elliot weekly: week 2

I cannot believe how fast the time is flying by! Two weeks?! Wow. Here's a little taste of what we've been up to:

Elliot's first walk! We took Elliot out for a stroll around the neighborhood. She is in LOVE with her stroller (thanks Aunt Lauren!) She was so loving her ride around the 'hood that she's just passed out with excitement:

Elliot's 2nd check-up: passed with flying colors! Our little girl is looking good and gaining weight. Elliot's been a pretty little baby so far. She wouldn't fit into any of the clothes that we had for her. We actually had to go out and buy several preemie and newborn outfits for her so she wouldn't just be sporting just a diaper around the house. But, we won't have to be worried about that for long. Baby girl is up to 6 pounds 11 ounces (from the 5 pounds 12.5 ounces last week!) Gotta love our little chunk ;)

check out this girl's cheeks!!

Elliot's first sick visit: sad day. We had to take Elliot to the doctor for her first sick visit. She woke up Wednesday morning coughing and wheezing. It turns out our sweet girl has her first cold. I'm not sure how she got sick, but it certainly gave us a scare. Our pediatrician was great though. She encouraged us that newborns often get sick (weak immune systems) and that we'll just have to wait it out (she's too young for any cold medication.)

Elliot's first quarantine: With Elliot having her first illness, Josh and I have flown a bit into overbearing-parent-mode. We've had to limit Elliot's visitors and postpone visits from some of our favorite friends and family. It makes us sad. But, it makes us more sad to see our little girl sick. Is there anything more sad than a 12 day old baby with a cough?!

love my man.
love my sweet baby girl.



i love all her expressions.
so glad i could capture one for y'all!

projects, more projects

Josh and I have been enjoying our time at home. We have had a very busy past few months. Between preparing for Josh's sabbatical, Josh working at two Young Life clubs, me preparing for maternity leave and both attempting to prepare for baby, we've been a bit covered up. And by a "bit" I mean to say totally-100%-completely-in-need-of-a-serious-break-before-I-have-a-mental-break.

Our combination of Sabbatical (10 weeks for Josh to renew spiritually, emotionally and physically) and maternity leave (8 weeks for me) could not be more perfect. Josh and I are loving it. We are getting some amazing quality time together. And while we are worn out caring for Elliot, we are relishing our time to love and snuggle our new little girl.

And we've found a spare bit of energy for a few projects around the house:

Josh (somehow) found the energy to paint the mailbox and front door yesterday.
Seriously? I had the energy to sit on the couch and watch the Real Housewives.
(don't judge me, the TV was on Bravo and the remote was all the way across the room.)

I haven't had the time, energy or inclination to do many of the things on my "maternity to-do list." I'd thought about different crafting projects, blogging ideas and day-trips. But all I seem to want to do is stare at Elliot. And seriously, who wouldn't want to just stare at this beautiful face all day?!?!?

(ps, those are Josh's hairy legs, not mine!)

elliot weekly: week 1

Its been a week since Elliot was born....and what a week it has been! From her surprise early arrival, countless well-wishes and visitors and adjusting to Jones party of 3, we have had QUITE the week!!!

Here's a recap of Elliot's first week:

My water broke at 7:30am on Friday April 1. I couldn't believe Elliot was on the move...seriously, Josh and I are late everywhere. I was very surprised that any child of ours would be early.

seriously Elliot? 10 days early?

We got checked into the hospital fairly quickly. Little did we know out sweet baby girl would be born less than 9 hours later. Again, she's a quick and early person---who knows where she gets that from!?




Elliot has already made friends!
We were so blessed by our visitors. In the chaos we did manage to snap a few pictures:





Elliot had her first check-up on Tuesday.
She's healthy and already gained 2.5 ounces.


I love how Josh filled out the paperwork:


And, because every momma has to brag a little bit:
look how advanced our little babe is!
she's already learned how to suck her thumb

Other than that, we've just been eating, sleeping and snuggling.
We are totally smitten with our little girl!!

around the house

So, having a baby makes a big difference in house...there's the diapers, burp cloths, change of schedule and so, so much more.

Here's a fun example:
laundry before baby:

laundry after baby:


seriously cute, right?!

remember that time i had a baby?

Remember that time that I showed you pictures of a finished nursery? Oh yeah, I haven't finished it.....
Remember that time that I packed a hospital bag? Oh yeah, I thought I had another 10 days to do that....
Remember that time that I told you what we were going to name our daughter? Oh yeah, we didn't have a name picked out....
Remember that time my maternity leave didn't start until April 8th? Oh yeah, I think my fill-in is actually on vacation right now.....

Remember that time I had a baby? Oh yes. I did actually accomplish that last week ;)

Elliot Katherine Jones
born 8:15pm on April 1

I always look forward to Fridays. They're a great catch-up day for me at work (note to boss: not that I'm ever behind on anything, promise!) and such a fun time of anticipation for the weekend. This past Friday was no exception: my sister Lauren was coming into town for the weekend. We were going to decorate/finish the nursery, shop, have a mani/pedi session, giggle, go to a baby shower in Charlotte and enjoy our last weekend as sisters-without-babies.

