Etsy Love: Birth Announcements and more!

*I am not being compensated for this post in any way, nor was I asked to write this. I just loved the announcements that were made for me and wanted to share!

I finally got around to ordering Bubette's birth announcements. She's eight weeks old today, so I'm a little bit behind, but they're on their way and the envelopes are already addressed and stamped. I was just going to order through Snapfish, until someone suggested that I check Etsy, and I'm SO glad that I did.

I could have spent days looking at all of the cute birth announcements. I kept adding more and more to my favorites until I decided to pick one that I loved and go with it!

I chose the Two Little Birdies design from OhBayBee.

She sent me three proofs in less than 24 hours and offered to make any changes. I loved one of the proofs as it was so I was all set.

Black and white photos by Jennifer Nicole Photography

I spent a little more time looking through her Etsy shop and was struck with an extreme case of WANT.

How cute are these shirts? I'm thinking first birthday! The only hard part will be choosing a fabric.


Or these with the matching tutu!


And these tote bags are super cute and a super steal.

Shop away!

The Nursery

You would think after all of the melodrama about the baby's bedding, I would have posted nursery pictures with the quickness once it was finally here. I didn't even end up taking pictures of the room until after she was born, and it wasn't even me who took them.

No matter. Here they are.

A friend, Jen, is working on her photography business and offered to come take pictures of our baby. Who can say no to that? (If you scroll down her page, you can see a few shots of my baby girl, posted on June 18th.) Once we were finished, she asked if I wanted her to take a few shots of the room. I love that the baby is in the photos, even if she is teeny-tiny. She's already changed so much!

The infamous bedding. You can see the areas along both sides of the crib that Bub chewed mercilessly.
The banner above the bed that nearly undid me as I was nine months pregnant and affixing it to the wall. I will never again order a vinyl decal with this many tiny details. Also, the walls are pink though they appear white in this picture (taken by me, not the photographer.)


The bedding up close. I may come to regret all of the pink someday, but right now I love it. Also, it will only look this way for as long as the baby sleeps in our room. Once we move her to the crib, out comes the bumper, pillow and quilt.


The dresser/changing table. The two picture frames on top of the dresser both still hold pictures of Bub. Someday we'll do something about that.


Just for kicks, my more than one month old girl, sporting her Picky Sticky one month sticker, on her PINK! bedding

Six Things

*After completing week one, I have completely fallen off of the Couch to 5K wagon. I could blame any number of things, including my husband being gone two nights last week for the Home Run Derby and All Star Game, a last minute trip to the mountains, temperatures in the nineties well into the evenings, but let's call a spade a spade here and chalk it up to laziness/extreme excuse making. Back to it this week. Probably

*Even thought it's almost too late, I ordered these month stickers. I saw them here and had to have them. So what if the one month picture will be taken at one-ish months. These would make a super cute baby gift. If I know you and you're pregnant, expect to be getting these from me. You know who you are!

*I put away a stack of too-small baby clothes and moved the baby girl, whom I think I'll call Bubette for now (thanks Stacia!), into her 3-6 months size clothes. She's six weeks old! *Cliche Alert!* It's going too fast!

*During our previously-mentioned, last minute trip to the mountains with friends, the mom of the other three year old there mentioned that her son potty trained himself when he was two. TWO. Twenty-Four months old. To add insult to injury, her 17 month old daughter walked up to Bub's potty, grabbed her diaper and pointed emphatically. She then proceeded to PEE ON THE POTTY. Bub was walking and talking before she was born and this child is more interested in potty training than he is. Oy.

*In all fairness, potty training is going fairly well. We've been much more consistent now that preschool is imminent, and he's taking to it pretty well, but I'm still preparing my shocked face for when I get the call from preschool to tell me that he's had an accident.

*I can not, for the life of me, figure out what time to put the baby to bed. I put her down at a different time every night. This should not be this hard, but I've somehow managed to turn this into a Big Deal. All I know for sure is that I need her bedtime to be earlier than mine. Currently, it is not. Suggestions welcome.

Couch to ... Couch

I've done the first two days of week one of Couch to 5k. I want to die kind of a lot. I ache, everywhere. This is sad on so many levels. If you're familiar with the program, you'll know that in week one you walk for 90 seconds, run for 60 seconds, for a total of twenty minutes. There's absolutely no reason I shouldn't be able to run for ONE MINUTE at a time, but let me tell you, by the last run, I'm done. My form is all over the place and I'm not even entirely sure my feet are coming completely off the ground. I'm doing more of a slide shuffle with back and forth arm motions.

I'm both wishing I had a running buddy and wishing I could make all people disappear from the streets for the duration of my run. Unfortunately, it's summer and the sun is out well past 8pm and people are enjoying the gorgeous weather, blah, blah. blah.

I'm focusing on little things to keep me motivated. I think about the twenty minutes where nobody needs me. I make new playlists for my iPod which has long sat unused. I tried on clothes yesterday and realized I'll either need to get moving, or buy a new wardrobe in an entirely new size. I click through here and think about not only registering, but actually running the entire thing. RUNNING!

Two runs down, twenty-five to go.

One Month

She turned one month old this weekend. She's more a baby and less a lump (a cute lump!) every day.

At one month she is:

• Sleeping a six or seven hour stretch at night.
  
• Cooing happily
• Turning her head to the sound of my voice
• Showing a STRONG preference for mommy
• Rapidly outgrowing her size 0-3 months clothing
• Smiling in response to our smiles. I've yet to catch one on camera, but I swear it happens!
  

I spend the better part of every day breathing in the intoxicating smell of her head and wondering how to slow down time.

The Fourth, Three Times

A long weekend of Fourth of July celebrations.

When the baby ended up with three Fourth of July outfits, I wondered how I would manage to use them all. Turns out the answer to that question is to overschedule your holiday weekend, thus necessitating many themed costume changes.

Friday:

Saturday:

Sunday:

There was much fun had by all. Just don't stand too close when this one throws the Frisbee.


Thank goodness he couldn't get the vuvuzela to actually make any noise. Unfortunately many of the dads were a little bit more skilled.


Enjoying the classic American game, paper bowl Frisbee.


Happy Birthday America.