12 in 12

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I am not a big New Years Resolution kind of girl.  I have some core commitments and some things that are more like life goals that more or less have to do with what sort of person I want to be.  But this is stuff I work on year round and don't wait until the new year to tackle.  They, like life are more of a work in progress that something to be declared and started at a set point.

I love the idea of the 30 by 30 list that bloggers like Nicole have done and Jen is doing now, aiming to accomplish, do, see or try 30 things the year before turning 30 years old.   I really like the way their list have a nice balance of big kind of accomplishments and smaller little projects.  I had high hopes of doing my own 30 by 30 list last year, but thought twice about it once I realized I would be growing a sweet little babe, working full time and oh, moving across country, trying to get a new house settled and becoming a mother all at the same time.  So I made the wise decision to focus my year leading up to 30 on those big changes.  But I still like the idea creating a list of sorts to tackle some of those projects and whatnot that I need a little nudge to do, plus it would be such a fun way to get a sense of accomplishment.

So in the spirit of the 30 by 30 since I missed the chance to do a real 30 by 30 and since it is the new year I am going to be doing a 12 in 12.  Twelve things that are not really resolutions but more things I want to learn/do/accomplish this year.  Twelve things to do in a twelve months span.  I think it will be fun to check in from time to time and share how they are going.

So here they are:

1) Try a new hair cut and color.  I change my hair up by growing it out and cutting it off but the last couple of years I have noticed that I have the same go-to hair cuts in this cycle and I would like to change things up a bit.  As for the color I have wanted to try something new and have just been too scared--I have great natural hair color and to be honest time is a tickin away on how much longer I can enjoy color free hair so I want to enjoy it while I have it but I would like a change.  This year is the year to do it!

2) Learn how to wear lipstick.  I am really more of a lipgloss kind of girl.  In the last year I have tip-toed into the realm of lip stain lip glosses.  Lipstick makes me cringe and either think of middle school when we were all obsessed with wearing way too much in totally wrong shade all the time or my grandma who I am pretty sure has been wearing the same shade for decades.  I would like to get over the cringe and learn to work it in.

3) Decide on a paint color for the formal living/dining and then paint!  Pretty straight forward...if I could ever make up my mind!  

4) Run in a race.  Yep, I run 3 times a week and have never run in a race (more on this later).  I would like to give a whirl.

5) Refinish the bed frame I bought at the flea market.  This may seem a bit to-do listy but I really want to tackle this project because it is the starting piece for decorating the guest bedroom.

6) Begin building our food garden in the backyard.  This will be a multi-year, multi-phase project but woohoo I can't wait to start it!  I am pretty sure that in Texas I could garden 9 months a year if I planned it out carefully, but I have much to study, read, plan and plot this year!

7) Get the "creative room" pulled together.  We have a home office but we would like it to be part office, part music and part crafting space.  I would really like to see it pulled together to function in all those different ways so that our family has a little space to retreat and work on projects.  

8) Visit the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum.  I am from the Oklahoma City area and have very strong memories from that day.  I haven't had the chance to go to the museum but I would like to very much.  

9) Take Adelaide to the place where T and I got engaged.  I know she will love it!  I think we will make a special family holiday of it!

10) Visit at least two art museums NOT in my city.  We have a membership to the DMA.  I have big plans to not only beat the heat by taking little miss there in the summer, but taking full advantage of the exchange program that allows us free entrance into 500 other museum nationwide.  Yes.  I geek out just thinking about the possibility.

11)  Finish a sewing project from a pattern.  Ok, the tea towels I made don't really count as sewing.  I really need to put my machine to good use this year, but let's just start with finishing a project!

12)  Attend at least one concert.  Our late-night, rock show going days have definitely slowed since little miss arrived.  It would be nice to get to at least one this year, because watching music live in a room with other people is a spiritual experience that I miss.  

So there it is--part to-do, part resolution, part belated bucket list, 100% me.  Wish me luck?  

2011 A Look Back

This is a little late but we have been soaking up the very last drops of our holiday vacation around here.  2011 was by far the craziest year I have had in many, many years.  When I think back about what has happened it sort of amazes me.  So for fun here's our year in review...