And then it all started. I woke, after a wonderful night's rest (which has been a rare thing!) to the sound of our home phone ringing. It was a call from Spencer, one of our Wyldlife leaders, requesting help driving some of his middle schoolers to school from Bible study that morning. (PS, what a blessing to have more kids show up that you can carpool in your own car!) And, to spare you all the gory-oh-my-gosh-you-totally-just-turned-into-a-mom-this-is-entirely-too-much-information-to-share-in-any-kind-of-public-forum-type details, shortly after Josh got home from helping with the carpool, my water promptly broke.

But it wasn't supposed to happen like that. So few women actually have the water break before labor. And the nursery wasn't done. And we didn't have a name. And seriously, I had plans for the weekend ;)

We checked in with my OBGYN and it was confirmed, the babe was on the move. I managed to convince Josh to let me stop by work to finish a few last minute pressing pieces of paper work and call my boss, who was in England at the time, to tell him I was calling in sick for work. (PS, Dicky, if you're reading this---this was the third sick day I've ever taken in six and a half years of work :)

We drove home, where Josh turned into boss-man ordering me around to pack my bags and I proceeded to annoy him by saying things like "But I don't have anything to wear. Do I have time to straighten my hair? " Hey, its allllllll about priorities ladies. I knew this baby was about to take over my schedule.....I just wanted one last day of Blair-dictated-grooming-regimen. Which I didn't get because Josh wouldn't let me dry or straighten my hair. Which I have only brought up 09582309482309 times.

Josh drove me to the hospital. I had a baby. It wasn't really that simple or pretty, but Elliot is here and she's so very healthy. And what really else matters, right?!

A word about her name......Elliot Katherine Jones.
Elliot: we loved the idea of the name, but totally fell for it when we learned the meaning is "the Lord is my God"
Katherine: we wanted something really girly to go with Elliot....and my older sister's first name is Katherine, it was just the perfect fit
Jones: yeah, I guess its kind of obvious

baby Elliot with her namesake Aunt Lauren

craft it: coffee filter lampshade

Josh and I have been inspired to do a little re-decorating around the house. Our lives have been so busy the past few years that we really haven't paid much attention to the decor in our home. As we've spent more time together and more time in the house we're noticing all the clutter, items we don't like and things we'd like to do differently.

I've decorated the guest bedrooms pretty much by myself. They are fun and colorful and my little slice of girlishness in our house. The living room, dining area, kitchen and our bedroom are a completely different story. They are in major need of a decorating overhaul!

My friend LindseyLee suggested a blog that had pictures of a house that sounded like the style that we were looking for. She hit the decorating nail on the head!! I am loving Sarah Lorenz and her beautiful home! We have a lot of projects to do around the house before it is anything close to resembling this style, but I can't wait! Wow, this post has too many exclamation points!!

I started off with one of the cheapest ways to copy Sarah's style: coffee filter lampshade. Be warned, it takes a ton of coffee filters and your fingers will definitely get burned by the hot glue. I also think this project looks better on her lampshade since its a drum shape.

Here's the Before:

And the After:

This lamp is actually in one of the guest bedrooms, but I plan on moving the shade out into the living room when we start making over that room. This was just a $4 crafting project that I wanted to try out.....no sense in freaking Josh out by saying I was doing a project for the living room until I knew he was 100% on board. And lets just say that my "Honey, I'm going to make a lampshade out of coffee filters" didn't really get his decorating juices flowing. However, after seeing the finished project he's now a believer. And better yet, he's ready to start redecorating the living room!!

Re-decorating the living room will require painting some of our furniture, which I can't do while I'm pregnant. Sad. So, we're brainstorming and compiling ideas for the space. If you find any fabulous finds or have any creative thoughts please let me know!

**we're almost done decorating baby girl's nursery. i'll post pictures soon!

a different kind of bracket

My NCAA tournament bracket has been falling apart since day one. And now that the Tarheels are out of the tournament, I've thrown my bracket in the trash. What's the point of having a bracket if the 'Heels don't win the whole deal?! Josh and I were hanging out with some friends this past weekend up at Windy Gap (more on that trip later.) We mentioned how we were really hoping to not have our baby at camp because a) I'm not really into the whole have-a-baby-in-the-middle-of-nature type of delivery and b) we don't have a name for our little girl yet. Our friend William came up with a great idea: a Baby Name Bracket!

We collected suggestions from folks around camp and narrowed it down to 32 names. Josh and I both got to select our favorite 16 names. He had control of the left side of the bracket and I had the right side.

We weren't quite sure how to handle the challenges....at first we tried Josh's famous applause-o-meter.

That didn't quite seem fair. So we decided to do the traditional handraising voting method. Much more efficient....and it also showed the other voters who they needed to swing to their side for voting. It was so funny to see our friends trying to convince each other why one name was better than another.

I highly suggest using this process for any soon-to-be-parents. We got some great name ideas from our friends---some sweet names I'd never heard or thought of! The final four names were so cool! (Riley, Reagan, Avery, Elouise)

We did "secret ballot" for the last round of voting.

The votes were tabulated......and the winner was:

Now, I'm not 100% sure that we'll use Reagan. But, we both like it!

reagan jones....what do you think?

3/30/11 update: in the quarter finals, the judges had a re-vote for emmerson and eloise (mostly because i liked eloise better!) eloise won by a slim margin and made it to the finals :)