As we were out and about today, freezing in this 16 degree weather, we stumbled across this steeler's superfan. We came back about an hour later with a camera and he was still there! Without gloves. Did I mention it was 16 degrees? He was maybe 10 years old. They train them young around here! Go Steelers! Not that I'll be watching the game, seeing as it's Sunday and all :)

Give Away

The good news is I have something for a boy and something for a girl to give away. The bad news is that of course it's for a BABY boy and a BABY girl, not something an adult would want if they don't have little ones. Wipes case, burp cloths, and hair clips, pretty much the 3 things I know how to make. So I guess I'll need to figure out how to make something new and maybe for an adult if I ever want to do another give away. Stay tuned for that (like maybe sometime before next January to be realistic!

Leave a comment by midnight Sunday Feb. 1. Specify if you want to be entered for the boy or girl items or both.

BOY: 1 diaper wipes case and 2 burp cloths

GIRL: 4 flower hair clips

penguins and sunglasses

We're going homeopathic around here. We need to cleanse our auras, detox our intestines, realign our chi's, remove all our metal tooth fillings, so on and so forth. So I've decided to use a more natural way of charting Aubrey's growth. The penguin. She is currently 5 inches taller then the average Gentoo penguin, so obviously, she is right on target for growth.

(She is currently in the 95% for height and 25% for weight)

(Also, it's crazy how she's changed so much, but look at those eyes in each picture, they are so HER in each and every one!)

Aubrey's also been really into wearing glasses lately. After she wouldn't take of these mr. potato head ones, Zach went and bought her a sassy pair just her size.

Lastly I wanted to clarify when I was talking about not spending time reading blogs that were just kid pictures I meant of complete strangers. I LOVE reading about my friends kids. But don't you think it'd be a bit weird if I subscribed to a stranger's blog just to oogle their kids? That's what I meant I don't do. So the complete strangers that I read are because their blog has something unique from them, like they live in some exciting/exotic place that I like hearing about, they are really talented funny writers, or they share lots of crafty ideas, or pretty photographs, or occasionally, just if they seem super cool, b/c then the middle schooler in me comes out and I want to be just like them. But I do love kid posts. Hello, have you seen MY blog?

Baby E

One of my friends here gave me another chance to practice taking pictures. This little baby was SO sweet! Very calm and still and sleepy, which allowed a lot of decent pictures. Usually (as in the whole 3 other times I've tried to do baby pics) there are only a few pictures worth sharing, but this was the first time I had a hard time picking which ones to post, which was an exciting/new problem to have!

Aren't you in love with her?!

Can you tell we were into kissing pictures this time?

Usually I bump up the clarity when I edit pictures, but in these two I tried lowering it and I like the dreamy angelic look it gives the pictures. Except her onesie came out a bit blinding, don't you think?

As always, I appreciate my friends being patient and giving me a chance to try and get a few keepable pictures. It really is so special to get to spend some time with these brand new little ones.

Aubsession part II

I blog hop/lurk/stalk a lot. Especially when there's lots of house work to do. There are plenty of blogs on my google reader that you won't see in my link list on my blog because, well, I have never met the blogger and am a little embarrassed that I'd rather sit and read about their life then go live mine. I do worry about crossing paths with one of these bloggers. Should I pretend like I don't know them? What if I let something slips that proves I know just a bit more then a new friend should? Could make for some awkward moments! I have to remind myself that these people aren't my best buddies, they don't actually know me even if I feel like we're bff! I do have a selection process of finding these new blogs and adding them to my google reader. Each new blog I click on has about 18 seconds of me scrolling down to capture my fancy. If all I see in those 18 seconds are pictures of their kids - I'm gone. Not that there's anything wrong with that, little kids are adorable and all, but...you know. So today, if someone was allowing 18 seconds of their time to explore my blog, they would most definitely never return, because this is an....

AUBSESSION POST!

Most of these pictures are about 9 months old. I'd put them into a post and never published them. Now they are all the more special because my Aubs is no longer a baby and she was in all these pictures.

She got into some sort of ink pad. Someone must have told her she was in a white outfit. The mom's are not wearing matching swim suits. This was not planned. When you only have Shade, Modbe and Layers to shop for your modest swim suit, matching is bound to happen.

Aubrey misses her little friend Natalie.

Who doesn't love a cute baby bum! Especially because non-baby bums are DISgusting!

I admit, seeing these pictures of Aubrey, so much smaller then she is now, is making me, just the slightest bit...baby hungry...

Don't worry. I'm off to look at some pregnancy pictures of myself. Nothing quenches those baby urges then pudgy swollen prego face.

Room Makeover

The past 2 days have been consumed clearing out this office/Zach's garbage dump room....into this, something more presentable but still useful. I've been assembling the various pieces of this room for months. My goal was to do it as cheap as possible, which sounds great, but is very time consuming. Such as waiting for coupons to show up in the mail, waiting for pillow forms/fabric/flowers/vases to go on sale, taking several trips to Joanns since you can only use one 50% off coupon at a time, searching garage sales, refinishing furniture, making pillows, etc, etc. And finding places for all the junk in the room since, despite it's trashy appearance, was mostly stuff we needed to keep. But the extra effort was worth it because we spent just under $100 transforming the room.

