elliot weekly: week 26

worn out at week 26

What we've been up to this week:

Windy Gap: Last weekend we tagged along to Windy Gap with some of our high school friends.  I love this weekend....because we go with my old high school group, because it kicks off fall, because the place is holy ground, because my family was there:

elliot with aunt lauren (camp doctor)

us with shannon (my young life leader from shs!)

Chupo-less: Yep, we stole Elliot's pacifier.  Actually, we stole all 9 of them from her.  I thought I was out of the whole "frenemy" stage of life...you know, because I'm not 12 anymore.  Turns out Chupo was the biggest frenemy of all....best friend by day, torturer by night.  Elliot loved her pacifier during the day but just couldn't get back to sleep in the middle of the night unless she had it.  Weaning her from Chupo is a story we'll get into next week.  I can just hear how excited you are!

Sleeping Beauty: Elliot is sleeping at night much better!  Most of this week was focused on sleep training.  It occupied most of my time, mentally energy and sanity for the past seven days.  I'll give y'all more details in the Chupo post, because I'm pretty sure they're directly related.

Baggies: Elliot loves bags. Paper bags. Plastic bags.  Clean bags.  Dirty bags.  The girl just loves her choking hazards.  I can't tell if she likes the sound, texture, flavor or just freaking me out.  One thing is for sure--you've got to keep an eye on this girl!

craft it: butterfly wall

I've been totally inspired by my friend Maury and her entire-house transformation she's been working on.  I started thinking about how Josh and I built our house nearly 6 years ago and the changes (and lack thereof!) our house has been through.  We moved from our 2 bedroom loft apartment into our brand-new 4 bedroom home in the fall of 2005.  Since our house was as-close-to-dream as we could afford, we didn't have the money to buy anything new and we only owned enough to furnish the downstairs!  Our friends affectionately referred to this upstairs bedroom as "The Chair Room" because it held several of my friends' cast-off salvation-army-worthy arm chairs.  Sadly, the room looked like that for almost a year.  I was so overwhelmed with how to decorate the place and Josh and I were still tying to figure out how our styles merged.

Our real estate agent gave us an antique bed and we decided the room would officially become a bedroom. Hey, up until that point we were really sure what to do with the space--we'd toyed with the idea of craft room, game room and reading room.  For the past four years the space has held a bed, bedside table, armoir and arm chair.  We've switched items from various rooms over the years and the space now has a bed, bedside table, desk, arm-less chair and piano.  I'm not exactly how the piano fits into the decor.....my parents bought it for me when I was a kid and I have hopes of Elliot maybe playing it one day.  It was in my crafting room before, but now that's Elliot's room, so the piano moved down the hallway to this room.  For now I've got to decorate around it.  (Maybe we could build some snazzy sideboard type cover for it....kind of like a radiator cover?)

The big blank wall has been bugging me lately:

We also have several guitars in this room
Maybe its a music room and not a bedroom?
or maybe its a bedroom for musical guests?

I saw a friends blog about how she put 3d birds on a wall in her bathroom.  I loved the idea but thought the whole put-a-bird on it craze was getting a little over done.  Here's my interpretation:

butterfly die cut + old emmerson poetry = perfection
sidenote: aren't these linens so cute? i love you ikea!

i made about one zillion of these cut-outs
yep. a zillion.

I knew I wanted to put the butterflies up with painters tape, because I thought that'd be the least damaging and most temporary solution.  The problem was what shape to put them in!  I thought about just throwing them up on the wall, but that clearly wasn't working:

proof that not every crafting idea is a success

After several shape attempts (circle, heart, blob) I came up with the swirl idea (or maybe Chelsea came up with it?)  

finished product!

I'm still not sure that I'm 100% in love with this wall, but it's definitely an improvement.  And with the use of painters tape, I can change the design or take the entire thing down without having to worry about damaging the wall.  Perfect for modern wall art!

I already had the Emmerson book and painters tape, so I only had to purchase the butterfly die-cut ($11 on amazon.)  What inexpensive and crafty wall art have you been up to?

craft it: media wall update

One of the things that is the most fun, yet equally frustrating, part of decorating your home is that you're never quite done.  Case and point: my media wall.  I keep finding more fun items to add to the wall.  I'm afraid that what started out as an attempt to decorate one blank wall may turn into the long expanse of crazy art and nick nacks.  The line between unique and weird can just be so fine sometimes, can't it?

