hey, baby.

 

this morning i woke up to the happiest baby ever.

he changes so much every day that each morning is like waking up to a new kid.

this morning he woke up cooing and "talking", kicking and pushing off of me, and smiling.

his favorite things right now, at 6 and a half weeks, are sleeping on his daddy, eating, and singing.

he loves music. 

and being naked.

(who doesn't?)

he also loves being carried over my shoulder so he can look around at everything.

he's becoming a pretty even tempered little guy.

he was so good at the shop with me last week.  

he really only fusses if he's hungry or has a gas bubble or is just about to fall asleep.

he doesn't like to go to sleep by himself, but he will.

yesterday he laid in his cradle and looked around happily while i vacuumed for about 20 minutes.

then he fell asleep in our bed while i was getting dressed.

he'll nap by himself in his swing or in the big chair with wooly bully, 

but at night he's still in bed with us.

(something billy and i said we'd never do, but we both love.)

 people always tell you that it goes by fast, but i had no idea.

i just want to push pause, because it is just flying by.

every moment is so precious, and we feel so lucky.

i think we'll have fifteen of them.

watch out, duggars! :)

what i wore.

blogging seems to be very trendy these days.
among these trendy bloggers are a whole slew of super cute stay at home moms.
their blogs are really artsy looking, they all have cool hair, and half of them write these blogs called "what i wore".

these "what i wore" blogs are very interesting to me.
what a "what i wore" blog consists of are lots of pictures of the cute stay at home mom poised in front of a fence, or a brick wall, or another super-poised backdrop, wearing a combination of trendy/vintage/bohemian clothing that they a) of course got a great deal on and b) look way cuter in it than 95% of the population ever would.  they also always list every brand and item they're wearing and it's always brands that are impossible to find or they're vintage or found by pure luck or one million dollars.

these blogs get me thinking lots of things.  normally my thought process goes something like this:
"wow, that outfit is super different and cute..."
"hmm, the one earring look... interesting... i don't think i could pull that off.  i don't even know if she can pull it off."
"why am i looking at this?"
"where is this girls baby?"
"what was this girl wearing before she randomly got dressed up on a monday afternoon and found a decorative fence to pose in front of?"
"why is this girl randomly getting dressed up on a monday afternoon and finding a decorative fence to pose in front of?"

it becomes somewhat baffling.
so i've thought about it, and i decided two things.
one thing is, i know it's important to still look cute once you have a baby and for people (and your husband) not to think you "let yourself go".  i get that.
but the second thing is, i think these blogs probably are more irritating than inspiring.
they're just so unrealistic!  i mean, clearly these girls don't walk around in these get-ups all day long.  i'm all for getting done up for dinner or whathaveyou, but looking like an urban outfitters catalogue model 24-7 when you have a six week old? it's not happening! these girls are false advertising.

so, i decided to post my own "what i wore" blog.
and whenever i find myself wearing something similarly realistic and simultaneously hilarious, i will post another.
not because i've let myself go (ehhh may have given myself a little lee-way...) but because it's real life.
and here it is.
monday, april 25th.

shirt- character hero

baby- finn

baby bjorn- amazon

washcloth to prevent baby's face from hitting my collarbone- macy's

shorts- target (dollar bin, what)

socks- champion

clogs- dansko

you can't handle the truth!

finn's first easter.

saturday night we headed down to maryland to celebrate easter with family.

finn wore his mr. rogers outfit for the drive. keepin' it real.

 

it was really fun to get all gussied up and take family pictures together after church!

aren't they just the most handsome?

mom didn't have her little patio tent set up yet, but that didn't stop us from enjoying the great weather!

dad just pulled out his redneck skillz and hooked up this here umbrella to keep the baby out of the sun.

nothin' but class on easter sunday, folks.

nothin' but class.

and in case you didn't think we were quite redneck enough, here's a picture of our dogs tied to trees in the yard.

yup.

moving on, 

finn got a really special easter basket from his grandma and grandpa, complete with the stuffed bunny that was in my first easter basket! 

so sweet!

it was a great little trip.  

i can't believe finn's first easter has already come and gone.  

time is really passing so quickly.  i don't like it!

today i have a zillion things to do, my house desperately needs to be cleaned and i have a zillion thank you notes to write.  but i decided it was more important to enjoy this beautiful day, so we went for a jog at our favorite park.  it was tucker's first time running with the stroller and he was a champ!

