alice's christmas tree

I know it's way late to post one more Christmas thing but whatever. Alice's tree. The felt ornaments were made by my wonderful mother in-law. She's got mad skills.

The nativity scene made it's way to her room too. To remind her of the meaning of the holiday.

the funny thing about bedtime (and nap time)

Alice goes to bed pretty much at 7pm and sleeps if all elements are perfect, until about 7:30am. It's pretty nice having that extra special alone time from 7pm until our own bedtime at 11/midnight. Those hours in the evening when we're free of the baby and can watch whatever we want uninterrupted. Even reading is possible!

I read a mom's blog post recently about how she felt bad when she realized she was counting down to bedtime. It was a very sweet post about how she had been trying to make efforts to savor every moment with her babies during the day but realized she was speed reading through the bedtime book to get the kids to sleep as soon as possible. Not exactly savoring. It was a nice reminder.

Bedtime always sneaks up on me. I hardly ever need a clock because my abalone is a finely tuned human tick tock. At 9/10am, 12pm, 4pm, she's ready for a nap and at 7pm she's inconsolably fussy and the only cure is to get her in her room, pj her up, dim the lights, feed her, and put her to bed. (Sometimes it's incident less but sometimes she wants to be held and once she hits the crib she starts crying. We did that let her cry thing one night and it took an hour of torturous crying before she was done. Then the next night, maybe 30 minutes, then 10 minutes, now if she opens her eyes and cries and notices that I'm still leaving the room she'll fall asleep within seconds. It's like she's testing us.) But of course once she's in bed I spend time looking at pictures of her and missing her. But darn it if she wakes up ugh, the dance of having to do that again! And that next trying to get her to sleep movement is much harder to work than the first one. It's like aww don't go to sleep I'll miss you but then it's like aww dang it don't wake up until morning!

Naptime we've gotten into some ridiculously bad habits here. We pretty much just hold her or nap with her because she wakes up about 90% of the time if place her in her crib. I want to break her of the habits but holy crap holding my 6 month old baby for an hour could not be a better use of my time. And oh excuse me, now I HAVE to take a nap with my baby in our big comfy bed and she'll sleep longer? Well... don't mind if I do.

under the category of: about freaking time

You know how there's something you keep wanting to do and you're looking for the right thing and then next thing you know it takes years? It's been that with the nightstands and well, the master bedroom in general. It's been in the plan since 2011 and then when we moved it was still pretty much the same. The bed finally arrived making the former nightstands that were a temporary solution about 7 years ago when we got married an even worse fit for the room and I'd been looking and looking for awhile for the right stands.

These were a happy compromise. Once the bed was in place the size of whatever I was going to buy determined pretty much everything first. After that I wanted something that was in midcentury style, one drawer and one open shelf, dark wood, and pretty low to the ground where there wouldn't be much space under the dresser. I tried to find something actually vintage but after these guys went on sale, I just went for it. 

We are happy with them. 

I wish it would look perfectly styled and beautiful but this is the real life. 

I love that I can hide away the unsightly stuff.

Eventually for the home tour photos I'll style it all pretty and such, I tried here.

But most of the time it's got this stuff on it. Baby monitors are trending. Look it up.

I put my slippers under my dresser and Matt did the same thing. Soul mates.

And here's Alice being adorable as per usual.

So what's left to do in there:
1) paint the room
2) wallpaper the ceiling with constellation wallpaper
3) replace the lamps with brass sconces
4) buy a record player

winter clean-up (and house goals)

Matt & I have been cleaning and organizing and embracing our "urge to purge" lately. It's a feeling that hits me where I'm more inclined to get rid of things I'm on the fence about. We've gone through almost every nook and cranny at home and the outdoor shed with this resolve. It usually happens around the beginning of the year when the concept of resolutions and being more organized and such is on people's minds. It's definitely on our mind.

So the goals for the house for 2015 are:
1) install upper cabinets in the laundry room
2) paint the master bedroom
3) paint the living room
4) plant lots of greenery in the backyard
5) plant more veggies in the front yard
6) install some shade over the seating area in the backyard
7) replace the table behind the sofa for something with sliding doors
8) new nightstand and lighting combination for the master bedroom
9) build some shelving for the master bathroom
10) paint the master bathroom

alice's first christmas

Since we were spending Christmas Eve night at Matt's parent's house, we decided to open presents just the three of us on Christmas Eve in bed. It was cute. Matt gave me a necklace with an A on it which made me cry, I gave him a beanie, and we let Alice "open" one of her books. 

I think that will be our new tradition: opening 1 present in bed as a family on Christmas Eve morning.

Last year for Christmas Jill had laid out a tiny little stocking since I was pregnant.

And this year, after she'd been working on it for months, Alice got her full sized stockings. I mean, nothing like grandmas right? They love like nobody does.

Speaking of grandma, she got Alice this awesome jumperoo that she loves. Assembling it was one of the funniest things I've done, it was such a funny fail.

Alice in Wonderland was of course, part of her gifts.

