Bop It

December 15, 2011Leave a comment

PW and I had a very limited idea of what the hell we were doing when we registered for all our baby gear. I, the shopper with a black belt, was totally overwhelmed by the process and spent most of our first trip with my feet up in the floor model gliders. Thankfully, we did pretty well ending up with only a few things we didn’t really need.

One of those items was a Boppy Pillow…or so I thought. This little “U” shaped, stuffed thing is supposed to help support your baby while you breast feed. I am apparently not the Boppy standard size as I would have needed 3 of them stacked up to help me out. But I did find it useful when Bay was learning to sit up. We would sit on the floor and try to get her to stay upright with the support of the soft pillow around her.

Normally, as soon as we are done with something, it gets washed and goes straight to a storage bin in the garage. But for some reason this damn pillow escaped my organized wrath and B spotted it at the top of the closet shelf. She asked if she could have it and then insisted she sleep with it. She didn’t have a pillow at all, is out of SIDS range and has enough stuffed animals to choke a horse in her crib any way, what could it hurt? It turns out that she loves it. She sleeps like a badger – flailing around and rolling all over the place. So the Boppy works great as it pretty much surrounds her. She looks so comfy, I’ve been tempted to snap a picture. But because I haven’t totally lost my mind, I don’t risk waking her up with the camera beep.

Easy Christmas Decorations

December 14, 2011December 14, 20112 Comments

Holy cats. This Christmas has been screaming towards us like a Mack truck. I feel like we’ve been scrambling from the get go to catch up / get ahead of this holiday. When we were putting up decorations, I realized one of my favorite things is one of the simplest. It’s a trifle dish full or ornaments surrounded by a fresh, live wreath. And this past weekend, I found a banner that cascades out of the middle that really is the icing on the cake – er, trifle. And really, it’s so something that Kristin Thomson at www.oneprettyplace.com could whip up lickety split.

Ali Hearts Coffee

December 13, 2011December 12, 20111 Comment

I love making mini Christmas trees. They are so fun to dream up, to create and so fun to give as gifts. Peter’s mom and dad are both UofA grads as well so their tree is a UofA theme with all four of our graduation pictures as ornaments. My mom has one with an ornament for each of the kid’s family’s. I have aspirations to make one for Bay with a picture from each Christmas, but I haven’t found the right inspiration yet. But I did find inspiration with some coffee…

My sister, Ali, has always been a lover of Starbucks. She even worked there for a short stint in high school. I knew she had been collecting the mini ornaments they sell at the holidays so I asked her to bring all that she had and compiled them all into a tree.

I usually pick up a box of three, mini, prelit trees from Michaels in the after Christmas sale. So I had the perfect little 14 inch tree for the project. I tied on the ornaments, glued on some bells, tied on pretty ribbon and found the perfect espresso cup as the topper. I also found a mini tree skirt at Target – perfect!

Lettuce Eat

December 12, 2011December 12, 20116 Comments

Remember this post about the lettuce table that PW built for me? Well it’s back and better than ever! Bay and I planted seeds about 5 weeks ago and they are growing like weeds. I think we are some fertilizer and a week away from eating like rabbits for every meal. The best part is that Bay is totally persuaded to eat because she grew it!

Tree Hunting

December 6, 20111 Comment

Peter finally convinced me this year to go up North and cut down a Christmas tree. I have always been opposed because his plans involved me sitting in the back seat with a squirmy, crying kiddo while getting motion sick for 5 hours while he sipped hot chocolate, sang along to Christmas songs and drove his oh-so-precious truck.

He agreed to move the location to a much more reasonable destination and went the first day permits were available to ensure that we got the right area. The plan was that we would drive up just north of Payson, get our tree, eat a picnic brunch and head back while the munchkin napped. When I told our friends Beth and Grant of our plans, the wanted to join. So now we would have a party for our Griswold style tree hunting. We were certain it would be a disaster, but hopefully a hilarious disaster.

