Lip stains and SPFs

Love my new Josie Maran lip stain. It's 2:40pm, I put it on around 8:30am and my lips are still pink. And I've eaten about 4 meals (I'm pregnant, what??) and have had 3 cups of tea. They feel an itsy bit dry, but I'll take that if my normally flesh tone lips no longer blend into my face. I'm terrible at the re-apply so lip stains are great for me. Everyone seems to have the Jive color (see Kate from For Me, For You below) but I don't think an orangey coral would work for me everyday so I got Waltz, a soft berry rose (but still super pigmented). It's perfect.

I also got her Argan Oil SPF 40 moisturizer in the small size to try it out and it's perfect. It smells so good, feels really light and not at all greasy, but still moisturizing. It's chemical free, has UVA and UVB protection, and the argan oil in it is rich in Vitamin E and fatty acids which have anti-aging properties. It's my first time using the Josie Maran line (found at Sephora) and I loves it.

Now I kinda want that coral lip stain too...

Everything is falling into place...

I must say, I got knocked up at exactly the right time. For these reasons, no particular order:

• The aforementioned awesome friends Karen and Mark having had Henry almost 2 years ago making a lot of their baby gear now able to be passed on to us. 
• Jeggings are IN. And not just for pregnant girls. You can find jeggings everywhere and they are awesome. Especially the hoochie low-rise ones that fit just underneath my expanding belly. I got these gray wash Mossimo jeggings on the clearance rack at Target for $10 this weekend and they are so awesome and comfortable that I picked up a blue wash pair too. My regular jeans are cutting in too much, even with the belly band so these are perfect. 
• Any earlier and the Caravan crib wouldn't have been created yet. Man I love that crib. 
• We wouldn't have been looking at baby clothes at the thrift shop this weekend if I wasn't pregnant, and thusly, would never have found these gems:

Yep, that's a baby t-shirt with Ozzy Osbourne's mugshot photo from his 1984 public intoxication arrest on it. Jeff couldn't stop laughing over it so I let him get it. I found the adorable reverse cardigan sweater with the knitted terrier on it which made us laugh even harder. I think it's adorable, and makes us look like good parents despite the t-shirt she may be wearing underneath it.

• Jill Bliss finally released yardage fabric of her designs! I've been wanting this for so long. This one is my favorite and I'm thinking crib sheets. It's a sign.

• And lastly, I'm well within the "allowed to fly pregnant" limits so our planned Hawaii trip is still on! CANNOT. WAIT. 

Circles Quilt

I want my sewing machine back so damn bad!! It's in the shop for tension problems (tell me about it!) and apparently every sewing machine in Long Beach is also in need of repair because it was an AT LEAST two week wait before the guy could even look at it. I'm going into withdrawals, especially after coming across something like this:

Such a simple idea, appliqueing circles of fabric onto an easy quilt, and graphic enough for a big effect. Loves it. Want to make. Hurry up sewing machine repair man!!

From The Purl Bee...

I'll do something non-baby related soon. Promise Lynne.

But for now, here are two photos from our super fancy 4D ultrasound I had done this morning!

I'm part of an NIH-funded study on nulliparas, aka first-time pregnant women, and they follow me during the pregnancy and get all up in my business with questionnaires, blood, fluid, and tissue samples, ultrasounds, and they even come to the delivery and snatch my afterbirth for more samples (don't worry, they just take a little bit and give me the rest so I can still eat it- in pill form, in case I hadn't mentioned that part yet). I'm all for scientific research (obviously, considering what I do for a living) and I'm happy to participate, especially since we get neat pictures like this.

In case you're confused about the 4D designation as I was, it just means that it's real time 3D images, so we saw what you see above, but in real time with her moving around. She kicked her legs a bit and kept covering up her face with her arms and it was surreal. Very bizarre to see her on the screen kicking while feeling it inside of me at the same time. Ah technology. My next 4D ultrasound for the study will be in April when I'm 28 weeks along (7 months for those right brainers) so she should be fully formed by then and ready to model.

I swear there was a good reason for this.

They were having a sale. A big one. Plus I had rewards cards I needed to use. I know people will be giving us lots of baby clothes, but before that happens and I feel guilty for buying baby clothes when we have a closet full of them, I'm going to buy things that I find adorable and want my baby to wear. These were from the Gap and Old Navy and were cheap cheap cheap.

