some news!

So I guess it's time we officially make an announcement on here. Sorry for the lack of any posts lately. I have not been feeling well because...we are pregnant! 

We took this photo earlier this week around 13.5 weeks. It's hard to tell, but my belly seemed to have popped right out. I, of course, thought, maybe twins, but my midwife said, one, we would not be able to tell yet and, two, with second babies often the stomach muscles are just looser. 

It made is a lot easier to hide the pregnancy. First of all, my sister got married when I was around 5 weeks pregnant. So I had to tell a few family members because it would be fairly obvious that I was not drinking over the weekend. 

Then around 6 weeks, I really turned a bad corner and started to feel sick as a dog. I also got a little bit depressed...maybe pregnancy hormones mixed with the seasons turning to FREEZING. (New England, sometimes I hate you so hard. It gets dark at 4:19, people.) 

I pretty much have experienced every symptom in the book lately: 

• Queasiness
• Occasional vomiting
• Extreme tiredness (going to bed at 8:30pm, taking an afternoon nap)
• Fatigue
• Highly emotional
• Food aversions (few cravings...just most things grossed me out)
• Frequent bathroom trips (for awhile I was getting up 5plus times in a night) 
• Crazy, vivid weird dreams

I think those are the highlights....good times! Some things have subsided as the second trimester has started though. It has not been smooth sailing, but we are really grateful to be expecting a new baby around July 1st. 

Also, flashback to my pregnancy with Jude at 14 weeks. Pretty sure I had to push out my stomach a little bit to even look this far along. 

Hope you are enjoying your last day of 2013! We are planning on making shrimp and broccoli pasta and homemade ice cream...and probably going to bed before the turn of the new year...

cheers!

Five things on Friday

I started this post last week...apparently it takes me two weeks to write a really short post...here goes nothing...

1. My little sister got married last weekend! Crazy stuff.

2. Fun printed burlap from Joann's! Made this little banner with the burlap and some bias tape.  (Also note the one picture in the window pane. I can't decide if I want pictures in it or for it just to be simple...)

3. I am loving this book. 

4. We got this chair at a flea market for free. The price is hard to beat - free-ninety-free - but I am not sure if I can recover it or if it will end up on the side of the road in our neighborhood shortly. 

5. I am bracing myself for the Christmas season, which I am anticipating starting now. It sort of makes me sad. I love Christmas, but I am hoping fall doesn't get ushered out too quickly seeing as the the winter will surely be long in New England. 

Happy Weekend! 

Linking up...

thoughts on sleep.

i miss it.

since we moved the summer before last, jude has been on a baaaad sleeping track. from what i can remember, he slept ok in Virginia. once we started the moving process last summer, he started waking in the middle of the night. that became a habit all summer long that took until october of last year.

however, he never has slept as late as he used to. i am afraid he is just one of those people that doesn't need a ton of sleep. philip is sort of like that. i happen to be one of those people that prefers a lot of sleep. i am not exactly a night or morning person, but i just like to have enough sleep.

right now our schedule has been:  bed time around 7-7:30pm. jude used to sleep until 6am (which was still a struggle for me), but despite it getting darker in the mornings and black out curtains AND blinds (!), jude has been waking at 5am. argggg. plus even if we just let him cry it out or give him his pacifier, he is too noisy for us to continue to sleep and i know he can get out of crib, which is somewhat terrifying.

so, please, anyone out there have any sleep tips for two-year-olds?

we love having the evenings that philip is actually home to ourselves, but i desperately miss sleeping past 5-6am. we also have never noticed a difference with his sleep no matter what time he goes to bed. homeboy has not slept in since i do not know when.

oh, also to cope, we have taken turns getting up with Jude. i do not know how we would make it otherwise. oh and coffee. and jesus.

source // 

*is this post too dramatic? i'm sorry. 

jude is two!

how fitting that we celebrated at saranac, our second home? with our crazy fall schedule - my sister emily gets married in early november plus the normal crazy fall Young Life schedule, we decided just to keep it simple and celebrate at camp since we were going to be there on Jude's actual birthday. our 30 leaders and leaders in training helped sing to Judah and I made oatmeal cookies and put mini reeses in them. i also made one of my fall favorites a pumpkin spice latte. 

we seem to have hit the terrible twos early, but jude seems to be turning a corner and is more and more fun and lovable every day. 

