fun

The first thing everyone notices about Cora is, of course, her hair. It is pretty amazing. It is actually lightening and thinning out a bit, all while getting longer. We have to flatten it out with gel, and even then it doesn't always lay down.

Here are some pictures of what Cora looks like straight out of the bath when her hair dries naturally. Several people have said she is quite the rock star!

We have had a really fun, busy few weeks!

We went and saw "Conductor Jack" at Whole Foods Market...

We saw a fabulous marionette show at the downtown branch of the Nashville Public Library...

Jim's company picnic was on Saturday and it was a lot of fun (despite the testy weather)...

and we even snuck in a date night.  (Sorry, I don't have pictures of us eating at Red Lobster!)

This week I have been working on a new project, drawer pulls, for my friend Kylie's baby nursery,

and I finally finished sewing the stage skirt for our church.  I don't have photos of the skirt yet (I'll have to wait until it's hanging), but here is a picture of Brennan "fixing" my sewing machine (there was nothing really wrong with it, but he loves doing "jobs" with his tools):

Tonight we went out for ice cream to celebrate.  

The weather was gorgeous, the ice cream was delicious, and we were all very content.  

Hooray for spring!

So, I started this little blog series telling everyone what I had been doing that kept me so busy I couldn't find a spare moment (for over a month) to write on this blog.  And, if you have been reading, you've probably thought to yourself, "Those things are all nice, but a month?  You can't be that busy..."  Well, if the other parts of my list weren't very compelling or interesting, perhaps today's conclusion will convince you that I have better things to worry about than my blog.

2. Potty training a very stubborn boy.

We started potty training Brennan a few weeks ago, and it has been an interesting ride.  After speaking to so many of my friends who managed to potty train their children in a week or less, I thought that if I just waited long enough, Brennan would be ready and we would have similar success.  Um, no.  

Brennan is the exception to every rule sometimes.  Although he is extremely bright and aware, he is also as stubborn as a mule.  After days of following the "potty training in a day" method, we still were relying on luck to get him to go in the potty.  It wasn't that his muscles weren't ready; it's that he didn't have a clue that his body did those things until we spent a few days focusing on it.  And it wasn't until a lovely spring day when I let him play on the back deck with a completely bare bottom that he started to get it. 

But now we have a new problem. 

Brennan will consistenly use the potty all on his own only when he is naked.  If he has on underwear, a pull-up or anything else, he will rely on those things to catch his mess.  He doesn't care if he's wet or if he misses some fun to get changed. 

So...for now we've stopped talking about it, focusing on it, etc., and we're in pull-ups full-time.  I'm going to wait and get some advice from his pediatrician when I take him to his check-up soon.  Grr.

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Okay.  So by now you know that I have spent a lot of time planning and executing a big birthday party, learning how to decorate a cake, planning and attending a women's retreat, catching up on business stuff, sewing a stage skirt, sprucing my house, and potty training, but none of those things takes energy and time like...

(drum roll, please...)

1. Growing an October "Pumpkin"!!!!

No, not a gourd or fruit... We're going to have another baby!

I am twelve weeks along, and we are expecting baby Riggs #2 to join our family sometime during the first week in October.  I have been dealing with lots of nausea, vomiting, and exhaustion, and those are the real reasons I abandoned my blog for a while.  I was just trying to keep my head above water!  However, I am grateful that things appear to be going well, and we are so eager to meet this little one soon.  Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

Phew! The big farm party is over, and we had lots of fun! I already showed you the invitations, and I wanted to share some of the creative details that went into making our modern house into a virtual barn. A ton of planning and time went into this party, and it was so worth it. We made some great memories!

The goody bags were just white bags painted with black spots.  My favorite part was the back:

I searched high and low for cow tales to put on the back of the bags.  They are yummy anyway, they are perfect for toddlers, and they belong on the back of a cow bag!

Inside the bags I put haystack cookies...

... and some farm stickers, tattoos, and a rubber duck.

I made homemade (read: free) coloring books with coloring pages from the internet.

