i'm so crafty i make PEOPLE

so i didn't get to the pool this weekend. it kept looking like rain... BUT i got so much done around the house! with a huge help from jack - the lawn got mowed (thank god), pictures got hung and rehung, and copious amounts of baby laundry was done and separated by age and put away. i thought i had mostly newborn clothes. it turns out i have newborn, 3-6, 6-12, 12-18. this chick is set! especially with my mom and i continuing to buy her clothes and me registering for some very cute organic stuff from Alchemy (we just can't help ourselves). and diapers. diapers are washed and ready to go. this laundry literally took me two entire days. it was ridiculous! but now its done, we can see the floor to the baby room and hopefully now the crib will get built and pictures will get hung in there. slowly this room will be ready for baby.
i'm starting to get the itch for vacation. this happens at least once a year and its happening now - the need to be somewhere that is not here for a week or two. i'm thinking beachy, but i really want to go somewhere foreign like...greece. or ireland. i'd be happy with ireland. but we're saving for south africa so no trips this year.
i think i'm beginning some serious nesting. i just want to craft and organize. and drink coffee. weird i don't really like coffee.
i saw this:
from heather ross and immediately wanted to make a baby blanket/quilt out of it in this style:
but after my laundry i realized this kid needs absolutely no more baby blankets (except for maybe a really soft bamboo one from dreamsacks) so then i saw this: (everything is off of soulemama) cute pillow and thought - that would be way better. (i realize this is actually a dog bed, but you get the idea). so ahem jenny - need your help!
and guess which of these ribbons i'm dying to have: (actually i love them all) from retrosaria thank god i'm having a girl.

may's already over?

i can't even believe it's already the end of may! in april i really thought i'd be finishing up last minute things for work, done writing, working on final edits. instead, i'm in the middle of experiments (although if they work will be final experiments - but that a big if), have taken on a completely different project with a high school student and am almost where i was with writing in april! talk about major stress.
thank goodness the pool opens this weekend - it may mean i spend less time in the lab, but i can def get writing done there,which is a great excuse. lets hope that bathing suit i bought a couple of weeks ago still fits, i feel as though i've expanded quite a bit since then.
we're still trying to get the lawn/gardens in order, but so far everything is at least in the ground where it should be. just some mulching. oh and a mowing of the jungle we call a backyard (not even kidding).
the nursery is begging me to organize, do laundry, put clothes away, hang pictures, put crib together. as my mom has instructed - it must be done before the end of june b/c we'll be having everyone over for a dad's baby shower/bbq and everyone will want to see it. mom's baby shower is earlier in the day, complete with sundae bar!
speaking of organizing the nursery, i still have that ugly chair that must be reupholstered. its about the same shape and size as the Ektorp chair from ikea. i found a website that sells slip covers for those chairs and i am so tempted to buy one!
they have a bunch of different prints and even send as many swatches as you want for free! but then i'm thinking, i could just cover it with a pretty quilt or blanket and tada! free upholstering! we'll see.....
and now that it is warm in the evenings...i WILL be walking!!! so anyone who wants a walking buddy please see me. byrd park? maymont?

stroller search continues...

i finally got to work on my baby registry. although we've been given more clothes than i know what to do with - plus three bouncy seats, an infant car seat, a crib (soon to be two - one for my mom's house),a co-sleeper, two playmats, a jumper that fits in the doorway (i'm reminded of axel's hellacious jumping and how scared i was he was going to bounce himself right out of the door and have visions of merit doing the same). of course i still needed to register for some stuff. unfort. most things i need are kind of expensive - stroller, high chair, car seat, pump (def need one of these - working mom and all), bottle steamer/sterilizer. thanks to kate i made my way through babies r us with good suggestions - especially when it came to the stroller. the two of us could not fold the stroller i thought i wanted to save our lives. we actually ended up leaving it in a half-folded mess on the floor. lesson one: make sure you can easily fold a stroller AND that it will fit in the back of your honda - with room to spare (which that one did neither). ok. so i found a much cheaper one, that is light and folds easily into basically nothing. score. i still need to take jack b/c he's decided he wants a three wheeled one so he can go off-roading with it or something. something about big sturdy durable tires. whatever. at least i've gotten most of the registry taken care of. one less thing to do.
the major thing on my mind is thesis writing/finishing. as you can tell, i'm completely procrastinating by just posting this. but i woke up in a sweat last nite that i would never finish this thing, so i hope thats going to kick my butt a little to get going. i spent the three hours that lost was on working on figures last nite. and i still feel totally behind. but i'm really not! ah, i just need to sit down for an ENTIRE day and work on it. and yet, there always seems to be something better to do...funny how that works.
speaking of lost and procrastinating - i've spent the majority of today reading various posts about the season finale. all i can say is 1) i hope juliette stays in that hole. hate her! 2)WTF?! 3)locke?! wtf again. EW has some interesting theories. i'm glad other people think about this so i don't have to. i would say the last 20 minutes or so were fantastic. espec. when Juliette got sucked down the hole....did i mention i hate her and her stupid pouty face?

poppy

one of our two poppies that bloomed so far...in honor of the blueberry aka poppy

baby bump pics:
march(about 20wks) april (23wks) may (26wks)



garden pics so far:
container lettuce and spinach blackberry flowers strawberry flowers


things are slow going with the garden - with all the rain it's been really hard to get stuff in the ground. last weekend in between painting while it showered i would run outside to try to throw something in a pot or in the ground before it started to rain again. we have quite a few plants that are still waiting planting in the vegetable garden, but that is a jack job right now and its hard to get him motivated. but everything is looking good anyway, i added a new raspberry bush (jack mowed down the other one) and a blueberry bush! we still need to re-mulch everything. hopefully this will get done before june.
we did get the living room painted which i am extremely happy with. AND i helped this time! now we just need to get stuff back on the walls. i've got some great new pictures i bought at arts in the park and am eagerly awaiting wedding photos to frame and put up. right now the room is still pretty bare and not quite put back together - a project for today.
another project for today - hemming three dresses! i haven't been on the sewing machine since at least december. i'm excited to get back to it, but a little nervous i've forgotten everything. but hemming shouldn't be too bad. they've already been pinned.
and finally some much needed cooking for the coming week - lots of salads (nicose, spicy shrimp and corn pasta salad...). i'm on a quest for chipotles today since kroger was sold out.
then off to my mom's to celebrate mother's day with vietnamese food!