Some of the cheapo art that I put together for the new bedroom and for our room. I took frames I already had and put scrapbook paper in the first and then pictures I took in the next 3. I have to do a plug for Costco. I printed the two 8X10s and one 11X14 there for around $6 or $7 dollars. I also called Ritz to price printing and it would have cost $24 there for the same 3.

So, needless to say, I'm pretty darn tired. And did I mention that Aubrey is still awake? It's 10:30 pm. She hasn't been going to bed until after 10 the last week and has only been napping about 45 minutes each day, if at all. I'm pretty sure a baby her age needs more sleep then that, but I'm 100% sure that I need her to sleep more then that. Let's hope it's a phase, because I have lots more to get done!

Happy New Years (9 days late)

We celebrated the new year in style, well, at least, in my style. New Year's eve we spent at a friend's house. We made it all the way until 8:30 pm before Aubrey's company was no longer so welcome. At least she got to show off her snazzy shoes and we had some time to spend with good friends.Over the weekend we went to eat at a local Italian restaurant called Piccolo Forno. If you know anything about Pittsburgh, you know that it has a gazillion pizza/Italian restaurants to choose from. If you know anything about me, you know I like to go to the local places and not chains. So this was right up my ally. It was inexpensive and authentic (Since my ZERO trips to Italy make me such an expert, but I did read Eat, Pray, Love). We only got to enjoy the atmosphere there for 20 minutes or so before giving up on struggling with Aubrey and eating our food in the car while she watched, you guessed it, Mickey Mouse.

Can you tell they're related? :)
Afterwards we went to Hartwood Acres for the Celebration of Lights. You never get out of your car, so it's a good activity to do with kids in the cold weather. And we only had to wait in a line of cars for an hour to get in!And last but not least, we went to Phipps Conservatory, since it was the last weekend for their holiday displays. I couldn't pick just one picture, so here's 6.

And finally, for my new year's resolution. So here it is. I want to be better. A bit broad and vague right? Specifically I want to be a better mom (i.e. less mickey mouse and cheetos for Aubrey), eat healthier (less cheetos for me too, darn it), be a better wife (sometimes cook dinner for Zach, rub his feet in spite of the appearance of his toenails), and be better spiritually (maybe hide my scriptures inside my US magazine instead of my US magazine inside my scriptures). Well there you have it! This goal will be harder then all of my last year ones combined, but, more rewarding and definitely more needed.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Christmas with my side of the family always consists of lots of family time and lots of food. There must be some genetic trait we share that makes us incapable of exercising willpower around food. For example, my sister made a pie that requires 2 hours to chill before serving. Did the pie even make it into the fridge to chill? No, not once in the 3 times the pie was attempted. We polished it off still warm and oozy in about 30 minutes every time. Other then eating we did get several 1-hour massages (for $15 mind you at local massage school) and did lots of shopping.

Have you ever seen a barn like this? Rock City is a local scenic attraction where I'm from. At one time there were over 900 barns painted to advertise this atttraction from Michigan to Texas and in between. The barns themselves are an icon, at least in the south. However, I had never actually been to Rock City, so we made it a priority this trip. It's funny how the locals in an area usually haven't seen what others travel from far away to see.

I'm loving my circa 1970s outfit. I figured wrong that the south would be warm still and had to borrow my mom's college cold weather gear.

Me and my sister and her daughter

After waiting 20 some odd years to go to this tourist attraction, I wasn't sure what to expect. I certainly wasn't expecting these friendly faces. Is this what nightmares are made of or what? Notice Gretle and the pig thief have been dismembered and Goldilocks is in need of an exorcism. Rock City had a whole cave full of the twisted fairy tales. Kinda weird huh?

My sister sneakily caught these pictures of me in some of my finer parenting moments. Me asleep, Aubrey watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on her dvd player.

But I redeemed myself here right? Cuddling my sick little girl. All of the kiddos had a really rough time and freely passed around their illnesses. Even though Aubrey looks so beat here, I was so happy in this moment to actually have a moment to hold her, she usually doesn't allow that.

Everyone, meet Adam, my nephew. He is 4 months old, but he and Aubrey wear the same size clothing and weigh the same. Here he's modeling Aubrey's pajamas. Instead of being complimented that he liked her style, she attacked him.

The relevance of this picture? None, I just love her little outfit here.

I'm very glad we got to celebrate Christmas with my family. Another highlight was that we got to talk to my brother, who is currently serving a mission in California. Stay tuned for another creatively titled post called "Happy New Year".

baby pics

I gave another go at taking baby pictures. I've decided that just as much as I need help with my photography skills, I need to take a class or something on how to work with infants. Despite having a kid of my own, I'm seriously clueless! I'm not sure how to get them into all the cutesy little positions I see on real photographers sites without making the baby seriously ticked off. I'll be honest, I'm a bit terrified of those itty bitty babies.