And I used another piece of clip art as inspiration for "Bessie."  We played pin the tail on the cow, and here is what she looked like when the kids were done:

Simple flowers in mason jars were used as decor, and I also used stuffed animals and books that Brennan already had:

On the dining room table I used vinyl tablecloths from the camping section at Wal-Mart, a hay bale I bought on ultra-clearance last fall / early winter, a cowboy hat that Brennan already had (he was born in Dallas, after all!), some farm animal masks that my mother-in-law gave me when she retired from teaching, and bandannas from Oriental Trading Company (each kid got to take one home). 

Besides pin the tail on the cow, we made farm animal magnets from Oriental Trading, put on tattoos (also from OT), and we played "animalround-up" by tossing stuffed cows and pigs into a galvanized bucket. That silly game was the hit of the party! 

Food was a lot of fun with this theme.  We had "straw" (potato sticks) and "hay" (pretzels)...

... lemonade from the "duck pond"...

... and some delicious fruit from the watermelon pig!

And, of course, what is a birthday party without cake?

Brennan was more excited about this cake than anything else.  He talked about it for weeks before the party, so I knew I had to deliver!

In the end, it was a terrific day, and I'm glad I had an opportunity to do these things for my sweet boy.  The real test will be to see if I do something like this again next year, or whether we just go someplace and pay someone else to take care of the details!!

Last Wednesday I began writing about what I have been up to this last month.  I like to call this series, "Things I have been doing instead of blogging." Today I will share numbers 4 and 3 in the countdown.

4. Sewing a never-ending stage skirt

Ugh.  I hate to even write about this one, because it is one of those things with which I just want to be done.  In January (New Year's Eve, actually), I decided that I should make a skirt to go around the bottom of the pitiful stage at our church.  I went out and bought some fabric, thinking that it would be no big deal.  Well, it is a big deal.  A big, big deal.  I've made plenty of simple curtains or bed skirts that follow the same concept, so I didn't think it would be such a huge undertaking.  What I didn't bother to figure was that I would be working with fifty-four feet of fabric, in width alone.  It took hours to cut, hours to iron, and hours to sew, and I'm still not finished.  I have most of the gathers done and just need to complete final stitching and add some velcro, but I keep running into snags and issues, and it makes me afraid to turn the sewing machine on again.  My goal now is to have this done for Easter.  I'll post pics when I'm finally there...

3. Doing some "spring sprucing" around the house

I have a list the length of my arm of projects I want to do around the house.  It seems like I am constantly interrupted from completing even the most small or mundane tasks.  Or, I get sidetracked and overwhelmed by life and lose motivation...  Recently I decided to tackle a few of the small projects and feel a sense of accomplishment.  

Take, for example, these shelves.  They were a disgusting mess.  For the longest time, stuff was piled, jammed on there, and they looked horrible.  I was embarrassed if anyone came over for dinner, because the shelves are next to the kitchen table.  What I really want is to paint the table and chairs and the shelf, but I know that isn't going to happen any time soon, so I finally decided to organize them.  I don't have a before shot, but here is what they look like after a little sorting, cleaning, and with the addition of some new baskets that were on sale at Michael's:

I also decided to make some curtains for our half bath off the kitchen.  That bathroom is completely barren and has no personality, and since I can't paint the white walls, I need to infuse personality some other way.  I have a few ideas, and we'll see where they fall on my to-do list.  Hopefully someday I'll be able to show before and after pictures of the whole room!

On Wednesday I began writing about what I have been up to this last month.  I like to call this series, "Things I have been doing instead of blogging." Today I will share numbers 6 and 5 in the countdown.

6. Planning for and attending the first ever LCC Women's Retreat

We go to a small church in Nolensville called Life Community Church. This year was the first ever women's retreat (at least it is the first that I know of). About 15 women managed to slip away together to a beautiful (beau-tee-ful!) lake house in Alabama, where we relaxed, relished the first signs of spring, and learned more about each other and our great God.

Retreat photos courtesy of Christy Johnson

It was a lot of fun to help plan the retreat, and I was in charge of the goody bags. I got a lot of great items from Etsy, and some of the ladies we worked with even donated their items for free, minus the cost of shipping. We felt so loved and pampered!

