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Liza is four weeks old today, so I guess it’s about time I posted a proper photo of her! I took/edited this really quickly today while Vada was taking her nap, so I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out. The bunny hat was the first thing I ever bought for her after we found out we were having another girl.

Things have been going smoothly with little Liza so far.  She’s super sweet and sleepy and content. She only cries a little bit and it’s usually pretty easy to console her when she does. She loves to be swaddled and rocked and snuggled. She looks so much like Greg! I think the first thing I said after she was born was that she has Greg’s nose :) She likes taking a bath and her hair sticks up all over the place after it’s washed, making her look even more like her daddy. Vada is starting to warm up to her and it’s so sweet to see her taking care of her little sister. I can’t wait to watch them grow up together. So happy! :) ♥

I can’t get enough of pink lately. Pink, pink, pink! It’s sneaking its way into everything, and has now found its way to the front  of the house.

Hydrangeas are my favorite flowers and I’ve always wanted two huge hydrangea plants on either side of the steps up to the front porch. I’ve tried planting these before and they didn’t do very well, most likely due to my neglect. I’m a much better plant owner these days, so I’m trying again. They are supposed to do best with morning sun and afternoon shade, which they won’t get where I’ve planted them, but they definitely won’t be getting full sun, so I think they’ll make it. There are also a million houses down our street that get the same sun/shade as we do, and they have huge ones. Keeping my fingers crossed & lots of water and love!

And just a little pink splash under our boxwood for fun.

♥

I put my sewing machine and all my quilty patchwork works in progress away the other day in a nesting frenzy. I sew on the dining room table, and while I keep my things pretty tidy while I’m working in there (we have to eat at the table too!) it was just stressing me out a little bit having “stuff everywhere.” So I packed it all up until after baby gets here.

But I can’t just… not make stuff. So I’ve picked up my cross stitch again. It’s nice and small and portable and easy to hide away when I’m not working on it. And it’s fun to work on while laying on the couch with Greg while he watches TV.

I stitched up a super cute floss bobbin from The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery’s Bobbin Party! pattern. This guy is going to make his way onto a zippy pouch once I decide to pull the sewing machine out again.

And I’ve picked up the lovely Winterwoods ABCs Sampler from Alicia Paulson again. I started with the boots because they are just the cutest ever! Everything about this kit is gorgeous. I especially love all the hand-dyed, variegated flosses. Everything Alicia makes is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. If you’ve never read her blog, you should. It’s one of my favorites of all time.

I’m putting this and a knitting project into my hospital bag for when baby decides to get here. I’m dreading my hospital stay for some reason. Maybe I’m just nervous about the whole labor thing. I’ve been in the very beginning of “active labor” for a few days and it hasn’t been very fun. It’s going super slowly and I’m really tired and yucky feeling, which is different from last time. I just want things to get going and to get on with it! Come on baby, I want to kiss you and smell your head! ♥

It’s been a fun weekend with my sister here! My friend Kaitlin came into town and we quilted one of her quilts, had friends over for a pizza party, did a little shopping, had Vada’s cousin over to play, went on a breakfast date, got ice cream and played outside. Now that we’ve “sprung forward” and since the weather has been so nice, I can’t wait for it to get warmer.

I’m on week 3 out of 4 in my ClickinMoms photography class. I’m still struggling a little bit (so many variables!) but I know that it will get easier with practice. I just need to be more disciplined and take pictures every single day. ♥

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This shot is my first ever “bokeh panorama.” Basically, you take a a bunch of photos (I think I used 9 for this one) and stitch them all together in Photoshop to achieve a greater depth of field. This shot is nothing special, and kind of a dumb example because there is no detail in the background or anything, but I just wanted to see if I could get it to work. I did! Now I’m obsessed with someday doing a really great one.

Last night Greg took the Press Press guys (and Vada and me and my friend Lindsay) out to Mexican for dinner, which was really fun and delicious. I kept getting a few little dizzy spells here and there, but just kind of shook it off and everything was fine. Last night while I was sleeping though, every time I’d roll over, it felt like the entire room was rolling with me. By the time I woke up this morning I had terrible, extreme full-fledged vertigo! I couldn’t walk or move my head at all without the whole world spinning around me. It was crazy! And one of the worst feelings ever. Imagine that room-spinning feeling you get when you drink way too much and multiply it by a million. Eyes closed, open, sitting still, moving around, it won’t stop spinning… and in different directions depending on the position of your head. Fun, right? I called the doctor on call and spoke to someone in labor/delivery. She just told me to take it easy and drink water and call my doctor at 8:30 when he got in. Well, I didn’t get in touch with him until much later, but after a few hours of moving very carefully and slowly, the room stopped spinning and I felt much better. I’ve had a tinge of the spins here and there, but nothing like this morning. To be safe though, I definitely didn’t drive anywhere today. I am going to be so pissed if it comes back tomorrow – we need groceries. Seriously though, what the hell? Am I Lucille Two? It would be cool to take a break from ridiculous ailments for a little while. ♥

