 37 week photo, posing next to what we hope will be nowhere near the size of our pumpkin. But she sure would win a prize, wouldn't she?

Artsy-Craftsy and Baby Update

Recently I've been thinking about changing tables (surprise, surprise) and how a lot of babies seem to need distraction while they're on them. And since I haven't been able to find a cute mobile to suspend over our little gal while she's being changed, I decided to go with a different form of visual stimulation to occupy her. My friend Kathryn was given a toy that has black and white images on it that she said her baby loved to stare at on the changing table. When I went searching online, the cheapest I could find them for was about $30 (like this one). So I went to Michaels and found a styrofoam bifold on sale and some great black, white and red stationery and made my own! And I think it turned out pretty cute.
Here's one side, laid flat:



And the other side when it's folded.



I'll probably buy some ribbon to attach it to the wall next to her changing table if I can't get it to stay up just being propped.

And once again we skipped a week, but we are now officially at 36 weeks!



I can't believe how soon this little girl will be here. Look how excited I am!!



And one more picture for you, yesterday we went to a luau at our friend's the Church's house. We had a fantastic time. Joel found a fabulous hawaiian t-shirt for the occasion. I could not fit in to the grass skirt we had at home, but my old navy dress was just as festive.