Cold Winter Night

O.K., so it is not really winter, but it sure feels like it. Oh how I love this frigid, crisp weather. Especially at night! Our bedroom is right next to the atrium so we even sleep with the sliding glass door open. It is forty degrees outside and we have our door open! Todd and I burrow under our down comforter and the fleece blankets my mom made for us. Nothing beats a toasty bed while breathing in the frosty nighttime air. Mmmm...we love it.... We are sad that we will have to give this up when the Lucas arrives. Too cold for him! But Tilly loves it, that is the snow dog in her.

We were going to visit Bob's World (http://www.lightsofthevalley.com/Properties/Detail.asp?) tonight with Maddie and her dad. Unfortunately our fun family outing was cut short when we discovered it did not debut until tomorrow night. UGH! What a disappointment! For those of you who are not familiar with Bob's World here is a photo:

Bob's World is one of my favorite Christmas lights destinations. He goes above and beyond most. It is quite the Christmas extravaganza, and he does it all for the children. Maddie first visited Bob's World when she was a few weeks old.

After Maddie went to her dad's Todd and I decided to meander around downtown for a little bit. We had loaded Tilly in the car so she could join us at Bob's World. Neither one of us thought it would be fair to get her excited and then just take her home. So a little stroll down Main Street seemed to be just the thing. It is always fun to people watch and window shop. To our pleasant surprise there were a few shops open. Although, we did avoid the art gallery. Our crazy canine had no business visiting a place with so many breakables! But the pet store, Murphy's Paw was open for an event. Tilly had fun grabbing at all the toys and making new friends. As always, I had to stop and drool over all the pretties in the American Harvest window (http://www.americanharvestinc.com/site/). Oh how I loooooove that store. The window was filled with tinsel trees, mercury glass ornaments, and Cody Foster chipboard houses. Every shabby chic admirer's dream come true! This was one of the houses they had displayed in the window: We have just about finished decorating the house. I have a few odds and ends to put up or away. Todd helped me get some of the projects completed that I could not do on my own (all of the hard to reach places that require the use of a stool or ladder). Tomorrow I will be taking photos to post this week. I can't wait to share!

Everything is taking longer than I would like to get completed these days. I have been having a lot more Braxton Hicks contractions lately. Therefore I am trying to take it easy. They feel so different with this pregnancy. I carried Maddie a lot higher, while Lucas is very low. For the longest time I just thought it was him moving in an uncomfortable position. But the further along I get the worse they become. Today it seemed like every time I did something I had a B.R. contraction. Now every time I have one I try to sit down immediately. He definitely needs to incubate longer!!! I am not ready for this bun to come out of the oven :)!

Check back in a day or two and I should have the deco photos posted. Until then, take care all!

Sad News

Our Sibe, Mischa is going to a foster home tomorrow. Incredibly heartbreaking, but it needs to be done. She was sleeping and Maddie tried to pick her up. She turned around and nipped at her. Granted she did not make contact with the skin and it was a warning nip, but we were all shocked nonetheless (especially Maddie). Was it Maddie's fault? Yes. But we were still upset. We knew Tilly would not have the same reaction. Todd and I agreed if we had another incident like that we would re-evaluate her living in our home and being a member of our family. We did not want to be one of those dog owners whose child suffers a horrible bite and they say, "We never saw this coming! She was never aggressive before!" while there were signs all along. Well, the second sign came and we knew it was time for a new home. Todd tried walking her with a pinch collar on Thanksgiving for the first time. We have used one with Tilly with great success. The collars do not hurt the dogs, but prevent them from pulling and help train them to heal. Plus they are much safer to use on dogs that pull than a choke chain which can damage their throat and the surrounding areas. As they were walking the pinch collar slipped over her regular collar. Todd bent down to fix it, she freaked out and bit Todd. This time she made contact and broke the skin. OY!!! The bite was not bad, but we knew. She has made great progress since arriving tour home in July and is such a loving and sweet dog. But just not the right dog for a family with a six year old and a baby. So we will be returning her tomorrow to BASH.

This decision was so so so difficult to make. And to pour salt in the wound, the liaison from BASH we have dealt with this whole time was not very understanding or empathetic. Being 32 weeks pregnant and extremely hormonal I took it very personally and was devastated! Of course when someone tells you they think you set your new dog up fail (yes, those were her words) and all you did was give her love and affection, it is hard not to take it personally! Fortunately the foster mom has been much more pleasant to deal with. Just frustrating because we did not make this decision lightly and we have always felt dog ownership is a lifetime commitment.

