recap

You know what's awesome about being an adult? Starting off Thanksgiving morning with a gluten-free butter cookie, and not getting in trouble for it. These cookies make Milanos taste like sawdust.



Julian, a self portrait:



And last night, at the party of some friends, Julian snuggled by the fire with this little dog, Bobo. I can't wait until we own a home instead of renting, and can get a dog for him.



What else? I bought a domain name for my bakery, and am going to make business cards soon now that my friend, Rex, has designed a sweet logo for me! So excited to get this thing rolling!

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! We have lots to be thankful for, all the time.

gratitude list

On this eve of Thanksgiving, I feel like rattling off some things I'm thankful for. I like to keep gratitude lists going all the time and remind myself daily just how good I have it, but it seems extra important to voice those things on Thanksgiving. So here is a short list of things I'm thankful for, in no particular order:

my health
finding true love
a beautiful son
this little baby in my belly, who is kicking me extra hard right now
real friends
laughter
music
the right to speak my mind freely, and to believe whatever I want to believe without fear
this wonderful city, Winston-Salem, NC
memories of beautiful days at the ocean
the smell of the cranberry bread baking in my kitchen
a car that gets me from here to there
having a place to sleep at night
strangers who smile as we pass each other
thrift stores
books
growth

I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving, and are surrounded by love.

the young and the toothless

It's official, folks. Julian lost his first tooth today (and has also mastered the art of taking pictures with crazy eyes, apparently):

It's been very loose for a while now, and when he jumped in the car today after school, he was eating a snack and telling me how he couldn't really eat it earlier because his tooth was too loose and he didn't want to hurt it with crunchy food. A couple bites into the snack, and the tooth popped right out. So we drove home with his tooth in the cupholder of the car.

I honestly wasn't expecting him to lose it for at least another few days, so I wasn't prepared with a tooth fairy pouch. When we got home, Julian picked out a little scrap of fabric from my collection, and I whipped together a pouch really quickly. He's in bed right now, and the tooth pouch is under his pillow. I heard the tooth fairy brings a little more cash than normal for the very first tooth. Like five bucks, I've heard. Except for rich people, who I've heard get crazy amounts of cash, like fifty dollar bills. How can I get in touch with the rich peoples tooth fairy?

In crafty endeavors, I made another onesie:

Hilarious, no? If you are Australian and deeply offended by this, then...you clearly have an easy life and need to find other things to do with your time.

new onesies

In the evening after Julian goes to bed, Wade and I like to sit around and eat snackies and watch television. Most of the awesome shows have been interrupted because of sports though (Glee, Bones, Fringe, the list goes on...damn you, sports). The only thing that seems to still be aired is reality dance television, and I simply cannot handle that crap. So Wade and I have been watching dvds of Arrested Development. And during my tv watching time, I like to be doing something. Just sitting while I watch tv seems like a huge waste of time to me, probably because I'm kind of fidgety anyway.

Here are some new onesies for Nutella Butterfinger that I've made lately:



These were crazy easy to make. I simply pulled images of the band logos from teh internetz into Word and printed them onto freezer paper (the paper side, not the waxy side), then cut them out. Then I ironed them onto the shirts and painted. The same goes for the last one, except I just typed it into Word instead of getting a pre-existing logo. Ridiculously time consuming, but not at all difficult. And hopefully I don't get slapped with some huge lawsuit for ripping off band logos and copyrighted phrases.

Oh my my, oh hell yes

You got to put on that party dress:

There it is. The Nutella house in all of its 24 week girth.

You know those women who say, "I felt most beautiful when I was pregnant"? Yeah. I don't understand them. I wish I felt that way, but instead I feel rather fat and am only able to focus my eye on how rather large my upper arm has gotten since I've stopped working out and started napping large chunks of the day away. I realize how absurd this sounds. Of course I'm going to gain weight in pregnancy, and I know it's not like I'm obese or anything. But jeez. I feel like my body has been hijacked and I want it back.

Don't get me wrong, I actually do enjoy being pregnant. It's amazing to me and this is the last time I'm ever planning on doing it, so I'm enjoying the changes. Every time Nutella kicks, it blows my mind that there is a person growing in my belly. And I really don't have much to complain about. This pregnancy has been far easier on me than the last one. I'm attributing all the good feelings this time to being gluten-free. I was so sick and fat and achy the entire time with Julian, because I had no idea that everything I was eating was poisoning me. I've said it before, but it really is a miracle that Julian was even born, considering all the damage gluten was doing to me. Even more of a miracle that he ended up being a genius wonderboy.



Julian was kissing my belly here, and half a second later, Nutella kicked him right in the face. He thought it was hilarious. What I found hilarious was his outfit, which he put together on his own. He kind of looks like one of the Blues Brothers, even though he has no idea who they are. You can't really see because that giant puffy coat obscures it, but he's wearing a grey sport coat to complete the look of badassness.

