... baby loading

This arrived in the mail yesterday, it was a surprise gift from Chris for me to wear at the conference this weekend! So cute! Only 11 more weeks and she'll be done loading:)

17 More Days!

Along with buying a house, finding a renter, studying for my structures test and meeting with brides, Chris and I have managed to plan another JSConf which is just two weeks away. Things are coming along great and we just received the badges, wow did I marry a geek or what!

Third Trimester-27 Weeks

I'm 2/3 of the way through! And this weekend we went and picked up the crib (not by choice but PB called and was like can you come get this out of our wharehouse) Surprisingly we can't fit a baby in the car but we can fit the crib box in the car. For now the boxes will be hanging out in our living room until the big move. I can't wait to start sharing the progress of the nursery, we only have 3 months left to pull it off.

Spring is Here!!

The center piece I made for my sister's House Warming Party.

One of my favorite spring flowers is the Daffodil, my mother always had them growing outside our home and I love driving down the highways seeing them in huge masses.  They are surprisingly very inexpensive, even cheaper than carnations yet I think they look so elegant.  The arrangement above was made out of 100 stems from Trader Joe's which cost me a total of $15, that's $1.50 a bunch!!!  

I actually purchased 150 not knowing exactly how many I would need but it worked out great because there were still 30-40 that didn't open all the way, once they finish opening I'm going to put them on my nightstand.  

I covered a trifle dish with chicken wire to help me form the dome shape. 

And then worked my way around with flowers until I got to the top, it was very simple!  

We found Peanut a HOME

We put an offer on a house on Tuesday and it's now official, they accepted!!!! Chris and I are very excited about this home and we can't wait to be rocking our baby on the front porch this summer. We are keeping our fingers crossed that the inspection and appraisal go smoothly.

Ms. Peanut's "room"

A couple of weekends ago I was warned by a mother with a 1 month old that it would take 3 months to order a crib. I was in shock and didn't believe her until we went to Buy Buy Baby and sure enough they said 8-12 weeks for delivery.

Let's just say we left from that store feeling overwhelmed and having no clue what we wanted. The following week I received the Pottery Barn Kids catalog and saw this adorable crib for a great price!!! This weekend we ventured out to the actual store to check out the quality and we ended up purchasing both the crib and changing table!!! and they had both in stock! (take that new mom who waited 3 months for hers) the only problem is.... remember that tiny car we have... and that 1 bedroom we live in.... transporting and storing was a factor we didn't plan on. For now they are holding the furniture at the store until we are ready to pick it up. Peanut, I hope we get a home soon so I can set up your adorable crib!.

Cupcakes and Happiness

Dear Ms. Peanut,

Now that we know you are a girl I've had so much fun imaging how life is going to be with the 3 of us. You are going to be our little princess and Daddy's little girl and we are so excited that we get to meet you in only a few months.... Ahhhhhh only a few months until you get here and I feel like we have made no progress. We just found out today that we didn't get the house we thought we were going to bring you home to and I'm just afraid we are running out time before you get here. Please know your Dad and I are trying hard and even if your stroller is on backorder or we can't find a daycare without a year waitlist we will still love you no matter what. When I felt down today about how behind we are, I went to Oh Happy Day's blog and saw these adorable cupcake kits, I couldn't help but think, someday I'll be able to make them for you and you will just smile back and say "thanks mom, i love you" and it won't matter what house we are in or what stroller you got pushed around in, I'll just look at you and think I'm the luckest girl ever to have you in my life.

I already love you so much

Mom

It's a....

.........GIRL!!!

Halfway!!!!

I hit 20 weeks yesterday and yes I look huge!! We found out today the sex so take a guess if you already don't know and I'll reveal it tomorrow! 

Will we ever find the ONE!

Please ignore my last post, it seems we may have gotten a little too excited. The seller came back with almost no counter offer to our offer, so we decided to walk away. The house needed too much work for the amount we could pay for it. So this weekend despite the snow we hopped in our tiny little car and headed for the open house signs. The first one on the list was a cute town home in North Reston that Chris found, Chris convince me if we buy a cheap town home we'll have more money for expensive gelato, he did have a point so I went along even though top on my list is a garage and a yard. Thank goodness Chris hated it!!!! It was tiny and had nothing Chris wanted, so he said what next, I then read out the other town homes in the area and the prices, he said forget that, let's just go home. WHAT, I wasn't letting him give up! I said well... there is this one house in McLean that we could go look at, he said great let's go.


