Wanna go shopping?

I do. We've just about finished painting our living room! We changed colors and went with Seattle Gray by Benjamin Moore. We had it color matched in Behr and I loooooooove it!

It's this one:

It turned out perfect. It's a little lighter and a teeny bit more blue on the walls. Anyway, now that we've finally painted, it's so hard to rein myself in and not do everything I want to in the living room right now.

I want to put up curtains:

(picture to follow when I decide what kind)

picture shelves: 

source

make a little gallery wall by the front door:

source

hang one of these in the gallery for our keys:

source + source + source

I really want the octopus, but it's the most expensive :(

and put up these shelves along the far wall:

source

they come in untreated pine, but I kinda like the green anyway.

Oh. And get a new couch. And do a handful of other money-sucking things.

See? We'd be bankrupt in five minutes. Good thing Chad's level-headed enough for the both of us ;) 

Utah Lake

We went to the lake on Saturday! Sometimes it's weird to remember that we live five miles from a lake. Provo doesn't exactly feel like a lake-town. You know? You know what I mean.

Anyway, we had a good time :)

The little swimming harbor

Post-swim:

This is what it looked like when we were leaving:

Emmett really liked the water. Well, at first anyway. Towards the end I think it started making him a little nervous. And something totally irritated his eye; it got all red and weepy and half his forehead and temple turned red too. That was kind of scary, but it cleared up by the time we got home.

Anyway, hope you guys are having a great Monday!

Tuesday so far

Look at our beautiful garden!

Garden meaning the four plants that have survived :)

Left to right: Squash, tomato, tomato, empty, and squash

Look how pretty!

Tomato

Squash flowers

So those are looking good. We finally transplanted our overcrowded tomatoes and squash plants, so they're finally taking off. Can you believe we grew these from seeds? That always surprises me, seeing seeds actually turn into plants :)

And we're painting the living room! Have I ever mentioned how much I love paint? And that I used to paint? See:

Acrylic

Pastels; the blue on his nose isn't supposed to be there, but I'm not sure if I can fix that.

Watercolor; I promise Jacob's nose is not that big in real life :) whoops

Acrylic

Anyway, they're far from perfect, but it was fun. I'm going to start again soon. I haven't really painted since high school (when I did those).

Anyway, so we're painting the living room. Our landlord gave us the OK, we've painted a couple test patches, and we've decided on this one:

It's called Misty Surf by Behr and it's currently being color matched by Jones Paint and Glass down the road (nothing against Behr, but I can walk to JPG; I can't walk to Home Depot). So we'll get started on that today! Yay!!

Have I mentioned that Emmett loves the garbage truck? Well, maybe not so much as 'loves' but he's fascinated by it. We always go out to the balcony to watch it go past (it goes right in front of us) to get the dumpster, and then back again out to the street.

We're lucky enough to have a nice garbage man; he waves at us both ways :) Last week Emmett got a little scared of the noise so we went and watched the truck from behind the screen door. The garbage man looked for Emmett, found him, and waved through the window as he passed :) I thought that was cool. 

It's funny how once you have kids, things like garbage trucks become a little more epic :) 

Have a good Tuesday!

a few Emmett pictures to brighten your day.

He always brightens mine :)

Have a great Monday!

informed?

Yesterday I was at the park with Emmett. I was pushing him in one of the baby swings, and there two girls using the swing next to us. They were sisters, probably around my age, and one of them had her teeny cute baby girl in the swing. Anyway, they were talking about being politically informed. The baby-less sister openly admitted that she had no idea what was going on (much like myself), but that she hated it when people tried to act like they had opinions on things they knew nothing or very little about. And mostly I agreed with her. I eaves-dropped on the rest of their conversation, and they lost all credibility when the sister with a baby said something like this:


'People go crazy and say that Obama's not Christian, that he's the anti-Christ... I think that's going a little far. He's the president of the United States. He's Christian.'

She said it with a "c'mon people" tone of voice; like, he's the president of the US so of course he's Christian, and he's deserves more respect than that. I had trouble not gawking at her and telling her outright that that was the stupidest thing I had ever heard. People like her are the reason we have people in leadership positions that definitely shouldn't be in leadership positions and deciding policies for the 313+ billion citizens of this country. People like her--who have the truth, and therefore the potential and obligation to see through people like Obama--are so disappointing.

But, like I said. I could definitely be more informed. But at least I know I'm not that kind of ignorant.