After shedding many tears over our decision and the not-so-friendly email on Monday we had dinner with friends. By the time we arrived home I was feeling a lot better. Only to watch Mischa instigate a fight with Tilly and then bite her in the eye. Devastation a deux!! Fortunately it was right on the rim of the eyelid and not the eye itself (I don't even want to know what that vet bill would cost, and right before Christmas. Double OY!) It was awful! Tilly was clearly traumatized and in pain, and Todd and I were heartbroken. Thankfully the eye is getting better. The swelling has gone down, it does not appear to be leaking or infected, and it does not seem to bother her. The drama! Of course this incident confirmed to us that we were doing the right thing.

In the meantime we have kept the two separated. We are not taking any chances at this point.

So I have been trying to remain upbeat and am crafting for the holidays to keeps my spirits up. It is definitely helping me keep my mind preoccupied so I am not thinking/worrying about the dogs or my grandma (whose dementia is steadily getting worse.)

I am looking forward to dinner with the Smiths tonight. Gay 90s Pizza and fabulous friends!

Happy Belated Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I realize I am a day late in my well wishes, but yesterday did not allow much time for blogging. For the second year Todd and I hosted Turkey Day. I love to host on the holidays, It must be the domestic diva in me. I am one of those people who believes in the motto "the more the merrier." Nothing beats celebrating the holidays with a house full of people you love! We had a few less people this year, only ten. Todd was super-helpful in preparing the house for all our guests. Everyone lectured me about not overdoing it (which I learned the hard way a couple weeks ago when I overdid it for Maddie's birthday.) I took their loving advice, spaced the work out over three days and two people, and was able to enjoy the day. Plus our Thanksgiving is something of a potluck, everyone brings something. We supply the turkey, which Skip preps for me (I am waaaay too intimidated, and yes I know I have to get over it!), and I baste. I also make my favorite mashed potatoes, which always get rave reviews (seriously, Martha Stewart has the most amazing recipe), and my apple crumb pie (which pleases my husband to no end!)
I always get excited to set our table for the holidays. I get to bust out all of our Williams Sonoma porcelain and crystal that we received as wedding gifts. I use the table runner with cute little retro birds that I purchased on a trip to Tahoe. The silverware was a shower gift from our friend Alyssia. It is a vintage silver set from the 1930s. It came in a beautiful wood box. I swear it is one of my all-time favorite gifts. Every time I take them out of the box I smile. Alyssia and I had a conversion one day about how much we love antique silver. While shopping in an antique store one day she stumbled upon this box of silver flatware and knew it would be the prefect gift for my bridal shower. I was so touched by her thoughtfulness I almost cried when I opened it! And of course, in the center of it all was Maddie's Thanksgiving centerpiece. I beamed every time I told one of our guests that Maddie made it :)!
I had a great time at dinner. We were in such great company! Plus the food was amazing! I swear Thanksgiving dinner (and the day after leftovers) is one of my favorite meals. So delicious and hearty! YUM!!! Overall, a very successful Thanksgiving. Good food, good company, good times!

The Switzers-AKA: Our Bonus Family

My in-laws-AKA: Mom and Dad No.2
My parents and grandma
Todd and me

Tomorrow we begin decorating for Christmas. I can't wait to share some photos! Until then, happy holidays!

Maddie created a lovely centerpiece to grace our Thanksgiving table. She loves to build these little foam scenes and buildings. My only conundrum is what what do you do with them? There is only so much space in our home for all of her art projects. But then I got the idea to have her create seasonal projects that can be displayed for the holidays. We bring them out for the holiday, enjoy their beauty, and then pack them up after the holiday has passed. This also makes them more special since we do not look at them every day, like Christmas decorations. Plus she gets to see her own personal contribution to the family's holiday decorations. But this little Thanksgiving centerpiece is so cute and charming. She did a great job and had loads of fun creating it. I keep trying to fan that artistic flame she's got. It is definitely a genetic trait in my family.

