Project 52: Weeks 13-17

I'm catching up on my Project 52 again. I keep thinking of them, and intentionally snapping pictures for the weekly challenge, I just can't seem to get them edited and posted in time.

But here I am now.

Week 13: Details



Hello beautiful bud.

Week 14: Foolin' Around



Bath time shenanigans.

Week 15: Sacrifice



Brian works so hard and puts so much time in at the office and at school getting his MBA that he misses lots of fun family time. We keep telling ourselves that he's sacrificing now for our future. Also, he's sacrificing shaving time for sleep. :)

Week 16: Things that Grow



Andrew's eyelashes are amazing and I swear they keep getting longer. I wish he could share them with me.

Week 17: Green



Caroline's piggy toes swinging over the green grass.

Spring Swing

Andrew loves to play outside, but it's hard to spend much time in our back yard these days with miss Caroline getting in to everything.



A few times I've put her in the jumper, but she doesn't really stay contained for very long without whining to get out. So today, I decided what the heck? She's eight months old. She can eat pollen strings from our trees!



She had a great time. We played with Andrew's rocket launcher for a bit and then we girls were going to go back in and leave Andrew outside to play a little longer. Well, she wasn't very happy about that. She wanted to play!

So I decided to let her try the swing.



She loved it while Andrew was pushing her.

But then he ran off and she got scared.



I tried to lean her back and she cried.

Like a I'm really scared here and want to hold on cry.

And I can't tell you how foreign this was to me. I cannot ever remember a time that Andrew has cried out of fear. I'm sure he's been scared of something, but never enough to cry about it.

Is this a boy thing? Is this an adventurous wild child thing? I don't know. But I think Caroline's going to be different.

Even if I did find her crawling up the stairs yesterday.

Baby Talk

When Andrew was a baby I talked to him all day long. We had these long conversations where I'd tell him what I was doing around the house: Now we're going to start dinner. Did you see me get more water for Fenway? That's because he's thirsty. Look at all the pretty trees outside! The leaves are blowing in the wind.

Blah, blah blah. And he'd grunt or babble back at me.

I may have gone a little overboard. But he was a great talker, using full sentences pretty early on. I'm sure all that talking helped his language skills, right?

Well, now Caroline gets to listen to me talk to Andrew.



Okay, It's not that I don't talk to her, but I really do talk to Andrew all day long. So she gets the short end of my conversation stick.

Sometimes when I'm changing her diaper and it's just the two of us I realize that she's just lying there and I'm not saying a word, no head shoulders knees and toes. No itsy bity spider, no practicing saying mama.



And I feel so bad about it! I always used diaper changes to say or sing something fun to Andrew. But now it's like I'm all talked out.

I've been making a pointed effort to spend lots of time talking to Caroline while Andrew is at Mother's Day Out. We talk and talk during lunchtime when it's just the two of us.



I know it's important for kids to have down time so I keep telling myself that she enjoys the quiet too. And maybe she does. And I'm sure she listens to Andrew and me talk so surely that counts for something.

But I do worry about it a bit - is she getting enough attention? It's just different being the second baby. I guess you have to learn to share really early on.

Andrew's Flowers

The thing about being the second child is that you get to take many car naps.

So often Andrew and I cruise around town with a snoozing Caroline. I'd like for him to be quiet-ish which is asking a lot, so I try to engage him in what's passing by our window.

And sometimes I have my dSLR in the car just in case. But I always have my iPhone because it's much easier to carry. :)

Many times I've stopped to take pictures of flowers or trees or nice light during our drives. Especially this spring, as pretty as the flowers have been. Andrew is so interested in this! He wants to get out and look with me, but usually I'm in a hurry or we're on a busy street, and I ask him to stay in the car.

Then last week as we were on our way home from Home Depot (with everyone awake!) Andrew piped up from the back, "Mama, are those pretty flowers? Should we take a picture?".

I had to stop. And luckily we weren't on a very busy street so I could let him out to see the flowers.



He picked out which little clusters he wanted me to shoot.

It was so fun! He was like my second shooter.



There were bees and butterflies all over the flowers. I think he was a little concerned about the bees, but he still thought it was so cool.

I was so thrilled that he noticed these. We hadn't stopped there before. And since then he's pointed out red roses and a few other trees through his backseat window.



Maybe he's learning to see the beauty in our everydays.


Maybe he'll be a photographer.


Or more likely he'll be looking for bees. :)

Coffee and Twine

Y'all, it's been a doozy of a week around here.

The kids and I started getting sick on Monday and by Tuesday morning I had a terrible awful cold with aches and chills and a cough. And then I lost my voice.

Andrew was stuffy and snotty, but not sick enough to slow down, oh no. He has never been sick enough to slow down. He's the energizer bunny.

Sweet Caroline's just been kind of whiny and snotty, but luckily she didn't get too sick either. Really it was just me.

And Brian has been working so hard it's insane. We've barely seen him this week. We're all missing him.

One bright spot this week was my new coffee cup. I'm in love.

When I read Organized Simplicity in February I decided to give up my daily drive-thru iced lattes. I was sad, but I'm also saving tons of money. :)

So I started making iced coffee at home with our Keurig and Green Mountain Coffee iced coffee pods. It's really, really good and soooo much cheaper.



And now I've saved so much on coffee that I bought myself a Copco cup.



I love it. It makes my coffee happy.



I also got my Divine Twine this week.



I have no idea what I'm going to do with it, but it's so pretty I may just look at it.

Actually, I'm having a party here in a few weeks, and I think I'll use it for some cute party favors and decorations.



And I can use it on gift tags or cards.



Endless possibilities, really.

I hope your weekends are filled with fun pretty things!

Linking up:

My Baby Girl

My baby girl is eight months old.