Anyway, another topic that's been on my mind: have you seen Businessweek's article, How the Mormon's Make Money?  It's been pretty controversial. The woman who wrote it isn't just trying to be a pot-stirer, she's trying to invent pots to stir. It paints us in a very eyebrow-raising light, and while it focuses on how good the Church is at making money, that's pretty much where it leaves it, giving a lot of room for speculation. There were some pretty good comments left by members of the Church, and I was really proud of a lot of them. This kind of thing makes me angry, not only because of the obvious, but because I don't always know how to respond. I know what I feel, but not always how to translate that into words. The comments that I read were straightforward, well-composed, and mature. Unlike the cover and attitude of the article.

The Church published a statement--The Church and its Financial Independence--one day before the article was released. It's a commonsense article, and I liked it.

One thing that calms me down a little when this kind of thing happens is remembering that there will always be opposition, and the Church will always come out on top. Remembering Who we look to and comparing Him with ignorant reporters and the even-dimmer people who accept such rubbish puts things back in perspective.


In other, less stressful news, if you're near the US-Canada border or in Northern Europe this weekend, check out the northern lights! Thanks to a "blast of charged solar particles," they should be especially good this weekend.

And need a few new insults? This list is pretty fun. (Just skip succubus, especially if you're reading with kids/don't want to be grossed out.) Now enough of my blatherskitery. Have a good day!

a series of unfortunate events

1. Made Emmett's cereal with prune juice Sunday night.
2. Monday morning, Emmett gets his diaper off before I get him out of bed.

So that's really just two events, but both add up to one extremely unfortunate experience. It was one of those things where you're holding your own baby at arm's length going, "What do I do?! What do I do?!" So he ended up in the tub while I got him cleaned up enough for a bath. Man. That was one heck of a start to the day. 

catching up

So, if anyone still reads this, we're still alive! I've gotten so terrible at blogging. But here's to a renewed sense of dedication to keeping up with it. So, to start things off, here's Emmett lately:

His top two teeth finally popped through! Which means that he's been much happier lately. I had almost forgotten what a happy Emmett was like. 

And Chad and I had our three-year anniversary! And look at what my wonderful hubby got me: 

Isn't it beautiful?!!

Chad called my sewing-pro sister (yes, I know! Chad told me :) to see what sewing machine she has (which sewing machine she also really likes) and got me the same one.

I love this machine. (Heck yes it can sew through four layers of duck cloth!) I've been sewing up a storm since our anniversary. Which means that our house has been a mess lately :) So I've got to reign myself in a bit I think. Anyway, wanna see my fun projects? 

To break 'er in, I made a nursing strap for a friend who's expecting a little girl on Labor Day (heh). 

I got the tutorial from here. It's super easy, and super handy. It's meant to turn any blanket into a nursing cover so you have less things to pack in your bag, and you can use those swaddling blankets made of super light muslin so the both of you don't sweat so much, etc. Cool, huh? 

Next on the list, my awesome skirt!

I'm a terrible model so feel free to laugh it up. 

Sewing this skirt was my first experience with polyester and, decidedly, my last. Polyester is not fun to work with. But I love the way it hangs and flows, so it was worth it. 

And my last project was this tote. I had been needing a new purse, but I couldn't find one I liked for a price that wasn't outrageous, so I made this tote instead, and I love it! 

Isn't it cute? I sort of have this thing for stripes. It's a pretty big thing. And sailor-y stuff. So naturally, I love this bag. I used this tutorial, and again, super easy. You paint the fabric before you sew it so it looks a little more professional. 

There's a pocket inside, and you can see the bobbin thread from the outside, which I wasn't a fan of. So I sewed over it with a triple-thick zigzag stitch so it looks more intentional. I think it looks a lot better that way. 

The pocket:

I sewed it with two compartments to fit my phone and keys; I'm always losing those in whatever bag I'm carrying. The super nice thing about this bag is that it's the perfect size to double as a diaper bag or just a purse. 

So that's what I've been up to. Chad is busy working hard every day. I don't think I could do what he does. He frequently gets 50+ hours in four days. That isn't ever fun. And he got stung by a hornet the other day. He wasn't too bothered by it, but I'm pretty sure I would have quit. I hate hornets, and Chad gets to be around angry hives every time he works with a dish that's been up for more than five minutes. They love building their nests in the dishes. But he does get three days off a week, which helps to make up for it. 

Anyway, I'm off. But I promise to be better about blogging. At least on the days when we do things more interesting than hanging out at home and doing housework :) Have a great day!