I love me some stripes. This mini top is so awesome, and will be so cute with her little BumGenius' poking out. Those leggings are a size up so these won't be paired together. Too many stripes anyways.

These onesies look Charley Harper-esque. I love most things with animal print, but especially if they're graphic and in a repeating pattern like these. And they came in sets, with one striped and one solid onesie to pair with. They ended up being $2 each!

Remember my love for chambray? Well here it is with wood buttons, tiny pockets, and such a cute flared skirt. And it's a 6-12 months dress so we'll get a lot of use out of this one.

Everything came to under $24 so I feel pretty good about my little shopping spree. It was a good baby week. Gina brought us this perfect little footie bodysuit, with the tip of getting this style because pulling clothes over the baby's head doesn't always go over so well with baby. Noted!

Look how cute the details!

And awesome news from Karen and Mark... they're currently setting aside a bunch of their baby stuff for us, including the crazy expensive backpack style Medela double breast pump! Fist pump! They also have a bassinet, and this vibrating DwellStudio for Target baby bouncer that has an iPod hookup! Henry hated it but hopefully Skeletor the peanut likes it because it's too cute not to have out.

It really is awesome to have friends with older babies... we timed it perfectly!

She's a Fancy Feast type of cat.

Lily Mae is becoming quite the art collector! I don't know how she could afford an original Jeff McMillan painting, but somehow this new commission made it up on her gallery wall:

It's a painting of her favorite treat, Norwegian Ski Queen Gjetost (goat) cheese. She has exquisite tastes, both in treats and in art. Here's a close-up:

White bean chili

This is such a good recipe I feel like it should be shared with the internets. And it's perfect for cold weather, and is awesome for leftovers so we usually make big batches. It comes from my mom again, she's kind of a soup guru. I made this chili last night for our friends Gina, Brian, Bill and Tom, who are kind of foodies, and they loved it so it must be good.

White Bean Chili:
2 large green bell peppers
4-5 cloves of garlic
1 large bunch of green onions
3 TBS olive oil
4 cans of small white beans (I like the S&W brand)
2 cans of vegetable broth (Swanson's is my favorite, the TJ one sucks)
1 12 oz jar of La Victoria Salsa Verde
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp oregano

Saute the bell peppers (cut into strips), garlic, and chopped green onions in the olive oil over medium heat for a few minutes. Add the spices, beans, broth, and full jar of salsa and mix it up. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer on low for 35 minutes. Serve with cornbread and Beano. Enjoy!

Baby shopping!

I think shopping for the baby *may* be more fun than shopping for me! That's a sign of maturity, right? Or selflessness at least? I (with a teeny bit of help from Jeff- he's responsible for all the Disney and Pixar movies on our Target registry) finished putting together our baby registries and dare I say, it was more fun than the wedding registries! Everything in miniature is more fun though, so why should this be different?

We're blessed with having people in our lives that want to throw us TWO baby showers, one in San Jose and one in Long Beach (thanks Sue and Mom and the Parola's, and Kim and Karen and Mandy!!), so we already feel spoiled. Without having to resort to Babies R' Us that makes my soul scream on the inside, we decided to go with an online registry to capture unique items such as those from Etsy and smaller retailers, one from a local eco-friendly baby store up in the Bay Area, and one set up at Target for the rest. I hope that makes it easy for anyone wanting to gift us something for the baby, but we're also hoping that some friends will shun the stores and go the way of some handmade pieces or art for the nursery. We're also all for any used, tried-and-true products from friends and family with babies as hand me down gifts!

Here are a few of my favorite pieces that I've added so far... (all product links on Myregistry.com)

IKEA 14 piece fabric vegetables set. I love the little corduroy basket they come in too! Our baby will be tending to our compost piles and garden when she's old enough to be useful, so she's going to need to learn about vegetables early on. 

Organic cotton bibs from Etsy seller Downhomeamy. I love the fabrics she uses and the screenprints are so sweet. 