Todd was so sweet last weekend. He came home with an armload of flowers for me. Two bouquets of Stargazer Lilies and two bouquets of Mums. I am so lucky to have such a thoughtful husband! He likes to surprise me with flowers now and then (gotta love those random acts of kindness!) Plus Todd knows I have fun arranging flowers (I got the bug after my mom and I assembled all of our wedding centerpieces.) I forgot to add picutres of my Halloween banner in my last post. I was very happy with how it turned out, and even got it completed in time for Halloween! I had a challenging time finding trims and do-dads to decorate it with, but ended up having enough after all. This year I hung it over the mirror in our living room. I was precariously balancing on the couch trying to hang it when Todd was not home (yes, I know, not something you should do while pregnant!) Not sure if we will hang it there next year, or find a new home for it. But here it is, I hope you like!

I just a great new book with all kinds of tips, tricks, and inspiration.

I love, love, love it! I was so inspired I got a few pages done yesterday. Lately Ihave felt like I was stuck in a scrapbooking rut and my pages all looked the same. I needed something or someone to push me to try new things. Elsie's book did it for me. She has so many great ideas! What a creative spirit!

I have some new photos of our crackheads, oops, I mean dogs! They are so crazy. Granted it's not all their fault. Now that I am the size of a house, have chronic backpain, and baby is sitting so low, walking is not as comfortable as it once was. Thank goodness we love 'em so much. Sibes and their energy are definitely not for everyone. Mischa and Leyongo sharing his bed. He stayed with us a few days while his mom and dad were in the hospital delivering our niece, Tana. A rare, quiet moment for our girls. Um yeah... This habit is completely my fault. Our nightly routine, cuddling on the couch. Hands off the blanket and no one gets hurt!

I've Been Naughty....

...and haven't posted in over a month. Sooooo bad! I have two excuses for you: 1-I've been super-busy and 2-When I have not been super-busy, I have been super-lazy (I blame the pregnancy!) Also, I apologize in advance for the photos. I have not had the chance to Photoshop them yet. I just wanted to get them posted.

But I did want to throw out some blog updates before I head off to my pre-natal appointment. First of all, here are some photos of Lucas when we had our 3D ultrasound in October:

Our little sweetie sucking his thumb. Awwww....

At first he did not want to cooperate with the ultrasound and we were left looking at the back of his head. But after some belly-jostling he became more agreeable. Truly amazing to see this little baby rolling around the inside of my tummy. We were able to watch him move, suck his thumb, and even saw his sweet little tushie. Skinny little butt with no fat, too cute for words! Todd and I had the whole family with us to celebrate this special moment: Maddie, my parents, and my in-laws. I wanted everyone to watch the newest member of the family. What a little miracle! There is a lot to be said for modern technology.

Maddie celebrated six last week. WOW!! SIX!! I cannot believe the years have flown buy so quickly. I remember her ultrasound like it was yesterday, and now she is this big six year old. Exciting and sad at the same time. My little baby... sigh... She had a week of celebrating between Dad's house and our house, lucky little girl. We hosted a tea party for her and 10 of her little friends at the English Rose. The girls dressed up in pretty party dresses and were served a real tea luncheon. Lunch was served on actual china, with hot cocoa from a tea pot. I think the girls felt quite regal with their gowns and fancy china.

The following day we celebrated with family at our house. It was much more relaxed and casual, which I welcomed now that I am so hugely pregnant. We had our family and bonus-family (all of the wonderful friends we call family, Maddie's honorary aunts and uncles.) Auntie Sarah and Uncle Darin brought over their new baby, Tana. She is so precious and blonde! Maddie had a great time visiting with her family, opening gifts, and eating cake.

After all of the fan fare died down and Maddie was contently playing with her new toys, I realized how lucky we are, and how lucky Maddie is. We have so many wonderful people in our lives between our families and bonus-families. Maddie is so fortunate to grow up surrounded by so much love and support. This love and support provides her with a feeling of security, which I don't think all kids get to experience these days. With love and security she has the opportunity to grow up confident, happy and self-assured. It really does take a village to raise a child!

We bought Madeleine her first digital camera. Nothing too extravagant or expensive, she is only six and who knows how much abuse it will have to take. But she is so infatuated with Mommy's camera that I thought it was time for her own. Plus it will distract her from trying to use my pretty Canon Rebel EOS (which happens to be my other "baby"!)

