live your life

cleaning house

2012-02-09T02:59:00.000-05:00

so i've haven't been blogging for awhile. i'm very excited to start blogging again, especially to READ blogs. i have found that whenever we travel or decorate for holidays... i get really behind on everything. i've been trying to tackle my to do list lately. i promised myself (totally cheating right now) that i could get online when everything was done. i struggle to keep things tidied up (really working on this), not to be confused with dirty. grant and i are both pretty clean people but i think messy is a better word. our bedroom is messy. things get messy because unfortunately i am an extremist. my mom used to joke that my room (in high school) looked like a tornado hit it or it was immaculate. so right now i'm working on getting everything immaculate and then keeping it that way. now just to describe how ocd i can really be when it comes to cleaning.... i'm not just talking dusting, vacuuming and laundry. i'm talking cleaning the couch, armchair and anything upholstered (i got a carpet cleaner/hard-surface cleaner/upholstery cleaner thingy for christmas.... BEST THING EVER), cleaning out the vent of my blow dryer, cleaning out all my kitchen cabinets, my closet, my bathroom cupboards, trudy's wardrobe, medicine cabinets, fridge, under the bed, re-organizing our books, cleaning out the garage, cleaning the inside and outside of our cars. going through my makeup, steaming anything in my closet that needs it (no more being late to church), anyway i could keep going but i'm kind of getting discouraged. ha. sooooooo i'll hopefully be done with all this by the end of this week? not making any promises.

one thing that has been keeping me from getting all of this done is my phone. a few years ago grant and i bought droids. it was an awesome buy one get one free deal and since grant most definitely needs a smart phone for his job... it was perfect. well my droid screen broke and we were due for an upgrade and so i got an iphone. first i have to say that as far as droids go... i don't really have too many complaints. the droid makes it easier to personalize much more than the iphone but the iphone is amazing. i love it. i feel like it's my little toy. i just got a case that i ordered for it in the mail and i love it! i jumped on the instagram wagon and haven't regretted it since. the photo a day challenges are such a fun and easy way to document things in every day life. just another version of a journal. here is mine for the month of january. (everybody interprets things differently and that's what makes the photo a day challenges so fun. a few of mine that may be confusing... #3- i adore color, #4- what comes in my letterbox, #6- bath time with trudy makes me smile, #16- that morning i woke up to a beautiful bouquet of organic greens, #28- a quote that sheds light).

follow me @brittbarnes04

"he's coming to the party?"

2012-02-02T01:51:00.000-05:00

so behind and just trying to get through my to do list before i come back to blog land.

just saw this and almost peed my pants. i can't stop watching it.

p.s. having a blast on instagram... follow me! @brittbarnes04

changing it up

2012-01-17T01:37:00.002-05:00

shortly before grant and i were married, my mom told me that her and my dad had planned to buy us a bedroom set for a wedding present. i was ecstatic. extremely grateful with an extra ounce of guilt. it just felt too generous. which should probably be my parent's middle name. oh i love them. and miss them :(. the set has been great for us. we got lucky here because our bedroom is huge and our set is too. but now that we've finally been able to spread them out and really enjoy them, we'd like to break up the monotony of the pieces. we're prepared for how HUGE of a project this is but excited for the change too. eventually when we buy a house, i'd love to put different pieces in different rooms but we don't have that luxury for now.

for awhile i've really wanted to find a pair of vintage sconces. i love a little hollywood regency influence but am learning fast that too much of it can go in a gaudy direction. back to the sconces. so one night i was telling grant about my love for them and what i pictured etc. i hadn't really put any effort into searching for some because... well i don't know? not even three minutes later he had found some on ksl (utah's amazing classified source... seriously NOTHING like it in any other state)(craigslist doesn't even hold a candle to it). they were everything i pictured and MORE. czechoslovakian crystal sconces from the 50's. complete with european electrical plugs (we have to use a converter). which in our humble opinion, only makes them better. one thing that makes these eclectic treasures slightly inconvenient is that the light fixtures fit only european size bulbs. but thanks to ebay and only a few dollars we had them here in 2-5 business days. we didn't know where we were going to put them but knew that they belonged in our home somewhere.

a few weeks later while we were out and about estate sale-ing, we stumbled upon an old junk shop. we were out in the back in a barn when i spotted a big gold mirror on the wall. $15 dollars later it was ours. after trying every wall and not finding a good spot, we decided to take the mirror off the dresser and put up our new beauty. after that we added the two sconces and voila! we are planning to change up the dresser but for now, here is our before and during. oh and i better make sure it's known that grant polished every single dusty crystal. which made quite the difference and now the lights are super shiny! and hopefully i will figure out how to conceal or distract away from those annoying bulky cords.

before:

during:

my hot chocolate even tasted better

2012-01-12T03:25:00.000-05:00

well i am just loving all the comments from my last post and i've read them like a million times. i wish i could click "print" in the comment section and then print all of them and put them on the wall. sometimes you just need a little pick me up... and kind words can truly go a long way. so thank you ;)

i consider myself to be a practical person. kinda? well i mean for example... if i buy anything to put in my closet, i have to always be able to think of different ways to use or wear it. well... let's just say... i'm loosing that little voice in my head. things are getting easier to justify and it's scaring me. i guess it's the result of always going shopping with trudy.

so to get to the point, i asked for this little beauty for christmas. yahoo that it's from tjmaxx and cheaper than buying it from kate spade BUT did santa pay $12 for a mug? yep. is that very smart? no. but i'm pretty sure i feel like..... probably at least 2 times cuter when i drink from this versus any others.

p.s. it is comforting to know that kate spade's dinnerware is mostly lenox and backed with a great warranty.

but i don't wanna put it all away

2012-01-04T15:24:00.002-05:00

i'm having a hard time wanting to put away all the christmas stuff. that may or may not be because i am being lazy. grant has been sick this week, lots of throwing up and yuckyness. then trudy got sick. she has actually had a cold for a week or so but the last two days have just been so miserable for her. last night she had a fever and i could barely handle it. i have never felt so helpless. i am very excited for it to go away.

i've kept my thoughts and feelings to a very minimum on this blog. i have many reasons behind that but i think it's mostly because of things that were said about me on another blog. reading what was said unfortunately added to my deep deep insecurity of feeling like all people hate me. i'm feeling uncomfortable being this revealing about my thoughts but something is making my fingers keep going. i don't say that to search for comments like "what? nobody hates you", it just really is something that i can convince myself of about pretty much everyone. and since i consider myself to be pretty introspective, i feel frustrated that i don't know why or where that insecurity came from. when i think about some difficult things that i have been through the last few years and then this "everybody hates me... i'm just gonna go eat worms" complex i have, it puts me in a sad place. i don't feel too ashamed about admitting that because i feel like it's very human and mostly people do the same thing with their own insecurities. i have found myself thinking way too much about what people will think of this or that. i don't have a big warm and fuzzy solution to all this. in fact i don't even know why i'm typing it. prayer helps though. prayer helps with everything.

i can't leave the house because of trudy and so i've been watching 3 shows every day. the nate show (which i usually try and watch every day anyway), anderson cooper and dr. oz. here are some random things that have bugged me this week... yesterday on anderson cooper he had on the man behind "thedirty.com". i had never heard of this website before but it's basically a place where you can go post crap about anyone. it's so stupid. nik, the creator, spent the whole episode trying to explain to anderson (and the entire audience) how he is god's gift because when people are exploited like they are on his site... they end up becoming better people. i really couldn't believe what i was watching. you'd think the concept of the site is ridiculous enough but to make it even more lame... if someone writes crap about you and you want it removed, you then have to pay a monthly fee of 12.99 AND that doesn't even guarantee removal of your posts! all it does is put you at the top of his priority list so he can review what has been said and then decide himself if you are really what other people say you are. what a freaking tool. you can watch clips from the episode here.

i love watching dr.oz. i always have. i find his passion for health and explaining things to be very refreshing. i always love when people are passionate about something. however it's annoying to me the way he goes about drawing people in to watch his show. whether it's him or the way they advertise for it, it's stupid. it seems like the main goal is instilling fear in america. i can hear the announcer guy in my head right now "don't miss the HUGE bad habit YOU are DOING RIGHT NOW that may kill you tomorrow!" i mean really? like i said, i think dr. oz is great and i don't need titles like "how you are giving yourself cancer"to make me want to watch it. there are things that we need to know but putting fear in me just makes me feel stressed out and uncomfortable. like i'm not buying all the vitamins we need and the coke i am currently addicted to is going to kill me. so anywayyyyyyyyyyyyy onto happier things.

we made this little banner from this tutorial. i wish i would have done mine bigger like hers but then sometimes i like the size of ours.

i found rifle paper's holiday card collection at anthropologie on sale and snatched it right up. who doesn't love rifle paper co? i'm really looking forward to framing them and putting them up next year. i found the tin at a thrift shop and loved it. it reminds me of the cards.

i got this a few years ago at a flea market. it's our advent calendar. it's really fun to turn to the next day. i hope our kids love it!

and finally trudy's first ornament. it's rudolph from the classic rudolph

that plays on tv every year. it reminds me of my childhood. and it's way cuter in real life.

bye bye christmas!
linked up here.

our christmas break

2011-12-27T03:08:00.000-05:00

this year we spent christmas in utah. it was nice being able to spend a few days before christmas and christmas with grant's dad and step family and then spend some time with my family after that. on our way to utah we split up the 10 hr trip with matt & jessica (family that stayed with us back in october). one morning while i was in the shower grant and jessica took some beautiful pictures of trudy and her two boys kaden and beckham. they had just turned on baby einstein and were completely glued to it. we were able to stay with them again on our way back and loved every minute. we've never split up the trip before and now i want to do it this way every time!

because we had our trudy baby with us this year, christmas could not come fast enough. even though i knew she would mostly be into wrapping paper and bows... i could not wait for christmas morning! i am so excited to be santa. i think i saved everything possible that i bought starting back in november. it isn't fun to travel with lots of christmas presents but surprisingly they held up nicely. grant and i tried to be creative with our wrapping for each other. grant did the one below with three bows. after opening presents trudy just laid around with daddy. she was so chill and i had to steal a couple of pictures. that night we were able to skype with my brother who is on an lds mission in peru. it was so fun to show him trudy girl for the first time. after christmas we went to visit bff jess and her new baby fran. while we were there we took some pictures, i was holding little franny and jess had trudy. fran started to cry (she was getting kinda hungry) and all the sudden trudy plopped her hand on her head as to calm her down. it was the cutest thing ever, clearly she will be a good friend... already trying to take care of her best friend!!overall it was a great trip. this was the first time we drove home feeling like we finally got in some good time with our families. we are happy to be home, especially with new toys for trudy... she is at a stage where she can almost crawl but not quite yet and wants to move around everywhere. i'm afraid it's going to take me a year to unpack and then take our christmas decorations down. i hope everyone had a great holiday. we received some of the cutest christmas cards from friends that i want to keep on the fridge forever. it just seems more fun to get christmas cards from friends and family when you live away from everyone. i totally forgot that we could do a christmas card this year since we have a baby now. hopefully we will do something fun next year.

merry christmas from trudy girl

2011-12-24T23:39:00.000-05:00

pink puff ball

2011-12-19T22:05:00.002-05:00

apparently i need to make it clear that i can handle pink! i never meant that i was totally against pink, i just said that too much of it could make me go crazy. when we saw this cute pink fuzzy coat at costco a few months ago, grant's first words were "are you serious? no waaaay". ha and then we put it on her and couldn't stop laughing. people around kept pointing and laughing at our little pink puff.

these pics are from mid november (14th). i'm getting closer to being caught up!

my social butterfly

2011-12-15T02:04:00.000-05:00

i can't get trudy ready in the morning without laughing. she cracks me up and she is just such a little person. these pictures were taken on november 2, her exact 5 month mark. around this time she started figuring out that she hates anything wiping her face. we started feeding baby food to her at 4 1/2 months and like many other babies, she hated peas. ~~so i fed them to her more and more because i couldn't stop laughing at all the faces she made.~~
when i take her out and about to go shopping or whatever... she is so funny. she LOVES seeing other people. she loves it so much that she will scream really loud just so that whoever is in the same aisle as us will look over at her. and as soon as they do she smiles soooo big. it's like a game to her. and i can't help but laugh.

