Catching up....again

So we went and got family pictures taken a little over a week ago. That was my first experience paying for professional pictures. Boy did I underestimate what we were going to spend! Or maybe it was that I overestimated my ability to say "No, I do not want that picture of my beautiful, sweet, cuddly child". O' man! I was completely unprepared. These types of things are what should be in the What to Expect books. Alright, anyway, I'll cut to the chase. Here are a couple of the pictures. The rest are here.




They are really low quality because the portrait studio would be down right silly to give me high quality electronic copies of all of the pictures :) Well we bought enough to share with all of the grandparents (They will be sent shortly, I promise). Since Duncan is so fortunate to have so many grandparents, we couldn't buy for aunts and uncles too. So all of you aunts and uncles, if you would like to purchase a sheet or two, get in touch with me before November 7th and I will tell you how. Edited to say that I believe we are going to purchase enough wallets to go around. Therefore the above statement applies to larger photos.

Duncan is so darn cute, huh? And recently, he has started to look like me.... well alright that might be stretching it. Look for yourself.

Can you see it? huh, can you??? He has curls!!!!! Yeah! He is my child!! (Please ignore the carrots)

I have been neglectful in thanking my SIL Jessica for the hairband I won on her blog. Thanks Jess! I like it a lot. It is really well made. 

O yeah, Brett likes it too...

We went to Brett's cousin Amanda's wedding this past weekend. This is a picture of the father/ daughter dance:

Randy (Amanda's dad) cried here and when he gave her away. He was promptly kicked out of his fantasy football league.

A couple of days ago I discovered that Brett twitches if any of the kitchen cabinets are left open. So of course I have been making sure to keep them closed. He worked 16 hours today and will be home soon. I, being the wonderful, loving, caring wife that I am, have left him dinner in the fridge and on the counter. See:

Hehehehehehehehehehehehahahahaha! I can't wait! I'm so baaaaad!

Anyway, I better get upstairs before he gets here and the joke is ruined. I will leave you all with a few pictures I found when I unloaded my camera for the kitchen shots. 

A turn of events...

So I have bought more fabric for the curtains that I absolutely love. I actually sewed a whole panel tonight! Well minus the tabs of course. 1 down 2 more to go.  I am not going to post pictures of my progress because I want the color to be a surprise. Brett doesn't seem to like it. I think he is having trouble picturing it as curtains. It is a bright color, but the sewing room is pretty dark, and I think the sun will filter through these curtains very nicely. I promise to keep you updated.

Tuesday night Brett started talking about going back to school, and I started getting all nostalgic. Before I knew it I had applied to Northern Kentucky University and was requesting my transcripts from UC! So it looks like both of us are school bound. I love school. I love geology. I love being a house wife. I love being a mom. If only there was a way I could be a stay-at-home mom and a geologist! I know this whole blog is about me learning how to be a housewife, but I feel like I need the degree. I am 2 maybe 3 semesters away from my degree. I feel like I will regret it if I don't do it now. Before I know it I will have more kids and it will be that much harder right? 

Well it's late and I am tired (can you tell?) so I will leave you with this:

And because my FIL asked, here is the nugget playing ball:

Blog giveaway!

My sister-in-law is having a giveaway on her blog!!! Check it out!

A house full of unfinished projects.

Well, my quest to become the next Martha seems to have come to a halt. I started out with such large aspirations, but now I feel overwhelmed. I bet Martha never gets overwhelmed. She would probably tell me to stop whining and get to work huh? Whenever I get overwhelmed with a problem at work, I break it down into smaller pieces so I am better able to see what needs to be done. Here goes:
This is our guest bedroom. It is still full of all of the stuff that was downstairs when it flooded. Books fill an entire corner and cover the bed. Notice the tiny baby CPR dummies in the bottom left?  Is it me or does a pile of naked babies on the futon seem a little weird? They are Duncan's friends. :) See the luggage? It is still not put away from our vacation in JUNE!! sigh...

Here is my sewing room (the former office/ catch all). (See my baby Gizzy hiding behind my "sewing table"?) This room is probably the one project I have come the closest to finishing. However, there is still more in the garage...