yep, that's a real picture from the trail we run on.  not from a magical fairytale that you dreamt about.

i know.

way better than vacuuming.

i hope you all had a blessed holiday weekend and get to enjoy this beautiful weather, too! 

bonk... and a very bad martini.

i've been trying to write a post on my six week (six weeks!?!) reflections on mamahood, but it's been a little hectic the past couple of days.

mandy was up visiting, which was awesome, so i actually got to bring little finner into work with me thursday and friday! he was such a good boy, and mandy is super woman and can baby wrangle and/or juggle crazy consignment customers... it was great to have her here.  i loved having her and finn at the shop with me. 

so anyway, in the interim of me working on my six week post, here's a little one to keep you entertained...

last night i was upstairs gathering some laundry and billy was downstairs making himself a martini with those little baby onions.  finn was out back smoking a cigarette.  just kidding, finn was in his swing.

i was upstairs for a little while when i heard a sheepish "babe? can you come down here? i bumped my head."
billy has baby brain worse than i do... i think he's walked into like seven walls in the past two weeks, so i didn't think much of it.
until i walked downstairs and saw a very green billy holding a very bloody paper towel up to a very sliced open head.  he apparently leaned down to stick finn's binky back in his mouth and ran right into the corner of the kitchen cabinet on his way back up.
he probably could have stood to have a few stitches, but he was so nauseous thinking about the cut in his head that he couldn't talk about going to the hospital.  if any of you know billy, you know he has a weak stomach for this kind of stuff.
so i gave him a bag of frozen peas to stick on his head.

i thought he was going to be okay, and then i noticed a weird scene on the countertop:

me: "babe, what happened to your martini?"
billy: "i thought it would be good with rootbeer in it."
me: "didn't you have cocktail onions in that martini?"
billy: "yes.....
................... my head hurts."

clearly putting rootbeer in your vodka martini is even greater cause for alarm then cranial bleeding.

but, the thought of going to the emergency room on a friday night with an infant kind of skeeved both of us out, so i just chased billy around with a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a tube of neosporin until he finally gave up and let me play doctor.

he woke me up in the middle of the night and pointed to a spot of dried blood the size of a penny on his pillowcase (that i had covered with an old t-shirt) and said "babe, i'm still losing a lot of blood."

that's when i knew there was nothing more to worry about.

cloth diapers- not just for hippies and mennonites.

although billy has called me both of those in the past.
a hippie when i was vegan - he said i smelled like hummus all the time,
and a mennonite when he discovered pictures of how mom dressed me in elementary school.
let's just say she went through a handmadedresseswithruffledcollars phase.

alas, i am neither a hippie nor a mennonite.
i drive an suv, am addicted to spray-tan-in-a-can, and spend far too much time lusting after expensive shoes.
but billy and i don't do everything mainstream.
we try to think things through and be responsible when it comes to our carbon footprint.
we try to buy and eat local foods, we try to reuse and recycle, we try and make it through every summer without air conditioning (we normally only stick a window unit in our bedroom for august), and we try to only shower once a month to conserve water.

that last one was a joke, kids.

so when it came to diapering little finner, we decided to skip the paper route and use cloth.  and we've been super happy with our decision.

we have used cloth diapers from the beginning, so we never really thought twice about it...  until a couple of weeks ago when we went down to north carolina for the weekend and decided to use seventh generation chlorine-free disposable diapers for the trip.  (we didn't think our friends would be too keen on us using their washing machine for our little dude's little doodies.)
we went through a 40 pack of diapers over the weekend!!!
WHAT!
we filled up a trashcan full of diapers and we were both like "woah. that's a lot of garbage."
expensive garbage.
and then we were both like "wow, i'm really glad we're using cloth."

now, let me just say, cloth diapering nowadays is not the cloth diapering that your grandma knows about.
billy was actually cloth diapered the old fashioned way as a baby (his mom had a serious hippie phase... i think i recall hearing a story of tripp being sent sugar cereal by relatives as christmas gifts because they only had steel cut oats at home or something... i digress) ahhem, but cloth diapering these days involves a lot of options.  if you're like me, the idea of pinning a square piece of cloth on a baby butt and covering it up with rubber pants sounds really scary.  so i went for the easiest cloth diapers possible. 

for me, those diapers came from the geniuses at bumgenius, a cloth diaper brand that appeals to lazy people like me.  the newborn sized cloth diapers we used for finn literally look and feel like regular disposable diapers, and you put them on exactly the same way. finn recently just outgrew these, and is now in his one-size diapers, that fit him now and have snaps to adjust them so they will fit all the way through his potty training years.