At the beginning of the month my mom, mother-in-law (Mom 2) and sister-in-law threw me a baby shower. They did a fabulous job! I loved all of the cowboy decorations (Lucas's bedroom theme is vintage cowboy, Maddie is vintage cowgirl). It was so much fun to celebrate his pending arrival with so many loved ones. Plus he and I got totally spoiled. Everyone was incredibly generous and I cannot thank them enough! You forget how tiny babies are until you look at the size of the clothes. Maddie even got a "big sister" t-shirt to wear on the big day. So sweet! She could not wait and wanted to wear it the next day. At the shower Maddie did a great job being Mommy's helper. She unwrapped the gifts while I read the cards. Todd and I are trying to get her involved as much as possible so she feels included in this entire process. She has really enjoyed helping us prepare for Baby Lucas, and we have enjoyed sharing this process with her.

Busywork

Not having to go to work has left me with plenty of time to dedicate to busywork. I have to admit, I am a glutton for it! Some people find the idea of being at home sheer torture, others, myself included, absolutely relish it! My home has never been cleaner, home and craft projects are completed, Todd comes returns from work to a home cooked meal, and my scrapbook pages are coming to fruition. Suffice to say I am in heaven!!!!!!!!!!!! Another benefit I love is spending one day a week helping out in Maddie's kindergarten class. Every time I walk in she cheerfully yells, "Mommy!" The overjoyed look on her face when I enter the room makes my heart melt. Plus her teacher rocks; we adore her. Even the girls (aka the dogs) are getting more exercise. Honestly, I think we all are a little happier now that Mom is at home.

Here are some of the projects that have been completed these past few weeks:

The last of the living room curtains:

Before-Vertical Blinds (Ewww)

In our laundry room I have vintage maple buckets to hold rags, laundry lint (for compost) and garbage. (The buckets are one of our wedding decoration relics.) Some time ago I painted them pink, but always meant to decoupage labels on them; dress them up a bit. Now I finally have the time to do it! I labeled the buckets in French because, lets face it, "rags" sounds a lot prettier in French! When Todd asked why and this was my answer he just rolled his eyes and chuckled to himself. Thank the good Lord above I was blessed with an understanding (and tolerant!) husband!

Before Decoupage After Adding Pretties

I have started on our wedding scrapbook (YAY! Finally! It's only been over a year!) It will probably be at least two volumes. Some may say it's excessive. But I put so much love, sweat, and research into our wedding the album would not be complete if I didn't include the research and inspiration. Plus I have hidden the receipts in the book so we can look at how the cost of weddings has gone up over the years. As I go through the photos, magazine pictures (my inspiration) and other memorabilia I am reminded of how much FUN I had at our wedding. Honestly I would change nothing about my wedding day. It was sooooo very, very worth it. The best part about that is Todd feels the same exact way I do. I love that our wedding day brought us both joy! I hope to make several more layouts this week. Here is what has been completed so far (sorry, they are not scanned, don't have a 12x12 scanner and have not figured out the stitch option in Photoshop yet.) Note there is no journaling yet, I will start on that later.

The Cover:
The book is by K&Company. It had our wedding colors on the cover and looked rustic. As we all know, I am not a traditional-white-wedding-album kinda girl (I did wear fuscia porn-star stilettos under my wedding dress.)

The Venue:

Sugar Bowl in the Truckee-Tahoe area. Sigh...loved it!!!!!!!!!!! Surrounded by mountains, pine trees and wild flowers. We had the entire place to ourselves and our wedding guests from the Thursday before our wedding to the Sunday after. Four days to spend with close family and friends, as well plan and prep for our wedding . This was key in being able to do a lot of our own wedding projects (including flowers).

The Invites: The Sugar Bowl postcard we had made. We found some great vintage replica prints, had the artist change the title from Squaw Valley to Sugar Bowl and printed save-the-date postcards from it. I found quite a few invites that I liked, but did not love. Nothing screamed mountain top wedding without looking cheap and tacky, or being crazy expensive. I was just about to settle for an invite we liked when I stumbled upon Oliostyle (oliostyle.com). I discovered Olio on a blog from The Knot and instantly fell in love. Finally! Invites I loved that weren't a bloody fortune! And the best part was, they could be customized to our colors. Heaven!!!!

Our map (also designed by Oliostyle. They design, you print - much cheaper!!!) and some of our favorite RSVPs.

