BBQ

We had a little BBQ shindig at our place yesterday with all the usual suspects (minus Mandy and Seth who so inconveniently went and had a baby right before our party). It was a perfect day, good friends, good food, mimosas, and lovely weather. 

Our children are crazy cute. 

Miller got suckered into being Thor's bed, and they both took a nap on the couch while we partied in the backyard.

I'm so glad Jan got this shot. Jeff sucks at capturing all the awesome daily moments Elsa and I share so I have to rely on others. 

Okay, Jeff took this one and it's a good one of Lynne and I. We're so urban with our graffiti background!

I think Elsa makes Karen's ovaries hurt.

We spent a lot of the day lounging on the picnic blanket, watching the kids and knocking back tangerine and prosecco mimosas. Yum.

My mom is probably going to comment about how I'm always putting Elsa in this towel romper of hers. It's so comfy and cute though! Fantastic gift from the Gap. Thanks Mom! 

And now it's Monday, and actual Memorial Day. We'll be relaxing and reflecting on the importance of this day. And I'll probably sew. :)

Sweet baby Shalom

Roar.

So this is anti-climatic after my last post, but we got Elsa a new rug for her room! Not quite as exciting as Shalom Rose, but we're pretty happy with the new purchase and thought it deserved a post. Her old rug was ridiculous, and really just a placeholder until I found one we liked. It was too small to play on, and it was so thin it didn't offer much protection for her head bonking on the hardwood. Plus because it was so small and thin, it made vacuuming it impossible. I had to take it outside and beat it like in the olden days.

This "leopard print" beauty is a honking 5 x 8' and is really thick and plush and perfect to play on. We've been playing on it a lot these last few days and I think it will help Elsa learn to crawl finally. It's wool and soft and I love the added pattern in her room. Animal prints I think are a high-impact neutral. Which sounds like an oxymoron but it's true! They blend with so many styles and are such a classic print, but they're also the opposite of boring. I love this one. It came from Overstock.com which was great, since shipping a 35 pound rug cost only $2.95!

Jeff and Elsa went to visit Natalia, Jay and baby Peribeau yesterday. Isn't that a great name? Natalia loves pears and rainbows so it was a combination of the two. Look how tiny she is! I barely remember Elsie being that little. So mini and adorable. I can't wait to hold little Shalom! I miss the newborn size.

Shalom!!

You heard it here first folks. Mandy and Seth had their baby!! Yay! Mandy's water broke at 11:00 last night and she had the baby at 1:30 in the morning! Whoa! I can't believe how fast that went, especially since it was her first baby. Her next one will be born in like 20 minutes. Hopefully we'll get to meet little Shalom Rose today, I'll post more pictures when I have them! We are SO happy for you, friends.

I'm quitting my day job and growing vegetables instead.

Check out our garden!!

I yanked up the carrots today because I couldn't stand it anymore. I wanted to see how big they were and their colors. They're so pretty!! Some are a dark pink, and others are more peachy. They were good too but now I'm sad we don't have anymore carrots. :(

Our jalapeños are coming along nicely... we have 5 so far.

The swiss chard is crazy big. I need to harvest more soon and make some chardy treats with it. Tomorrow we're having fish, so maybe stir fried chard with some garlic and a touch of anchovy paste. Yum! I found a recipe for swiss chard and artichoke white pizza that sounds great, so maybe I'll get my pizza making husband to whip that up.

This is our lettuce patch. It's a big mix of European greens and it comes back so quickly. The leaves are nice and crisp though, and it's awesome not having to buy the bags anymore. We need to get spinach going though because we still buy that.

The patty pan squash plants are HUGE! We have three of them and they just started to bloom so we'll probably have squashies in a few weeks. They're the multicolor ones, not the huge white heirlooms we planted in the past.

Our succulents are turning pretty colors staying outside in the sun. We had to move the planter Mandy and Seth gave us for Christmas outside because those Siamese rascals of ours dug up the previous plants. Sigh. I like it on our outside dining table though.

My pops is coming to visit in a few weeks so I think we (he) might tackle the ice plant to raised vegetable bed conversion. I want to plant bell peppers, radishes, and spinach at least. We'll see what else. I better get my seedlings started!