4 diy projects and 3 thrifty finds

2011-12-09T17:48:00.001-05:00

so i told myself i wasn't going to buy any new christmas decor this year. it can be hard right? i mean with all the new cute stuff they come out with every year... i've been very good, we are still using the ornaments and decor that we bought our first christmas four years ago. not that it's a huge accomplishment or anything... anyway i've added a few things here and there, i thought i'd post up some of our recent diy's and thrifty finds.

we recently made this reindeer head mount. i saw the idea somewhere around the web and i feel bad i didn't save the link because it is a sweet idea and deserves some credit. so to start out, we bought this paper mache reindeer at michael's. it was 50% off so that was cool. we were dumb and didn't take a picture of the whole thing but you get the idea. first step was to chop off the head.

we knew that we were going to be attaching the head to a plaque and

so we hot glued some picture hanging wire inside the head in three different spots.

then i painted the plaque gold to match the reindeer. since just gluing the head to the wood would be too hard, we drilled a three holes in the center to pull the three wires through and tie in the back. that was obviously grant's idea and it was genius.

here he is!

i really like the woodland feel he gives to my collection of trees
and the "merry christmas" art that i painted below.

here is our christmas shelf! i think i'd like to add a tree to my collection every year. this year i added a diy tree and it's the one all the way to the right. just a simple styrofoam cone that i wrapped with some cool ribbon-y stuff (a martha stewart product).

speaking of martha stewart, i tried her diy glitter deer project.
it was so fun, except that now there is glitter everywhere!

my last project was this christmas ikat painting, i really love the ikat pattern.

moving on to some thrifty finds...last summer i found these three gold balls at goodwill for $2. they help break up all my silver stuff (along with the deer mount) to create a mixed silver and gold christmas. i like to keep them out year round.

$3 at goodwill = my favorite little elves! aren't they just ADOOORRAABBLLEE???

and a good old flea market find.

linked up here.

my little blue eyed red head

2011-12-07T03:59:00.001-05:00

well it turns out that i'm not very successful at the whole same spot every month picture. good thing i was only doing it for me i guess. i have pictures of her on the 2nd of each month so at least i'm good there. i didn't do any official post for her month 4 or 5 so i'm counting this as month 4. let's see... so she turned 4 months on october 2 which happened to be in the middle of all of our visitors. she was so cute with everyone and a great sport for us on halloween. she stayed up past her bedtime that night, just so that we could show her off to all the little trick-or-treaters. these pictures were taken october 17, one morning while watching regis and kelly... (bye bye regis! we'll miss you). lots of people ask if her hair is red, well as you can see, it definitely has a redish tint to it. it's funny cause more than a few people have said "just like her momma" and i always say "actually mine's fake". infact my real hair color is more like this or this or this. grant and i both have red hair in our families. i'm not sure trudy's will stay like this but i would love it if it did!

wall collages take forever

2011-12-01T14:16:00.001-05:00

we spent thanksgiving in vegas. the day we got back, albuquerque turned winter on. the winds are so frigid here. and i think cold wind is the worst. i finally organized my google reader so i'm excited to get back on that. trudy girl is cute as can be and deserves five thousand blog posts. today she is six months old. i'd be bragging about her but there are too many cute pictures of her and not enough time to choose which ones to post. besides.... we are still decorating for christmas!!!

p.s. here's my attempt at some paint swatch wall art. fun!

family pictures 2011

2011-11-21T16:31:00.001-05:00

a few months ago we had our pictures taken. we were able to squeeze them in one of our short trips to utah. grant's friend kristopher took them and did an amazing job. i've wanted him to take our pics forever. i love the feeling his pictures have, he only shoots in film. you can see his work here. while i knew we were going to get them done, i was rushed when packing and i feel like grant and i both just threw in a bunch of stuff and hoped we could pull something together. looking back i wish i would have put more thought into our outfits but oh well. on top of that, we were actually a bit bummed after we had them taken because trudy was just not herself. she was cold and drooling everywhere and trying to chomp on anything she could get her hands on. it seemed that was the only thing on her mind. we wish we could see more of her personality in these but i guess it's okay since i have a photo shoot with her every day;) at one point during the shoot she was trying to latch on and convinced herself she needed to eat (even though she just had). we tried ignoring it and just playing with her but she wasn't having it. so i had to go sit and feed her. i was somewhat stressed because there is only a short window of time for good lighting, especially when you aren't doing digital pics! kristopher took a few of her and i during this and i think they turned out to be my favorite. there were things that didn't go the way we thought but the pictures still turned out. i guess that's how you know you have a good photographer! oh and utah is so pretty in the fall.

sante fe railyard & my family

2011-11-18T00:21:00.001-05:00

the last family that visited us in october was mine. i loooooooooove when they come. this time they brought both of my grandma's, it made the whole trip that much better. i love my grandma's so much. i'm happy that they were able to make the trip and see our life here. grant and i spoke in church while they were here too. having them and my family both there to see us made me feel much more comfortable. with having moved so much... we get asked to speak a lot so it's nice that my nerves are getting a bit more used to it. wish my family could come every time, maybe that way i could muster up the courage to add some more personality and throw a joke in here or there. i mean my nerves are getting more used to it but i can't relax enough to be funny. and i am pretty funny.

sadly, we took NO pictures of my family. how lame. it happens every time! i think it's just because we are too busy enjoying each other. while they were here we went to a bunch of estate sales here in albuquerque. and then we drove to the farmer's market in santa fe. something i've been wanting to do FOREVER. we hit up the farmer's, artist's and flea markets there. i thought that my dad might be a bit bored but turns out he was just having the time of his life. buying little snacks everywhere. kinda makes me laugh when i think about it. anywho we've been scoring pretty big at all these market's and estate sales. but hopefully that will be another post.

my free window treatment

2011-11-14T01:43:00.001-05:00

wanna know what i hate buying? curtain rods. especially when you have to get one for every window in your house. they just seem like such a complete waste of money to me. curtains are fun to buy but usually way overpriced (in my opinion). for the kitchen window i planned to use some mustard colored burlap i had. i asked grant to find me a big stick. a cool one. he was more than happy to and found the perfect stick (of course). so we drilled some holes, put some hooks in and hung it up. then i tied strips of the burlap to it. so there ya go. a free window treatment!

linked up here.

growing up way too fast

2011-11-11T05:26:00.001-05:00

"keekee mouse"

2011-11-04T14:53:00.000-04:00

the second family that came to visit us in october and see the balloon fiesta were our friends rob & jessie. we had not seen them in so long, it was a much needed reunion. we love them so much and just couldn't get enough of them. unfortunately while they were here the winds were too high for the balloons to go up and so they weren't able to see how amazing the fiesta is. however we ended up going one morning (in hopes that they would still lift off) and were able to be on the ground with all the special shapes. i think that was far more entertaining that any of us expected so that was nice. while they were here we did some shopping, eating out and even a trip to the zoo. we did everything with our friends troy & teri too. crazy to see all of our kids together, especially brand new baby cooper. i can't express how much it means to me when people drive out to see us. especially with children. i know that being in the car for 10 hours with kids is not easy. we've had rob & jessie, matt & jessica, jess, my family, dave & traci, paul & leisa.....all come out to see us. it makes me feel so special. anyway here are some pics of when they were here. oh and yes it's not easy being friends with eva longoria. i mean jessie. ;)

look what we stole...

2011-10-31T22:56:00.000-04:00

happy halloween!

the magic of paint

2011-10-26T04:02:00.000-04:00

this is really nothing you haven't seen. i just wanted to jump on the bandwagon of the white ceramic trend. seems like every store is carrying something like this. i've said this before, as long as it's easy and cheap it's my kind of project! anyone can do this. here is my before an after... take that zgallerie.

click here to see where i've linked up.

october has been the visitor month

2011-10-26T03:19:00.000-04:00

we've had three different families stay with us this month. it has been so nice. our first visitors were matt, jessica, kaden and beckham. matt is traci's oldest. traci is married to dave (grant's dad). so that makes matt and grant step brothers. anyway i was so excited for them to come. they came and made it for the first mass ascension, opening day for the balloon fiesta 2011. it was crazy!!! i forget how many people come from all over the world. we left our house at like 5:15 a.m. because it started at 7, even though the grounds that they lift from are only 2.5 miles from our house! while we were there, jessica surprised trudy with a handmade beanie. it is adorable and trudy loves it.

after that we spent the next two days just hanging out and taking it easy. we played games and just talked and talked. i always feel bad when people come over because we don't really have a "family room", since it's small... i decorated the main living room like a living room. as in the place where you just visit with your home teachers. not really fit for hosting friends and watching movies and whatever else. BUT i'm not complaining! i'd much rather live here than in one of our old yucky apartments.

jessica and i were definitely friends in heaven, she is soooo amazing and i just love her so much. i don't feel like i can adequately express how amazing she is through words so i'm not even going to try (especially since my vocabulary is limited due to the absence of reading in my life). i bought stuff to do friendship bracelets but then ran out of motivation for that. maybe another time? matt is so funny and has quite the sense of humor ("trudy baby, don't be such a baby!!"... IS NOT FUNNY MATT!!!). kaden said the funniest things all weekend and beckham is just a ham. one of the funny things kaden said was while he was playing in trudy's room- "mama, trudy has a little bike, and a big giraffe to play with, and a nice bed, and books for her mommy to read to her, and look at all those blankets for her! ahh, her mommy and daddy love her, they are taking such good care of her." how cute is that? what a sweetheart.

we were sad to see them go, they were a blast to have here. you can see their blog here. cutest little family. oh and jessica... don't critique my pictures okay?

i'm a mom.

2011-10-18T21:43:00.002-04:00

and it is the best. i love hanging out with her all day.

she is so funny and always making me laugh. i feel so blessed.

