Monday Lovely: Boo! (But say it with a British accent)

My talented friend Maegan took these beautiful, or should I say "boo-tiful," pictures of a cemetery in London. I thought they were quite appropriate to post just before Halloween, and with their stunning colors and textures they are a nice departure from the typical October orange-and-black everything we're used to on this side of the pond.

Photos: Maegan Leoni


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My brain has turned to low-pulp, calcium-fortified mush. Now with Vitamin D!

Yesterday I woke up with little A (and waking up to the sounds of a baby jabbering a very cute, although unrecognizable, story is a very good way to start your day, I tell you what), fed him, played with him and then put him down for his morning nap.

I decided to take advantage of the quiet time to make myself some breakfast. I made my usual meal, poured myself a glass of OJ, scarfed it all down and put everything away quickly so I could get myself ready and little A's things packed up to make it to his 10 a.m. doctor's appointment.

I was feeling pretty proud of myself as we strolled into the doctor ON TIME (yes, I know, I was shocked, too), ran our errands and made it back home for his early afternoon nap.

All of this "being organized" stuff had me feeling quite thirsty so I reached in the cupboard for a glass.

I saw this.

I am telling your this story so you get a visual representation of how my life is going and so you will know why I have been such a terrible blogger lately.

And, food-born illnesses aside, just for the record I think that storing orange juice in the cupboard is an excellent idea. It really cuts down on preparation time when you have your glass and your beverage on the same shelf.


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Bridal Shower Tea Invites

So a while back we had a bridal shower for my sister, Malarie. We decided that a tea/luncheon would be a fitting event since that's more of her style than a raucous gathering.

I hunted around for the perfect invites but couldn't find anything that we really liked.

So I made some.

They were super easy. So super easy that anyone can make them, yours truly included.

Since her wedding ring is a 1920s beauty that she had just scored at a great little antique shop, I thought it would be fun to do some invites that had a 1920s/30s vibe. So I rounded up some card stock, printed out the info and cut them into tiny little cards. I then stamped them with my vintage-style stamp set I bought to make homemade Christmas cards years ago (I never made these, just for the record).

Then I stapled each little card to a tea bag, the invite acting as the tea tag.

Since I stamped them in metallic blue/green ink, I put them into little metallic blue envelopes.

They were very fun and easy to make.

And the bridal tea was very fun, too. Despite its lack of raucous-ness.


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The Great Family Photo Shoot of 2009 (AKA Unless You Are One of Our Grandparents This Features Entirely Too Many Photos of Us)

A few months ago when Little A was a wee little six month old (On Saturday he will be eight months! It's also my dad's birthday...) I asked family photographer extraordinaire Kirstin Roper to do a wee little photo shoot of us at Liberty Park.

[Note: You may recall that Kirstin is the fabulous photographer who took the lovely pictures of my beautiful sis.]

The park is one of our favorite spots, since it is all of about a two-minute walk from our house, and I adore the old-school carnival ride area almost as much as I love its snow cone booth (But not quite. When we're talking about Tiger's Blood there is no comparison. No matter how cute the tiny little airplanes are painted.).

So, I raced home from work, convinced Z to put on a shirt that has real buttons and no pizza stains and then we loaded up the A Train, after combing his flowing locks of hair, of course.

Kirstin went waaaaayyyyyy above and beyond, trekking over hills, through puddles and across grass to get some great shots. Mostly, though, she had to work with my husband and his um, unique sense of humor. I hope she'll remember to charge us double next time for the wrangling fee.

We had a fun time taking pictures and the carnival ride operators at the park were so great about letting us climb all over the rides.

It's strange to see Little A so grown up in these pictures since I still think of him as a tiny newborn baby. But I know that soon we'll look back at these and won't believe he was ever this small. It is right about here that I was wishing I could freeze time...

...Or maybe it was here.

... Or right about here.

But since time-freezing is not an option, I'm glad we have these photos.

Thanks, Kirstin.

(She also took some photos of just Little A and me since Z had to leave early to run to a meeting. I'll post these later since if you're still reading this and haven't fallen off your chair from Family Photo Overload already, you will.)

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Monday Lovely: Crazy for Cabin Fever

The A Train and I walked up to Trolley Square last week when we noticed the windows at Cabin Fever. I love black + white images paired with bright colors. And I love Elvis. And butterflies.

The trifecta!

[Editor's note: This window momentarily brought me back to my childhood aspirations to be a store window decorator, a la the hit 1987 movie, Mannequin. I was actually able to live out my dream during a short-lived high school stint as a sales girl at the bustling Fashion Crossroads on Price's Main Street. Elastic waistband pants, anyone? After a few times of alternating between the oversized sunflowers and oversized crayons, I was out of props and my window displaying days kind of ran out of steam...]

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Carbon County Celebratin'

As I mentioned in a previous post, last weekend was a very big one for us. We went to Price for wedding festivities galore, spent time with much-missed family members and I turned the big 3-0. As I've said to friends, I'm sure somewhere, somehow there was a miscalculation. I don't feel 30 but I guess I'll take it.

Little A loved every minute of being the center of attention while we were hanging with the family. His older cousins (my cousins' kids) are all so sweet with him and since the next-youngest baby in our family is already 4 (?!), he gets passed around constantly by all the aunts and uncles. He loves meeting new people and seeing new things, which works out well since we're almost always on the go. He is a very happy and calm baby (although I realize now that by typing this I am tempting Baby Fate and will likely be witness to a serious in-public meltdown, that may or may not involve a large diaper blowout. I guess I'll take my chances...) and handled all of the changes to his schedule like a champ! He also had his first stint with a non-family member babysitter for a few hours during the end of my sister's wedding reception and handled that like a champ, too (although it was a pretty tough one for his mom).

