Dining Room

The dining room is done! And I must say, I'm quite proud of it. If you have ever stopped by our house before, then you know what the old dining room looked like. It was an empty, catch all, mish-mash, big table with no chairs, beige hole and after Dean was born it became the diaper changing station. Gross. I finally got myself in gear and got inspired. And, despite the minimal complaining & eye rolling Michael did throughout the process I know he is proud of the final product too - and REALLY glad it's done. You won't catch us changing any diapers in there from now on. Promise.

Here are some before & afters.

{The before picture. Made even more awful by the iPhone picture quality. Eeek!}

{Ahhhh...the after shot. Updated paint color, Ikat drapes with metallic drapery rod, new light fixture, rug, chairs, mirror & art. Voila!}

{I am pretty obsessed with the work of artist Cy Twombly. His pieces can cost about as much as a car. Soooo, I decided to commission myself to create the perfect piece of art for the dining room using his work as my inspiration. This is one of my favorite pieces.}

{Here I am. Budding artist. I had just purchased my canvas, paint & brushes. Blank, clean & full of ideas. I painted during nap time in my garage.}

{Here I am again. Completely frustrated artist. After 2 weeks of relentless painting and re-painting I have a complete MESS and the worst color blue I've ever seen. Thank goodness my sweet neighbor - who happened to have a degree in art and is a painter herself - saw me in my garage and dropped by to see what the heck I was doing. She was able to get me past my block and fill me full of new ideas. Thanks Caroline!}

{A few weeks and one new frame later...done. Exactly what I had wanted all along. Definitely not a Cy Twombly BUT good enough.}

We're still here!

We're still here. We've been busy cheering on our Baylor Bears, visiting the Houston Aquarium, playing with the hose and playing outside with new toys! We've been having too much fun which has left little time for blogging. Here are a few recent pictures...

One!

Welp, I've been procrastinating this post. If you know me well you know I don't like change. SO....needless to say, my first and only son turning one-year-old brought on some emotions and change I wasn't ready for. For about a week leading up to his birthday I rocked him to sleep every night and sobbed - you can confirm that with my hubby, who I'm pretty sure thought I was slowly losing my mind whenever he caught me in the glider mid-sob. I put out a few pictures for the party of Dean's first year. Michael was looking at them the night before and said something like, "wow, he sure is a big" or "he certainly doesn't look like a baby anymore." I immediately burst into tears and turned Michael's shirt into a wet, snotty mess. But, I'm certain (correct me if I'm wrong) that every mom goes through a version of this at some point in time. The bad news is change is inevitable so I've eventually got to pull myself together and put on my big girl pants, otherwise I'll be the mom clinging to my son's leg sobbing uncontrollably when he walks across the stage to get his diploma. So, the past week when folks ask me, "how old is he?" I've been working on replying, "he's one" without breaking into the ugly cry in the middle of the bread aisle.

Here are a few pictures of Dean's birthday party and his actual birthday. We had a great time at his party and Dean was surrounded with loving family and friends - which is just how we wanted it to be. Because I was a little bit busy putting things together for the shin dig, I managed to not take a single photo of the set up - which was super adorable! :( So, this will have to do.

We woke him up on 9.9.10 with birthday waffles. We sang to him and measured how tall he is on the wall in his closet.

For lunch he got a birthday fig newton. I sang to him again and helped him blow it out. Singing, holding a flaming fig newton, taking a photo and trying to keep it out of Dean's reach not the BEST idea I've ever had.

I had grand visions of Dean jumping into his cupcake cake and getting COMPLETELY messy. Not so. This is about how messy he got.

A little batting practice with Unchie Carson.

Showing Peach all my new toys

This was taken a week before Dean's birthday at my Dad's birthday dinner. He did get into the chocolate cake here. I guess it was too much pressure with everyone watching him?! I adore this picture. So full. So happy.

Adam Nyholt

I'm still trying to get everything put back together after the big party this weekend. I promise I'll be doing a big birthday post soon! In the meantime...here are a few pictures from the talented Adam Nyholt! My mom surprised us with a big photo of Dean for his birthday. While she was babysitting him for us one weekend she met Adam for a little photo shoot. He looks SO adorable and I think all of these pictures show his little personality. I adore Adam's work (it's hanging all over our house) and what Mom doesn't love professional pictures of their baby?! Here's the link to his blog where he has posted some of the pictures...

-------> CLICK HERE <--------

Pre-Birthday Cookie

Today I thought it was appropriate to take Dean for a pre-birthday treat. He enjoyed a mini-chocolate chip cookie. He looks a bit drunk in this iphone shot but, I'm pretty sure that's what I look like when I eat a cookie. Tomorrow is the big day! One year old! I'm so excited and will most likely have a happy tear in the corner of my eye all day. We're so proud of our big boy!!! I'm starting to cry right now...

Exposure Therapy

In one of my more brilliant parenting moments (please note intended sarcasm) I decided to start "exposure therapy" with Dean to treat his deep aversion to grass. I learned about exposure therapy from a reality show - at the time I concocted this whole diagnosis & treatment in my head it sounded COMPLETELY legit and then I said it out loud to my husband. So...we went to a park yesterday that has an enormous grassy prairie-like area. After we played on the swings, tried to eat various found objects and played on the slides we began our therapy. Here's how it went...

{How the heck am I going to get out of this?}

{AH-HA...narrow cement step. Safe!}

{Walking the little cement plank. Up and back}

{Up and back. This process went on probably 8 times.}

{Hmm...Mom's camera bag. If only I could get to it without touching the grass.}

{Placed back into the middle of the grass & immediately headed back to the cement.}

{Grabbin' a drink before we head home}

{Walking along the sidewalk at home}