We're going the cloth diaper route, and GroVia's are one of my two favorite brands. I like them because they're adjustable in size, all-in-one (so no disposable inserts), they're made from organic cotton, and they have the cutest designs! Their solid colors are also pretty. We're  registering for the BumGenius diapers too which are similar, but it's nice to have two options. 

Poodle infant kimono bodysuit. Enough said.

We love well crafted wooden toys. I have foolish dreams of how all our baby will play with is toys like these, and nothing bright, plastic and requiring batteries will enter our home. One can dream. This maple and walnut woods stacking set from Etsy seller Littlesaplingtoys is the epitome of my ideal baby toy. Baby can chew on them and play with them, and mom and dad can gaze adoringly upon them. 

I know shoes on a newborn are ridiculous so these are sized for when she actually starts walking. They are just too adorable to pass up, and would match so many cute outfits I have planned for her. They look so Scandinavian to me too, I probably had a pair of these growing up. One more reason to love the American Apparel baby section...

How cute would those shoes be with this little number? Sooo adorable. Mini Boden has such sweet baby clothes. I'm all over the chambrays, stripes, and ginghams in baby clothes. Good fabrics and a simple design make for a well-styled baby. They don't need to be flashy.

Of course those are the obvious fun things, but it's neat searching for the gear and tools that the baby will also require. There is SO much out there, it's hard to choose. We're sticking with what seems smart to us. Eco-friendly, simple, well-constructed, long-lasting, and actually necessary are the qualities we're shooting for. Of course, this IS our first time with all of this, so any tips, suggestions, and advice from other parents are very welcome! Let us know if anything we registered for is stupid.

This is going to be me July 31st.

Hopefully also with a bunch of shiny red balloons Jeff will get me, celebrating how quickly I got my shape back after giving birth. I just called Yoga World and found out that as long as I activate my year-long unlimited yoga pass before August 14th, it won't begin until the day I activate it! I had a feeling they might say it was activated the day I purchased it from Groupon, but nope! Oh generous day, how awesome. So now I can continue my prenatal yoga classes with Karen at Free Spirit Yoga and then become hardcore unlimited classes yogi Liv right after I pop Skeletor out. Sweet! Hopefully this guy won't be my instructor:

Anatomy ultrasound- check!

We had our anatomy ultrasound today to get all the detailed little measurements of the peanut and for a gender confirmation (she's for sure a girl!) and we got to see so many action shots! She opened and shut her mouth a bunch for us, waved, and covered her creepy skull face (see above) with both her hands. First game of peek-a-boo! She opened and closed her eyes too which was neat to see (above her eyes are closed, so you just see black in the sockets. When they're open, they look creepier) and kicked her little legs around, which I can totally feel now.

All of her organs seem to be accounted for and she's right in the normal range for measurements and size and all of that (she's 10 ounces and 10 cm long right now). No chubby cheeks yet, she's still pretty Skeletor, but that's normal and we've got time to fatten her up. I plan on starting right now actually. Snack time! 

Happy V-day Apartment Therapy!

We made it up on another post on couples from their house tours! 

Happy Valentine's Day!

via someecards. xoxo

We're so domestic!

Lest you think we just stay at home and make lasagnas and garden all weekend, Jeff and I actually do cool stuff too. Like on Friday night we went to dinner at Buddha's Belly in LA (and saw a famous actor! But I'm no name dropper... okay, okay! It was James Cromwell!) with the handsome Nathan Spoor and then over to Kevin Smith's Smodcastle for their evening Planet Illogica podcast show with an acoustic performance from Shiny Toy Guns, followed by an interview with a REAL LIFE SUPERHERO, and then we closed out the evening with pie at LA's House of Pies. So that was our Friday night.

Now back to gardening. Look what we did today!

We bought some new big fire sticks (they were $29 at Home Depot for this size and $8.99 at the nursery where we bought our lemon tree!), rosemary, and more dusty millers, and transplanted some of the succulents from the backyard, and spread out more mulch that we had to buy at another Home Depot since Mandy and Seth bought out every bag they had at our local one! Check out the baby bump in the window reflection!

Jeff ripped out those big spiky plants we had in front because they were just a mess, and shading all of our succulents so that wasn't good. Neither of us liked them anyways. Good riddance! The fire sticks and rosemary plants should get pretty big to fill in some of the sparse areas.

