invites

new invites i did for the boys. rowan is being baptized on the little dude's birthday so that the hubby's family only has to make one trip down here......and we only have to have one party! i think these were the quickest invite design ever. 5 minutes and i was done. efficiency at it's best with a new baby!

8 weeks

adorable | sweet | precious | still trying to sleep more than 2 hours at night | no schedule | cuddle bug | my love

green

i was tagged quite a while back by dawn over at anna•bella stationery to list three easy ways that i've been living and staying green. since i've been a little sidetracked by baby love, it's taken me a while to get around to listing my answers.

so here they are.....three easy ways i've been living and staying green:

1. as our lightbulbs burn out in our home we've been replacing them with compact florescents. if we were really green, we'd just go out and buy them all and replace them all at once, but in this case we're trying to keep a little extra "green" in pockets. so for us, it's one at a time! at least we're trying!

2. we recycle.....not only the usual things that our recycling man comes and picks up once a week, but also things like taking all of our plastic bags back to large discount chains and putting them in their recycling bins. as well as all of our batteries.

3. about 95% of my products at marzipan inc. are printed on environmentally friendly paper. it's partially made from eucalyptus which is extremely sustainable. considering how much paper we print on each year, this makes me feel good about helping our environment, even just a little bit!

rockin' out the school photos

as i've mentioned before, the little dude starts pre-school in december when he turns 3. although he hasn't attended yet, they let him join in on school picture day! we got them last week and i've got to say i'm pretty impressed. considering the goofy-photo-face phase we're going through, i thought these were pretty rockin'!

plus, they let you add siblings to the photo if you want! sweet! so we have one of them together and then one of rowan by himself. they were taken when he was about 2 1/2 weeks old.

sweetest gift

the hubby got the sweetest baby gift from a lady he works with last week. i just had to share.

this is one of my baby designs....


and this is what she made......


isn't that the sweetest thing ever??

jmkac birthday weekend

this past weekend we enjoyed a bunch of time at the john michael kohler arts center. (the same place where the hubby and i were married) they were celebrating their 40th anniversary with a HUGE birthday bash. they had 40 straight hours of entertainment, fun, and excitement planned. movies in the middle of the night, yoga at dawn, and fun stuff for kids and families all day long.

we were even interviewed for our local paper. here's a link to the online article.

and a few pictures of our fun:


the little dude enjoyed some hot apple cider out of his first real "to-go" coffee cup. he drank the whole darn thing in a matter of minutes! i love how he dragged a second chair over as his "ottoman".


the little dude making his funny picture face next to the community project they had set up all weekend....a full size cement bear that people were able to add mosaic piece to.


here's the little dude rolling out some clay into a tile mold which they then took out and smoothed out.


and here's the final "painted" tile, and the little dude with another one of his great picture faces. (gotta love this phase!) the tile was left behind and will be fired. we get to pick it up in a couple weeks.


finally, here's a picture of the little dude and daddy doing some sidewalk chalk.

we also decorated a birthday t-shirt when we got there, but forgot to take a photo of it. it was such a fun time at our favorite place in town. we're so lucky to have such a great place in such a small town.

6 weeks

rowan turned 6 weeks old last thursday. i'm a little late on the photos, but i challenge you to tell me that you don't want to just eat him up! how cute are those cheeks of his?

first project.....finished!

so i've been hinting around about these huge projects i have going for a children's hospital. i'm so excited to say that the first one shipped out of the office today! they're heading off to st. jude children's research hospital in tennessee.

here are some photos of just how large of a project it was for us!


here's one box filled with the finished product. there are 150 boxed sets in each one of the larger boxes.


and here are all 10 boxes filled with the finished boxed sets. (that's 1500 boxed sets total)


and here's the whole bunch waiting for the ups guy to come pick them up.


and inside each boxed set, you will find these 4 cards. (you can click on it to see a larger image) they're based on children's artwork from the hospital. (so i didn't draw the pictures, but just designed the product and produced it) they're lightly embellished with glitter and have matching envelopes. you get 8 cards per box, 2 of each design. they should be available on the st. jude website sometime soon. they also ordered individual cards (that i forgot to take pictures of before i sealed the boxes) which will be available in their gift shop. i'll try to post here when they're available online and hopefully you'll visit and purchase some to support the hospital. it's such a good cause and i'm super proud to be helping them raise money to keep their hospital running and continue saving lives.

autumn celebrations

the hubby's boss has an octoberfest party every year out at his farm. although it was 90º out, (what the heck is up with that?) we went to enjoy the day. they had a bouncy house (pictured above), clown, magician, music, wagon rides, horse riding, and lots and lots of free food and drinks. the little dude enjoyed himself thoroughly and we had to peel him out of the bouncy house.


here's the little dude on the wagon getting ready to go.


after the party, we went to pick up some pumpkins. the next day the little dude and the hubby carved a magnificent jack-o-lantern. the little dude said he wanted a "scary face rraaaarrrrrrr!" so that's what he got! he was so proud of it. too cute!


and a photo out front with it lit up at night.

there's a whole other story about the jack-o-lantern that i'll have to tell some other day when i have more time.

1 month

rowan turned 1 month old this past weekend. while i took some photos, it's been the week from hell and i haven't had a chance to post them. so here's one from our quick shoot. he has the deer-in-the-headlight look, but i guess you can't expect that much out of a 4 week old baby!

here are a few more recent ones that i like.

a post about feet

so yesterday the little dude wakes up from his nap and the hubby goes upstairs to get him. he notices that the little dude only has one sock on. so the following conversation takes place:

daddy: where's your other sock?
little dude: (pointing to his foot) right here daddy.
daddy: no, your other sock.
little dude: (pointing to his foot again) right here daddy.

upon further inspection, the little dude had taken his sock off of one foot and put it perfectly on top of the other one so that you couldn't even tell!! he had to come down and show me. and i of course had to take a picture.*

he did the same thing last night when we put him to bed for the night. i guess no more socks for the little dude!


and because we're talking feet, here's a photo of the little dude's new shoes. he's so excited about them and he calls them his new "cool shoes".....he also says they're pretty "shnazy"!

*pardon the illustrator outfit! i figured posting a picture of my kid in his bob the bu*lder tighty whities on the internet probably wasn't the most appropriate thing to do.