chopped liver

my boys love, love, love their grandma. as you can see, when she's around, i may as well be chopped liver! fine by me! gives me a well needed break! the little guy looks like such a butterball in this picture!


from this picture, you'd think he was a little angel that never cried. things seem to be getting worse with his colic. basically what it boils down to is: if he's awake, he's crying. thank god for these few precious minutes of sleep that remind me what a little bundle of joy he is. so sweet and innocent......but don't let it fool you!

that's what he said : part 1

i've been meaning to start this series for what seems like forever. there are so many funny things that come out of the little dude's mouth and i want to be able to remember them years from now. it probably won't be as funny written down to other people as it is to us here that know his personality, but it's more for me than anyone else. if it ends up being funny to others, all the better! so here's the beginning of the series i'm affectionately referring to as: that's what he said!

[his pronunciation of the word chocolate] : "cha-loc-it"

[when telling us he loves us] : "i love you with your heart"

[when he wants us to know how well behaved he's being] : "i'm such a being a good boy"

[when revealing himself after being hidden] : "here my am!"

[when trying to tell us he's forgotten something] : "i got-for my cup!"

[when watching the movie cars and referring to rear-view-mirrors]: "ears mirrors"

and my most recent favorite:

[when referring to having a wedgie] : "my undies are hanging out in my butt!"

there are a million more i'm forgetting, but will post as i think of them.

10 weeks

our little bugger is already 10 weeks old. here he is enjoying some tummy time on his play mat.

unfortunately, he's still not the best sleeper and the pediatrician thinks he may be colicy. i'm on a new dairy free diet for 2 weeks to see if he may have a dairy allergy. it's torture. i don't envy anyone who needs to live like this. i LOVE milk. not only that, but dairy is in EVERYTHING. things you wouldn't think have dairy in them, do. it's the hardest thing ever! we went out for the hubby's birthday on friday to our favorite restaurant and i couldn't order a single thing on the menu without having them alter it for me! thank goodness it's only for 2 weeks. if it turns out that he does have an allergy, i will probably be done breast feeding. (which is very disappointing for me) it's just so hard to cook for a family without dairy and i don't especially want to make two separate dinners every night. i have a hard enough time getting one meal on the table.

with all that said, i wouldn't trade him for the world. when he's happy, he's the sweetest baby who smiles and coos non-stop. i love mornings as that seems to be the only time you can count on him being happy for more than 2 minutes.

second project.....finished!

i just finished packing up my second project for st. jude children's research hospital. sets of 6 logo magnets here's a photo of one box. there are a total of 1500 magnet sets in all!


and here's a photo of one up close.


and a picture of all the boxes waiting to be picked up tomorrow!! it feels so good to send them on out the door!

chop, chop, snip, snip

i got my hair chopped off a few weeks ago. probably not the best picture of the haircut, but wanted to share nonetheless. we took at least 10 inches off! quite a change for me! i have to admit that i don't really miss it.....plus it's always nice to have a little change!

cause : effect

cause: trying to get a toddler & a newborn out of the house for a simple trip to the bank

effect: realizing i only have slippers on. and getting in the car anyway.

happy birthday daddy!

happy birthday to our favorite daddy! welcome to the wonderful world of 30!!

four eyes (are better than two)

we found out a few weeks ago that our little dude needs glasses. he was having problems with one of his eyes crossing when he tried to focus on things. well, we went to pick them up today and i have to say, he's pretty darned handsome! (i may be partial though) it's tough finding cute kids glasses, especially kids glasses for a 2 year old. many of them were too big for him. anyway, we found some super cute ones that are a steel grey and copper. i secretly want a pair for myself. here are a few pictures with his new eyes.

my hero

it's a little blurry, but i had to share this photo of our little superhero before trick or treating! he was just a little excited. he had so much fun and caught on pretty quick. he kept saying: "let's find another light!" because he knew the houses with lights were the ones we were allowed to stop at! too funny!



and a picture of mommy with her hero. since i'm always the one taking the photos, i don't have any photos with my boys, so i made the hubby take a quick shot for me.

my little butterball

rowan is now 2 months old. he's quite the little butterball compared to his brother. i was used to having a skinny little baby, now i have one with rolls and rolls on his chubby little thighs! here's a picture from our 2 month photo shoot.



this is a picture of the little dude and rowan at approximately the same age. pretty crazy how much they look alike! they could be twins. rowan just has a little more hair than the little dude did.

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.