Forcing myself to do nothing for an entire weekend was harder than I had expected, but it was great therapy. This definitely needs to become an annual event!

5. Finally finishing a clipboard for a giveaway winner

A few months ago Bella Casa hosted an Etsy party with lots of great giveaways.  I was lucky enough to participate and got lots of traffic to my Etsy shop during that week.  In the end, Julie won a custom clipboard from Lissalaneous, and she was so excited about it.  

Julie does early intervention for kids with learning delays, and she carries a clipboard with her everywhere she goes.  She said she was tired of her "ugly brown clipboard," so she chose a colorful one to replace it.

One of Julie's fabulous requests for the clipboard was a place to put her business cards on the back.  She said she always needs one to hand to someone and never has a stash, but she usually tapes one to the back of her clipboard and rips it off to give to someone.  This little pouch should keep her from having to do that anymore!

I feel terrible that it took me so long to complete this project, but I have good reasons, and hopefully Julie will understand.  You'll learn more about those reasons in the rest of the series.  Stay tuned... 

So, I know that I haven't been around for a whole month(!), and I'll bet some people are wondering what in the world I have been doing for so long! When I realized how long I had been away, I asked myself what had kept me so busy. I decided to look back at my calendar from the last four weeks and see what things have occupied my time. Some things are newsworthy and others aren't, (Isn't that what blogging is all about? Some of the most interesting blog posts I have ever read are about nothing at all!) but I've decided to assume that you care about what I've been doing and create a little series catching you up on our lives this last month. Over the next week or two, you will read about eight things I have been doing instead of blogging.

One of the random things I did recently was get this great photo from above taken at church by my friend, Christy.  There's no terrific story other than to say that we needed a family photo for a women's ministry event, and she brought her camera to get one for me.  Isn't this shot great, especially considering it was in a dingy, poorly-lit gym?  I can't wait to have Christy do some outdoor sessions of our family some time!

And now, without further ado, here are numbers eight and seven on my list of "Things I have been doing instead of blogging":

8. Planning a farm birthday party for our soon-to-be three-year-old son!

Last year, when Brennan turned two, we had just moved into our house a week earlier and knew no one in Nashville.  We had a quiet celebration at home, just the three of us, but I vowed that a year later when Brennan and I both had new friends, we would do a birthday party right.  Here we are now, on the brink of his third birthday, and we are in the midst of planning a farm-themed shindig fit for a king (or farmer).  I have been planning for a long time, brainstorming decorations and food and games (I honestly think coming up with ideas is just as fun as having the event itself), and I spent days making these adorable barn-shaped invitations.   

There were multiple steps involved in making these invitations.  Besides having to cut and glue all of the parts, I also had to find the right size star-shaped brads, get a current photo of Brennan in overalls, and locate small farm animal stickers that would fit behind the barn doors.  I think the end result was worth all the work.  Several moms have told me that their kids love playing with the invitations and adore the animal stickers.  I'm so glad these beauties haven't ended up in the recycling bin just yet!

7. Learning how to decorate a cake

No, I didn't make that gorgeous cake, and no, this isn't at all related to number eight.  Although it would be awesome to put my new skills to the test on Brennan's birthday cake, I don't think his cake will have any decorate border.  (We'll see... maybe I can sneak some in.)  Actually, this was a lesson at our MOPS meeting several weeks ago.  My co-coordinator, Kristi, invited her mom who used to work in a bakery to stop in and teach us all how to handle a pastry bag and tips.  We practiced on the backs of cake pans, and it was so much fun!  It made me wish I had time to take an extensive course at JoAnn or Michael's.  I would love to add "cake decorator" to my home executive resume.

Stay tuned to see some of the other things I have been doing these last four weeks. I will not stay away that long again and keep you in suspense!

Have you ever played with Wordle? It is so much fun! I absolutely love word art, and I created this cool piece to hang in our guest room (or wherever else I decide to put it). Check it out!

You can enter a list of words or any text you like, and the word cloud will be generated for you.  You can customize the font, colors, and orientation. 
I could see using this to create coffee mugs, tee-shirts, and more! What would you do with your Wordle creation?