#4

2011-10-13T02:28:00.001-04:00

we never take myspace/facebook pictures of us anymore because we don't use our point and shoot. it's not really easy using the slr to do pics like these. so some ended up blurry or with weird angles. whatever. we had a great night at a really yummy restaurant. grant spoiled me with flowers too. and a fridge full of all my favorite treats. i bought him "scrabble slam!" i like our love now better than ever before. just feels so much more real. it's been a great four years. "love and marriage.. love and marriage... go together like a horse and carriage..." i think that is my favorite frank sinatra song. and frank sinatra now makes me think of landau eugene murphy jr. if you don't know him... you are missing out. winner of AGT this year. here is his audition.

diy anthro inspired dish towel/tea towel

2011-10-11T17:32:00.003-04:00

i've seen some diy anthro inspired tea towels around and they've inspired me to do one too. i like to keep design and decor more classic in my home. i feel like i'm always trying to tame this crazy ruffly/sparkly/glammy beast inside me. little projects like these allow me to pull out some of my favorite materials and go crazy(i knew my leopard ric-rac would work for something!). i'm acting like i went crazy with these but i really didn't. anyway i figure that as long as i keep the main things simple (curtains or rugs, couches and chairs) i can have more fun with the little details and accessorizing. i use the same concept when shopping and getting dressed. basically, i've learned with my style that i can only handle so much of anthropologie. in home decor and in fashion.

with this project, the embellishing options are endless. some of these towels i already had, other's recently came from ikea and the dollar store (red & white one). basically you can do whatever you want and create something that is practically free, homemade and more "you" versus the $18 ones at anthropologie.

the tutorial is as simple as sewing any ribbon or trim wherever you'd like. i used liquid stitch too (love that stuff). if this looks like something your interested in and you don't know where to start... i'd suggest heading to your local craft store and checking out all the ribbons and trims. there are soooo many in all different shapes and sizes. another way to come up with ideas is to actually just look at the ones at anthro. it would be easy to straight up copy some of those if you wanted! here are the ones i came up with... i'm really liking the personality they add to our kitchen.

click here to see where I've linked up.

me and her, we have fun.

2011-10-07T03:41:00.000-04:00

happy october!

2011-10-01T21:19:00.001-04:00

we are pretty excited for halloween this year. we're ready to pull out the costume box and all the fall decor! this is such a fun time of year. time to wear boots and cardigans, burn yummy smelling fall candles, easy dinners (soup), hot chocolate ... snuggling in blankets is just way more satisfying etc. kinda wish i would have gotten a bit of a tan in the summer since it's getting cold and i didn't feel i could really take advantage of the sun. oh well i guess. anyone out there a fan of self tanners? if so which ones? also i've been doing a lot of cleaning lately, what did you do with your wedding dress? random i know.

utah trip from my phone

2011-09-28T19:31:00.000-04:00

this last weekend we took a quick trip to utah for a wedding. as usual, we were able to squeeze in some time with some friends and family but not near enough. thankfully we shall return in a few weeks (and then christmas too) and hope to visit with as many people as we can. i don't know how many more 20 hour (round trip) car rides i can handle. we'd like to fly but then we always want to have a car there blah blah. anyway here are just a few pics from the trip.

things that i have to have on every trip? my instyle and camelbak.trudy has this thing where she will NEVER sit. she only wants to stand.things grant needs on every trip? headphones for listening to his audio books.

i think he'd really die without them. a highlight from the weekend? trudy meeting her uncle wesley.

rompers really are my favorite

2011-09-26T14:27:00.000-04:00

i wouldn't say the past few weeks have been very easy for me. i don't really know how to sum up all my feelings either. but life can be tricky for everyone. i've gotten in the habit of daily photo shoots with my trudy baby and they are soooo much fun. i really look forward to them. especially when she fits into something new. i am constantly going through her drawers and adding things from my hope chest (where i put all her clothes) that are bigger sizes.

she has been kind of frustrated lately... nothing really satisfying her urge to chomp on everything. any advice? because she is so young, most of the teething toys i find are too big for her mouth. we have baby orajel and the hyland's teething tablets but i feel like i shouldn't resort to those all the time. i was reading a "3 month old teething" forum the other day and one mom would get a wash rag wet with cold water and let her baby suck on that. i thought that was a great idea, i tried it and trudy looked at me like i was really dumb. she HATED the texture of a rag. anyway, not a big deal... i am just always looking for ideas to help her. she is drooling non stop and soaking everything she wears too. she is so cute though, she makes me smile so big every day.

oh and what are your favorite books to ready to your babies/kids?

at three months trudy is: (hopefully i'll make it back to the bench for month 4)

2011-09-20T03:40:00.000-04:00

totally teething. drooling everywhere. eats her hands and is never satisfied with them. talking lots. and really REALLy loud too. very efficient at eating. nuzzles her head in my neck when she's really tired. doesn't like when we put clothes over her head. likes her feet to be kissed. kinda has stinky feet.

what outside looks like

2011-09-17T16:53:00.000-04:00

i made this wreath. i'd give a tutorial but i think it's pretty self explanatory. i'm still labeling this post in the diy/tutorial category though. i had all the supplies for this in my craft collection except for the wreath. and i'm not sure that is a good or bad thing. i could spend hours walking down every aisle in hobby lobby (which eventually converts to $$$$$). no wonder it's called "creative center", it really gets my creative juices flowing. i think it kinda makes me a bad mom too because the other day that is where trudy spent her afternoon nap. in the cart. while i mosied around. i think i might (finally) post pictures of the actual rooms in our house. i'm just trying to make a cameroonian hat for a wall and then all should be good. i tried the tutorial on design sponge but it did not work (which was really sad). so we shall see how it turns out, i just love anything with texture. i do not consider myself to be a professional decorator at all, however i love making each room a place that is calm, pretty and "barnesy".

apparently i like design sponge projects... see my first wreath here. and has anyone ever noticed that twine smells EXACTLY like cow manure? like E-X-A-C-T-L-Y. as soon as i pulled it out of my box the house smelled like my grandma's farm. linked up here.

just another photo shoot with my trudy baby

2011-09-15T17:29:00.001-04:00

love this girl.

all the other kids with the pumped up kicks...

2011-09-10T21:31:00.002-04:00

Grant Posting:

So, Britt is out getting her hair cut right now, and I get to hang out with Trudy girl for a few hours. What a freakin' angel. I wanted to take a quick minute to say how awesome my girls are.

First, Britt hasn't gotten her hair cut/colored for over 7 months and hasn't complained at all. (and still looks gorgeous!) I can't wait to see what she looks like ...She may have mentioned something about red!

Second, Trudy is over 3 months old and since we have gotten home from the hospital has not once had formula. Mom works so hard to make sure she is given (as she likes to call it) "the good stuff".

Lastly, aside from winning the "Most beautiful and smiley baby I have ever seen" award (from me) Trudy is freakin' strong. I am such a proud daddy and here's a video of her, right when we brought her home from the hospital, 4 days old mind you.

in the mountains with our pioneer baby

2011-09-09T18:09:00.002-04:00

last weekend we went up in the mountains with our friends to roast hot dogs and marshmallows. feels good to take advantage of the warmer weather while we can. everyone gets so excited about fall, and i do too it's just that i think fall always goes by way too fast. and then before we know it... it's cold. and i hate cold. anyway it was so fun being with our friends and just hanging out, especially in the mountains. we brought up some ice cold IBC cream sodas and mexican coca colas and let me tell you... it doesn't get better than that.

my little cuppy cake

2011-09-08T14:36:00.000-04:00

apparently it's zion not zions

2011-09-07T04:55:00.000-04:00

a few weeks ago we went to southern utah for a family reunion with grant's family. it was a high adventure trip and very action packed. no kids were allowed except for our trudy baby. we spent a day in zion national park which included little day hikes. trudy was such a champ in the scorching hot sun. she put up with it for almost 6 hours. the next day was a high adventure canyoneering hike. it deserves it's own post. i wasn't able to go on it since trudy only drinks the good stuff. my sweet family drove down to see us trudy since we'd only be 5 hours from them instead of the normal 10. i met them and we were able to visit for a few hours while most everyone was on the hike. that night we had a game night and it was super fun. we played "minute to win it", which is really the perfect game to play for a big family. the next day we did bryce canyon. i have been to zion before but never bryce canyon. it was absolutely breathtaking. my family took trudy for most of the day (i was prepared. if ya know what i mean) so that grant and i could hike together. saturday we spent the day in kanab (trudy and i decided it was romper day and loved being twinners) because that is where grant's grandma is from. she had fun showing us around too. we were lucky to be there during their annual "kanab days" which included some artsy booths, a parade, and lots and lots of old old western actors that you could visit with. after that we went to the grand canyon. the trip went by too fast and we are looking forward to seeing all our family again soon! oh and clearly i have a hard time looking into the camera when the sun shines brightly.

at two months trudy is:

2011-09-06T14:21:00.000-04:00

growing her hair back slowly. smiling all the time. starting to coo. get's so excited to eat and freezes her whole body while eating. has the cutest little deltoid muscle. can already sit in the bumbo. loves swimming and bath time. first movie? harry potter 7. twice.

stenciled napkins

2011-08-27T01:40:00.004-04:00

we've been out of town for the last week and i'm slowly getting back on top of things. i'd probably be caught up on laundry and cleaned toilets if i wasn't distracted by trudy and her smiles. i can't help but spend hours just looking in her eyes and smiling. i think i've said this on here before but i really can't say it enough... she brings me an everlasting joy and it feels so good inside. it doesn't even compare to anything else that could bring me happiness. in fact she makes everything else seem like it's just instant gratification. does that make sense? anyway i'm trying to get a good balance of everything in my life. mommy time, wife time, cleaning time, blogging or britt time etc. i haven't read anyone's blog in forever. i feel bad too but i know i will get to it all soon. i just love being a mom. when i take trudy out and about, i can't help but talk to her. i am totally one of those moms who pushes their kid around the store in a cart and stops ever 5 seconds to say "trudy... i.....love..........YOU!!!" or "peek-a-boo!" or "bleh de bleh de BLEY duh" (don't worry about it, it's just something grant and i say when we stick our tongues out at her). she is just so cute and i can't believe she is all mine!

as usual i have lots of posts that i need to get done. especially in the project zone. we did this a few weeks ago and i love it. one day when i was browsing tj maxx, i saw some plain cream napkins. i've been wanting a very plain and neutral tablescape and i've always loved the emersonmade stenciled napkins. since we already had these stencils and paint... it was easy peasy. i'm loving all the project ideas that come from pinterest too. i think it just lights a fire of inspiration and motivation under our bums. agree? it all reminds me of one of my favorite talks, here is the mormon message from it. his words just make my heart beat fast. he is my favorite. linked up here.

blessing

2011-08-24T17:17:00.005-04:00

trudy had her blessing on sunday july 24th. we were in utah for about three days for a family reunion and figured that was the best and most convenient time. we had a smaller and more intimate setting with some family and a few close friends. my mom had always planned on making trudy's dress and so earlier on i sent her this picture. the dress turned out perfectly... i couldn't have been more pleased. trudy looked like a little angel.

unfortunately trudy was pretty fussy during the blessing. we were quite surprised because she is always pretty content. later that night we found a very sore bum and yucky diaper rash and knew that was why. poor girl. her pooh is starting to not be as liquid-y so that is good. i feel weird talking about pooh in the same post as her baby blessing. anyway we love our little trudy baby. grant did a great job and loves her so much. she is our little blessing.