This planting area is to discourage the mailman from cutting across our lawn to deliver our mail instead of using our clearly demarcated brick walking path. Use the path!!

More fire sticks and a rosemary plant... the fire sticks are called that because they turn yellow to orange to red depending on how much sun they get. Hopefully they'll start to change colors now that those stupid useless plants are gone.

This side is looking a little bare but those dusty millers and rosemary will get bigger and will fill out the space. Eventually we'll put flowers in the boxes too for a little color. 

And just so you're not too impressed with our gardening skills, look at poor Linus. :( He's all yellow! We think it's because he just got way too much water during the storms we had, or because we hadn't fertilized him yet. I bought citrus tree fertilizer and Jeff administered the treatment. We talked to the guy from the nursery that came and planted him for us and he said we're doing things right now. He said the fertilizer should turn him green again. At least he's still producing lovely meyer lemons!

I have no clue what this plant is but I walked by yesterday and noticed it bloomed! So pretty.

Here's a close-up of our red cabbages, I like their purple stalks.

And our chinese cabbages which remind me of Cabbage Patch dolls.

And our rainbow lights swiss chard! The stems on these are so pretty. I can't wait until they get huge and I can start cooking with them.

Garden, check. And just in time for the rains we're about to get...

Happy birthday Seth!

The 8th was Seth's 29th birthday (can't believe he's STILL not in his 30's... geez, catch up already) so this Saturday we celebrated with dinner at our place and our awesome but sadly long distance friends Kelsey and Jake came down to join the party. It was good food, great friends, fun times. Pictures!

I made this almost vegan lasagna and it turned out deelish. *Please note that this picture is before it went in the oven. It looked lovely and melty brown cheesy on top when I took it out. I layered roasted red pepper marinara sauce, lasagna pasta strips, pureed soft tofu (which you can use as a substitute for ricotta cheese- more protein, less fat, same texture!), cooked spinach, parmesan (hence the not quite vegan), pesto sauce, seasoned with a ground pepper blend, and topped with more parmesan. Served with a rosemary asiago foccacia and a balsamic vinaigrette dressed arugula salad and everyone seemed happy!

Jeff was in charge of party decorations so he drew this award winning show cat on the chalkboard.

Mandy was in charge of her husband's birthday cake and she whipped up this beauty from her Barefoot Contessa cookbook. It was SO good. Exactly what a pregnant gal wants at the end of her meal. :) It was a dark chocolate cake with a raspberry filling and buttercream frosting. DECADENT. 

We brought out the cake ceremoniously from the kitchen with the candles lit and realized Seth was in the bathroom taking a leak. So we waited. 

Surprise!! This was the exact face and gesture he was making that one New Year's Eve when he sprayed beer from the mini-keg all over himself. Priceless. I just realized how many RVCA advertisements this blog has. They better start paying me! In fashions...

Thinking of a wish...

I wish for a mini-keg to spray beer all over me again!! Or a pony!

Awesome, right? Sooo tasty. Better than a box mix, which says a lot for me. I really like box mix cakes. 

After dinner we went to our friends Thom and Merrady's place in downtown LB for their Lovefest party. It was such a cool party, they really know how to throw one. There was a craft table so you could make your own valentines (above Jana's head in the photo is Jeff's valentine which looks like it started out as a heart and then got turned upside down to make a pair of boobs with red glitter nipples. That's my hubby!), a huge table filled with candy, drinks, and num-nums, and live music! They have a ton of musician friends and a bunch of instruments so people took turns getting up to sing a love-themed song. It was really great. Jana and Matt did a duet of Bruno Mars' song Grenade. They did an awesome job, I like Jana's voice more than Bruno's, any day. 

And hello, cutest baby outfit EVER. Kelsey and Jake were so sweet to bring us a gift for the little munchkin and I'm dying over it. It's from American Apparel which has a great little kids section full of soft organic cotton mini-hipster fashions. This looks just like an outfit I would wear, and now I'm kind of tempted to go and buy a matching mommy outfit. Obnoxious, right? So FYI to the grandparents, we LOVE A.A. baby clothes. Should you be tempted to buy us any. :) Thanks Kelsey and Jake!! And happy birthday Seth!