Here's the wall after the first attempt around 8 months ago:

Here's the updated wall:

Here are a few of my favorites:

elliot's newborn footprints and silhouette

e is for elliot

key to josh's old land rover

little butterflies

sweetgrass basket from charleston, sc

canvas of me and e by lindsey lee photography

giant embroidery hoop

As you can see, we're adding to the wall and trying to fill in several gaps.  We've found several items we like/think are funny/remind us places we love...but we aren't quite sure where/how to hang them; hence the painters tape :)  

its not me, its you

Dear Netflix,

Wow.  Its been a while since I've had to have this kind of conversation.  This may get a little awkward.

We've had a good run.  It was so fun and casual in the beginning.  But somewhere a long the line you started getting a little clingy.  I'll admit, it was hard to notice at first...just a movie suggestion here and a tv show insinuation there.  But when you started asking for more money, I knew I had to draw the line.  What started out as a casual-gift-card-trial-membership had turned into a double-my-billing-for-nothing-extra monster.

If it had just been that time that you implied I'd like "The American" I may have let our growing differences slide.  But then you wanted $10 more a month for no additional services.  I knew then that our relationship was nearing it's final scene.

Let's not make this harder than it has to be.  Its not me, its you.  No, really.  Its you.  Its your less-than-average selection of streaming movies and your attempt to slap a 3+ year customer in the face.  

I (kind of) wish you the best.  May you find happiness with some sucker wonderful customer with seriously bad average taste to enjoy your b grade movies and shows.

blair

elliot weekly: week 25

large and in charge at 25 weeks

What we've been up to this week:

Fat Booth: Ok, the picture above is a little lot deceiving.  It was made using the "Fat Booth" app.  You take a regular picture on an iphone, line up the eyes and mouth and voila!  You're a fatty.  (side note: while you're waiting for the "fat" picture to load, it shows a picture of a dancing hamburger saying "yummy yummy", hahahahaha)  Elliot was giving lots of no-lips smiles and with the drool running down her face we knew we had the perfect fat-booth opportunity.  

And the little one did not roll over: Do y'all remember that song?  There were 10 in the bed and the little one said "roll over, roll over!"  Anyone?  Bueller?  Well, Elliot is not really all that interested in rolling over.  She does great with her tummy time, even doing these funny little baby push ups.  But put that girl on her back and she's happy to just grab her feet (and put them in her mouth of course) and coo and goo away.  I've heard that if a baby crawls longer its directly correlated to the child being more athletic.  So, maybe if it takes her a while to roll over, she'll be extra athletic?

Happy Baby: Elliot is happy to meet anyone.  As soon as someone else is holder her, she turns on the charm; reaching for their face and smiling (with at least two chins.)  Its probably all the local election campaigns getting to me, but I swear she thinks she's running for office with the way she's trying to woo everyone.  It doesn't matter if its me, Josh or a person she's never met before--the girl just turns on the charm.  It makes me really excited because with Young Life we're always traveling and around tons of people.  We hoped that Elliot would be a good travel and social baby.  She's excelling in both departments so far!  I know there may be a time, when she's older, that she gets a bit more shy---but we're just soaking up our happy-baby time for now!

update and video

I have a love/hate relationship with technology.  Most of the time it makes my life easier.  And most of the time I feel like a moron trying to figure it out.

Case and point: digital pictures.  Love them.  Love taking them.  Love sharing them.  Getting them on to the computer?  Most of the time its a cinch.  Know when it wasn't a cinch?  Last week....when I lost 246 pictures. Who's a Mac moron?  This girl!

Yep, I lost 246 pictures when trying to upload them to iphoto.  Yes, a program so easy that my 5 month old baby could probably figure it out.

The sad part (other than feeling like a total loser) is that I lost the "before" pictures of several craft projects.  Total bummer.  I'm prepping the "after" shots to share with y'all, but something tells me they're going to lose that amazement/pop/sizzle/sparkle factor without the "before" shot to compare.

Sad.

Here's a video of us waking Elliot up.  Yep.  I'm that mom that recorded waking up my kid.  I don't know why I felt compared to tape it---or share it.  Maybe I'm over-sharing in the parenting department because I'm under-sharing in the craft department??

Anyways, here's our babe:

who's at the door?

I've been at work for the past hour.  Things were going well and I was cramming in as much paperwork and phone calls as I could (while Elliot was asleep) when I got interrupted by a knock at the door.  

It was actually more like a light tap on the door and I was thankful that whoever it was at the door was being kind to not wake my baby girl.  I went to all three doors of my office, but couldn't find anyone there.  

Then a few minutes later I heard the light tap again.  I thought maybe some of my young life girls were playing a trick on me----like ding-dong-dash but more like lightly-tap-and-hide or something.

