Bar Exam Survival Basket

My best friend Laura is taking the Texas Bar Exam in two weeks. So I put together a little bar exam survival basket for her.

I included: Burt's Bee's lotion, Laffy Taffy (Laura's favorite candy), Lifesaver's mints (another favorite), Halls Vitamin C drops and antibacterial stuff (to keep Laura from getting sick on the flight to Texas), some caffeine (for obvious reasons), a Groupon to a delicious Tex-Mex restaurant in Dallas, our Netflix password, Kleenex, a pencil sharpener, and the most awesome part of all: these custom engraved pencils!

 Our first year of law school, "alpha-ing" an exam became a sort of inside joke for acing it and the "alpha" was the student with the best grade. So with the help of these pencils and my survival basket, Laura can be the "Alpha" of the bar exam (just kidding, she'd ace it even without my help).

If anyone else wants to make awesome pencils, I ordered them from the carbon crusader on etsy.

Read more »

Jaye: Six Months

This past month has been a big one. Jaye has been working on moving so much! She moves all around the futon somehow. A combination of rolling and scootching and wiggling. She's been up on hands a knees a few times, but so far no official crawls. She can sit up by herself though! For at least a minute or so depending on whether or not she reaches to get something. It's fun to see her balance get better and better every day.

Jaye also discovered the volume this month. That involved lots of high-pitched shrieking. And yelling. And just generally louder noises. I've been readjusting my notion of what noises mean she's unhappy.

Jaye loves eating. Her foods tried include: peas, sweet potatoes, prunes, carrots, rice cereal, and oatmeal. I've been using my Beaba baby food maker to make her food. I think it's about time for a new food. Maybe squash? Green beans? A fruit? The other big food milestone is that Jaye has (mostly) stopped nursing. She nurses when she wakes up around 4am and that's it. I'm in no hurry for her to drop that nursing because it's such a sweet time. I bring her into bed with us, and we nurse and sleep for a few more hours.

Unfortunately, yesterday Jaye got her first fever. Her cough has gotten worse sounding, too, more congested. I'm focusing on running the humidifier in her room all the time and trying to get in some extra naps. Her doctor checked her out at her six month appointment though, and assured us it was just a little cold.

Her six month stats are:
Weight: 15 lbs, 8 oz. 38th%
Height: 26.8 in. 84th%
Head Circum: 17.2 in. 82nd%

As usual, she was a rockstar at the doctor. The doctor thought all her development was right on track, the way she uses her hands, the way she stands when you hold her up. She got three shots, didn't even notice the first one, complained about the second and only cried a second at the third. She always stops crying as soon as the shots are over. After the appointment we headed over to 5 Guys for burgers. She just chilled in her car seat playing with a toy for most of the meal, and then finished up with a bottle of her own. We love you Jaye and can't wait to see how much you grow and change in the next month!

Read more »

Nursery: Reveal!

The full tour of Jaye's nursery is finally here. This is the view from the door. We've got the futon mattress on the floor for practical purposes. It's one of our favorite places to lay and play and roll around. Most evenings when Phil comes home from work you'll find our whole family in here. We moved the frame out so that if Jaye rolls off accidentally, it's not so far to the floor. 

To the right is a small stool with the humidifier on it. Keeping the humidifier going for all Jaye's naps has really helped with her cough.

 Her crib is also on the wall to the right of the door. You can read about her crib skirt here. And learn more about the yarn ball mobile here.

 

Above the futon is Jaye's art wall with all the Noah's Ark prints that inspired the entire room.

 You can find more details about everything that's on the wall here. 

 And finally, my favorite part. To the left of the door to the room is Jaye's library cart bookshelf. That's the closet door on the right. If we were staying here, I'd probably remove that door and just use a curtain there.

 Here's the aardvark that stars in Jaye's monthly photos.

 More gratuitous shots of the bookshelf because I love it so much. You can read more details about how Phil and I teamed up to create it here.

Read more »

Nursery: Crib Skirt

The final step in my nursery was to make a crib skirt to hide the gap between the bottom of Jaye's mattress and the drawer in her crib. The fabric was my bedcover during high school. I found it in my parent's garage and was super excited because it has all the colors I used in Jaye's nursery.

 First I measured the height of the gap between the drawer and her mattress. Her mattress is at it's highest point right now, so the skirt will only need to get smaller in the future, not bigger. Then I measured the width. I made three panels for the front and each side because my fabric wasn't long enough to do it in one go.

 Then I used heat and bond to hem the edges and to attach the panels to each other. The colors are not at all right in these awful iPhone pictures I took at night.

 I sewed velcro onto the top edge of the skirt, at a few points spaced out across the top. I sewed the soft part of the velcro onto the fabric and hot-glued the scratchy part onto the edge of the metal-mattress-holder-part-of-the-crib (that's a technical term). I didn't take any pictures of that part because Jaye was fussing on the futon ready to get in the crib and take a nap.

Voila! Crib skirt!

Read more »

A Picture a Day

At the end of December, I bought an app for my phone called Photo365. It adds whatever picture you take or select onto a calendar image. I'm hoping to take a picture everyday this year using it. Not necessarily a picture of Jaye--though usually it is. She's the cutest thing to take pictures of. But maybe some picture that reminds me of what we were doing that day. Or just a random picture. Here's January.

Read more »

Packing Plan: Changing the Default

As we thought about packing up the contents of our home over breakfast this morning, Phil and I decided to change/reverse the usual approach.  Usually, you'd assume that you were bringing everything you owned, but maybe leave out a few things you didn't really use anymore.  Instead, we're going to assume that everything is not coming with us and only bring those things we do actually need.  For example, we have several little drawers of extra pencils and free pens from different places. Do we need them? No. We have plenty of writing utensils even without those. So they don't get to move with us. That broken immersion blender? It's broken. So it's out. Phil's statement of this sent me into a fit of laughter this morning. It made me realize the ridiculous levels to which people take clutter. We've kept that broken immersion blender in our kitchen for over a year already. It's gone now though.

We're framing the move as an expedition of sorts. And on an expedition, you don't need to carry a bunch of extra crap.

Read more »

Nursery: Library Cart Bookshelf

While Phil and I were still dating, I fell in love with rolling library carts. I really wanted one. So, for Christmas one year, Phil made me one! 

I wanted to use it in Jaye's room and decided to both paint and stain it to match the two-tone look of her crib. So I bought a little sander at Home Depot and went to town on it in the basement.

Once it was all sanded, I wiped away all the sanding dust and started staining. The staining was the hardest, and least successful part of the process. I did two applications, but still felt like it wasn't the right color. Unfortunately, I didn't actually compare it to the crib before doing a third super coat. The super coat was a mess. I left it on too long and it was really, really sticky and hard to wipe off again. And it turns out that I didn't need it at all. The cart shelves are definitely darker than the crib drawer. Oh, well. Live and learn. 

For the painting step, I hauled my shelf out to the garage since the staining had stunk up the basement. I did one coat of primer, using a stain-blocking primer that we'd bought for a certain ceiling stain. Then I did two coats of plain white. I used a foam roller. It turned out pretty well. Before I painted, I had used some wood filler to smooth out certain spots, but after painting I noticed WAY more spots I wish I had filled. Oh, well. Live and learn. 

I don't have a picture of the empty final product, because I was too excited to put it in the nursery and fill it up!

I'm so happy with it. I love that both Phil and I put our own love and sweat and frustration into it. 

I love it! Do you?

Read more »