As we pulled up to this cute little bungalow Chris said, OH, a carport, I need to drink.... you see when we look at the listings together he plays this game, every time he sees a house with a carport he drinks, haha very funny except it's not because 50% of the homes have one and by the end he's drunk, lol. Anyway, he get's over the idea of a carport and we proceed into the home. Before entering we are very optimistic, Great Location, MCLEAN!!! Great schools!!!! Cute neighborhood!!!!

Unfortunately the second we entered we realized why we could afford this house, it's because the house is only for people under the height of 5'. Sadly this home was not for us or peanut. We decided to call it a day on the house hunt and go test drive cars.

We headed out to the Ford dealership in Chantilly and then realized that we would be near a new development, maybe you have heard of it, South Dakota..... oh I mean South Riding. (Sorry Sarah) The drive out there certainly felt like driving to South Dakota. We decided to see the house first then test drive the cars. We pulled into this charming little home, all cute and perfect with the white picket fence.

I thought, wow, this is so CUTE!!!!! I could just eat it up! In fact they even had cookies for us to eat in the kitchen! Yum, pregnant women love cookies! The home was beautiful and at our price range we could afford ALL the upgrades, wow! how is that possible, a brand new home with all the upgrades for cheaper than the home that only fit 5' people. Then we went into the basement and were standing in the charming wine cellar looking at the map that they had posted, the cookies had almost made me forget where we were, but thank you South Riding for reminding me, location, location, location!!! that is the key to real estate. If you are unfamiliar with the area, Chris is pointing to where we live and at the very edge of the board on the right is the beltway, they couldn't even fit DC on the map:(

Sadly again, this is not the home for us:( I would be spending over 3 hours a day in the car commuting and never spending time with Peanut. Although the home was beautiful, time at home with Peanut is worth way more than any granite counter top.

Dear Peanut

Dear Peanut,
I promise we are trying to be good parents to you, but I just don't know how we are going to pull this off. This weekend was filled with a ton of to-do stuff to get ready for you, including a baby safety seminar, re-caulking our bathtub and birthing classes, but the biggest one was what we thought was putting an offer on a house. Last night we met with our Realtor to put together our first offer, we left feeling so excited we even went out and treated our self to expensive Gelato!!! All day I have been wondering about if they will accept it and then I see a missed call from my realtor, I quickly call her back and she informs me we forgot to sign the second set of documents and the offer won't go in until tomorrow. I'm seriously trying not to laugh, I really feel like we don't know what the heck we are doing. We are keeping our fingers crossed that tomorrow everything goes in smoothly and we don't' mess up again.
Love your crazy parents!

Wedding Season is picking up

In the past week my email has been flooded with brides contacting me about flowers!!! But so far I've had to turn down 2 brides all because their wedding is too close to the arrival of Peanut. I guess it was bad planning on our part to have a baby right in the middle of wedding season, however I'm very excited to be having a summer baby!

Worst Part of Waking Up is Decaf in your Cup

Only 23 more weeks of drinking this stuff! Oh the sacrifices I'm making for Peanut....

Surprise in the Kitchen

My co-worker strikes again. I think people are too afraid to cut into it, but I'm sure I'll be grabbing a piece once someone make the first move.

Baby on Board

Some may know some may not, but Chris and I will be expecting a little peanut around June 28th. We could not be more happy and for the past few months have been enjoying the blissful thoughts of having a baby around until reality sunk in last night and we began to panic.