I just finished up my second week of my online photography class, Shooting 101. The focus of the class is to get comfortable using your camera in full manual mode, which happens to be one of my life goals. I’m really having a lot of fun learning how my camera works. With each new lesson, I have an “ohhhhhh so that’s what that button does!” moment. There are so many things to remember and to take into consideration when shooting in manual, but I’m starting to get it. It feels good! There have been so many times that I’ve taken a picture with a “vision” of how I want it to come out, only to be totally disappointed when I look at the shot later on my computer. This class is giving me the tools I need to actually achieve that perfect shot that I envisioned. I love being 100% in control of my photography instead of just pressing the button and crossing my fingers.

Vada’s sick of it, though. ♥

We took a little trip to Las Vegas this weekend for my cousin’s wedding. It’s been… tiring.

Thursday morning we drove 5 hours to my parents’ house in Virginia Beach to drop Vada off. We had to wake up at 3am the next morning to catch our 5:30am flight out of Norfolk, and I barely slept a wink that night, worrying that I would sleep through my alarm. Our flight out of Norfolk was late so we had to haul ass through the Houston airport to (barely) catch our connecting flight to Vegas. We checked into our hotel at around 11:00am, got some food, and spent most of the day wandering around our enormous hotel like zombies and catching up on sleep.

By Saturday morning I was feeling more alive and back to normal. We had a delicious breakfast and I spent the day hanging out with my cousin doing matron of honor stuff while Greg and my brother went out exploring the strip. I hung out with Jenny while she got her hair done at a fancy Paul Mitchell salon in our hotel, then we went back to her room to hang out and do our makeup. The wedding was at 3:00, so we got to the chapel at 2:00 to get her dressed and ready to walk down the aisle. She looked like a beautiful and glamorous little brunette Barbie doll. Her dress and shoes, hair and makeup, everything was just perfect.

The wedding was short and sweet without being rushed or anything. The pastor was great and gave a lot of really great marriage advice throughout the service. There were a plenty of happy tears. I can’t help it, I just always cry at weddings! They are just such a nice reminder of how special my marriage is and make me feel renewed in my own vows.

After the wedding, we had some photos taken and I ran to my room to change dresses because that size 4 JCrew bridesmaid dress just wasn’t working out anymore (as in it was cutting off my circulation.) There was a nice cocktail party, and then everyone went back to their rooms for a few hours before meeting up again later that night for a party at a club called Tryst.

I decided to stay in for the evening, because being almost 6 months pregnant: 1.) I was tired. 2.) I would have felt completely ridiculous riding around the Las Vegas strip in a yellow stretch Hummer. 3.) I doubt I would have had fun hanging out with a bunch of super drunk people. 4.) If I would have gone, I would have only lasted 2 hours max, and I wanted Greg to be able to enjoy himself in Vegas! 5.) I was tired.

So I had some relaxing alone time in the hotel. Meanwhile, Greg had a little too much fun… He got in around 2:30 after having at least 2 drinks too many and ended up throwing up. Unfortunately, this was to be expected. (He rarely drinks.) Silly Greg.

Once we eventually get out of bed today, I’m looking forward to finally getting out to see some sights. We have the whole day to do whatever we want, so we’ll probably have a taxi drop us off somewhere down on the strip and just walk around, do some shopping and people-watch. I might put a dollar in one slot machine where you can win $12 million, but otherwise I don’t think I’ll be doing any gambling while we’re here. It doesn’t feel right to me to just… give my money away to a machine? And I don’t know how to play any card games.

So far, my impressions of Las Vegas are…

This place is crazy. It’s like an alternate universe – a massive adult playground where time doesn’t exist. It’s kind of over-the-top and feels a little ridiculous. It’s also the most expensive place I’ve ever been in my life. Seriously, SO expensive.

We’ll see what today brings. ♥

We finally got a snow day this winter. I was worried the snow would never come! Vada absolutely loved it. We didn’t get her any proper snow gear this year, so we just bundled her up in a bunch of layers and let her wear an enormous pair of snowboarding gloves. They looked hilarious but kept her little hands warm! She and Greg played outside for a long time building snowmen and throwing snowballs.

While I was editing these photos I started to feel all sentimental thinking about how there are only so many snow days you get to spend with your children while they’re still little. You only have so many opportunities to make great memories. Time just goes by so fast! I mean, flashback to this baby snow bunny… ♥

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