Speaking of Julian, we decided a little over a week ago to make his diet strictly gluten-free. At home, we eat no gluten. It doesn't even enter the house, except for a beer once in a while that Wade has. But I've been kind of lax about letting him get pizza at school, or a donut out with dad. We had him tested for celiac when he was small (a blood test, not endoscopy), but it was negative. I still understood that it was something I would need to keep an eye on though, because I didn't start showing really bad symptoms until adulthood. Lately, he's been getting little rashes around his mouth, just like I used to get when I was eating gluten. And he's always had really bad milia on his nose. Just within this short time of being strictly gluten-free, his rash has cleared up, and the skin on his nose is getting clearer.

This shows me that I really need to be diligent with his diet, and make an extra effort to perfect things like pizza and donuts for him since he has to miss out on all the fun foods that other kids get to eat. He went to a birthday party yesterday, and I made cupcakes so he could bring one and not feel left out. I really think that being gluten-free doesn't mean having to miss out on the good foods - it just means having to make little changes, but still getting to enjoy all the things I liked before. Having to adhere to a strict diet must be extra hard for little kids, and that's one of the biggest reasons I'm starting the bakery. It's enough work as an adult to have to make all your own gluten-free goodies, but so hard for little kids who don't get to enjoy things that other kids do.

onesies and errol

I've got the fever. The freezer paper stencil fever. And right now, I want to stencil a crazy bunch of onesies because I've determined that my baby will be wearing cool clothes. Have you seen most baby clothes? They're ridiculous. Girls really do have much better clothes choices than boys, but I still tire of the nonstop bombardment of pink. Why do baby clothes have to be so color specific for gender? It's like our culture starts right away with the brainwashing idea that boys wear one color, and girls wear another. Sorry, I will stop this rant right now and move on.

So, my baby will be rocking some cool onesies that I've painted. Have I mentioned on here that we're calling her Nutella? Not her real name of course, but until we decide on a good real name, I think Nutella is a suitable nickname instead of "the baby" don't you? Much more personal. And besides, Nutella is effing delicious.


Here's a onesie I designed just for Nutella, but now that I see it, I really want one for myself. I just might make a shirt with this exact same image. One can never have enough bacon, or stop expressing the love for bacon. I probably don't need to mention it, but I will anyway: I am teh suck when it comes to taking pictures and having them look good. Apologies. The onesies don't look this crappy in real life.




This next onesie is for my nephew, who is due any day now. Again, most baby clothes are really stupid looking. Especially boys clothes. They all have sports, tools, or cars on them. I used to cringe when people would give me little outfits with footballs all over them for Julian. They probably had no idea how intensely I dislike sports. But still, they were free clothes so I was grateful for them, and Julian will have no memory of wearing ugly football stuff. This little outfit is for when the wee nephew is going in for a long day at the office. He needs to look professional, you know?



Finally, I'd like to mention something that has nothing at all to do with stenciled onesies, and is of much greater imoprtance. A sweet 3 year old boy we know, Errol, has a wide range of medical issues and physical challenges. He has a wonderful family, and is surrounded by loving people who take care of him and want to help as much as possible. Errol is the focus of an ad, Seeds of Love For America, and it is a finalist in the Organizing For America Health Reform Video Challenge. His video is here if you'd like to vote by November 3rd: Organizing For America.

Also, if you'd like to check out Errol's blog and see what a cool little dude he is, and how sweet his family is, go here: Errol Milner Clifford

when october goes

I wish I had a good reason for being so absent on here. Really, it's just that I'm kind of boring and hang out a lot at home because being pregnant makes me tired. I guess that's kind of a good reason - growing a person.

This past weekend we drove up to Pilot Mountain to get a good view of the fall colors while we still have some time. It seems like they come in so bright and vivid, and then they're gone. Already, there are maple trees that I've been admiring for their reddish purple color that have dropped all their leaves. We'll enjoy it while it's here.

Here are Wade and Julian doing their Uncle Rico poses:


And then in this one, I told Julian that I was going to take a picture of him while he was sitting on that little wall, and he suddenly got into this pose that looks like he's the sexy October firefighter for a calendar. What??


In terms of craftiness, I've been slowly doing little bits of projects here and there, but pregnant loafing around truly does take up an enormous amount of my time. But ever since we found out we're having a girl, I decided to go through all of Julian's old clothes we've been saving and get rid of them. Most of them went to some sweet boys we know who are younger, and I saved the super tiny baby clothes for a quilt that I'm going to make Julian. More specifically, My Very First Quilt Ever. I really have no idea what I'm doing, and I've decided to basically just start cutting up the clothes into squares and sew the cutest parts of his outfits together so he has a keepsake quilt from babyhood. Moms who are really on the ball get this sort of thing done right away. I am not that mom. Better late than never though, right? I'll keep you posted with pictures when I start making some progress.

I've also been doing lots of baking and have been doing all kinds of fall goodies: pumpkin bread, cranberry bread, and homemade pot pies. I made a lemon meringue pie from scratch recently, but I'm not much of a lemon meringue fan, so I really don't know if it turned out good or not. And even though it's totally not really the season, key lime pie is next. I always find it hilarious when people act sorry for me when they find out I'm gluten-free. I'm not missing out on anything, and it's forced me to become a much better baker and cook.

Pictures of crafts and baked goods to come! Love to all of you.