Baby Swimsuit Fashion Show

It was 82 freaking degrees today, sunny and beautiful. What's a baby to do, other than try on all of her bathing suits and go for her first dip in the kiddie pool?

Swimsuit #1, a gift from Jana and Matt. I especially like the flutter sleeves and belt on the bottoms.

Swimsuits #2 and #3: From Gymboree, courtesy of my friend Jen who used to be a designer there (bummed she quit and now works for North Face! What good does that do me!?).

I bet there was a matching swim cap that went with this top. Ignore that drool chain up above. She's teething! She can't help it!

I kind of want this one in my size. I love the colors. I'm glad it's a little big on her, we can still wear this one this summer.

Swimsuit #4: From the Baby Gap, a gift from Auntie Lynne. It is too stinking cute and if it wasn't a pain in the ass to put on her, I'd make her wear it everyday.

She was not keen on the kiddie pool. It was just a larger and colder version of her nightly bath, except she was wearing a diaper and swimsuit. We'll get it warmer next time.

The straps are so cute, but it was hard getting her into this. Worth it though!

This was the romper she was in when she wasn't wearing a bathing suit. Pretty awesome, right? Another Gymboree score, this time not from Jen, but from the sale rack in San Jose that I perused while we waited for the Hunger Games showtime.

Again with the drooling! Cute buttons though.

Some videos of Elsa's swimsuit fashion show are up on my YouTube channel!

Hipstas

Some recent Hipstamatic shots...

Two new dresses

I snapped up this leopard print dress that I've had my eye on when J.Crew had their extra 40% off sale items (SUCH a deal! It's lined and even has pockets!) and I'm waiting for Jeff to take me out on a date so I can wear it.

And this one I bought today because I loved it at first glance, and then even more when I saw it was only $45!

I love the neckline and the navy and persimmon paired together is so pretty. I hope the cream section isn't too sheer, or is lined!

Zip it!

I don't exactly know what I'm going to make that necessitates 17 zippers, but with such great colors and only 72 cents a zipper from the Etsy store Zipit, I couldn't help myself. Way better than JoAnn's, even WITH their coupons. Coin purses for everyone!

San Jose

We were up in San Jose last week to see the families, and had a great time in between my cold and food poisoning! Thank God for my parents waking up early with Elsa to give us a few extra hours of sleep!

We got a couple more of our 4 generations shots with our grandparents. I wish we took off that towel bib on Elsa before I took this picture! D'oh!

Lucky little girl got a new doll! This one is so precious, I'm going to take pictures of the doll and it's box up close tomorrow. Elsie loves her so, she's such a girly girl! It was such a sweet gift from Jean, thank you!!

I died when I saw this picture. So funny!

Everyone ate her up. She was cracking us up every day with her little speeches that she gives to inanimate objects, waving her arms so passionately as she babbles and squeals. It never gets old. 

She was having a ball at Grammie's, giving her speech to the ceiling fan, playing on the quilt, and grabbing Sadie's ears.

I didn't get to see too many friends during the trip because I was sick, but we did manage to have dinner with my bestie Matthew and his fiance Kellycopter (thanks for the food poisoning Ariake!), and he asked me to be his Iron Maiden!! He was mine for my wedding, and I pressured him into asking me to be his. I can't wait! Luckily I'm off the hook for throwing the bachelor party. I was going to plan a spa day. 

Congrats Matty and Kel!!

Elsa Elsie Elle

I found these vintage Elsa shots on Sue's camera. She looks so mini!

These next ones are from Sue's visit to Long Beach a few weeks ago.

Rainy day

Someone's nice and cozy in this rainy day weather... We cut up our 4 inch thick memory foam mattress topper (those things totally wreck your back sleeping on them) into 8 big squares that I'm going to double up and then cover in upholstery fabric for floor pillows. The cats immediately claimed the whole stack before I could get to them of course, so I covered two with a blanket of Elsa's and put it in the window on my ironing board for them. HAPPY CATS.

I don't know how many times I've sung the Itsy-Bitsy Spider to this face today. Lost count.

All done!

The bathroom is freshly painted and put back together. Stick a fork in her, she's done. For now.

Looks the same as before, huh? In person it looks MUCH better than it did before, I swear. The previous owners actually left us a bunch of the house's paint colors behind, so I just needed to touch up the Swiss Coffee white on the walls and door. We repainted the sink cabinet a light glossy gray so the room wouldn't be all white, and to give a little contrast with the bright white floors. It's hard to tell in this photo, but it's pretty much the same gray as the light one in the bathmat. Sharkey Gray from Martha Stewart for those that are curious.