I can hardly believe it. It's gone by in the blink of an eye; so much faster than when Andrew was a baby.

Two-thirds of a year.

My mom and I have always been good friends. Sure, we had a few tumultuous years when I was a teen and a jerk less than understanding, but other that, she's been my go-to source for encouragement and support.



Will Caroline and I have that kind of relationship?

I really, really hope so.



I hope that she wants to share books, shoes and opinions with me. I hope she trusts me and admires me.

She's a toucher, oh she loves to touch! She'll reach for my face and pat, pat, pat. And she snuggles. She loves to lay her head on my shoulder and dig in.

Her hair is growing in a little and I like to rub on it. It's so soft and she smells good.



I love her fat thighs and her toes. I love the way she closes her eyes and sighs as soon as I pick her up to nurse in the middle of the night.



I won't wish these years away for anything in the world. But I'll be looking forward to watching her grow in to a little girl, a young woman.

Washi Tape in the Pantry

A few weeks ago I had no idea what Washi tape was, and now, well, I'm a little crazy about it.

I used it on my Easter eggs.



And then last week as I was admiring my organized pantry I thought, why not use it in here?

I have three lazy susans corralling all my canned goods and they looked fine, but they certainly weren't adding any style points to the room.



Well, washi tape dressed them up in a matter of minutes!

I hadn't yet made it to Target for the $4 for a roll of four deal, (Desiree at 36th Avenue shows you right where to find them.) so I used my tape from Michael's and Martha Stewart.



It was so simple. Just roll the tape around the edge of the lazy susan and...

you're done!



This one is my favorite. I like the mixing of the dots with the solid color.

There are so many pretty combinations.

And look at my pantry now!



I decided to do a few chip clips while I was at it:



Y'all, for a really, really un-crafty girl this washi tape stuff is great. You've got to try it.

Thanks to Ginny for the introduction!

Linking up:

Simplifying - My Pantry

I've been totally MIA from the blog and Twitter this week because I've been obsessed with organizing ALL THE THINGS.

It's a little insane.

Or maybe I'm a little insane. But remember my simplify my life plan?

I'm working through it, making progress.

One of the first projects I tackled was my pantry. Oh my word, this has made such a huge difference in my life.

My pantry looked like this for months and months:



I couldn't find anything. I really dreaded going to the store because I knew I'd have to put my food away when I got home, and where would it go???

I bought lots of things that I didn't need because I didn't know I already had it.

I love the random Easter basket from LAST YEAR! on the floor. And Andrew's Halloween candy was still up there in his jack-o-lantern. I have a hard time letting go of holidays. :)

There were jars about to fall off the shelves and tons of stuff that just didn't belong in the pantry - my command hooks, to-go coffee cups and all our childproofing supplies.

So I took every single thing out of my pantry. Well, almost everything.



And put it all in my dining room:



Bwahahaha!

Why do I have that much food?? Why do I have dog treats from four years ago?? Why do I have THREE bottles of white vinegar? What am I going to do with it all??

My plan of attack:

• Throw away all the old, expired food. There was surprisingly little old food so I didn't waste too much.
• Move everything out that didn't belong there.
• Group like items: baking, snacks, dressings and condiments, cereals, paper goods, etc.
• Use baskets and containers!

And afterward, my pantry looked like this:



I know it's still full, but it's so much better! And it's actually a little better today as we've eaten through some of those cans of soup and diced tomatoes.

The baskets helped so much. I love those wire baskets that are corralling my baby food and snacks, and all the baking ingredients.

I thought about buying containers for all the snacks, but I decided to be realistic. I'm probably not going to empty all my boxes into containers after every shopping trip.

But I still know where new food will go when I'm putting away groceries. I know what I already have so I don't need to buy more until I'm almost out.

And I'm buying way less food. I'm being more deliberate in my purchases, not buying it unless I really think we need it and will eat it soon-ish. I don't want it taking up space in my tidy pantry!

It's really amazing what a difference a clean pantry can make.

I love it so much.

Are you working on any cleaning and organizing projects? I'd love to see! I'm always looking for inspiration!

Happy Easter!

I'm interrupting the GREAT HOUSE CLEAN OUT 2012 to share my Easter photos. I know it's going to get worse before it gets better, but my house is currently a complete disaster: closet contents spread all over the dining room...trash and goodwill boxes piled up in the guest room. It's exciting.

But, last weekend we had a wonderful Easter celebration.



And I had to post about it just so I could show you this picture. If this doesn't make you love girl babies and bunny ears I don't know what would. :)

We made it to church in time for the 10:30 service, and I took Caroline to the nursery for the first time. I realized as I was getting ready that I don't even have a diaper bag for her, I've left her so few times in her first seven months. But she did great!

After a wonderful service we packed up and headed to my parents' house. It started to rain as soon as we got there so we didn't get to hunt for eggs outside. :( I was disappointed, but Andrew didn't mind hunting eggs in the living room.



We braved the rain for a minute to try to get a shot of them together...hahaha! I'm ready for Andrew to go back to being happy to have his picture taken.

Remember my cupcake toppers? We had cute cupcakes!



Andrew loved them. I think he had more than one.





And then the hunt was on. My nephew, Reid, is 17 months, and he thought hunting for eggs was hysterical. He'd find one egg and open it and then he was done.





Andrew was very into the hunt this year. We'd put some change in a few of our eggs and he thought that was really cool, but mostly he loved the chocolate!



Caroline tried to put them all in her mouth. And she was happy to hang out with her daddy.



I love that big smile!



And now...back to organizing and cleaning and donating.

I'll be back soon with pantry before and after photos. They won't be as cute as Caroline in the bunny ears, but they still make me pretty happy. :)

Linking Up: