can't help myself!

we are going to the beach at the beginning of june and i just thought these would be so cute... i don't know why i have a compulsion to match my children.... but i do! these are almost ridiculously preppy- seersucker and sail boats... but seriously what could be cuter on children at the beach in the summer...? i am loving the wood grain pattern on the fabric i used for the boats.

these are two of the pillows i made for our sofas while the boys were away. the birds make me so happy! and i even sewed them w/ velcro hidden on one side they could be taken off for cleaning-- very necessary w/ kids... i have already been thankful for the cleanability of our leather sofas(elisha got a stomach virus a few weeks ago :-(

ready

so... i know i'm a few days from being 38 weeks... and i have been planning on having this baby late all along; but i have changed my mind. don't get me wrong- my list of projects to do is still long... but i feel like whats left doesn't really have to be done. i just want to meet my baby girl. and i don't want to be pregnant anymore... lets get this show on the road, you know. i looked at my calendar and decided that i could handle another week b/c i have a couple of fun things planned- including a much needed hair appt.--- but after that i'm ready. i'm even considering packing for the hospital! for some reason i have an aversion to packing for these special occasions... my sisters were irritated w/ me b/c i had hardly packed for my honeymoon and so they had to dig through the back of my car to find shoes and other random things that i hadn't quite gotten around to packing ;-) and i had some stuff packed for the hospital w/ elisha- but not everything...i should have finished packing when i could still think, in early labor... but i guess i felt like that would jinx it or something? anyway, this time i want to have things packed well and i want to be clean... having a marathon labor and then surgery and a long hospital stay was not conducive to showering--- and i can tell looking back at those pics ;-) i know it sounds superficial, but i think i would've felt better had i not looked so raunchy!

while we are on the subject of labor- i wrote down some lyrics from my favorite band-over the rhine- i want to think of these while i am laboring " though we love to numb the pain, we come to find that it's in vain. pain is our mother- she makes us recognize each other" i have been rereading "birthing from within" and while some of it can be hokey and the birth art stuff certainly isn't for everyone- it is really great to think of our perception of pain... one suggestion she has is to be very curious about your pain, notice where it stops and stops, how it changes... if you are so bold to do that you can take the fear out of the pain and then it isn't as bad.

one last note-- another quote from "over the rhine" that i will be hanging on to- in labor and the months following ---" ...listen to me baby- we can sleep when we're dead..."

oh so cute!

i have been wanting to make this pillow for the nursery for months now and finally got it made... i think it is so cute!

last weekend andrew took elisha on a "guys weekend" ;-) he drove him to greenville,al to spend some time in the woods and with his grandparents and great grand parents... i was feeling uncomfortably giant to travel and a need to rest and nest. it was odd to be alone- but very nice! i got a lot of unhurried uninterupted shopping done at ikea and walmart, went to a yoga class, took a nap, made a cushoin for our window seat and pillows for our sofas... i'll post those later. but here are some pictures of e having fun on his daddy weekend.(a special thanks to nana for helping daddy w/ elisha, especially while he was turkey hunting ;-)

egg hunt etc.

these are some pictures from the easter egg hunt we did when playgroup was at our house yesterday... it was so funny to watch e figure it all out... before our friends arrived i handed him one of the extra eggs and he opened it. he followed me around the house saying "egg broke, egg broke... mama trash" then i let him see me put a sticker in it and close it back--- his eyes were so wide open... he was amazed! at the bottom of this post is a funny video clip of him hunting for eggs.

here is a family of geese that walked up our driveway the other day. we hear them all the time and we've seen them at the lake nearby and even hanging out in a nieghbor's yard, but monday the two adults had 7 cute babies w/ them and walked all the way up our driveway! i was so glad that i looked out the window at the right time... elisha and i had a great time watching them-- and otis enjoyed barking at them, which of course caused them turn around and lead their little ones away...

nesting...

here are a couple of my nesting projects- a bean bag chair... yes, i used the link i mentioned in a previous post and it wasn't difficult at all. i filled it w/ the inside from a $20 one form target, but mine is fairly large, so i will be adding to its filling whenever we get packages packed w/ peanuts. i think this will be a great place for elisha to sit and look at books while i nurse the baby-- at least that's the plan ;-)

this is the chest of drawers i made for anna-- yes we have named our little girl... i'm not sure if i have shared that here or not... but her daddy picked out a lovely name ;-)
i bought a chest of drawers from craig's list and then covered it w/ pages from a mother goose book from 1960 that i got at an estate sale for less than $1... it was time consuming for sure- but we all just love it. it is fun to read the bits of nursery rhymes- some of them are very quirky!