Our little flooring disaster turned out to be not so much of a disaster after all. We got some much needed updates to our only bathroom and we're really happy with how it all turned out.

Bathroom updates!

My mom said I'm like Sarah Winchester, because I always need to make some renovation around the house. Sort of true, but this one HAD to be done. Our bathroom floor was rotting away! About two weeks ago I noticed a dark line in our vinyl flooring around our very vintage pink toilet. As I touched it trying to rub the mark out, I realized that it felt like wet cardboard underneath which meant that our subfloor was soaked and rotting. Awesome! I had immediate thoughts of a plumbing disaster and thousands of dollars wiped out of our savings account, and freaked out every time we sat on the toilet thinking we'd crash down into the foundation.

We got on it right away and it turned out to be localized to just around the toilet (it was not level I guess and water was leaking out when we flushed) so the flooring installers were able to rip it out and install a brand new plywood subfloor, mortar board, and then shiny new tiles on top! They also removed and hauled away our pink toilet and installed our brand new white one, no need for the plumber even!

We kept the improvements going and took down the glass shower doors to replace with a shower curtain. It's SO much easier to clean, but the main reason we took them down was to make bathing Elsa in the bathtub a lot easier too. It makes the bathroom feel bigger we think, and I like that the shower curtain hides all our bath products. No one needs to see Jeff's Costco-sized Rogaine. (It's why he's so hairy.)

After the bright white tile went down (with gray grout- one more detail to make keeping the bathroom clean easier!), the "white" walls, sink cabinet and baseboards look so gross. So of course those have to be painted which we're in the middle of doing right now. So you'll only get  half-way done progress photos for now.

EWW!! I can't believe that was under our feet this whole time. Nasty.

Poor pink toilet. They had to sledgehammer her out to remove her from the bathroom, she was that rusted and beat up. Bye bye, you were cute, and probably gorgeous when you were new and amongst your other pink friends who survive you.

Yay! New non-rotted subfloor! And wonderboard for the tile.

Because this was a rush job (1. We didn't want the toilet to crash into the crawl space, 2. Sue was visiting us that weekend and 3. We only have one bathroom and a few bushes) we had to go with a basic tile that they could get quickly. I liked these white octagons and squares anyway, but if I had my dream tile, it'd be from Heath. I think they look great though with the vintageness still preserved in the bathroom, and the gray grout makes them look a little more special.

Ta-da!! New white toilet. We got a basic Kohler model, but it's leaps and bounds better than old Pinkie. It flushes so quietly and quickly, but c'mon, it's a toilet. Not much more to say.

The shower curtain though... pretty great, right? My mom said it looked like Marimekko which I can totally see. It's DwellStudio though, that I got at Target (not available online anymore, and Amazon jacked up the price by $15!). Love the colors and graphic boldness it brings to the space. The bathmat was another score from Macy's, on clearance with an additional 40% off AND including Sue's extra 15% off coupon, it ended up being like 7 cents. Thanks Sue!

And the last improvement to be covered in this post, a new towel rack and Elsa's toy pod! Removing the shower doors meant removing one of our two towel bars, so with the very limited wall space we had in there, this Grundtal rack from IKEA was perfect. It has four bars that swivel out. Super useful AND it matches our AARP shower bar in brushed nickel!

Elsa's frog was a baby shower gift and it holds her new bath toys which she is a big fan of. To keep my fans happy, I'll close with a picture of her enjoying her new splash time surroundings.

Visit with her Noni

Some pictures from Sue's visit... I blame Jeff for not taking more, I was at work! 

Okay, this next one wasn't taken when Sue was here, as she probably wouldn't have allowed her precious little granddaughter to be humiliated like this, but it was too cute not to include:

She loves her Cheerios! And here she is, up and conducting business at her desk:

This one is for you Carol!

It has been pointed out to me that I may have been neglecting the boys of their share of blog time recently. They are alive and well, and shall we say, spirited (loud). Thor has become a fan of Elsa, realizing that she adores them and will shower him with attention if he lets her. She's getting better about not trying to rip their ears off, but she's still a little on the grabby side. Tyr still keeps his distance. 

Thor has taken a shining to Elsa's stroller too. He curls up in the pocket underneath the seat for a nap, and like to go for a ride around the house. 

I'm on a mini-vacation from work until the first of April, so I'll try to be better about posting here in this coming week. Pinky swear.