so much to do so little time

I was supposed to be up in new york for a meeting (telomeres!) this week/weekend and we decided not to go at the last minute. well, it ended up being a disorganized, unpaid-for mess, so i decided i wasn't going. and thank goodness! there is so much going on this weekend! and luckily for me, i had already taken off work b/c of this meeting, so i kept the day off so i could enjoy an actual whole saturday at home. so far this is what my weekend is looking like:
thursday:- first prenatal yoga class. long time coming - i am way out of shape.
-lewis ginter plant sale starts today. we'll either go thur or fri
friday: -begin getting the living room ready to be painted (finally!). this means taking everything
off the walls, moving everything to the middle of the room, taking all my books off the
bookshelf (!!)..... this is good though b/c i need to get rid of books and i found out last nite
at a meeting for the new Patrick Henry charter school that the forest hill yard sale will
be selling books to raise money for the school.
saturday: -first south of the james market
- lowe's!! veggies, plants, ladder, mulch
-prime and paint the living room
-possible/probable yard work since i won't be the one painting
-try to stop by arts in the park for initial scoping of goods
sunday: -arts in the park
-finish up painting
-finish up yard work
oh and we'll be dog sitting - so that will be three medium-to-large dogs in our tiny house while we paint.
we've had our first two parenting classes, where jack got to watch his first birth video! needless to say, the look on his face was priceless. but he needs to be prepared before he's actually involved in one. we're learning a lot and i will never think of a lifesaver the same way again.
we've also decided to join a pool b/c i just can't see going through a whole summer pregnant without some sort of pool comfort. especially if i'm going to have a bit of time off (which i hopefully will. my boss may have other plans though)...either way, pool partay here we come! thanks blair!
i've been starting to compile a list of children's books i want to begin collecting for the baby. so far my list is for an older child (b/c those are what i remember reading and loving) so if anyone has any suggestions PLEASE send them along! i also want to get a music list going, so any good kids cd's that aren't completely annoying will be greatly appreciated!
along with the books, i've been looking for some cute bookends b/c we don't have room for a bookcase in her room. so far i have found nothing! no, i found these:
which are no longer available. lame! i love these - especially the colors. so if anyone sees cute bookends give me a heads up!

and even though it wasn't so long ago, i found this guest blog by our wedding photog (who coincidentally is due with her first baby the end of aug!) with a picture of us included! we still haven't gotten our wedding pics back yet, and this reminded me of what a good day/night that was and how fantastic it still is!

oh shopping, how i've missed you!

so, i have a bit of a shopping problem. as everyone knows. today did NOT help. mom wanted to go shopping. so of course, i'm not passing up a chance to go shopping with her b/c i usually get at least lunch out of it (although today jack bought lunch - not that he knows).
first we went to spring bada bing - the local craft show put on by richmond craft mafia. i have a new obsession with crafty and since i myself am not at all, i like to enjoy other's talents. mom bought a really cute courdory dress for merit from april scott, who also sells her dresses at alchemy and is super cute herself. and the dress is NOT pink (i have so many pink clothes for the baby from hand-me-downs i want nothing else to do with pink). we also bought some birth announcements and a robot print (above) from magnolia moonlight. loves.
and then i bought myself some shoes at nordstrom. so bad.
anway, i just checked jenny's blog and she has up pictures of the moses basket she recovered for me. LOVE the babushka/stacking doll print!!! so talented, i'm lucky to know someone who can and will do this for me, or i'd be spending a whole lot of money on stuff i didn't completely love. thanks again jenny!!
and now, its back to saving money. i even went into anthropologie and came out empty handed. how's that for self control (buying the shoes helped too).

the search for a name

After a little deliberation on my part, we've come up with a name for the blueberry. Her first name has always been merit. this was jack's pick before she even existed and he was so passionate about it. since i had a boy's name picked (max) we decided if he named the girl, i'd name the boy. we also decided the other person could pick the middle name. so once we found out she was definitely merit, it was my turn to pick a middle name. now jack had this long list of criteria for a middle name - it had to have a certain number of syllables and end in a vowel and be Norwegian (since part of my family is wegian) and all kinds of weird stuff to make it sound nice with merit and his last name (since all kids will have his last name). my criteria was i wanted it to begin with an "A" to keep the "a" tradition going in some way. As we started going through the name books (thanks blair!) we both gravitated towards the english names - especially poppy and lilly. lilly i've decided will be the next girl, if we have one - although thats a lot of l's for one kid, i really like that name. and i liked avery (although that would work well with a boy too) and aisling (which i still really like). but i decided on alice. ok yea, it has much to do with my love for the character, but it works well altogether: merit alice. and we've decided to nickname her poppy. so she won't have to live with it at school, but we still get to call her that. kate likes poppyseed - so it has now morphed from blueberry to poppyseed. the poor kid. it could be worse...
and to make it even a little more meaningful merit is actually a norwegian name (spelled marit) and alice is nancy's middle name too (coincidence!). so we have a little bit of my nana and a little bit of the woman who has helped us through this whole thing.
so now that i've put it all out there - no one go stealing my name ideas!