A few photos from the weekend...

Monday Lovely: Malarie's Bridal Pictures

I know I haven't posted anything here forever. With re-opening the restaurant, working and planning my sister's wedding--not to mention caring for my favorite boy--I haven't had much time to spare.

The wedding was this weekend and it was incredible. I can't wait to share pictures on here of the big day. We had a great time and my sister, Malarie, was one of the world's most beautiful brides. Really, the Guinness Book of World Records called and confirmed it.

I have a feeling they based their decision on these photos taken by the super-talented Kirstin Roper Photography. Malarie's then-fiance (now husband!) is Japanese, so she wanted to include something from his culture in the photos and the parasol was the perfect touch. We picked up the bouquet for $10 from the farmer's market. It was gorgeous and fit her personality perfectly.

You can see more of the bridal photos on Kirstin's blog.

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Home cookin'

Somebody really really likes cereal. I'm not saying who. Hint: It's written, er, smeared all over his face.

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Monday Lovely: Porch Pals

And in matching outfits, no less. That sound? It's my heart melting. (Just in case you were wondering.)


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Monday Lovely: Stiletto Soaker

I was reading my new issue of Elle Decor (even though Z hates this magazine because he thinks it's pretentious and snobby and features rooms with way too much toile) a week ago and actually laughed out loud when I saw the double-page ad for this over-the-top bathtub from Sicis, a mosaic art company (their work really is spectacular).


It's fabulous, ridiculous, shiny and sporting a serious heel: everything a bathtub should be, right? I have no idea how much this costs, but I assume it isn't cheap. If I had stacks and stacks of money lying around there's no doubt I would use one of them to purchase this. Just for the ability to say, "Sorry, can't talk now. I have to sit in my giant shoe and shave my legs."


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Anthony's Plain Plane (Ha!) Nursery Mobile

Throughout my pregnancy I entertained myself by planning the nursery decor. Not actually decorating it, mind you, since the nursery nook's construction wasn't even completed by the time we were high-tailin' it to the hospital to welcome our little bambino. But picking out fictional nursery items and doing nothing with these ideas was something that I did really well.

I had a general idea of the colors (lots of 'em), theme (none! thankyouverymuch) and style (cozy modern) but not a clue of what kind of mobile to put up above the crib. So I waited. And found some I liked on Etsy. But didn't buy any since I didn't see any I couldn't live without. So I waited some more. And then I found one when we were in Rome but Zach was being grumpy after a too-long day of walking and so he said he didn't like it (even though I think he really did). So we didn't buy that one either. So we waited some more. Then I went with Teri to a craft store for inspiration and to buy items to make one. But I didn't find anything there so still no mobile. And we waited some more.

Now, Anthony is almost six months old and as of last week he was still mobile-less. I decided that last weekend was it. We would find ourselves a mobile. I had some criteria: Definitely nothing with characters licensed by a giant movie studio. Preferably no sports-related items. [Editor's note: I have nothing against sports-related items. But let's be honest. Little A has as much chance of inheriting my severe lack of coordination as he does getting his dad's athletic genes.] Animals and airplanes are desired. Vintage-looking items preferred. Oh, and what I find must be affordable, ideally under $10. Good luck, right?

I loaded Little A into his stroller and trekked up to our favorite store, walking up and down the toy aisle. I was hoping I would find what I was looking for and stopped in the classic toy section. I was able to scoop up these little beauties.



I originally had planned to paint every airplane a different color, each in a shade that we've used in the nursery nook (currently orange, brown, red and green). But after I put them together I decided their retro detail was just too cute to cover up.

Thinking of things from Anthony's crib-level perspective (I'm thoughtful like that), I realized that staring at natural-colored wood against a white background isn't as exciting as it sounds. Actually, it would be exactly as exciting as it sounds.

So we broke out the red paint. And I slapped on some detail (using a kid's watercolor paintbrush, the only one I could round up on the spot) to the underside of the planes, making them stand out for his little baby eyes a bit better.




Mid-way through the project, I included a very important step: Impromptu nacho eating. This makes the project much easier to complete and must not be skipped.


After using some of my college-level physics to figure out how to hang them without making them tip weirdly, I strung them with fishing line. Anthony's nursery nook is super tiny (it will likely be transformed into a walk-in closet on the tragic day we must sell our beloved teeny little home) so I didn't want to hang anything from the ceiling that took up too much space, out of fear of making the room look too cluttered. Fishing line seemed perfect since it's darn near invisible.



I hung them from eye hooks and I must say they are a big hit with our little guy. He loves staring, reaching and kicking up toward the airplanes and because they are actually light-weight gliders, they flutter and move around when the air conditioning turns on. Perfect! No batteries necessary.

The whole thing cost about seven bucks. And the cool shadows they make on the wall? Those were a freebie.





key words: affordable mobile, modern baby mobiles, baby mobiles, vintage baby mobile

Crazy 8

On this day EIGHT years ago, Z and I tied the knot. These years have been exciting and fun, plus some hard times and struggles thrown in to keep it real, but I can't wait to see what else is to come.

Happy anniversary, to my better half.


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Monday Lovely: Air Mail

I recently checked the mailbox for the (usually boring) daily delivery of bills, catalogs and occasional magazine (and now that Domino is no more, my magazine delivery anticipation has seriously waned). Imagine my surprise when I found a letter--delivered by ROYAL Air Mail, no less!--from my over-the-pond friend, Maegan.

There is just something about getting a handwritten note that can't be beat.


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