In January we we letting the news sink in that we were going to move to Texas for an opportunity in T's career.   We listed our house in Indy a week before Christmas with seven inches of snow on the ground in the midst of this crappy economy and by the second week in January we had a contract on it and it was sold.  I was also in full-on baby cooking mode with only 2 full months left to go, feeling great and still had plenty of energy.  

The month of February we flew to Texas to look for a home and found our lovely little abode and made an offer.  Things got super quiet here on the blog because I was a little busy growing a healthy little person, prepping a house for a packing/moving team and wrapping up things at my full time ministry, and saying goodbyes.  The last week of February we closed on our home in Indy, said some very sad goodbyes and make our way to Texas via Oklahoma to get settled.

In March we landed in Texas, closed on our house and began the fast (ok, I was waddling by now so not that fast) and furious of nesting for a little one due to arrive in a month.  My family came and helped paint the master and the nursery and unpack all those heavy boxes that were off limits.  I started to get my bearings in the city and on the advice of some really wise women at my last church pre-emtively joined a mom's group.  

The month of April got off to an exciting start as we welcomed our little girl into the world on the first.  She was little and sweet and perfect and we quickly threw ourselves into the nerve wracking world of being new parents.  The first half of April T was able to stay at home with me and my family came and pitched in.  Since we didn't get much sleep I don't really remember much beyond cuddling with my little girl.  At the end of the month we celebrated Easter as a family.  

May we started to get back into the swing of things, tackled some projects around the house.  Put the finishing touches on the nursery and even got to the flea market to pick up a few pieces for the house.  I started sharing a few of my crafties here on the blog.  Me and the little miss started to hit a stride together, figuring out this mamma-baby thing.  

In June we were reminded of how stinking hot it is in Texas.  We stayed pretty close to home this month. At the end of the month T and I had our four year wedding anniversary and got to celebrate by going out on our first post-baby date by ourselves while my mom watched the little miss for an hour or two while we went and got dinner.  It was fun to hang with T but we were both sort of a wreck being away from our sweet little girl.       

We started the month of July off by taking a quick family get away to Nashville TN to see our friends and introduce the little miss to some of our dear friends from Indy and Nashville.  It was so fun and Adelaide did great sleeping in a hotel for the first time.  When we returned from vacation our AC was out--ugh!  But we camped out at our family's house and it was fixed in no time.  The record breaking heat here in Texas was in full swing and so we spent a lot of time in the pool and little miss even got in on the action!

August I turned 30 and we had a little family party to celebrate.  We tried to avoid the heat which showed no sign of slowing.  And someone turned three months old, started responding more and more and began to love reading books.  

In September Adelaide and I baked cupcakes together for Aunt Kathrynn's birthday.  We also made a trip to Oklahoma for a wedding shower.  

This October was a BIG month for us.  The Texas Rangers made it to the world series and T got to go to one play off game and a World Series game, which was a total dream come true for him.  Of course, we spent most of November in sports mourning, but we won't talk about that... Another big thing happened in October, which contributed to my total blog silence--my little brother got married to his lovely wife Ashley.  The wedding was beautiful and the reception was a blast!  We also took a ton of pictures of little miss at the pumpkin patch when we went with both my mom's group and as a family, saw her army crawling really get going and ended the month with Halloween and a cute baby in a bear costume.  

November along with sports mourning we got enjoyed the cooler weather, got outdoors and had some family adventures.  I launched a modest little etsy shop and then got dealthly ill with a stomach flu from hell.  Seriously, it was an awful way to get five pounds closer to my pre-pregnancy weight.  The middle of the month we saw little miss's first tooth and not too long after her second. She also discovered and mastered the concept that she could move and scrunch her face to get reactions out of people and used this new skill anywhere and every where. And we celebrated our first Thanksgiving with Adelaide in our new home.  

And December I worked to add a few new crafty projects to the house, we baked cookies and decorated for Christmas.  I even did a little update on the nursery to add a little extra magic.  Me and the sister went to the DMA to check out a special exhibit and then T and the little miss and I went back to check out the general collection.  We celebrated the holiday as a family of three in our home and had a wonderful time making memories, relaxing and just soaking up as much as we could of the little miss as she army crawls and "talks" up a storm. 

When I think that this time last year I was pregnant, with a house on the market, preparing to leave a job I was madly in love with to move closer to family in Texas my head just spins. This year was full of goodbyes, but it also brought one of the most amazing hellos of my life--welcoming our daughter into the world and getting to show her the ropes.  It was a dizzying year, a tearful year, a joyful year.  One I will remember for the rest of my life.  