The Flowers:

The flowers were a big deal for me. I wanted a lot of them. Todd could have cared less as long as it didn't break the bank. The bouquets and boutonnieres were done by a florist in the Truckee-Tahoe area. But everything else was done by my mom, myself, and a few helpers (including Todd who dedicate a few hours to clipping the 700 plus stems on all the flowers when they arrived). Doing them ourselves gave us so much more bang for our buck. Here are the flowers after they were shipped. We clipped all of the stems and let them "drink" for 24 hours.

I ordered them wholesale over the Internet from 2G Roses (freshroses.com) and the Flower Exchange (theflowerexchange.com). 2G was amazing. They are here in Cali and answered every question I had (there were a lot.) Flower Exchange was good, but I had liked working with 2G better. I wanted the flowers to look as if we had gone into the mountain side and picked fresh flowers. Yes, I know, stargazer lilies do not grow in Tahoe. But I wanted to arrangements to look loose and natural. The buckets were an EBay steal (55 maple buckets for $150, including shipping.) Going with the nature/country theme I used Mason jars and small tin watering cans with ribbons tied on them for additional floral containers.

The Cake:

The cakes on the left page were my inspiration, and the cake on the bottom right was ours. The photo above that was from the baker's website (tahoe-house.com). The moment Todd and I saw it, we knew that was the cake. In the world of cakes, Tahoe House has great prices. I just about had a heart attack when I discovered how much cakes can cost. All I could think of was Steve Martin in Father of the Bride, "$1,200 for some flour and water?!" We served our wee guests (the kids) clown cones from Baskin Robbins. They were a hit.
Wedding Favors:

We chose Cd's. Something people will actually use, is economical, and took some thought and effort on our part. The envelopes were made from printed cardstock (in our colors of course) using a template I found on the Internet. The pictures were taken by our close friend Noel above Donner Lake and then printed onto stickers from the Kodak website (they are part of the Martha Stewart collection). The little tags say "love rocks" (I thought it was fitting for a music CD). The love rocks stamp was an Internet purchase and the tags were made with a tag punch. I also included a song list in the CD envelope. I read through all of the song lyrics to make sure they were reflective of the relationship Todd and I have. I spent a lot of time researching songs. Plus, I did not want songs that are commonly used on wedding Cd's, and I wanted all generations to enjoy it. I was happy the CD got rave reviews.

Our ceremony site (at Sugar Bowl):

We loved getting married surrounded by pine trees. What a beautiful setting. It just made for a great backdrop. And it was quiet. We had the whole resort to ourselves. So there were no strange people gawking, no traffic sounds in the background. Todd and the wedding party walked down the aisle to "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" by Israel Kamakawiwo Ole, and I walked down the aisle to "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong. We were each escorted by both of our parents. Maddie was escorted by my close pal, Tim. Our recessional song was "Swing to the Mood" by Glenn Miller Orchestra.

The Dress:

These were the layouts for the dress shopping process. After looking through lots and lots of magazines I knew what styles I liked. Anyone who knows me well, knows I am SUPER-PICKY. Fortunately I only had to go to one store to find my dress J'aime in Pleasanton -jaimebridal.com . I can't stand all of the pomp and circumstance associated with dress shopping. Help me get the thing on and then leave me alone. Don't bug me, don't pressure me, and don't try to rob me blind (I refuse to spend the equivalent of a down payment on a car for a dress I will wear one day, even if it is my wedding day.) I had my mom, Gail (MIL) and Maddie with me. I narrowed it down to two and returned with two close and honest friends, Tim and Sarah. And I can honestly say, I made the right dress choice and have no regrets about my dress.

I chose the Maggie Sottero "Brittania Lynette". I don't know how such a pretty dress can have such an ugly name, but whatever. I loooooove my dress. The total dress cost was just under $1,000. Still a lot of money for something I wore for one day, but a fraction of what many dresses cost. Tim and Sarah were right, the dress is me. It has a vintage look and is not too fussy. I did feel like a princess wearing it. I have to admit, a key selling feature was the corset. I am not a fan of white, it does not flatter the figure unless you are built like a supermodel (and Lord knows I am not, especially after gaining 60 pounds while pregnant with Maddie and having a C-section!) So when I tried on the corssetted top and knew I could eat a full meal while still looking thin, I was sold on the corset. Who wants to starve at their wedding? I had a full meal, two slices of cake, and lots of drinks, without a big bloated belly. All hail the corset!

That is the scrapbook thus far. Still have oodles of work to do. But it is nice to get a crack at it.