Sadly, Mother Nature had other plans. She decided to dump 2 feet of snow on the usually dry area the day before our trip. After looking at the web cams and the road conditions, we decided it wasn’t safe to risk an accident or getting stuck. So we opted for church, breakfast and tree hunting at a lot with our friends.

PW and I each can’t remember the last time we had a real tree. We have an awesome, pre-lit version that is so easy we just always go with that. But the live version is pretty great – we bought from a local nursery and the thing might as well have been cut down by us it’s so fresh! Here are the highlights:

Getting her in place.

Uncle Grant ATTACK!!!

Aunt Beth 🙂

Straightening it out…again. It only fell over twice.

Ta da!! I was trying to get tricky with my camera to get lots of light, but it didn’t quite pan out…

Who is that teenie, tiny lady?!

Old School

From the time I was little, I remember Mame had this on her dresser.

I’ve actually done a good job of making a photo ornament for each year. I love looking at all of them!

I HEART ZAPPOS!

December 1, 2011December 1, 20111 Comment

Yesterday I had one of the greatest customer service experiences of my entire life. Seriously, it’s the stuff legends are made of.

I ordered a pair of Christmas shoes for Bay about a week ago. I love Zappos free shipping both ways policy (I hate paying to ship back a return) and I am now in love with their “video view”. You know when you’re looking at something on-line and you can’t quite tell if it’s the right color or if it would look right on? Enter video view. It’s a quick 20 second video of an employee holding, squishing, twisting and pointing out the assets of a shoe. I was set on a pair until I watched the video and saw the color wasn’t quiet true to the picture. LOVE.

Naturally I was super excited to open the Zappos box when it came yesterday – but when I did, I realized it was the wrong shoes. I checked the receipt to confirm that I didn’t have an aneurism while shopping and saw that they had clearly shipped me the wrong shoe. Right size, wrong color and style. No biggie, I’ve returned with them before so I knew it wouldn’t be a huge deal. I called up customer service and with in 45 seconds was connected to a person (LOVE). I explained the problem and read off all the number for my order and on the box. The man said he would get it fixed in no time and would I mind holding.

When he came back, he apologized profusely and told me that the shoes I wanted were no longer available in B’s size. Before I could relay my disappointment, he had already launched into a compensation shpeel – Zappos was going to refund my money for the wrong shoes but they insisted that I keep the wrong shoes since they were the right size AND they were going to give me a $25 coupon to purchase a new, different pair. Huh? I asked him to run through it again so I was sure I got the point – I got my money back. And a free pair of shoes. And a nearly free pair of the shoes I actually wanted?? LOVE.

When B woke from her nap, I tried on the new free shoes and realized that she really could get away with a half-size bigger. So I used my coupon and ordered her up the pair I wanted in a half-size bigger for a total of $8.99! Amazing!

She’ll be looking so fancy in her new, nearly free shoes! Shop Zappos. Shop them often and tell your friends!

Giving Thanks

November 28, 2011November 28, 2011Leave a comment

Holy moly. It’s been a crazy week! Thanksgiving was one of the best yet – after 5 years of hosting, I think we have feeding 20+ down to a science. We’ve gotten to see and spend time with old friends and lots of extended family. Baylor is officially BFFs with her second cousin, Abby. And is solidly convinced that her (step) cousins are the best.

Mother Nature threatened, once again, to rain on our parade. I literally stepped out onto our patio with my hands on my hips just daring her to keep sprinkling all over my beautifully set table. Thankfully, I have a very convincing “mom stare” and she backed off before my linens were soaked. In fact, the sun came out by the time all of our family and friends arrived with side dishes in hand. PW’s turkeys were the best he’s ever made and the entire evening was…relaxed. The everyone ate and then sat and enjoyed the beautiful Arizona weather, candle light and kid’s laughter.