Over the Christmas Holiday

Our first Christmas with little miss in our new home in Texas did not disappoint.  While these years when all of my siblings have been grown and the holidays have been all adults have been special, adding kids makes the holidays a-mazing and magical.

Here are a few pics from our day:

Helping open presents

Playing with our new doll

Scoping out Aunt Kathrynn's present

Looking at the tree never gets old

Playing with our doll

The bath squirties from Santa were a huge hit...unlike the VERY suspicious crawl tunnel

How was your Christmas holiday?

Nursery Decor {Handmade Update}

I am totally sucking at sharing all the projects we have been tackling around the house. Sometimes it's hard, because it seems like the book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, except its more like, if you give a wife a paint brush...she will paint the wall and if you let her paint the walls, she will probably want to paint the trim a fresh white, and if she paints the trim, then she will probably want nice white chair rail. Anyhow, all that is to say, its all in progress right now! And this time around we are hoping to stay in this house for a while so I am trying this thing called patience, where I wait for the exact right pieces to come along and take my time pulling it all together.

With all of that said, I have done some tweaking to the nursery that I thought I would share. Remember how the nursery looked back in the spring when we brought little miss home? If not you can check it out here, here and here. Now, if you were paying close attention to those posts (and you probably weren't!) you will notice that there is a wall missing. It's not just because I am a bad blogger, I left that wall between little miss's closet and door out because while I had a cute coat hook and art print hanging there, it was just sort of blah. You can see it in its full blah-ness here:

And since I sit in the glider staring at that wall every time I nurse or read to or rock little miss, I have had lots of time to contemplate what to do with that space. Our ceilings are vaulted which is awesome, but it seemed like the space was just vast and overwhelming. But I wanted to do something that wouldn't look crazy on a wall with two doors and that would add a touch of whimsy. I thought about bunting, since it's so popular right now. Like these here:

Via

Via

Via

And while I love the bunting, I am not great at sewing just yet. Plus there is the problem of finding fabric. I have been hunting for fabric to sew a curtain panel for the little miss's room for months now with no luck of finding something that coordinates with her colors. So the idea of finding a half dozen coordinating fabric seemed over-whelming and not really how I wanted to spend my time...or money...which brings me to my solution.

Remember when I whipped up that red garland for the mantel for Christmas? Well, it got me thinking and after a few more days and nights rocking in the glider and staring at the big blank wall, I decided that I wanted to make a three dimensional floral felt garland in a gradient sort of color scheme that would fit in with the existing nursery colors but also pull in some colors that could help it transition as the little miss grows up.

I tapped into my existing felt stash and cut the flowers out in as many colors as possible that would coordinate and then hand-sewed them up with coordinating thread.

Then I lined up the flowers so that they graduated from one color family to the next like a rainbow. Then I strung them onto a really long string and affixed each one so they wouldn't slide or move or cluster while I hung them or over time. I really wanted to make sure they were well made and sturdy so they would last.

I hung it by tapping four small nails into the wall as close as I could get them to the ceiling. I then draped the garland over each nail, wrapping the string around the nail once or twice. And luckily when I draped it on the wall the colors fell just right to compliment the art already hung on the wall.

The stats go a little something like this. There are 33 different colors and a total of 66 flowers. The garland measures roughly 40 feet long because I wanted enough to create that drapey effect on the tall wall area above the doors. It took me about two weeks to pull the whole thing together, but it was well worth it.

I think it adds something to the wall that already had the print and hooks without making the room feel too crowded or overdone. And the cost to me was just the time of sewing all the little flowers together and stringing them. So a pretty cost effective project that added a lot of pop!

Now every time I sit in there to play or feed or rock little miss I can look up at my creation, my little crafty labor of love. And the little miss seems to like it too--she likes to look it up at it and smile and point. And she paid it the highest compliment when she first saw it and started bouncing up and down and smiling!

P.S. Did you see the little blue dress hang up on her hook? It was mine that I had my nine month baby pictures taken in when I was a baby and I have big plans to get some photos of the little miss in it this spring--I can't wait!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!  Hope your holiday is full of peace, joy, family, friends and laughter.