Lily's Pad

The nursery is complete!  Now all we need is an adorable human being to put in it!!!!!! 

Thanks to everyone who contributed letters to Lily's wall.  She already feels loved from A to striped Z!

Green Baby

In an effort to go green, we're planning to use cloth diapers.  We're also borrowing several things instead of buying them.  Reduce, Reuse!  I've borrowed maternity clothes, baby clothes, a car seat, and a bouncer among other things.

We're also planning to use cloth diapers and doing a cloth diaper trial with Jilliansdrawers.com.  It's actually quite a great idea.  We're using their diapers for $10 for 21 days.  We get to try out several different types and brands, pay for the ones we want and give back the ones we don't.  Even if they're stained!  So our plan is to do the newborn trial, then do the big baby trial and then buy some.  To practice using them, I tried them on the stuffed animals.  Michael's response when he saw the animals posing in their diapers, "Well, that's disappointing.." 

While we were at it, I let Harvey try out the infant seat.  It looks like he's just about the exact size of a newborn baby, right?

Chair Lift

Before pic of my glider.  Both pieces were found on Craig's List, but from 2 different people.  When we went to pick up the glider, the owner was reminiscing about how she used to rock her adopted daughter to sleep in it every night when she was a baby, so she was never able to get rid of it.  Now that she just bought her daughter her first car, she figured it was time to get rid of the chair.  Of course that story made me cry at the thought of Lily driving! 

After a paint job by Michael and some adorable new fabric and new cushions, it looks like this!  Don't you just LOVE those crazy birds?!

Craft Project Weekends

Mickey and the nieces and nephew came into town for a weekend of crafting for the baby. 

Sewing, Sewing, Sewing!

 Audrey made this hat with her knitting machine!

Audrey and Nicole made this fabulous blanket

The bumpers turned out super cute!

 Beginnings of a crib skirt

 Michael and his father spent my birthday weekend installing a chair rail and painting the nursery.  The top color is called Water Lily.  Appropriate, right?

Before:                                                             After:

 

Turned out beautifully!  That piece of furniture is a hutch my mother bought me at a yard sale to benefit the AIDS Lifewalk.  Isn't it pretty?!  

While the boys were painting, I covered the switch plate with fabric to match the bumpers!

More Backblogging: Northeast Weekend Getaway

While living in the Northeast, a lot of great cities are just a short road trip away. From Staten Island to Washington DC and to Philadelphia takes only about 3 hours, and it's about 5 hours to Boston. However, the weekend we went to Boston was Memorial Day weekend, so we spent about 8 hours on the road, plus took a quick side trip to Rhode Island just to say we'd been there!

In Boston, we went to a Red Sox game. We sat in wooden seats that felt like they'd been there since the beginning of time. The viewed sucked, but it felt like a truly authentic baseball experience. We took the Duck tour like any good tourist as well. Did you know the book Make Way For Ducklings took place in Boston?

We also walked the Freedom Trail. We downloaded a free app and took turns reading to each other all the exciting history that took place at different spots along the trail.

Paul Revere!


"One if by land, Two if by sea..."


Did you know the first subway station in America is in Boston?

Somehow, my mother made taking pictures with donkeys a family tradition.



We took a road trip up to Gloucester, Maine, about 45 minutes north of Boston, to go on a whale watching trip. We stayed in an adorable B&B with Dora that overlooked the ocean and had a beautiful garden. Thanks to a Groupon, we went on the Cape Ann Whale Watch, where they guarantee you'll see a whale or it's free! We saw at least 20 whales. HUGE majestic creatures. Dora got to go on the boat ride as well! She even saw a whale, but she didn't care too much. Everybody on the boat thought she was adorable, and the kids were much more excited about her than the whales.

Backblogging

So I'm growing a garden, which I want to blog about. However, I've noticed I'm a little behind on blogging, so I'm going to attempt a quick catchup...

Let's start with Thanksgiving of 2009.


We had quite the houseful for Thanksgiving. For dinner, we had Mickey (mom), Jordan & Donnice (great friends...and actually Adelyn was in Donnice's belly at the time, so we can count her), Don & Debbie (Jordan's parents) and Emily & Luke (Jordan's little sister and her husband), plus of course Michael, Dora and I. ALL OF US CRAMMED INTO OUR TINY 378 SQUARE FEET APARTMENT!!! Yes, I said 378 square feet. Luckily, at the time, we did not know this fact. We waited to measure until right before moving out. The landlord guessed the apartment was about 500-600 square feet, but he was wrong. Anyway, it was a comfy, cozy, good time. At least I thought so! :)

We went to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I was told if we got there about an hour and a half before it started, we'd probably be a few rows back. However, that's assuming the weather is the typical freezing, snowy sort, I guess. I believe the weather was in the 40s that day, and when we showed up about an hour and 15 minutes ahead of start time, we were about 20 people back from the parade. However, as you all know from watching on TV, float truly means float, so most of the excitement was up in the sky and easily viewed. We did some recording, which I haven't watched until today, but you can tell by the excitement in my voice and the giant floats coming by that it was REALLY COOL!



We also went and saw West Side Story and Cirque du Soleil's Wintuk while we had company in town.

Wintuk was magical. There were giant dancing dogs and big beautiful birds. At the end of the show, there was a snow shower.

While we're on the topic of Thanksgiving, we may as well discuss Thanksgiving 2010. It was not quite as exciting as the previous holiday, but we had significantly more space. Mickey, Scotty, Mindy, Nicole, Audrey, Major, Jordan, Donnice and Adelyn all came. Everybody had a real chair and a piece of table to enjoy dinner on. Not quite as cozy, but still a delight. We actually had space for an arrangement sent by Michael's parents. The little leaves were a handmade housewarming gift from Andrea.



Major caught a frog! Never saw a frog at my house before or after that, so I have to say the boy must attract them!

ANOTHER snow day!!!!!!!!

We LOOOOVE snow days! Dora especially!

Michael's a great commentator and videographer...

Me, not so much...