Luke Hating Bananas

Why I Love Me Some Saturday

Yesterday, while my son did this:

I wanted to turn this:

And this:

Into: ..well...not that. (I can't give it all away at the beginning...I'm trying to be more mysterious. It's womanly.)

I've been working on making my living room un-ugly. It's going smashingly so far. As many of you know, we're on an EXTREMELY tight budget...so I've been attempting to do these projects for little (and preferably no) cost to us. It's been an exciting challenge and so far, I'm loving the results. We got new couches, (Cost: nothing out of pocket.) a dining table, (Cost: nothing out of pocket.) a new entertainment center (Cost: nothing out of pocket) and I've also finished a few projects I found on Pinterest. (Cost for three projects: around 30 dollars because I lack in basic crafting necessities and am only now building up my supplies.) I love finding bargains. I'm in love with yard sales, (though I'm still figuring out how to do the whole 'early' thing with a four-month old son) craigslist (for more on how I get things for free on craigslist...stay tuned to my youtube channel. Michelle and I are considering doing a 'thrifting' special. Be. Excited.) and of course...thrift stores.

So yesterday was the day I'd decided to do my gallery wall. We got beautiful photos taken at our wedding, but I hadn't gotten a display together in which to..well..display them. After doing a bit of research on gallery walls and such, I finally decided to take the plunge. DID YOU KNOW WAL MART HAS 3 DOLLAR FRAMES?? Bless that store. Bought three 3 dollar frames (so this project cost me a total of 9 dollars being as I already had several frames) and set to work.

First I figured out the layout I wanted on the floor as I was taught. I did not, however, do the newspaper outline which probably would have been helpful, but I decided not to conform.

Then, I recruited my fabulously handsome husband to help me put my vision onto the wall. He did a tremendous job.

After a few, "Tilt it to the right!"s and "Oops...that's a quarter of an inch too high"s. We had completed our first gallery wall. I think it looks fabulous! I'm really excited about how it turned out:

Props to Brianne and Ky for gifting me two of the pictures. Kyla gave me the on on the left that says, "A true love story never ends." I LOVE it!! And Brianne made the one on the right. It has our family name over a transparency of The Proclamation to the World.

The Video...finally!

I was right! Uploading to youtube was WAY faster and easier. So. FINALLY...here is a video of Luke. Now that I know how to do it, I'll probably post a bunch more.

The Definition of Parental Desperation:

is when you try to time the flush of the toilet to perfectly coincide with the loudest surge of the noise generator's wave sounds that are keeping your baby asleep during nap time.

A quick update:

Thrice I have now attempted to upload a video of my son being cute to blogger; thrice I have been denied the fruits of my labors. (My labors: I pushed several buttons and then waited.) Today I will attempt to first upload the video to youtube and THEN post it to blogger. Maybe it will work? Keep your eyes peeled...a video is forthcoming. I hope.

They replaced our hot water heater now enabling us to enjoy warmth despite the fact that we share hot water with the mother, father and SIX DAUGHTERS that live next-door to us and share one bathroom. I love being able to do dishes without waiting an hour after showering. It's the little things...

Shem and I are reading our Christmas present. My dad gave us a copy of Dave Ramsey's "The Total Money Makeover". We're learning how to be rich. It's most exciting.

I have to go to the bank, make about 5 or 6 phone calls, (one of which is to the government so it should take approximately 8 years) clean my room, finish cleaning the kitchen, put the crock-pot meal together that we're supposed to be eating for dinner and finish my laundry. And yet. Here I sit. Blogging. *sigh* Nap times are so precious.

In attempt not to squander the time given to me by the napping gods, I should go. And do things.

My First Pinterest Project

I. Am. Obsessed. With Pinterest.

A month or so ago, my cousin, Sarah told me I'd love Pinterest and sent me an invitation via facebook. Sadly, I did something wrong while signing up for it and it wouldn't let me on the site. I gave up, not knowing the treasure Pinterest truly was.

Then, two days ago, my good friend, Hannah reminded me about it and sent me ANOTHER invite. That did it. I finally got on, read about it, figured it out and promptly became obsessed. Truly, it's bad. I literally dreamed about it last night. I love everything about it. I'm finding all kinds of exciting projects to do. And there's something about it that really inspires me to actually DO the things.

So. I completed my first project and now have the materials needed to complete a second project. This first project was sort of a test run to see how crafty my inner craftiness is, so I didn't take pictures along the way, but my next project I just might make a small tutorial just in case anybody else is interested in making one. =) Anywhoo...here's the finished product. I'm super, super excited about how it came out.

Squee! YAY weekly calendars, organization aaaand Pinterest.

Christmastime!

This is Luke. He loves Christmas. He loves the Christmas lights and the trees and the wrapping paper and the parties during which he flirts mercilessly with the women who pass him around.

Luke and Mama (and sometimes Daddy) decorated for Christmas. Here is what we did:

We finally bought a dining table which made me very excited because I have this fancy lace table cloth and fancy christmas candles and things that I wouldn't have had a place to put otherwise.

It's hard to see in this picture, but the stockings all have our names written in glitter. YAY fancy DIY projects. =)

Our new entertainment center sans TV.

Luke's Christmas present. It's under the tree. Yeah. I'm the world's best wrapper. I got this thing on craigslist for 20 bucks. It was originally 100. Score. P.S. it's taking great self-discipline not to stick him in this thing until Christmas. LOOK AT ALL THE TOYS!

This is our cute, tiny, artificial tree. As soon as we got this up, Shem said, "Wasn't this bigger last year?" We can both touch the top without so much as going on tippy-toes. And we're short. (Don't tell Shem I called him short) But it is the cutest tree of all time. We put twinkly lights on it and a beautiful star which this photo doesn't entirely capture, and it makes me so ridiculously happy. I have this thing plugged in just about all of this time.

Another shot of the tree, I guess. YAY decorations! There are a few more, but blogger is a pain about putting up pictures. So. Facebook shall tell all in a couple of weeks. Be excited.

Why My Son Sleeps In A Suitcase

When he was born, I was all about the idea of co-sleeping. I'm a really light sleeper, so the risk of my rolling on top of him was extremely low. Unfortunately, that same blessing was also a curse; for the first 3 weeks of his life, I didn't sleep. At all. Every time he breathed (which was frequent, let me tell you) I woke up. Then, my cousin Shannon lent us her 'My Little Lamb' cradle swing which Luke and I promptly fell in love with. He slept like a baby ! in that thing. (Man, I'm funny.) And I slept like a baby while he was in it.

Then, something wonderfully tragic occurred, for unknown reasons, Luke gave up the swing. He loves swinging and playing in it still, but he WILL not sleep in it. No idea what changed his mind. So I figured...hey...we'll move his crib into our room for a little while until he is big enough to be in a room on his own. No such luck. We constructed the crib inside his room. Therefore, I did not know it doesn't fit out the door. Fail.

P.S. During all of these super exciting developments, I had unpacked our humongoid suitcase from our trip to Utah and didn't want to wrangle the thing back into our itty-bitty coat closet. So the darn thing was just sitting in our hallway, waiting for me to deal with it. It mocked me on my nightly trips to the bathroom.

That's when the solution hit us: we could turn the suitcase into a bassinet type thing! It solved so many problems all in one fail swoop. He now sleeps safely at the foot of our bed, he is within arms reach for those 2am feedings of which I am so fond, he doesn't wake me up, he doesn't wake himself up, he feels safe and secure since the size is perfect, AND...I didn't have to put the stupid thing away. YAY SOLUTIONS!