As you can see it is still not possible to park a car in here (DUH right?). We are going to throw the couch away as it got ruined in the flood. The key to finishing this project is finding the time to do it. Both of us have to be home and the baby will either have to be asleep (which means we have to do it quietly) or occupied (with a grandparent maybe???? hint hint hint) ;)

These are my curtains. If you remember, this project got side tracked when I found out I didn't buy enough material. So now I've decided that I am going to find some more material I like for the sliding doors downstairs and use this material as the lining. 

This is the back patio. This project is so old I blogged about it on my former family blog. Just to detour for a second. My family blog is also an incomplete project as I haven't blogged on it since... I started this project actually. Anyway, my plan was to clean this patio up, add a flower garden and make a sitting area. 
I got as far as a small flower garden...
However, it needs to be weeded. My calla lilies are doing well... 

So is the weed I threw away the last time I weeded. I keep forgetting to ask Brett to put that bag in our garbage can (it's too heavy for me), and now it's sprouting life!!  

Golly am I disorganized!!! This is so unMartha of me! Can you see why I am little flustered? As I sit here typing this, I am spotting more projects I want to do such as treating my living room windows and filling empty picture frames...sigh. :(
I need your help. Where should I start? What should I do? (running far far away is not an option!)

Not that I am itching to change the topic or anything... but I just need to share this picture:

Peekaboo! Yes, that is his morning hair. Want more? Here is a video of my little dare devil:

I made curtains!!!! (kind of...)

I now have pretty curtains in my dinning room! I did sew part of them... :) I was admiring Brett's aunt's curtains last week, and she gave me the two that she wasn't using. She's so nice isn't she? When we got home I noticed that the two panels were sewn together. So tonight I ripped the seem and used the tieback as a tab for the top. I know it is so simple, but I now have the biggest sense of accomplishment! Am I a nerd or what??? :)

Also, our neighbor gave us this cute wicker chair yesterday. I think I am going to use it as my sewing chair so Brett can have the computer chair when we get the office together. 

Lots and lots of...things

Hello everyone! My wonderful boss has found a loophole for me to extend the deadline for my paper! So now I have the time and the energy to do the things I like to do... like blogging! Alright, I finished a pillow right before I got sidetracked by work. I didn't exactly follow the directions...I mean they're like rules, meant to be bent right????


Well here it is:

This is the other side.

Now it's not perfect...

I had a little trouble getting the material to lay properly in the sewing machine after I stuffed the pillow.

So one side of it looks a little funny...

And this was my first attempt at a slip stitch so one end looks at little uneven...

but hey, it's functional...



I haven't gotten any farther with the curtains than folding the material and putting it up. :)

Onto other topics, I am of the unfortunate victims of the Jardine crib recall :( :( :(



When I called in, and they told me that the people at BRU would be very helpful in finding another crib to match my other furniture as I bought THE WHOLE SET!!! Well the nice lady at BRU told us to go online!!!! I emailed BRU.com about the difficulty of comparing finishes over the computer, and they kindly replied telling me that I was right!! They couldn't compare very well either.... I'm trying to hold it back... O I just can't! GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR... I love this crib! I have never owned a set of matching furniture and now that dream is gone... for now. :( :(

(I know, I know, I'm 3 months behind on his first year picture frame...shoot me;) )

Goodbye pretty crib... I have no idea what I will replace you with :(


I have happy (if not boring) news. A paper I co-authored was published online at the beginning of the year. Well now it has been published in print! It is in a special edition of Environmental Science and Technology (ES&T) entitled "The World's Water" The title of my paper is "Occurrence of Contaminant Accumulation in Lead Pipe Scales from Domestic Drinking-Water Distribution Systems" If you happen to be an insomniac, it will help you sleep, I promise. If anyone is actually interested, but can't stand the thought of actually reading the thing, here is a news article on it. FYI, the guy they keep quoting, Mike Schock, is my boss. The paper I am writing now is a second installment of sorts... blah! Alright, I think I have caught everyone up. I thoroughly apologize for the boring work talk. I hope I didn't drive any of you away!!!

I had a couple of minutes and the motivation to unload my camera. This picture was so cute I had to make the time to share it:


This one too! Duncan is staring at CheyAnne, my mom's next door neighbor.