Summa Time

I've been fully on summer break now for about 1 week, and it has been WONderful! I really do love my job, but it's fun to just be a stay-at-home mom for a few months this summer and soak up lots of time with my baby girl.

We've been relaxing a bit around here, but we've also been tackling LOTS of projects. Since we'll be home in WA state for a big chunk of the summer, I've been trying to get all sorts of things done around here that I can't usually do when I'm working. James is not quite fully on a break - he's doing an independent study and working hard on a writing sample this summer. But let me tell you - having him work only from 9-5ish every day is awesome! Such a contrast from the 12+ hour days he was putting in for most of the year.

So yes, we are fully in Summa time mode!

Here's a peak at what we've been up to:

Summer softball. James plays for our church's softball team, and Madeline and I have been out to cheer them on a few times. Church of the Rez has a lot of artistic and musical people, not as many athletic folks - but even so, our team is doing pretty well.

Garage sales! Yes, it is that great time of year again where treasures await you all around for mere pennies. I often stop at garage sales as I see signs on Friday and Saturdays, and this season has been no different. At one sale I found all of these cute little outfits, pajamas, and dresses for 50 cents each. Killer deals, right?

And lots of children's books - all 50 cents each as well. Seriously, kids books can get expensive really quickly - especially when you need lots of variety for the bedtime routine so you don't go crazy with the same little rhymes night after night!

Did ya'll read the Beatrix Potter books when you were little? I loved them! The illustrations are so sweet - so glad I scored a set of them at one of the garage sales.

And a book for myself - I love Ina Garten's recipes. If you've never used one of her cookbooks, you should! Today.

And here we have some chairs that I scored. Folding chairs for 50 cents each (noticing a pattern here?), and the two patio chairs for $2.50/each. I am going to spray paint the patio chairs white -we really needed some new patio chairs and it may seem like a lot of work to paint plastic chairs. Why not just buy some white ones? Because they are around $18.00-$20.00/chair new at a place like Target or Ace Hardware. Not. Worth. It.

These trays may be my favorite score of the season thus far. Two breakfast in bed trays at $4.00/each. I LOVE breakfast in bed. I indulge in this pleasure as often as I can on Saturdays and Sundays, even with little Madeline lying down right next to me. I've been trying to find a breakfast-in-bed tray for years now, but whenever I find them in some home decore store they always cost around $30.00-$50.00, a luxery not quite worth the cost. But at this price, who could pass them up? I've already sanded down and painted the wood white, and now I'm just trying to decide what to do with the actual tray. If I can find some cool contact paper I'd love to cover it in a fun print. Or perhaps modpodge on some fabric or paper? I'll have to show a before/after photo when I finish these. In the meanwhile, they will probably get some good use this Father's Day!

Playdates. We had our friend Judah over for a playdate recently, and Madeline loved hanging with this cool little guy. He can even sit up on his own, doesn't need a Bumbo! Someday Madeline...

She did, however, have to learn to share her toys. Already trying to grab things from other kids at such a young age!

 But they eventually got the hang of sharing.

 Sewing projects. I've been working on a whole bunch of sewing projects this summer. Here is one of the really simple ones I've done - dish mat towels. They are just a cute quilted front with a terry cloth backing to put handwashed dishes on to dry, or those pesky plastics that come out of the dishwasher still all wet. They make great little hostess gifts for a friend. I used this tutorial:

And I made some new burp-cloths for Madeline, cuz this girl still makes a mess every time she starts moving around. It must be the bright colors, because she loves these things. The simple pleasures in life!

My house is still knee-deep in projects - baby quilts, placemats, cleaning out files, rearranging furniture to make room for (guess?!?!) another bookcase, reorganizing the laundry room, finishing the breakfast-in-bed trays, etc, etc. I have one week to finish it all up before we leave for WA!

Well, if you are still reading this congratulations. A blog post list of all the mundane things in our daily lives this summer, not too thrilling I realize. But really the everyday things sure do make up a wonderful  life, oui?

2EA Reunion

At the end of April, 3 of my dear college friends flew into Chicago for a 2EA Reunion (we all lived on 2nd E Ashton our freshman year at SPU), and it was such a great girls weekend! We even had a new little girl in the mix.