Then I found the culprits:

Turns out that the chickens just wanted to see if Elliot wanted to come out and play.  Who knew chickens knew how to "knock" on doors?  I guess you really do learn something new every day.

elliot weekly: week 24

happy at week 24

What we've been up to this week:

Jumping Bean: Elliot has been really jumping a lot in the exersaucer at work.  Its a hand me down, so I'm sure the bunjee cords are a little work out.  Regardless, we had to raise her up to leverl 2.  She was just jumping so much on level one that I thought she might jump out of the exersaucer.

Grabby Grabby: Elliot is getting better and better at grabbing and reaching for what she wants.  Unfortunately, she's gotten equally good at tossing what she wants...which usually means I'm picking things up from the ground (or across the room--girl has got an arm!) all day long.  I don't think she's really doing the whole hey-i've-got-you-wrapped-around-my-finger-i-can-make-you-pick-things-up-when-i-drop-them-because-you're-my-servant, but I don't think we're very far off from that either!

Good Night's Sleep: Elliot has been sleeping better at night this week!  We've had several nights where she has slept until 6am(ish).  Its still a bit early for this mama, but we'll take it for now!

Here are a few outtakes from our photo shoot this morning:

young house love, i heart you too

I love reading Young House Love's blog.  It makes me laugh, envy their style and gives me tons of decorating goals.  They sometimes post several times a day, which makes me a very happy reader!  With every post I'm one step closer to putting our house on the market and buying a fixer-upper to remodel and re-decorate from floor to ceiling.  After floating back to realty, I remember that I should at least try a project or two before things get out of hand.  And out of hand they would get. Trust me.  Remember that time I had a baby?  I can hardly get anything done outside of work and baby-wrangling.  All my projects lately have lasted under 30 minutes...perfectly coined "speed-crafting" by Chelsea.

Anyways.

John posted today on YHL about a brass chandelier that they refinished for their office.  Its fun and whimsical and i LOVE IT.  He asked for comments about any chandelier projects we'd attempted, so I just had to share about Elliot's chandelier.

And Sherry commented back almost immediately:

They like me!  See how much?  ALL CAPS.  That is a loooot in the blogging world peoples.  Seriously.  I feel so validated.  I am one dorky happy mama.

Almost makes me want to craft again.  Anyone have any 45 minute ideas?

buy it, you'll like it

Buy it, you'll like it....well, if you're a girl.  Well, these days I guess I should say buy it, you'll like it...if you're into makeup.  I've seen plenty of boys lately trying to pull off at little matte foundation and/or eyeliner (hello jay manuel).  But that is so another entry for another time.

So, for all of you beauty-minded individuals out there: take note!

mary kay cream blush in cranberry $13

I always swore I'd never want to get into the whole "mary kay" deal.  I didn't want to go to parties and feel pressured into buying stuff, I didn't want the awkward conversations that I just knew would happen and I certainly didn't want to part with any of my hard earn moolah for products that I thought were sub-par.

Hello. My name is Blair. I will be eating crow from now on.  Please pass the mustard.

Yep. I'm a convert.  Well, a convert as far as face wash, moisturizer, mineral powder, mascara, eye-liner, eye shadow and cream blush are concerned.  (And, in case you're keeping track, that includes every item that I've tried.)

I am in LOVE with their new cream blush.  The pigment is great, its build-able (meaning: you can wear just a bit or layer it on for a sultry pop), it glides on super smooth and lasts all day!  I wear such minimal make-up during this time of year (hello 97 degrees and 80% humidity, I kind of hate you) and this cream blush is just perfect.  I've worn Bobbi Brown blush and Benetint, and may always keep them in the rotation, but this little baby is my new favorite.

And for those of you out there in need of ordering some of this blush perfection, let me introduce you to my friend Allison:

ok, so this is us at the virginia beach half marathon that we ran last year...

here's a better picture of allison:

Allison and I have been friends for years and she may be the least pushy saleswoman I've ever known.  She has been wearing Mary Kay for a while and I found myself asking her about where she got her eye-liner from: MaryKay.  And what about that new eye shadow? MaryKay.  I invited Allison to come over to my house and I got to play dress-up with all her make-up.  It was sooo fun.  Now I look forward to the new looks each season--can't wait to call her up and try out the products for myself.