p.s. i see tutorials on how to use photoshop and get rid of things like stork bites, discoloration and even veins. why would i contribute to that? does anyone else think that is silly? it's like changing my baby's appearance to make her look "perfect" already? no thank you. she is perfect the way she is. amen.

what i'm probably eating for dinner

2011-08-08T18:58:00.000-04:00

i never blogged about my b-day 3 months ago

2011-08-07T16:03:00.001-04:00

grant gave me the funnest birthday and i forgot to post about it. it may be hard to believe but here in albuquerque we have the longest tramway in the world. we've wanted to go since we moved here and my birthday was the perfect opportunity. grant surprised me and planned it out perfectly so that we would be at the very tip top at sunset. it was beautiful. a little too windy but still beautiful. i love seeing these pictures of the baby bump. i can't believe that was our sweet little trudy.. just hanging out in my tummy! sometimes i really miss that bump. it was so fun feeling her inside me. after the tram we went to a very yummy italian place in nob hill and ended the night at walmart. walking down all the aisles because i would get so uncomfortable sitting or laying down and i just liked walking around. it was my exercise too. it was a really fun night.

paradisiacal- a place of ideal beauty or loveliness

2011-08-02T17:51:00.007-04:00

i think i visit T.J. Maxx or Marshall's about once a week. it is for sure my favorite thing to do. i don't understand why people don't give these stores a chance, even if you do have to do some searching. i happen to love searching for treasures. shopping really is therapeutic, agree? so for anyone out there who doesn't see why they should shop at these fabulous off-price companies then this post is for you.

things you may not know...

people get a little confused about the merchandise that is sold at these kind of stores. here are the actual facts: you might see the same merchandise at T.J. Maxx and Macy's on the same day but with a SIGNIFICANT price difference. T.J. Maxx is an off-price buyer, which means that they benefit from ordering mistakes made by mainstream retailers. but not the mistakes that you are thinking of. usually it is because of over-production. so if a vendor has enough fabric to make 600,000 blouses but a department store only ordered 500,000, off-price buyers will purchase that extra 100,000 blouses. it doesn't necessarily mean that T.J. Maxx's inventory is from last season either. they actually promise that at least 85 percent of it is in the season. also, T.J. Maxx (whose parent company owns Marshalls and Home Goods) is the largest off-price retailer in the U.S. and competes closely with Ross and Big Lots. AND the buyers for T.J. Maxx only look for merchandise that can sell for up to 60 percent less than what the department stores sell it for. if that doesn't make you wanna jump up and go shop... i don't know what would! here are just some of my latest finds.

Latte Bowls: 4 for $4.99

they look identical to the famous anthropologie ones right? except at anthro you get 6 for $30.
so that is $5 each. compared to my just-over-a-dollar bowls? helllooooooooooooooooo?

Sugared Citrus Hand Wash

i think this was $4.99. i'd never seen it before, all i know is that it smells like orange sherbet
and must have come straight from heaven. actually grant told me that he doesn't like it because it makes him hungry.

DDF Sulfur Therapeutic Mask $16.99

i almost peed my pants when i saw this. (really i almost did, i had to go so bad and i HATE having to go when i shop). reasons why i put it in my cart immediately: i'd already been planning on buying this at sephora. during my pregnancy i started SERIOUSLY researching beauty products, from skincare to makeup to body lotion. the reviews i've read on this mask are great, you can read them here if you are interested. the normal retail price for this baby is a whopping $38! so to find it for less than half the price? plus i heard that sephora will not be selling DDF anymore. score!

Set of 5 cute headbands: $2.99

i'm not really a headband wearer but these had me kinda re-thinking that.

Pride & Prejudice Penguin Classic Hardcover $12.99

to buy this book anywhere else you'll be paying $20. it's so pretty in real life.
it's like the perfect mustard color.

i also just found a ralph lauren dress and a marc by marc jacobs swimsuit.
both were less than half of the original price. does anyone else have some good finds?

hope i inspired someone to go treasure hunting... good luck!

she's basically my idol. n.b.d.

2011-08-01T00:04:00.004-04:00

names are hard. you can have favorites all growing up but then when you actually have to pick one and then write it down to make it official... it's serious business. i think secretly "trudy" was probably my favorite name on our list. but then we did really have some other cute ones too and hopefully we'll be able to use them some day. typically when your throwing out names that you might possibly use for your child, if you know anyone with that particular name... you think of that person. and that can be a good or bad thing. this picture below is of my dear sweet friend trudy. we were ambassadors at snow college together and i loved her the moment i met her. i remember thinking that she had the cutest name in the world. but after getting to know her, i think i ended up liking her and her personality even more. i don't really feel i can put into words how i feel about her. especially without sounding like a lesbian. but basically she is someone that i want to be just like. she smiles at everyone, no matter where she is. she is very smart and can take in a lot of information at once. a great listener too. she is extreeeemely thoughtful and very selfless. anyone who knows her would most likely say the same things. everybody loves her, i mean she really is everyone's favorite. long ago when i thought of naming a girl trudy (was not pregnant at the time) i wanted to run it by her to see what she thought. since we both hit the baby hungry phase at the same time, we would talk names constantly. i remember the conversation exactly...

me: "wanna know what name i think is super cute, a little old fashioned and not very popular?"
trudy: being VERY concerned and wanting to know really bad... "WHAT?!?!"
me: "trudy"
trudy: "oh my gosh, I KNOW!"

can you see why i love her so much?

both grant and i feel we would be the luckiest parents if our daughter grew up to be like her auntie trudy. oh and trudy... did you see how many people love your name?

the shop is re-opening!

2011-07-20T04:47:00.001-04:00

see here.

trudy & friends

2011-07-14T03:11:00.000-04:00

i thought i should post up some pictures from all the family that came and stayed with us. trudy bear has quite the fan club. she really knows how to make everyone smile too. she already looks so different from these pictures:( i don't want her to grow anymore!

the dress and our big feet.

2011-07-11T21:00:00.005-04:00

before trudy was born i made her this dress out of some vintage pillowcases. i cut out the silhouette (sleeveless with a scalloped edge on the bottom) and cut out what i wanted to be on the front. after sewing the dress, i handed it over to my mom and her out-of-this-world sewing machine and had her work her magic on the front of the dress. how awesome would it be to be a designer? i mean i would have no problem thinking up fun things in my head and then telling someone what to do. anyway yesterday, i held the dress up to another newborn dress that she has worn and they looked about the same size. sadly when we put it on her, it still drowned her... but i decided i had waited long enough and just wanted her to wear it. so she wore it to church. and even though it was falling off her all day... she looked pretty dang cute. it's just too bad she got my feet and couldn't wear a pair of gold ballet flats i found the other day. funny how she only fits in newborn size clothes but not newborn size shoes..... story of my life.

oh and i forgot to mention my inspiration for this dress. go here to see the cutest dress in the whole wide world. it's so adorable it hurts my heart when i look at it. i've also linked up trudy's dress to sugar bee crafts, creative itch, tip junkie.

isotopes on the fourth

2011-07-11T20:32:00.000-04:00

we went to an isotopes game on the fourth of july with our friends. afterwards there were lots and lots of pretty fireworks, but grant and i weren't enjoying them like usual because we were busy plugging trudy's ears and making sure she wouldn't go deaf. she did so good and we had lots of fun. i love baseball games. it was the perfect place to spend the fourth of july. minus the smokers.

at one month trudy is:

2011-07-06T04:30:00.000-04:00

losing her hair and looking like a little old man, holding her head up like a champ, rolling over almost every time we put her on her tummy, keeping me really busy in the laundry room, eating more and more every day, starting to follow us with her eyes,

smiling when she falls asleep

trudyliscious, trudiful, trudles, trudy bug, trudy baby, trudy bear

2011-07-04T02:20:00.000-04:00

been taking a break for pretty much the whole month of june. i love being a mommy. thank you so much for all the sweet comments. everyone has been so kind and thoughtful. we have had lots and lots of company all month and it's been so fun. hope everyone is having a great summer. trudy is a month old now and i can't believe it! still little and only wearing newborn size. she is so precious.

trudy's nursery

2011-06-26T23:37:00.005-04:00

i haven't posted forever and i really wanted to post the nursery tonight. so i hurried and snapped a bunch of pictures as the sun was going down and didn't have enough time to take as many as i wanted. so maybe i'll just add some more pictures to this post later on. a lot of things that are in the room are things that we have collected over the past few years. a few important details: we made the pelmet board out of a vintage table cloth i found, i sewed the polka dotted fitted sheet (and another one that is tan and white striped) (yay me!), my mom knew i wanted a bumper pad out of that fabulous gold stuff and surprised me with it, grant spotted that sweet old tricycle at an antique shop a few years ago and after sitting in storage forever... we finally got to pull it out and last but not least, that is my sweet winnie hanging out in the crib! oh and our dresser tutorial is here. i loved finding things for her room and i'm happy with the turn out... however, who knows when i'll let her leave my side and actually sleep in here!

trudy's nursery has been revealed at hope studios, tip junkie and sugar bee crafts.

birth story

2011-06-17T19:49:00.004-04:00

i'm feeling this weird pressure to keep this story all peaches and cream and edit out quite a bit. mainly because nothing really went the way i imagined. and while i'm so full of gratitude for our trudy (and the huge blessing that she is healthy), i am a bit frustrated at how things panned out. i just don't want to sound whiney or complainy. with all the reading and talking about birth stories i did and then even watching many deliveries (on tv or online) (i know i'm weird)... i thought i was prepared with the fact that all deliveries are completely unpredictable and anything can happen. but now i think that there just wasn't a way for me to truly prepare.

it all started on wednesday june 1st. i woke up around 6 am with contractions coming fairly consistent. luckily i had my 39 week appt that same day around 1 pm. at my appt my midwife told me i was 50-60% effaced and dialated to a 2. she asked me if i wanted her to strip my membranes to which i replied a big YES because i figured that since my contractions had already started.... we should just get the show on the road. after she did that really fun rigorous exam, we left and in no time my contractions were 2-3 minutes apart. with having pretty horrible periods over the years and then a miscarriage last year... i knew this kind of pain. i can think of a handful of periods that i had where i couldn't do anything to ease the pain. no medicine worked and i just had to moan and moan for hours. my miscarriage last year, according to my doctor was a "mini labor". and man oh man, there is just no way to describe that kind of pain.

i was kind of getting stressed out because the house was not up to my cleaning standard and if i was going to have a baby anytime soon... that meant that my family would be at our house in less than 24 hours. i wanted it to be so perfect and pretty because... well.. i'm just so proud of it. we are so proud of it. we have no family here and so nobody had seen what we've made with our home. for the next four hours my contractions started really intensifying. it seems like most stories begin with contractions happening every 10 minutes and then 8 and then 5 or whatever. ya know? well i remember telling the nurses later that night that if i just could have had contractions farther apart (as opposed to every 2 minutes) i could have gotten so much more done every 7 minutes! but i just felt like i had 30 seconds to pick this or that up before another one would come. it was really frustrating. the midwife told grant to push on my lower back to apply counter pressure to help ease pain during a contraction, so we would split up and i would make the bed and he would switch the laundry and i would be yelling "GRANT!!!!!!!" every minute or so before he would run in and push against my back with all his might. with not wanting to go to the hospital and be sent home, we did this for four hours. by the time we got to the hospital, i was dying. unfortunately i was not impressed with how we were treated at all. there was no room in triage so we waited and waited. then when we finally got a room we waited another 2 hours before i was checked. this entire time my contractions were so horrible and only getting worse. none of the nurses were friendly and it just didn't make anything any easier, we were just left alone and needless to say... not very happy. finally when the midwife on duty came in to check me, i wasn't dialated enough and so she gave me two options. they were to either stay at the hospital, walk around and have them check me again in 2 hours (NO WAY I COULD HAVE DONE THAT. EVER. EVER.) or get a shot of morphine, go home, sleep and hopefully wake up in active labor and come back. of course i chose to get the morphine. the nurse practically promised me that the dose she gave me would definitely take care of the pain and that i would be in heaven within 15 minutes. she was wrong. dead wrong. morphine did absolutely nothing for me. we went home and stayed there for another 3 hours. then we decided that we both had had enough and went back. before the midwife could even check me, i threw up everywhere. a lot. she checked me and i was at a 3. then they gave me a room. with some more suffering and some IV fluids, 1:30 a.m. came and so did the anesthesiologist. grant had to leave the room due to the new epidural rules. she hit a blood vessel the first time and had to poke me twice. and then heaven. heaven heaven and heaven came. here is a little video of when i finally felt relief. i am a little bit out of it...

the next part i'm just copying straight from grant's journal because it was just all a big blur.

6/2/11

hours went by and britt was able to relax and rest a little. not really sleep (too many tubes, monitors, beeping, nurses, and blood pressure cuffs). come morning she had progressed to a 7, we were amazed! we all were prepping to have a bouncing baby by noon. meanwhile britt's family left orem around 6:30 am. i had the feeling they would come meet their granddaughter when she was 4-5 hours old. noon came and britt was a 7-8. not getting to a 9 for another couple hours. those hours from 7am on were fraught with epidural weening off and britt in bad pain for 30-40 mins till the anesthesiologist would come and give britt something to smile about. because it was taking so long for her to progress, the midwife broke her water and then a little while later... also gave her pitocin. everyone was getting a little concerned at this point, the baby had a bowel movement in utero, britt now had a fever and the baby's heart rate was very high. about the time the epidural was wearing off, the anesthesiologist was in an emergency c-section and couldn't come "top off" britt... she was fully dilated! while the nurse made a call or two for more drugs, jennifer (our midwife) informed us that there would probably be no help on the way and that it was pushing time. i could feel britt's apprehension but i must say that so far BRITTANY HAD DONE SO PERFECTLY! i told her so many times during hard contractions how proud i am of her. she really is my hero- she is so strong.

things got so so painful for britt as the last of her drugs wore off and as the baby lowered. she just grabbed her legs and pushed through each contraction- i knew she was in so so much pain and it crushed me so badly that i couldn't do anything to help. she had pushed for so long now without much visual progress and just pain. when jennifer pointed out that we could see the baby's head... i was so excited but britt was (and had to be) in a bit of her own world in order to deal with the pain. i didn't get/expect much of a response from her. she was excited, i know it. but also scared and dying in pain. next the baby's hair could be seen- so exciting. each contraction would come and the nurse would grab one leg, i'd grab the other and britt would grab behind her knees and push like hell. front row seats for what was the most miraculous show on the planet. p.s. britt's parents were on their way and because she was at a 9 for so long, with each hour that passed, the glimmer that they would be here became larger and larger. i thought they had no chance of making it but it was definitely getting closer.

time crept on as britt was superwoman and pushed and pushed regardless of EVERYTHING in her wanting to just die. i was so incredibly proud of her, i hated HATED seeing her in more pain than ever before and i couldn't help but admire her and love her so much. the jones family was an hour away when i could see baby's hair and i thought "no way". as britt kept pushing, i soon was able to see the top of her head. i remember thinking how tiny it seemed and how excited i was. her head would come down and back with each push- little by little it crept down the birth canal- to the absolute agony of britt. i could not believe what was happening. she was actually coming. britt's fam was getting off the freeway and would be here in a few mins. for the last 10 mins or so it seemed that on the next push she could pop out. maria (britt's mom) popped her head in during one of the last horrific pushes before the end. i, at the request of britt, asked her to just wait in the waiting room. it was just too crazy to jump into that horror movie mid climax. two contractions later and after extraordinary effort on britt's part, baby's little head popped out. i distinctly remember her skin color being pale and darker than i expected. since she had a bowel movement in utero she had a greenish hue due to the meconium. we were told, sadly, that because of britt's fever, baby's increased heart rate and the meconium, that she would be taken to the NICU for an automatic precautionary 48 hour period where they would administer proactive antibiotics and do blood tests while monitoring her closely. we were told they would take her right after she was born. that made us so sad. everyone reassured us that it totally seemed that she would be 100% okay and that these were just precautions but we were still so bummed. not necessarily because we were afraid she wasn't okay, we both really felt she would be okay, it was mainly that she would be taken immediately and then for the next 2 days we wouldn't have her in our own room and we would have to go visit her in the NICU. back to baby... i also will never forget how lethargic she looked. as i mentioned, we both had a feeling she was going to be totally healthy but this was actually a bit unnerving. she looked almost drugged and her eyes were open and were moving so slowly and almost rolling back into her head. and not crying. jennifer (midwife) and nurse were hoping to bypass NICU protocol for the baby and instead of instantly letting the dr take her, she wanted to let me cut the umbilical chord and then place baby on momma for a few mins prior to them taking her. that was the plan but when she came out looking so exhausted and not crying... plans changed. she apologized to me as she quickly cut the chord and then passed off our little girl to the docs. i was both nervous for our new baby and concerned for my dear sweet wife who had just gone through the most painful and arduous experience she had ever had. i stayed with britt trying to console her while tearfully expressing my utter joy at baby's arrival. britt was still in her "dealing with the pain of labor & delivery zone" so she wasn't quite able to just let go and share in the joy at that particular moment with me. especially because she couldn't hold or even (at her angle) see her new baby. not long passed and continuously emotional, i and the docs noticed that our little girl was pink and moving. this helped to confirm our hopes of her being healthy.

after they suctioned all traces of meconium from her mouth, nose & face and cleaned her up a bit, i was able to go over and meet our new little angel. she is perfect. absolute perfection. i took a quick video and talked to her briefly then went to show mom and make sure she could see baby from where she was still sprawled on the delivery bed recovering from the agony of delivery while not letting her defences down so as to be prepared for the delivery of afterbirth still to come. she is so smart and amazing. after the initial craziness died down, i went out to the waiting room and informed the jones family that mom and baby were fine and reported how well britt did and showed pictures/video of our angel. they were so thrilled. when i went back in britt was still on the bed pushing, a sight that after the last number of hours both her and i are ready to not see for a long time. i went to hold her hand and help her through it. it must have been horribly painful- the midwife was struggling to get it to release so when all was said and done, her entire hand to the wrist was inside my wife and then making a fist and coming back out. that happened a few times. i was way shocked, it looked so painful. britt later confirmed (not that i needed her to) that it was. FINALLy britt got to hold little baby girl (still no name). i was elated. i snapped a few pictures of the big moment. at this time of joy, jennifer had begun sewing up the many small tears that britt had suffered during the ordeal. we were told we'd probably get 30 mins with baby before NICU would come for her but not even 5 minutes went by before a lady came with a cart asking for her. we were so sad. baby girl was already searching for something to latch onto so we made the plea that she was hungry and to let mom feed her. hesitantly, she agreed. what i have learned so far from pregnancy, labor and delivery is that it is one form of absolute HELL after another. britt has always been really scared of breast feeding due to her extremely sensitive skin but has always insisted that she would do it regardless of the pain because of how important we feel it is. her first experience with it exceeded her expectations... in a bad way. after just a short feeding, on one side blood blisters had formed and she was once again enduring agony. even though it seemed like britt wasn't even in pain and just enjoying our baby. after that most unpleasant ordeal, they took baby away to the NICU. britt, who had torn quite a bit during labor, finished getting sutured up. (end of journal entry)

the NICU is a sad place. NO ONE wants to be in there. the nurses were right, our baby girl did stick out there because she wasn't 4 1/2 pounds or a crack baby. we absolutely abhored the idea that she couldn't stay with us. as we went back to our room we marveled at the miraculous events of the past day. not even 24 hours later they moved our baby girl up to a newborn nursery on our same floor. still considered a part of NICU but much less critical. we were thrilled. this meant that she would only be down the hall from us. we spent the next two days in and out of the nursery for feedings and figuring out a name for our little sweetie pie. we had a list of names that we loved and constantly discussed through out my pregnancy. i feel like explaining why we chose the name "trudy" in another post. as far as her middle name... no the name "emerson" is not in either of our families (at least not that we know of). we both liked the idea of a more boyish name for the middle name since "trudy" is so girly. plus i liked the sound of the 2-3-1 syllable pattern. tru-dy e-mer-son barnes. we were both discharged on saturday (june 4th) and eager to get home.

as i look back now, i always think of the moment when she came out. and i guess that is what is so disappointing for me. because i was so checked out (due to pain), i never got to really marvel at what was actually happening. it was almost like i didn't know what was happening. i'd be lying if i didn't say that i wished she could have been placed on my chest right after her birth. i wasn't able to hold her for almost 40 minutes and that felt like forever. i guess i just didn't know how important those first bonding moments were to me. while these things do make me sad, it's not like i'm pondering them every day and wishing i could go back. there is nothing i can do about it now. as i finish this huge longest ever post, trudy lies here next to me so peacefully. i'm so grateful to finally have her in my arms. i am amazed at how healthy she is and i love this new chapter of life that is taking over. recovery is not fun. at all. but i am filled with everlasting joy when i look at trudy's sweet face. i'm grateful to god for trusting me to raise her and i'm determined to do my best.

trudles

2011-06-13T03:59:00.000-04:00

not really ready to sit down and think about all the events that lead to the arrival of our little miss trudy. it was quite the adventure and i don't even know what happened anyway. i do plan to write the birth story soon, but for now all i know is that we've never been happier and can't get enough of trudy emerson. and that her silly faces make my little brothers laugh really hard. she is very active and impressing everyone with her muscles, particularly her back and neck muscles... she rolled over on her 3rd day?!?

2011-06-04T02:38:00.000-04:00

dresser before & after

2011-05-31T15:50:00.001-04:00

time for a project reveal! since our nursery is quite small, i wanted to get a dresser and use it for the changing table too. we found this dresser on craigslist for $30 earlier this year. i have always been inspired by kate's credenza and really wanted to create something similar. i felt like i needed to choose a girly paint color like pink, purple or even a seafoam green. but when it came down to it... i just had to go with navy. it's my favorite color. i hoped that small details on the dresser would give it some femininity since i was choosing a color that was more fit for a boys nursery.

kate also has a post on how to paint wood furniture the right way. i love that she takes the time to do posts like that, they are so helpful. after we painted our dresser and drawers with two coats of primer, we drew out the design we wanted to paint on the top on some practice cardboard. then we measured, drew and taped down that design on the top.

painting was tricky. we did multiple coats of navy. since we knew we were supposed to remove the tape while it was still wet, we made sure to do that. however we removed the tape while it was still wet on it's third coat. if we could go back and do it again we would remove the tape after only one coat, then let it dry, then re-tape and paint again. this is because even though we were SO careful in following instructions and even bought the "edge proof" tape... the navy still bled into the white. which was VERY FRUSTRATING. because then we had to go around with teeny weeny paintbrushes and touch up the entire thing. it took a long time and was my least favorite part.

after looking at the dresser and knowing the end was near, we decided we wanted a little bit more white somewhere else on the dresser. so we taped again! this time we taped around the middle for a sweet little surprise.

after letting that dry. we did two coats of lacquer high gloss to make it as shiny as possible :) we put the new knobs on and brought it in! it feels SO good to be done with this project and i'm hoping that this little dresser lasts a long time with all the effort we put into it. i just finished filling the drawers with adorable outfits and i loved every minute! oh and because the details are the most important part... i added a fun surprise inside the drawers!

to see where it's linked up click here.

and he's all mine

2011-05-27T01:24:00.000-04:00

a few years ago, on a saturday morning, i was getting ready for a friend's baby shower. i started complaining about my eyeliner because it had basically dried out and was really bothering my very sensitive eyes. being that it was my own fault (since i frequently leave the cap off) i was even more frustrated. grant felt bad, gave me a hug and kiss and sent me off. later when i got home that afternoon, i had more plans and decided to freshen up my makeup. i opened my eyeliner to find a fresh new tub! then i noticed that it said "i ♥ u" in the lid. my honey bunches of oats had ran to the mall and bought me a brand new one. it meant so much to me. i remember i couldn't stop smiling. how does he just think to do stuff like that? man oh man I LOVE HIM. i haven't been able to throw it away and so whenever i go through my makeup i just decide to keep it. funny how i've been keeping old eyeliner for sentimental purposes. i decided that if i wrote the story down... then i could let go of it.

also when grant came home later he made me promise that if i left the cap off the new one then i had to use the old crumbly owie one. that is the practical side of my really romantic husband. :)

so fresh and so clean.. uh

2011-05-19T02:25:00.001-04:00

a collection of the flowers we've had in the house over the past month or so. wish i really knew how to edit so i could make these pictures look as pretty as they do in real life. oh well. it's easy to have fresh flowers in your house at all times when you grow them in your yard! it makes me SO happy. we have rose bushes everywhere that are blooming all over the place. so the yellow and pink roses up above are from our yard. we even have purple ones that smell uh-mazing. all the other flowers were purchased at trader joe's. best place for flowers. why? because they are so cheap! flowers are the perfect pick-me-up too. i can usually find some i like for under $5. putting flowers in our main room is so fulfilling, it just polishes everything and adds so much beauty. plus nate berkus says to have something natural/living in every room of your house. for anyone that doesn't have a trader joe's, i've found cheap flowers on clearance at walmart too. so go get some. put them in vase and then place them wherever you heart desires.

p.s. for anyone that asked about our fancy drapes, you can read about them in our tutorial here. new projects coming soon!

p.p.s. i realized that i never said which onesie grant helped sew a few posts ago. he did the grey polka dotted square. see it again here. and thank you friends for the sleeping/baby advice. we planned on using a pack & play (still need to get) or a moses basket that i found a while back. the moses basket would sit all the way down on the floor and our bed is high so i wasn't really liking that idea. i don't think i'd mind the nap nanny but i'm wondering if that may be too big for our queen bed......? i'll figure it out! can't wait to show off the nursery soon... we're almost done.

what a druzy

2011-05-14T04:36:00.006-04:00

ever since going to the natural history museum in dc a few years back, i have had a love for rocks and stones. especially pyrite. this beauty is what grant gave me for my birthday this year. it's perfect and just the way i like it. i love how raw and rough it is. plus it has just the right amount of sparkle. do you have a favorite gemstone?

blogger has been frustrating this week. agree? i hope we can get the comments back from the last few posts because i really wanted grant to see all the compliments on the table. but i'm sure those behind blogger are doing what they can.

i am just a day away from being full term (37 weeks) and definitely already googling ways to go into labor. i am just at the point that every one talks about. feeling uncomfortable and huge. i'm still nauseous and wondering if it will truly go away after delivery. i know it will but i just don't remember what it's like to feel normal.

this little girl inside me is so active that sometimes i just want to cry. i can only imagine how uncomfortable she is but her poking and kicking and whatever else isn't really fun to feel at this point. sometimes when she is going crazy in there, i get mad at grant because i feel like it's his fault. i mean it is his daughter.

i have a question for mothers out there, what did your baby sleep in before transferring to a crib? in those first few months? and does anyone have any advice for me? since i am about to have one of the most amazing/crazy/painful and beautiful experiences of my life?

oh and my list of things to do before she comes? we're down to 30 things now.

back to jewelry, i love alyson brown's taste. her love for classics, clean lines and naturalness in jewelry helps me to realize how beautiful the simplest pieces can be. here is a good example.

still wasting lots and lots of time on my pinterest. IT IS SO MUCH FUN!!!

choose the cover for rolling stone magazine

2011-05-12T03:16:00.000-04:00

Rolling Stone Magazine is having a battle of the bands contest where the winner will be on the cover. they picked 18 up-and-coming bands from across the country and based on the number of votes, half the bands get eliminated with each round. our favorite band from provo, ut, fictionist, is in the FINAL FOUR. this round ends tomorrow so everyone please click 5 stars where it says "rate this artist" on the widget below!!! that's all you have to do to vote, it's very easy and will only take 2 seconds.

the winner will also be on the Jimmy Fallon show which is cool but a band being on the cover of the biggest music magazine in the country could be life altering for these guys! we want to support them as much as we can because of jacob and grant being friends, they're an lds band from utah, but most of all because we absolutely love their music. they are each phenomenal musicians and creative too. i love watching them to see what crazy instrument they'll pull out next and how they'll play it. i'm not really a band going type person (i don't like standing for very long because i'm a wimp), but they captivated me from the first time we saw them and each song always has me hooked. the singer (maxfield) has a great voice. you can see and listen to them in their latest video here.

p.s. jacob (the redhead who rocks the keyboard) and grant grew up in california

together and he found a photo of them as kids. see if you can pick them out.

p.p.s. one of my favorites...

the table

2011-05-11T04:23:00.010-04:00

we found our reclaimed wood off craigslist in the east mountains of albuquerque. we had a limited quantity with all different lengths and thicknesses. grant laid out all the wood and without any instructions, designed our table 100% from scratch. including the idea of putting our rusted hardware on the outside of the table. i am still amazed at how he pulled it all together. there were so many little obstacles he dealt with because every board was so different. because the wood was probably milled near one hundred years ago, each piece bowed in different directions... some had knots that required sanding the underneath just to make it so that they all laid flat. so much work went into each board. each piece has so much character.
one big concern was making sure that the table was sturdy, especially since the wood cracked so easily because of being so old. grant pulled some tricks here and there and by the time we flipped the table over... we just laughed because it was SOOOO heavy and definitely DEFINITELY stable. :) he had to call a friend to help load it into the house from the garage, i could barely lift it from the ground.
we are buying a clear vinyl tablecloth to put over the table for meals. people always ask about getting slivers. we didn't want to sand the boards down because that would take away from all the reasons we bought this type of wood in the first place (color & texture). those flowers are from my birthday (aren't they so pretty? and ginormous?!) i'm so excited to have this table for the coming years. and i think the best part is that it was built by grant. makes it so meaningful. i love to just sit and look at it.

this post was linked up to multiple link parties but with all the errors that went on, they were erased.

so now i don't remember which ones i chose!

this table has been featured here:

rusting the hardware

2011-05-07T03:02:00.005-04:00

i think i've mentioned on here before that grant and i have always wanted to make a barnwood table. we've been obsessed with antiqued/weathered wood forever, it's that gray color mixed with the raw-ness of the wood that has us so attached. we've actually been done with the table for a few months now but we're just now getting around to posting it. anyway so when we went to buy all the hardware, we realized that we couldn't be adding shiny silver brackets and bolts to an old antique table.... i mean that would just be silly! so grant did all this research on rusting hardware and then rusted every little nut and bolt that we used. ya... kind of a process. and i'm not even talking about how hard it was for him to make the table. buying old wood is not like buying new wood. maybe he can explain later how hard it truly was. either way... we have a beautiful table now! :) here is a little video on how to antique hardware. the last part is the best "full reveal of the table... coming soon!" dun dun dun.

we've linked this up to a few parties...
funky junk interiors
chic on a shoestring
craft envy
tatertots and jello
a vision to remember
at the picket fence
flamingo toes
diy showoff

grandma's annual easter egg hunt

2011-05-05T01:20:00.002-04:00

gosh we are behind on posts. one month left til the due date and i should probably be posting something every day until then. lots to catch up on. easter weekend we spent in utah. i had two baby showers for family and friends and it was so fun to see everyone. i wish we could have stayed longer. we happened to be there for my grandma's annual easter egg hunt and i was SO happy about that. in the past, grant has always had something else on that day so this was his first time going. cousins or uncles have borrowed grant's costume in past years so this year grant was finally able to be the easter bunny himself!

the kids were hilarious. some of them loved him.... others weren't so sure. and i don't really blame them. his face creeps me out too. our favorite lines from the kids were "MOM, did you know that the easter bunny is actually a HUMAN! I saw his neck!!!", "uuuuuummmmm easter bunny? but i didn't know you talked?!?".

dodger spring training

2011-04-20T03:01:00.004-04:00

back in march we spent a weekend in phoenix for spring training. it just so happens that leisa's fiance, paul, is a huge dodgers fan. naturally when we got married a few years ago, my dad and paul were instant friends. so my family (dad, mom, spencer, mckay & cameron) and some of grant's family (leisa, paul & luke) all met in arizona and had a fabulous weekend together. my only complaint is that it was way too short of a trip! i hope we can make it a yearly tradition. especially because next year we could have a little girl decked out in pink dodger gear stealing all the attention away from the team.

custom drapes tutorial

2011-04-16T20:26:00.006-04:00

so in our living/dining area we have some sliding doors. i had been trying to find some drapes to go there and was getting pretty discouraged. i didn't want anything too trendy because... well i just didn't. i wanted a pattern that i could look at forever and always love, not something that is just cool for right now. with all the rustic and masculine details around the area, i felt we really needed a floral pattern. in the beginning i just wanted some plain white drapes with black stripes. sounds easy enough to find right? no. not at all. drapes are hard because you can either buy custom ones that cost a pretty penny, or you can find some that are trendy and cheap at stores like world market, target or home goods. but even those stores didn't have that. there was a time a few months back where you could show me any drape (from a typical chain store) and i could tell you exactly how much it was and where it was from. i did so much research. so i started off with an ikat pattern from burlington coat factory. they were yellow and gray and were a great deal. i came home, put them up and then sat on the couch. and stared. and then felt unsatisfied. i did this with 8 different drapes. i was smart and always kept the receipt and packaging though. i had a routine down. i would let each of them hang for a day and then i'd return them. by the time i got to the 8th pair, i was so done with looking for drapes that i threw all the packaging away and told myself to just be happy. they weren't cheap but were quality. and what pattern did i go with? plain white. which made the room feel totally boring.

a few weeks later, my sweet bf jess came down to visit. we were doing some shopping at marshall's when we noticed a really cute and classic floral pattern... in the form of a duvet cover. can you guess what was on the fabric? yes, big beautiful red flowers. grant came in to check out my cart (i guess we like making decisions together... i mean it's our house not mine). and then we came home with the duvet hoping we could figure something out. here is what we did-

step 1: we ripped the duvet straight down the middle. took the left plain white drape and laid it on the ground. then we spread out one of the duvet sides on top of that drape.

step 2: we placed it exactly where we wanted it and then pinned it down. we were OCD about straightening the fabric because we didn't want any air pockets between the drape and duvet cover. and by OCD i mean straightening it like every 20 seconds.

step 3: pin all four sides

step 4: sew it all! way easier than i thought it would be. it's just sewing 4 big straight lines.

step 5: do the same thing for the other drape. we made sure and lined up the pattern just how we did with the first drape so that when they hung next to each other they would be fairly symmetrical.

half way done...

this was not the cheapest way to do it, however they look great and i love them.
i'd give a better end shot but i can't have the table show because that's another post!

this tutorial is linked here: (go check out all the fun projects!)

between naps on the porch

its so very cheri

i'm a pinterest addict

2011-04-14T01:40:00.000-04:00

i didn't want to make the switch from tumblr to pinterest but... i did. i love being able to categorize and have different boards. i've been wasting a lot of time on here but it's just so much fun! here's my link, i'm also adding it to my updated contact info. everyone should join! you won't regret it.

the toys

2011-04-12T05:29:00.003-04:00

i don't know why grant has to be better than me at everything. well almost everything. actually it's more patience than anything else. i don't like crafts that take a long time. when i sewed those stuffed pyramids, i didn't even measure the triangles to make sure they were all the same size. and then i ended up sewing one of them half way inside out. ha. grant on the other hand makes those beautiful teething rings that are sanded to perfection. they take him forever too. but it all works out in the end, and really it's pry a good thing. i think we do rub off on each other a bit. i mean, what if we were both perfectionists? or both extremely impatient? it guess it keeps things more interesting. i really should remember all this positivity i'm having right now. especially when i watch him measure something 50 times.

31 weeks and 4 days

2011-04-08T03:21:00.003-04:00

let's just say that you really gotta work your angles when you're pregnant. grant and i kinda went crazy taking pictures yesterday, hoping it would make up for our lack of picture taking. we took a million and i'm satisfied with like .... 2? maybe. i changed my outfit three times to add a little variety. by the time we were done i felt like i had ran a marathon.

i do wish i could have pictures of my mom pregnant with me. one of my FAVORITE movies is "the family stone", have you seen it? i watch it as much as possible every christmas. the picture that everyone gets of pregnant sybil (diane keaton), is so beautiful. i get teary eyed every time i watch them all open it. i'm such a baby.

i don't even know what this post is about. so now i'm going to bed.

they're on drapes, wall hangings, the doormat and canvas

2011-04-05T22:12:00.013-04:00

my grandma loves roses. i'm not sure if the love is for actual real roses though, especially closed buds. it seems that the love and obsession is for open roses. big open roses. my mom has the same love too. it's like anything with a rose print just tugs at their hearts. and lucky me, i love them too! i painted the one above. i was thinking about how many roses or just red flowers there are around our house and it made me really miss both my mom and my grandma. i wish they could come and see all of them. i wish they could just come on over and we could eat yummy food and watch some westerns. like true grit (which i loved by the way, jeff bridges did a great job... i'm not sure who else could attempt to live up to john wayne). living away has not been hard for me at all these past few years. i have thoroughly enjoyed living in new places and learning different cultures etc. but now that i am so close to bringing another person into our family, i really miss mine.

anyway one of my friends told me about the rug company "dash and albert". as soon as i checked out their collection i fell in love with the rug below. that was over three years ago. i just never wanted to put that beautiful piece in an ugly apartment. i've had the rug as my background on my phone forever. it's just so perfect! i feel so lucky to finally own it. it makes me smile every time i come in the front door.

oh and the "B" is for barnes. just wanted to clarify that for shalynna. she once thought a different "B" in our house was for brittany. i was really embarrassed. i would never do that!

a real baby will wear these. ah!

2011-04-03T23:09:00.001-04:00

a while ago i had the idea to embellish these onesies with grant. i figured it would be a good activity for us (especially since our alone time will soon be limited) and help to make everything feel more real. grant was happy to help out and it was really fun to be creative. are we really going to be parents in a few months? weird.

can you guess which one he sewed?

meet some of her first friends

2011-03-28T18:08:00.004-04:00

the nursery has been coming along. we are working on her dresser now, we've done quite a bit ourselves. when i first found out it was a girl i was slightly worried about the nursery because i have been collecting animal things for an animal theme (for a boy). i checked to see when i ordered those sharon montrose prints and found that i made that purchase over a year ago! anyway i didn't put anything away, i'm still using all of it and just adding some girly details here and there. like this banner. who hasn't fallen in love with everything from confetti system? i love them. i knew i could recreate something similar. it may not look like the exact same thing but either way i'm happy with it. and it was pretty easy. i have a feeling i'll be making LOTS more.

i wanted to make a lot of things myself and i'm doing pretty good so far. i've made two fitted sheets, half of a dress, stuffed pyramids and cubes and some hair pins. i did some embellishing to a few plain onesies too and that was fun. i have a pillow and blanket that are still on the list. i just want her to have so many homemade things. my mom made so many things for me and i love having them now. i hope she will too.

baby registry was cool but so long. pretty overwhelming to be honest. we are no further on a name. in fact i don't even know when we last talked about names. i think i'm just going to accept that she won't have a name right away. i just want to see her little face. she is kicking like crazy lately. as in kicks so hard it wakes me up. i wish so badly i could see what she is doing in there. she is so crazy! she's been getting hiccups a lot and at first i thought it was funny, now i just feel bad and want them to go away for her. poor girl.

30 weeks yesterday. which translates to 7 1/2 months. i have 9 weeks and 6 days till her due date. i will try to put up a pic of the bump soon.... we just need to take one first :) i hope to do a lot of updating soon because we have been very very busy.

home

2011-03-18T00:17:00.001-04:00

been outta town and leave tomorrow for another trip too. i'm behind on all things that involve the computer, however i'm doing pretty good with projects. one day i'll be daring enough to open my google reader. right now i'm just afraid of it. i'm in the third trimester with a very curvy body, i can embrace the baby bump... but other curves? i just try to ignore. this baby is healthy and keeping right on track. hope everyone is doing great and getting excited for warmer weather. here is something that makes me smile.

p.s. also, our hearts go out to the people of japan, i can't imagine the devastation there. we're keeping them in our prayers.

sunburst tutorial

2011-03-01T05:38:00.005-05:00

so i've been looking for mirrors forever. it's possible to find a killer mirror for a great deal at a thrift store, but when you need a pair... it's basically impossible. my idea was to put a mirror on both sides of our front window. after a long search i found these pottery barn ones that i really loved. except i found them at ross! so instead of the 3 for $150 at PB, i paid $30 for 2. i was really excited. after we hung them up... something wasn't cutting it. i wanted them to make more of a statement, basically i wanted them to be bigger. luckily i had stumbled across a few sunburst mirror tutorials through out the web and knew it was a perfect project for these mirrors. so here's a little tutorial. it was so easy and i'm very happy with the results!
step 1: buy kabob skewers. there were two kinds and we bought the longer kind. if i were to do it again, i would probably get the shorter ones instead because i ended up cutting a lot off.
step 2: buy some spray paint. i've seen different colors for different mirrors, since the rims were gold on mine... i just stuck with gold. i saw a tutorial once where they used a dark teal to match their mirror and it turned out gorgeous. anyway in my opinion, the glossier the better. i think shiny is prettiest.

step 3: prep sticks for painting. we used a cardboard box and it worked great.

step 4: not really a step, more of a tip. the closer you put the sticks, the better. originally i thought i was just gonna line them all up in a straight line but grant pointed out that would waste more spray paint. with the sticks this close it eliminated needless spray. i even had sticks leaning against each other but with a couple coats it turned out just fine.

step 5: spray! wait for them to dry and spray again. make sure to always get every angle. most spray paint dries pretty quickly so we did 3-4 quick coats just to be safe.

step 6: i didn't really get pictures of the next steps... basically i figured out what design i wanted first. there are popular styles that are actually just all one length or there are styles more like mine where you have a few different lengths. grant suggested that i measure 16 this size... 32 that size.. blah blah but i'm not patient enough for that. so basically i just winged it. and the results speak for themselves. ha.

step 7: attach sticks to back of mirror using hot glue. if you want, it might help to google a few tutorials just so that you can see different options. this part was the longest so i watched studio 5 clips during it all to keep me entertained. since you are just using skewers and hot glue... it is a pretty fragile process. i had to be SUPER careful hanging them on the wall.

ta da! total cost was under $40. and that includes the 2 mirrors and project supplies.

my perfect valentines day

2011-02-23T03:17:00.002-05:00

grant has an amazing brain. he remembers anything and everything. almost every sunday in church, he pulls out his yellow notepad and starts writing. and i always smile because i know what he is doing. for any of you poetry lovers out there, you are most definitely familiar with The Raven by edgar allan poe. if you aren't familiar with it, go ahead and start reading it. because i'm betting you might get sick of it before you are even half way done. it is about 8 pages long and ya, grant has the entire thing memorized. it's quite the accomplishment and i like to tell people about it. not only is he amazing at memorizing but he writes the most beautiful poems. there are a few from his mission that bring tears to my eyes every time i read them. his love for words has completely had an influence on me and i love noticing things that i would have never noticed before.

for valentines he wrote me poem. something that i have secretly wanted for years. i learned of his love for poetry before we were even dating and still remember thinking about how much i would love a poem written by him for me. because of the way he can portray his deep emotions through words, i'm not afraid to admit that i wanted to see how his feelings for me would come out on paper. so here goes another one of those mushy posts. and because this is my happy blog, i can post whatever i want. even dr. suess agrees with me. "be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those that matter don't mind".

“Us”

By Grant Barnes

Once upon a time, “I” turned into “us”

And life has been changed forever,

“I” life was great before “us” came along,

But with “us”, life couldn’t be better.

“Us” makes us warm on a cold winter’s night,

And gives us a shoulder to cry on.

“Us” is required to banish “alone”

And “us” we can always rely on.

When going along the pitfalls of life,

“Us” helps keep us out of trouble.

“I” can get by with one set of eyes,

But with “us” our vision is doubled.

“I” without “us” would be a mistake,

Life would be an utter disaster.

“I’s” like a speedboat without a rudder,

Going who-knows-where faster and faster.

“There’s safety in numbers”, Man’s been heard to say,

And nothing’s ever been truer.

There’s also a joy that comes standard with “us”

That without, “I” would never be bluer.

“Us” has the power to generate life,

whether its two lives becoming a new one,

Or could be two “I’s” who’ve turned into “us”

Giving birth to a daughter or son.

When it comes to things that have gone well in life,

Britt you’re the ultimate plus.