It all started out innocently with a gmail chat to my friend who has a 18 month old, at first we were talking about architecture but then got onto the topic of what baby stuff we are going to need, I casually mentioned all car seats look the same so how hard is it to pick the right one.... she comes back with a link to her favorite one...apparently there is more to research than we thought, do the straps adjust easily, does it click into place easily, does in fit in a shopping cart, then is dawned on me?..... Does it fit in a shopping cart, how about will it fit into our tiny 2 door RSX car? So when we came home from dinner last night Chris and I started to chat about the car seat discussion I had with my friend, he tried to convince me that putting a car seat into an RSX was no problem until he starting googling what would fit. Results came up as NONE, no car seat will fit into an RSX and we couldn't stop laughing about this one guys comment to another couple:

"Grow up, You are going to be a father, so you need a nice 4-door car like a Camry or an Accord to carry your child around. When you are an old guy like me with your kids through college and out of the house, you can get a sports car again. "

We could not stop laughing, not because it was that funny but because I think it finally hit us that we are screwed. We now have 6 months to buy a HOUSE and a CAR, put on a National Conference, throw in a couple wedding flower gigs, pass an Architecture Structures exam, find a daycare without a 18 month wait list and oh yeah actually have the baby all while I'm big and fat.

So you ask where am I going with this.... the blog has been kinda dead lately but mostly because I haven't really known what to share with you all. So from here forward I'm going to talk about the 6 month road to bringing home peanut. Wish us luck because I think we will need it.

It's that time of year again...

...that's right it's DC Restaurant Week and I just made my first reservation for tonight at La Tasca. Yeah I know it's not some fancy smancy place but it's unlimited tapas so how can you go wrong. We're heading out tonight to see some friends that left us for good old New Jersey and are in town for work, I can't wait to hear all about their new addition to their family, Riley.

Happy Christmas Eve!

Yep, I'm at work today along a few other brave souls. One very talented co-worker brought in today these cookies. I'm so envious because I've always wanted to make snowflake cookies just like this but never found the time. She said she had to wait 6 hours for the frosting to dry before she could put the detail on it. I can't wait to see how yumming it tastes!

The mail smelled like Coffee!

I just received the sweetest gift ever! My old Project Manager makes his own blend of coffee for the holidays and this year he broke his golden rule of never making decaf. I can't wait to wake up to the smell of Rashid Roasters tomorrow morning!

Good Times-a month late

I know I know it's now Christmas and I'm WAY behind but I've been meaning to share my Thanksgiving with you all but I just haven't had the energy to even download my photos. This morning I forced myself to download them so I could post a few things at lunch today. Above you will see the lovely floral arrangement I put together using a new rose called Combo.

My mother always uses her China for Thanksgiving because I think she feels it doesn't "go" with any other season, and it doesn't help that the name of the pattern is called Autumn. I love the pattern because I think it's bold and very different than what brides are picking out these days. I hope as a family we continue to use this China for many more Thanksgivings. She also pulls out her Silver which is something I don't own and am very jealous of. However the serving spoons shown above is not her pattern, but my Grandmother's on my Dad's side. My grandparents were artistic people and I think this modern pattern reflects their style perfectly.

My sister has started two traditions: 1. Tutti Frutti Fruit Salad and 2. Brie wrapped in puff pastry. #1 was started when she was in pre-school and they were learning the letter T, I guess they made this salad and as a family we fell in love with it. I couldn't really tell you how it's made but I'm sure there is not much nutritional value in it even though it has the word Fruit. #2 is something she learned while living in Germany. You basically just cover a wheel of brie in "pop can" pastry dough and top the brie with fruit before covering it completely. I was very upset I could not enjoy the brie, since I am 3 months pregnant I can no longer eat unpasteurized cheese :(

On to the Meat... Meat is a man's job in my family, before I could take a photos of our gorgeous turkey my Dad had it all carved and ready to serve. Now normally my mom doesn't serve ham but this Thanksgiving we celebrated it 3 days late due to my dad getting the swine flue, so for those that were sick of Turkey, you could have ham instead, my husband was in HEAVEN, his two favorite things!

To end a wonderful meal we had pumpkin and apple pie complements of ME. YUM!

Weekend Fun

This weekend was jammed packed full of too much to do. One of thing on my to do list was create this fresh floral chandelier for a co-workers friend's engagement party. I honestly didn't know how it was going to turn out when I took the job, but to my surprise I think it turned out great. It took Chris and I 2 hours and what I think were 250 roses (the bride provided the roses from Costco) When we drove away Chris turned to me and said "I hope it doesn't start to fall apart, you know gravity could start to kick in" (It probably weighed 50-75lbs) I was like, WHAT, you tell me this now, now that it's all done. The rest of they day all I could think about was, please don't fall apart, please make it through the party in one piece. Well, I just got confirmation that it did make it through and it's still in tact! yeah go team Loda!