a few words about judah at two

+ loves to play with trucks, trains, anything that pushes

+ is saying more and more every day, but is still not a big talker

+ favorite word: no (this can be frustrating at times...) & truck

+ favorite book: oddly enough, a book that my parents had made about me when I was baby seems to be one of his faves

+ sleeps through the night 7ish pm - 6ish am, but we still wish he was a little later of a sleeper

+ loves thomas the train & anything on trucks

+ still loves the nursery or any opportunity to play with other kids & new toys

+ when we say i love you, he will come and give us a kiss 

here is a quick video from camp of the north shore leaders singing to jude (sorry the quality is being funny)

shop update

i have been busy adding new items to my shop. 

here are a few of my favorites! 

i will be adding more magnets soon, but here is a new one. the triangle fabric was designed by me. 

 i had some requests for hokie fabrics...perfect for fall! 

finally, i have add more hair ties + just added headbands to the mix again. i love these arrows + aztec headbands! 

thanks for checking in! be back soon with a two year old baby boy update!

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an honest review of the lappjung rug

I have been thinking about doing this review for awhile so here we are. Perhaps you have seen this IKEA rug online. I am sure that's the first place I saw it. I think I saw it initially on a home blog or two and then on IKEA's website. 

Perhaps you saw it looking cute here on a beautiful mess' blog... 

It wasn't exactly what I had in mind for our living room, but it was $70 at IKEA so I thought it was worth a shot. (They have re-done the style of it and took off the pop of color on the edges and upped the price a little bit) I thought "let's be trendy hipsters." Okay, that was not my total thought process, but it is a very trendy rug that may be out of style by next spring. How long can the tribal trend last anyway?

So we brought it home and laid it out and eventually decided to keep it. 

(we have a made a few changes to the living room since these pictures)

However, that was then and this is now. 

The rug is cute. Yes. I still enjoy my living room and feeling like I am on top of current fashion trends for the season, but unless you like to see every single speck of dirt, etc. that lands on your carpet I would not recommend this rug. The white seems to make any little thing that does not belong on the carpet a little more obvious. And as seen in the photo above almost looks like it has weird smudges of black on it now. 

Plus I am not a vacuum the living room every day kind of gal. (does that type of gal exist?) I don't mind say 2-3 times a week, but I feel like 5 days a week is asking a lot and that's the maintenance of this rug demands. Boo. 

Perhaps this rug could work in a bedroom or an office, a room that does not have a lot of traffic, but our living room gets a lot of use. I am not sure how much longer me and the lappljung rug's relationship is going to last. 

Do you have this rug? Do you have a different impression? Or is it just the result of having any rug with white in it? 

one year in new england

We rounded our first year in New England in August. It's hard to believe that last August we pulled into the North Shore of Boston and it was all new. We have adjusted and...are continuing to adjust. It's funny to me how whenever a season changes I feel a little anxious. It's like a reminder of the change and how much really feels new here. I have mixed feelings about fall coming. The winter was really hard last year. It was dark and snowy and icy especially after Christmas, but when it finalllly got warm (ish) in May, it made me a little queasy just because it reminded me of what it was like when we moved here. Weird?

With that said, here are five things that I am loving about living here so far...

1... I am so grateful that we have a house we really love here. There is still a lot to do, but generally it's great.

just bought the house! (left)                     nemo snowstorm (right)

2...Fresh local food. My two favorite spots are Richardson's for fresh milk and eggs (& ice cream) and Tendercrop Farm in Newbury. Both are a bit of a drive (about 20 minutes in opposite directions) so I make these trips on different days. But both have tractors and cows to look at - which Jude loves now. Richardson's sell a gallon of whole organic local milk for $2.60....can you beat that??

3...The people. I feel like because of the type of neighborhood we are in we are more social than we were in Virginia. We love our neighbors. We take turns grocery shopping for each other. We spontaneously eat meals together. We love being near to Gordon College and Gordon-Conwell Seminary and the community of people that are here because of those two schools. We love the leaders we are working with from both schools too and they have already become so dear to us.

4...Living near Boston. We do not get into the city all that much. We live about 30 minutes North, but we love having the train run through town. We can hear it from our house and Jude listens for it as it chugs by. And a trip into the city is always fun.

5...There's probably other things, but for five I am going to go with flea markets, awesome antique stores and free stuff. I find more things on the side of the road than I know what to do with. Often they are things we could really use and it's great. 

Life is different here in a lot of ways, but as Philip reminded me when we moved initially, we still end the day together and that does not change.