(Note - most of these photos are from Emily, Laura, & Janelle)

We did all the things that should happen on a girls trip:

Played with the baby:

Went shopping and stopped for coffee of course:

Spent a lovely day in Chicago:

With lunch on the 95th floor of this building:

Which results in stunning views:

Enjoyed Spring's bounty:

Hung out at the Bean:

Got pedicures:

Dug into Chicago deep dish:

And fully enjoyed my time with these wonderful ladies! It's so great to have friends that you have lived with, celebrated with, encouraged, been encouraged by, shared your faith with, and been challenged by. So glad for these lifelong friendships! Thanks for coming Laura, Janelle, and Emily.

Wigs and Wine

Since I moved to Chicagoland nearly two years ago, I've developed a really great group of girlfriends that have made my transition here so much easier. We all work at the College in some form of student development, and we've been in a Bible study together these last two years. When you work with college students, you never know what kind of funny, crazy, confusing, frustrating, rewarding scenarios you will have with students. So it has been so great to work with such a fantastic group of colleagues that I can call dear friends. We've been a great support sytstem for one another, both professionally and personally - we've celebrated 30th birthdays, new babies, and now an enagagement! Our friend Dee, who was the one who originally rallied us all together for a Bible study and has hosted it these past two years, is engaged and will be married in a few short weeks. So exciting! But she's moving on from her job here at the College - her soon-to-be husband is a military chaplain and they don't know yet where they are heading but likely it won't be in this area. 

So we decided to host a "Wigs and Wine" shower to celebrate Dee and send her off with a bang. It was a blast! How can it not be fun when you're all wearing crazy colored wigs and sipping on wine?

This is me and my friend, Mindy - we both work together in the same office.

The lady of the hour on the far left, opening her gifts. Note the amazing Marge wig in this photo!

I totally want to borrow the afro wig sometime.

Kristy and I are sporting the Blue Bob wigs, wicked right?

One of our friends actually ordered a "normal" looking wig from ebay, and we all felt like country music stars in this wig. I could pull that off, right? I am from a farm town, you know.

And the lovely Hannah...

At the end of the night we all just started trying on everyone else's wigs. My recommendation to anyone reading this is to find some reason in your life to have a Wigs and Wine party. Because trying on these crazy wigs was too much fun. This is my soon-to-be-married friend Dee. Congrats Dee!

I am so grateful to have such a fun and supportive group of co-workers and friends. Really, my job is 10 times better because of these people!

4 months, baby yoga, & mother's day

As I write this post my eyes are nodding off because I am severely sleep deprived. A nasty spring cold hit our household, starting with me, then Madeline, then James. Poor little Madeline is quite stuffy, and that has meant she has woken up crying an average of 7-10 times/night the last 9 or 10 days. Ugh. So all that to be said, this post is going to be random. Ready? Here we go.

So my baby girl is 4 months old, and our 4 month photo shoot was less than easy. I got one smile out of her. Here it is:

 Still pretty cute, right? But she's getting to be a big girl now, and not quite content to just sit and smile for the camera. She's a mover and a shaker, for goodness sake! So as you can see in the pic below, I was trying to keep her from rolling over and she wasn't having it.

 She decided that if she was going to have to stay on her back, she could at least have fun with her puppy.

And having fun for Madeline means eating whatever she can get her hands on. 

 After chewing her puppy, she tossed him to the side...

And got back to the business of rolling. Because that is what 4 month olds do.

 Okay Madeline, I see how it is. Monthly onesie photo shoots are going to be tough from here on out, huh?

One new trick Madeline has learned in her 4th month is to eat her foot. How many of you can do that? It takes some real stretching capabilities.

The one foot in the mouth trick has progressed to two...here she is doing her little yoga pretzel. I'm sure she'll surpass me in yoga abilities any day now.

 We are also realizing that Madeline is much more attuned to her surroundings now, which is good and bad. It makes it even more fun to interact with her, and to watch her respond to her environment. But it means we can't quite schlep her around anywhere and expect her to sleep through it anymore. So we've been trying to have a better naptime routine for her, which involves wrapping her up tight so her little hands can't pull that pacifier out of her mouth. I snapped these photos one day when she was sleeping away peacefully; that is the quilt that James used as a baby and it's so sweet to think of her using the same quilt as her daddy.

And we just celebrated my first Mother's Day. We were all still feeling a little yucky from our colds on Mother's Day, so we had a lazy morning and then took a picnic to a nearby park and lake which was lovely. It was a perfect day - mid 70's, very mild breeze, and abundant sunshine. 

 Augustine says that to have children is to populate the heavenly city. As I was reflecting on my first Mother's Day, I really felt like having Madeline has been like having a slice of heaven here on earth. She is such a wonder to both James and me!