You can (and should!) email allison at allison.cook@marykay.com to order your own cranberry cream blush.  You won't be disappointed!! (you may also want to order the amethyst eye liner, honey spice eye shadow and waterproof mascara---the whole look is gorgeous!)

brittany got married

This past Saturday our little family joined up with the rest of the Jones family for a big ole party.  Josh's baby cousin Brittany got married.  It was so sweet to see two people so much in love with each other, so thankful for the Lord and so grateful for their families; we were so very blessed to witness such a ceremony!

Here are a few of my favorite moments from the wedding:

what a view!

bride's side

groom's side

beautiful flowers!

super fun guest book

elliot and yaya

my mom's baby dress!

keeping baby entertained

coolest entrance ever

looooove the dress

does it get any prettier thank this?!

seven years and going strong

and baby makes three	awkward family photo ;)

elliot weekly: week 23

looking large at 23 weeks!

what we've been up to this week

Beach Time: We spent is past weekend at our favorite beach: Sullivan's Island.  Its just north of Charleston, SC and is the perfect family beach spot.  We love it there.  It was Elliot's second trip to the beach (the first was when I was on my last week of maternity leave.)  I figured that she'd like the sand and water more this time because she's gotten into grabbing things more and splashing during her baths.  She smiled when the breeze blew across her face and she patted the water when we were sitting in a shallow portion.  I hope that we get to visit the beach more as she grows up.  We always went every summer when I was growing up and I have such fond memories!

Laughing: We've had a few laughing spells with Elliot, but she is becoming a regular giggler.  She's always been a big smiley baby, but lately we've gotten more and more laughs out of her.  They are just about the cutest thing (I think only a pink baby unicorn could be cuter).  I've been trying to get her on camera, but I get so wrapped up in her sweet giggles that I forget to run and find the camera.  Josh and I were laughing with her as we were putting her down for her 5pm catnap yesterday and managed to get a few giggles on camera:

Friends: Ryan Clark, one of our best friends, was in town for a quick flyfishing trip with Josh. Ok, so he was actually in town to visit his family, but we managed to snag some time with him.  We all ate dinner together last night and he's flyfishing with Josh today.  He's having a third baby soon--he's such a natural with the babes:

i promise elliot loved it

Hugs: Elliot has been giving some really good snuggles lately.  She'll put her head on your shoulder and even wrap her arms around your neck a little bit.  When she does it to me she gets a bit tempted to pull out my hair or at least give my ponytail a good yank--the girl is strong, let me tell you!  Here's the hug in action: 

Reach For It: Elliot has been reaching for me and Josh, and it is SO cute.  It melts my heart every time.  I'll be holding Elliot and when Josh walks up to us, she reaches her arms out to him and leans toward him.  It is SO SWEET!  I'll have to try and get it on film soon.

Sleep, Sweet Sleep: I've been trying to recreate the "windy gap amazing sleep environment" at home.  Since it was basically just a pack-n-play in a closet, I haven't had to be that creative!  I crank the AC down to 72 degrees (hey, that's cranked down for us--y'all know I'm a penny pincher!), we took the night-light out of her room (it was really just for us to see her anyways) and we traded her super-soft-potterybarn sheet out for a super-thin-target sheet.  Its been great!  She has slept the past three nights until 6:30ish am!  Hallelujah!  Josh is enjoying the cooler night-time temperatures, Elliot is sleeping better and I'm one happy momma---sounds like a good recipe we've got going...I just pray Elliot stay on board :)

It just seems like Elliot is growing by leaps and bounds--I'm trying so hard to soak up every minute with her.  I am SO glad that I get to have her at work with me and I that I'm available for so many milestones.  I love that I get to see her face so much during the day!

beach time!

Josh and I spent this past long weekend with Elliot down at Sullivan's Island, SC.  It is probably our favorite place to vacation together.  Josh and I are pretty different, so when we find something that we both love we don't really deviate that often (remind me to tell you about the pub where we've gone for our anniversary and valentine's day!)
So, we love Sullivan's Island...we love it so much that the name "Sullivan" was actually on our list of potential baby names.  But then we found out that the name "Sullivan" is actually pretty popular; seems that a lot of folks named their kids after that pilot that landed that plane in the Hudson River?  Anyways, I digress. 
Our next few weeks are going to be pretty busy, so we relished the few days that we had to relax together and play.  Here are some pictures from our long weekend:

did someone say beach baby??

this baby loves some beach time!

Josh getting ready to attack the red fish on the marsh

happy baby!

a family that runs together, stays together...unless one person is a faster runner

vacation=yummy food!!

happy baby...even when stuck in labor day weekend traffic!

Our vacation is over and now its back to real life; guess its a pretty good thing that we love our "real" life too.  We are a blessed, blessed family.