She got dressed up for our family gathering with Matt's side of the family and enjoyed being held by everyone that would hold her.

Our family's gathering was held at my sister Mari & her fiancee's new house.

Alice enjoyed being held by anyone that would hold her. Sensing a trend here.

She got some fun presents from her tias and tips.

She looked so cute in her little outfit.

It was very special celebrating with Alice, just putting her into all of our outings and traditions and all the family getting to hold her and gift her and it's just definitely been my favorite Christmas yet.

cabinets, vacuums, steam mops, + general cleanliness

In a few short months we will have a mobile child. She will spend a lot of her time just inches from the floors of our house. The very notion is keeping me up. Literally, its 3am, my household is asleep and I am madly looking up steam mops, vacuums, pet hair removal handheld vacuums, etc. etc.


By and large Matt and I are very neat people. Organized, tidy, generally neat. But are we clean? I mean, sure, we do the occasional wipe downs and scrubs but as Alice is laying on the floor and touching things and playing with toys that touch things that end up IN HER MOUTH you become more concerned about health and safety. The rug in her room that stays closed most of the day gets lint and pet hair on it due to us tracking things from our shoes onto it from the rest of our house. Honestly, we don't vacuum as much as we should. Once weekly maybe. Should be every other day. I should wipe surfaces more often, I should return the concept of bleach to our home, I should hire a cleaning lady once a month to do a deep cleaning, I should get rid of the cats, I should change the fuzzy rug in our living room, I should should should. Gah!

This year what I want in terms of upgrades for our home: cabinets. Eff this open shelving business, that just attracts dust. I want to hide everything behind doors so its safe from little hands and it stays dust/pet hair free. I want cabinets for our bathroom, cabinets for the laundry room, and to replace the table behind the sofa with something that has sliding doors to actually store things like toys and blankets instead of just for looking pretty. Plus, hiding things behind doors keeps things looking pretty.

I ordered a new steam mop and vacuum and am plotting my rug switch and looking up how to clear up residue-y sinks without bleach. I want a roomba to help so bad but they are expensive. I'm probably going to be finding another home for the main fur problems soon as well. (anyone want two 9 year old very nice kitties?)

Why do parenthood priorities/mom madness thoughts hit at the times when I should be sleeping?


- mobile blog post. spelling irrelevant.

a new year, a new adventure

On Monday the 5th after changing the who knows how many poopy diapers and a phone call to Michelle: "This is the call in which I call you to talk about poop!" We deduced that our Alice might be just extra hungry lately which would explain the hard time we've had at bedtime and we think it's time for: SOLIDS. I mixed some quinoa rice cereal with breastmilk, got her naked except a diaper, put her in the high chair, gave Matt the camera and...

Not a fan, I mean, it's her first time trying this different texture so I didn't expect much. She took a few confused swallows and we ended in another bath since most of it ended up ON her instead of IN her but it's the beginning of the new adventure known as food.

Research is on overdrive at the moment. Pinning recipes, looking up baby-led weaning, buying gear for food making... its a whole new ballgame. A whole new year, a whole new us.

christmas decor around these parts

The only difference with our decor this year was that we added gold to our usual black and white and silver. I mixed metals and I liked it.

I did procure an additional stocking for the newest member of our family but was unable to find her a suitable stocking pin so it stayed empty. I even tried bidding on one on ebay but lost. Next year I may just have to purchase three matching ones.

I'd given my sister Mari one of our trees to use at her house since they didn't have one for their new home and that one had a bunch of gold ornaments so I used them on this tree instead. I did buy a few gold jewel ones from Ikea that were cute though, I mean, what's $5.

West Elm sold these gold deco letters so I bought one for each of us to add to the tree. I did consider using these for the stocking but they're comically large next to the stockings. On the tree they're good.

Our ornament this year was a picture frame that said 2014 and I put my favorite newborn picture of Alice in it. I remember that morning so vividly, unable to sleep in that hospital bed, staring at my new baby, could not believe she was real.

It's January 4 when I took this photo and we still have gifts under the tree since Lyla and Vincent have yet to pick them up. That front gift is for Alice but it just looked so cute I haven't opened it for her. It's balls. 'Cause babies like balls.

Hot chocolate and gold glittery spoons are decor right?

The pink frames are from the Christmas party so just you know, never mind.

Office decorations are all the same except that the tree that I used to keep in here is now in Alice's room and at the time of photo taking she was napping in her crib and I didn't wanna mess with that.

There's a fancy candle on here that makes the room smell so amazing. I've had it for three years I think since I burn it for a short bit of time once a year.

During the season I had this foldable table in the middle of the room for gift wrapping and it was so nice to have this extra work space. It kept the rest of the house free of gift wrap crap.

This hand soap smells so pine-y and full of Christmasness but OMG I do NOT want to put it back in the box so I think I'll just use whatever's left and find some other Christmas scented soap next year.

I'll take pics and post up Alice's Christmas room soon. Our room had zero Christmas. I had the tiny white tree in there ready but I never put up the teeny ornaments. Next year hopefully.