I pray everyday and give thanks up above,

thank you marshmallow mateys

2011-02-13T23:19:00.002-05:00

Grant here,

I just wanted to send out a quick thank you to YOU... Marshmallow Mateys. When my wife wakes up every morning, 30 seconds away from violently barfing all over unless something is in her stomach... who was there? When my wife is too exhausted/unmotivated/sick to make herself food... who was there? When I need to get a delicious breakfast cereal that comes in an extra large size (because someone empties your bags like they are going out of style) ...who was there. It was you, Marshmallow Mateys, you. So thank you again for all you have done for us!

Love,

The Barnes Family

P.S. We'd also like to send out a thank you to another white trash favorite that comes through in a clutch, Spaghetti-O's. You have been so helpful that I am having a hard time keeping you on our pantry shelf!

nautical town

2011-02-08T19:13:00.002-05:00

grant and i have loved these sailor knots for a while. used for a doorstop or paperweight or just whatever you want. he goes to the hardware store every night to get something else for our table and grabbed the rope we needed a few weeks ago. the tutorial we followed said that tying the knot would take 2-3 hours but it took about 5 minutes for my boy scout husband. so i suggest letting a man do the job if you're interested in this. it is a fun, cheap and easy tutorial... and that is my kind of project! i love how natural it is, it turned out perfectly!

oh and we are not messy painters by the way. i can see the old nasty peachy color that our living room used to be. it's splattered all over the base board in that top picture. our landlord did a very silly job. we'd paint the base boards if it were our house. it still makes me laugh that he called the walls "brown".

23 weeks

2011-02-06T23:36:00.005-05:00

my tummy is supposed to grow 1 cm every week from now on. basically the baby should double in size in the next month. she's starting to move more but nothing that keeps me from getting good sleep (so far). i feel like i can never take a full deep breath lately. my body has changed so much, my skin feels like it is already stretched to the max. oh and it itches soooooooooooooooooo much. i normally go crazy in the winter anyway and basically scratch my skin off. i've tried some intense moisturizers but nothing really seems to fully take it away. any recommendations?

i started making a blanket for her but i just can't seem to find the right fit with which fabrics to use. i have such a big collection of fabrics and it's fun to mix and match everything but then i find myself just wanting it to be so so so plain and only have one fabric. i wish i could embroider her name on the blanket but we are pry even further away from finding a name than we were a month ago. i never understood how people had to see their baby first before they named it. i always thought i would know and be so in love with a name. now i feel like i must see her before i know what to name her! we watched the show "one born every minute" last week and i LOVED it. here is the first episode. if any of you watched it or will watch it..... my favorite part is "OPEN!!!!!" hahaha. can't wait for the next episode.

"this cold has got to be killing animals out there"

2011-02-03T19:09:00.002-05:00

so last summer, i found a bunch of old old old valentine cards at a yard sale. besides the fact that they are super cute, some of them are signed and have little written notes on the back! i especially like seeing the names, there is one that says "to: momma love: art". anyway they are all so sweet and simple and make me happy. i love february and valentines day. just wishing it was a bit warmer outside... i've been listening to this over and over today because i love her so much and this was the same performance that jess and i saw. still gives me chills.

bright and early for the daily races

2011-02-02T00:55:00.000-05:00

i spent time looking through my favorite shops on etsy tonight.

click HERE if you want to check these out.

i'm 22 weeks but this was me at 19 weeks and 6 days

2011-01-30T23:33:00.005-05:00

so i feel like i've pretty much been showing since day one. i gained nearly 10 pounds right before pregnancy to make sure i was at a healthy weight. needless to say i outgrew all of my pants and skirts very fast once i was pregnant. i desperately needed maternity pants before i was out of my first trimester. i guess i could have tried the buy a bigger size thing but i think the stretchy part on maternity pants is AWESOME. i have hated any kind of pressure on my lower abdomen from the beginning. which is why i love pajamas. i have two pair of maternity pants. these black slacks up above are from target and then i have some skinnies that are from the heidi klum line at motherhood. something that i don't want to forget.... maternity pants with the stretchy pull over your belly thing are WAY better than the stretchy waist kind that have no pull up thing (just in my opinion). does that make sense? these are the ones i have from motherhood. the "under belly" kind. and they just really aren't my favorite. i think i'm gonna try some gap ones. anyone out there have anything you'd like to recommend as far as things that you've been happy with on your pregnant body? that was a really long question. everyone is pregnant right now so... i'm expecting some good advice.

oh i also have the bella band, it's okay. not something that i'm crazy in love with.

oh and this has been the funnest things to have. i love it!

funny girl

2011-01-28T18:09:00.001-05:00

i loved our ultrasound appointment. the best thing for me was hearing that she is healthy. when the sonologist said "well, she is measuring perfect size", it made me so happy. especially because i just wasn't expecting that. it was so amazing to see her measure everything on the baby, it's just an indescribable feeling to see pictures of her feet or the size of her femur bone. so after we knew she was a girl, the sonologist was trying to get a 3D picture of her face. Unfortunately little missy wasn't ready to show us her beauty quite yet. her head was on my left side and so that is where the doc was pushing to get that view. this is all we were getting. and while her arm and ear are really cute... we wanted to see more! she just kept burying her face in the placenta.

so then the lady said, "i've got an idea", she then took the ultrasound thingy and went over to my right side (her feet) and jabbed really hard three times. she said, "that usually gets them moving!" so immediately she went over to the left side to see if we'd catch her face, and this time we basically got the back of her! we all laughed that she did the exact opposite thing and turned even more away into the placenta. grant's words were "well... she is definitely a girl!" ha ha and then "hopefully this isn't telling of the future...". it was funny. so instead we have this pic of her showing us how strong she is. and we love it!

little mountains of strawberries

2011-01-26T01:36:00.003-05:00

last night while getting ready for bed, grant made me a snack. when i came over to my side of the bed... i had hot peppermint tea, a bowl of delicious grapes and mountains of strawberries. i could not stop smiling. he is the cutest. i am so lucky.

sneaker peeker cheeker weeker beeker teeker

2011-01-24T17:43:00.000-05:00

we haven't hung pictures up yet and i'm a little nervous about that. the wall that we are hanging them on is humongous and it's such a big beautiful empty canvas to work with.... it just makes me nervous. and it's hard finding collage patterns for our pictures. ya know? we did end up finding a lamp. we sort of gave up on the image we had in our head. we found one that we both are happy with though. a steal at target for $40 and it does the job perfectly. i'm still on the hunt for a big big rug to go under our bed, i think i mentioned this before but our whole house is tiled. it really wakes you up when you have to pee five times a night because the ground is freezing! i've gone so neutral with colors in the dining room, kitchen and living room... i wanted our room to be very colorful. rugs are just difficult for me because all floral styles are either too trendy or too traditional. it seems i only like transitional patterns or moroccan styles. which is fine but i've got to mix some patterns here or i'll hate the room. anywho i did order our runner in the hallway from overstock and i absolutely love it. it's so pretty. so for the record, overstock is great in my book. great prices and great quality.

we did the fun pelmet box tutorial from little green notebook. it was easy and it looks beautiful. it really is a fun, cute and cheap project if anyone is wondering what to do for window treatments. we do so many projects around here and grant is starting to get at me for not taking more pictures (before, during and afters) so that we can show our creations (he is right, but i need to be better with taking pictures of anything and everything lately). we really love the "diy specialists" (according to nate berkus) from young house love. their blog is so fun to look through. we may or may not be jealous of them and all they have accomplished. very motivational for us.

since i spend hours studying design lately, my advice to anyone out there who is wanting to freshen up their space? PAINT IT WHITE. and yes those are all links so please check them out.

also... abby was the right one on the chairs (good job!). we ordered tolix chairs. those gosh dang tolix chairs. when i first fell in love with them, i found all these look-a-like styles and showed them to grant and he hated all of them. then he did all this research on the tolix chair and we basically fell in love with the real ones. so after that we could never get the real and beautiful ones out of our heads. then one glorious night we were at target. we finished our shopping, rang up and were walking out of the store when grant says "okay if you can guess within $20 of our total tonight (knowing that i never pay attention at the register and am easily distracted by different flavors of gum etc) i will give you a kiss on the cheek. predicting where this was going, i moan and groan... saying "no no no i hate this stuff. you know i hate these games." "and if you guess within $5 of the total, i'll give you a massage..." "AND if you guess within $2 of the total... we will go home and order the tolix chairs". immediately i'm trying to figure out how many items we purchased and then each of their prices. see the thing is, i just don't like having to think hard about something BUT when i do? i'm pretty good at figuring things out. so after totaling it up in my brain at least three times, i name my price. grant can't stop smiling and he says "crap". i smile and say "what! what! what!?" to which he replies... "did i name a prize for a guess that is only 2 cents off?" hahahhaha. yes i am amazing.

i loved all the advice on my relationship with the color pink. i think i've got some cute ideas for her room and so that is exciting. last night grant and i made a list of our top names. we found one that makes us smile when we think of calling her it, however it is most definitely a name that we could get a lot of weird looks from. i've been talking to my grandma a lot lately (on the telefono) and imagining her reaction to this particular name makes me laugh. while we know its our baby, and we can name her whatever we want....getting funny looks is never fun so we'll just keep sleeping on the list and i'll continue to drive everyone crazy by not telling them any names we like. he he

can blue = girls too?

2011-01-21T18:39:00.009-05:00

to be quite honest, i wanted a boy. i love boys. i wanted my first to be a boy. i have four brothers. no sisters. grant has 4 brothers. no sisters. i've been wanting a little babe for a while and because of that.... i kind of have a collection of baby clothes. and let's just say, i have a little bit more boy clothes. or maybe a lot bit more. yesterday i boxed up anything boy that i had and i found myself wondering if baby girl could wear anything from the boy box. ha.

now when the ultrasound lady said it was a girl... i couldn't stop smiling and neither could grant. in fact he is pretty much loving the idea of coming home to "his girls" every day. :) and while i do get more and more excited every day... i'm still trying to figure out baby girls. i never even look in the girl sections! one thing i know for sure is that her room and wardrobe will not be looking like something off the set of legally blonde. do i sound like a mean mom? (great. now i'm already going to be self conscious about something before she even gets here) i'm not gonna say i hate the color pink, but almost. maybe it's just hot pink? while every baby section does carry WAY more girl stuff than boys, i can't ever find anything i like! which leads me to shop only at thrift stores. i love the old stuff and i always have. i do think that there are some adorable girl options in stores but i don't know. like i said, i'm still figuring it all out. anyone have some girl headbands they'd like to recommend?

the other day i was driving and just running errands and pink's song "raise your glass" came on the radio. naturally i turned up the volume and starting dancing/singing while driving. then this image of a little girl popped in my head. she was sitting behind me in her car seat and singing right along with pink and myself. i started smiling and then just knew that even if i dress her like a boy, we are gonna be best buds. i can't wait to meet her and i pray for her health every day.

those socks are here.

p.s. if you dress your daughter in pink or hot pink (because you are normal), i never think twice about it. ugh i probably shouldn't have written this post.

p.p.s on a totally random note... please watch this. it is so funny.

i thought it was going to be a boy....

2011-01-19T17:28:00.001-05:00

but i was wrong!

a christmas story

2011-01-19T17:26:00.000-05:00

i know christmas is over and i have lots of other posts i should be posting but... i love this.