Insties

Some recent Instagrams... I just ordered some mini books, tiny books, and prints from printstagram, and more prints of my Hipstamatics and Instagram squares from PostalPix. I can't wait to see how they turn out and compare the services. The tiny books are such a novelty but so cute and cheap, I couldn't resist! I'll post the results when they come in the mail!

Flower Mart! So beautiful.

These were from my Mom's visit. We were drinking beer rita's that Jan brought over on the picnic blanket in the backyard.

After she realized Elsa was eating her sweater:

Jeff and Lynne ran a half marathon today! 13.1 miles that they didn't train for and they did it and didn't die! I'm so proud of them. Again, celebrations in the backyard on the picnic blanket.

Bow clutch

Lynne sent me pictures of the little clutch I made her for her birthday after I whined on the last post about forgetting to take pictures of it. Thanks Lynne! It's IKEA striped canvas on the outside (to match her awesome Kate Spade purse that I think about stealing every time she carries it) and a rad Liberty of London fabric on the inside that Mandy picked up for me when she was in England. Zippers are hard.

Home Ec.

The garden is coming along nicely these days... we've been harvesting a bunch of the lettuces for dinner salads and I cut a bunch of the rainbow chard to make a couple of quiches the other night. I planted the basil seedlings a few weeks ago and those are slowly growing, too slowly for my liking. I like using the bolted basil in little vases to make the house smell good so I want them to get huge. Our carrot tops are getting nice and fluffy but I'm scared to pull them. I want big carrots! So disappointing when you pull a carrot and it's like a vienna weiner. They're the heirloom variety too and are supposed to be a really dark red. Pretty! Our jalapenos and pattypan squashes are making progress too, but nothing to harvest from them yet.

I think when my dad comes to visit next, we're going to pull up all the ice plant around Linus the Lemon Tree and put in another raised bed so we can grow even more. I'm a farmer.

In the crafts department, I've been sewing a few things. I forgot to take a picture of the little zippy clutch I made Lynne for her birthday, and Sue's Mommy's day gift turned out a little wonky so I have to rip out the zipper and re-sew that one. No pictures of my mistakes on the blog. Only nice end products so you all think I'm a great sewer. Here's my mom's new purse, to replace the old one she's worn into the ground. It's the same pattern as her last one (from Lotta's book) but we tweaked it a bit to make it more functional for my mom. She doesn't like the sideways front pocket on the original pattern so I added a second gold pocket on the front side because those are handy for keeping the phone and pens etc.

I used the new Cloud 9 fabric for the outside and pockets, a pretty turquoise wide wale corduroy for the lining (from JoAnn's), and my favorite gold pleather for the pockets (also from JoAnn's). The Cloud 9 fabric is a little flimsy for a purse like this (it's a normal quilting weight cotton) so I lined it with interfacing to make it more sturdy.

Ta-da! I did screw up one part though and I'm pissed about it. One of the handles is twisted one turn more so they don't hang perfectly. D'oh! It's one of those mistakes though that isn't really worth fixing. I'll let my mom carry it for the next few days and will fix it before she leaves if it bothers her.

We stopped at a garage sale on the way home from Trader Joe's the other day and I found these awesome trims and got all of them for only $5! I need to go to more garage sales. The top one (blue, white and black) is my favorite and it's a huge roll, probably 10 yards. I love the gold greek key one too. Can't wait to use them!

Happy Mother's Day to ME! (and to all the other moms too...)

It's my first Mother's Day! And my baby is sick. :( But luckily it's just a small cold and even luckier, my mom is here to visit and help! Elsa is also cutting her upper teeth now so maybe the cold and new teeth go hand in hand with her fussiness. It's great to have Mom here though, and especially on this day. We're missing our other Mom, but Sue is leaving on a trip of a lifetime today so we're excited for her too.

Here's a little photographic trip down motherly memory lane. My mini baby!

Happy Mommy's day to all the hard working and loving moms out there! It's a pretty awesome job, huh?

More artsy Baby Shower photos

Shauntelle from Sposto Photography took these at the shower, so much better than mine!