{Mother Nature threatening to ruin my table!}

{Chef Wand}

{Chef Wand’s Turkeys}

{Titi and cousin Zoe}

{The hungry crowd}

{How many kids can you fit on a toddlers climber?}

{this many!}

{How do you make tree climbing more interesting? Do it in a tree not really meant for climbing and add fire!}

{A sweet note from cousin Madi about being thankful}

I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving too! I am very thankful for you reading, commenting and liking my humble blog 🙂

Denver Bound

November 17, 20111 Comment

We spent this past weekend in Colorado visiting friends from law school and going to the UofA v CU Boulder game. In a word, it was awesome.

When the PAC 10 became the PAC 12, PW began dreaming of snowy football games in CO. And when this season’s schedule was announced, he began putting together plans for a road trip. We get a double bonus for trips to Denver because our friends, Brian and Jeanne are now Denver-ites which means we got to see and catch up with them too. And catch up we did.

Friday night was spent laughing, reminising and filling each other in on life, jobs and the kiddo. We talked over the most amazing meal ever at Osteria Marco. We also walked around Larimer Square – it felt like the perfect holiday location; strings of lights, chilly weather and a warm coat!

After a delicious, greasy spoon cafe breakfast, we headed West to Boulder for the game. Colorado is spectacularly beautiful and getting to go to a small college town made me think of Tucson. We arrived to join the UofA tailgate hosted by a group of friends and PW’s fraternity brothers. It’s always nice to know that some things don’t change.

Check out Grizzly Adams back there…

To sum up the game…it was horrible. The wind was blowing at a steady 40mph and gusting up to 70mph. Worse, UofA was crushed by Boulder (maybe the only team that was worse than the Cats). But the scenery and the company made up for all of it. Not to mention the super cute cowboys on the field that were incharge of running Ralphie the Buffalo down the field.

Seriously, check out my hair in the wind!

Beautiful Boulder

Who runs a real buffalo around??

Saturday night we ordered pizza and opened several bottles of wine and warmed up at Brian and Jeanne’s house. After several sips, Brian agreed to break out the guitar and play. He can literally play anything. He has a huge book of lyrics so that everyone can accurately sing along – and it’s something we did often when we were all broke law school students (or just broke because we were married to a student). It reminded of one of my favorite memories – it was maybe a week before we were moving home to AZ. I had cut out of work early to meet PW, Brian, Jeanne and our other friends James and Tess (Brian and James were roommates at the time). I found them all sitting on the “patio” of the row “house”James and Brian rented (I say “house” because their slum lord probably had the house condemned the minute the tenants moved out), drinking and singing Toto’s “Africa” with total seriousness on their faces. There was no making fun of Toto, it was serious music to be taken seriously. The weather was finally warm, the beer was cold and we sat and sang and drank until it was time to catch the last metro home. It was the perfect way to say goodbye to the city, our friends and to being a student.

Flash forward 4 years, weddings, kids, jobs and many miles traveled later and we were right back to that point. We sat and sang until we realized that we had to get up in just a few hours to catch our plane. And much like I am an amazing dancer after several cocktails, I am also an amazing singer. Sadly for you, WordPress won’t let me upload the voice memo I took of the Billy Bragg and Wilco California Stars jam session. You’ll just have to imagine the awesomeness in your mind.

A thousand thank you’s to Brian and Jeanne for being such sweet hosts and amazing friends. I see reunion 2012: Spring Training in our future!

Say Cheese

November 14, 20111 Comment

I have been on the hunt for a photographer that fit into our budget to take family pictures for us. I love pictures and I like when I get to be in them, which doesn’t often happen when I’m the one taking all the pictures! Plus, I love the candid shots and retouching of professional work.

Awhile ago I “liked” a friend from high school’s photography page – 2 Comforts Photography. I thought she did mostly wedding work but recently saw some family pics pop up. So I reached out to Meredith for a quote and it turned out that not only were her rates increadibly reasonable, they were having a special AND had openings! Jackpot!

So we met a few weekends ago at Civic Center Park and spent an hour snapping pics. I have to say that Bay was quite cooperative. She did start to loose it towards the end of the hour, but Meredith and her husband Travis were able to catch some great shots during that phase. Needless to say, I am thrilled with pictures and I can’t wait to get them up on the wall!

Here are a few of my favorites: