EvY at HomE

I've been spending a lot of time tweaking Alice's Wonderland. Since she's sleeping in that room now I'm in there a lot and I'm trying to make the whole wonderland theme a little more cohesive. I've been pruning away at things and it just takes time to make a room feel just the right amount of nod to the story without going overboard. I'm particularly proud of this little thing. The frame reminds me of wonderland and the picture in it I just took from an old Kate Spade calendar I had. I mean, get out of town, it's got black and white flowers and a playing card with an A on it. AN A FOR ALICE! The other thing I really want for her are black Mary Jane shoes. Not only do I want her to wear them for Christmas but I want to have them on display in the room for like, always. Once everything is finally tweaked I'll take some good pictures of it. Just a few more things...

I guess we were crummy roommates 'cause Miss Alice has decided she might be done with us and ready for her own space and has slept in her own room for the past two nights. This is how I feel about it: It was mostly a test to see if she would sleep better in her crib than the pack and play in our room and she did. What a surprise mom, the mattress you spent time researching is more comfortable than the makeshift crib you been sticking me in. I couldn't have done this a few months ago when she was waking up constantly to eat but she's been sleeping steadily from 11/12 to 6 for about a month now so I thought we'd give it a go and she adapted perfectly to it. She wakes up in the early morning for her breakfast without tears or screams, just noises. I come into her room and in the dark I see her smiling at me. She eats and goes right back to sleep 'til 9/10 when I'm awakened by her coos and babbles, not cries. She's been soothing herself to sleep on her own...

So you know how I have this strange obsession with campers and camping? I saw one recently that was such a great idea. A girl turned her  little trailer  into a traveling event space. Maybe someday I'll buy a little trailer and convert it into something special. Someday...

So I took a job after turning down work for the past few months. We'd always planned I'd take 3-4 months off when Alice was born but now it's almost the end of the year and we were wondering if we could financially swing my waiting to just go back to work starting in January. Co-workers were very respectful of my having had a baby and I didn't hear from people the first few weeks that Alice was born but after that I kept getting offers of "easy" jobs to jump back into. Yesterday I got an offer I couldn't refuse: three days in my old office starting Nov 10, wrapping a stage job (the for reals easy part). I mean, no brainer. It's also perfect because it's a short amount of time and we're using it as a trial if I'm ready to go back to work or if I need a little more time with ma baby. It pumped me up thinking about getting dressed up and going to work to support my family. Along with the sadness of leaving the little tyke home, I was fill...

Button-front shirts and dresses I guess? Dressing yourself for quick and easy boob access ain't easy. No sirree.

That I get to dress a little girl for Christmas this year. The holidays are gonna rock! - mobile blog post. spelling irrelevant.

The eventual kitchen remodel is still a few years away but right now I'm still really digging white subway tiles, open shelving, marble, white countertops, white upper cabinets, and dark grey lower cabinets, which are super on trend right now. I told Matt about the dark grey lower cabinets and he said, "Oh yeah like the island in our old kitchen."  How could I be so daft? Yes, exactly. When we moved into the condo in 2009 I had the painter paint our island a really dark grey and loved it the whole time but completely forgot I'd done it until Matt reminded me. I even remember that I was deciding between a lighter grey and Matt told me to just go all in and not be afraid to go for the darkest swatch on the stick. It gave it such a nice contrast. Remember this old place? None of it exists anymore. My in-laws stripped it bare and changed things up and it looks way better now. But there it is: proof that I was into dark grey cabinets way back when. It's g...

Alice is three months old and she decided to hit this month hard. She's a lot more aware nowadays. Like she finds the cute baby in the mirror to be totally hilarious. She's growing like crazy. If there were one thing I'd wish I'd understood earlier about babies it would be the concept of growth spurts where they're extra fussy and seem to be doing nothing but eating all day because I kept thinking something was wrong with her and I'd worry about my supply and if I was starving my baby. As long as she was peeing regularly, its the normal act of a baby being a baby and growing and needing more food than usual. She's had one recently where she was extra fussy and would eat, knock out, be up and happy for a few minutes, and repeat. This time though, I knew what it was and approached it with a lot more patience and zero tears. It's incredible what a difference it makes just having the right attitude. So things won't get done 'cause she wants to ...

On a typical day this is what our house looks like with Alice's baby stuff. I'm sure this will all change as she gets more mobile but this is where we are at the moment. I keep the mombo (nursing pillow) in the living room so I can nurse her while we watch TV in the day.  Depending on her mood, we'll pop her in the mamaroo so she can talk to the ceiling fan or lay her on the play mat so she can wiggle around and stare at the mobile. Sometimes if I catch her in time I can convince her to fall asleep in the mamaroo as it bounces. Most of the time we have to rock her for a few minutes and then do the scary transfer and hope she stays asleep. Since it's been pretty hot lately we've gotten into the habit of bringing the car seat in so we can load her into it without worrying about it being too hot on her skin. In addition to the coats and bags, we have her diaper bag here ready to go. I'm constantly stocking and re-stocking it. I overdo it on changes of...

The black & white Halloween time is back. Nothing revolutionary, same stuff that I've had for years. The adding of the monster photos did finally give me the chance to change this little area that had been bugging me for awhile. When you walk into our home, there's this little command center that's also supposed to be a dumping ground for our in & out items like Matt's wallet, our sunglasses, a piggy bank for loose change, pens, etc. It just felt, I dunno, cluttered. Predictably, I got a tray and put things in it and I was happy. I'm like " put a bird on it " but "put a tray under it".  There's a tray in pretty much every room in the house but so what, who cares . A big part of the elimination of clutter was that darn pig. So now the change is in a small jar. I made a runner out of the two spider placemats and I think I need some black taper candles. I pretty much only have this little dining area to change things sea...