here finn is modeling his new underoos:

they are super cute on him.
(and let me tell you, these cloth diapers outlast disposables when it comes to leaks.
they are awesome at containing the ewwie stuff.)

we are really happy with our decision to use cloth.  and since the diapers are so cute and colorful, finn doesn't look like a hippie or a mennonite in them.  he just looks adorable!
and it's a good thing, because he probably won't be wearing much more than a diaper once the july heat kicks in! ;)
in short, cloth diapers are not scary, they are surprisingly easy, and if you have a little one i would highly recommend giving them a try.

if you are interested in knowing more about using cloth, here's a great link.
my friend t also has a great blog and recently wrote a little q&a about her experience with cloth (she's a little braver than i am).  check it out!

tuck finn?

i know now how much effort every parent puts into naming their child.

you try to go through every nickname possibility and make sure nothing embarrassing could ever be derived from your baby's name.

i particularly love the story one friend told me about finally deciding on the strong name "max" for her son, only for him to be called maxi pad in middle school.  good thing max was too cool to mind.

we tried to run the gauntlet with finn's name to make sure it couldn't be turned into anything embarrassing.  then, the first day we brought him home from the hospital, his uncle chris came to visit and said:

"have you ever thought about his name? finn wilde? f-inn wilde? effin' wilde?"

no.

no we had not. thought of that particular possibility.

but we have since decided that finn will probably be very popular in college.

this, however, is not the worst name conundrum i have come across.
the problem lies in the name of our dear dog, tucker.  whom we lovingly refer to as "tuck".

now, every mother is guilty of accidentally calling her children by the family pet's name.  or vice versa.
there are many times (still) that mom will look at me and exclaim:
"tink! i mean honey! i mean bailey! i mean MEG!"
or i'll catch her yelling at the dog: "MANDY!"
no, no.

sometimes she can get confused and start to say tink (the chihuahua) but then catch herself and try to say meg, resulting in: "TEG!"
not so offensive, you might say.
common mistake, sure.

our dog's name is tuck.
our son's name is finn.
it's happened once before, but today was the worst.
i was holding our sweet son, thinking "finn!"
and opened the door to call for "tuck!"
.....
and screamed the F word at the neighbor.

the christmas tree shoppe.

i had never heard of the christmas tree shoppe before i moved to pennsylvania.
billy's mom freaked out when they opened one here because i guess they only used to have them in maine.  despite her enthusiasm, i never went... until last year on a whim after we bought the house, and ever since then i was hooked.

you can find the most randomly delightful things there!  like little cow coffee creamers and $2.99 antiqued curtain rods and kitchen chairs!  everything is so cheap and so fun.

this past sunday after our yardwork extravaganza i ran in with billy's mom while the menfolk were waiting for a table at the restaurant across the street.  the store was closing in ten minutes, but i still managed to snatch up these fabulous little curb-appeal-boosting beauties.

the perfect monogram doormat for $5

 

the classic pennsylvania outdoor metal star for $5

and a huge antiqued american flag for $5

i even found a lovely little chotchky for the inside of the house...

this little "primitives" wooden sign for only $1

i couldn't pass it up... i love alternating little decorations in our deep window sills.

fun little treasures!

thanks christmas tree shoppe!.... (i wonder why it's called that? the one thing i've never come across there is a christmas tree. odd.)

like a wagon wheel.

my daddy is a pretty talented and amazing guy... and lucky for us because his craftsmanship and attention to detail has really helped turn our house into a home.

but this post isn't about all of the work he's done on our house, nope, it's about his early years of awesomeness.  one year in particular, he happened to take a carpentry class in high school, and polished off this little gem:

a baby cradle.

and yes, you heard me correctly when i said he made it in HIGH SCHOOL.

he made it for my cousin, stephen, my dad's first nephew.

stephen slept in it, as well as many of my other cousins, and second cousins, myself and my sister, and now we have it for finn.  

he likes to rock in his cradle and sing the wagon wheel song (one of his cousin zach's favorites) :)

i should also mention that finn's super awesome talented grandma made the cradle bedding.

idn't he lucky to have such talented grandparents?

i love that we have something in our family that my daddy made with such care so long ago, that so many sweet cousins have slept in, and so many loved ones have leaned over to rock a precious baby.  i feel so lucky that finn is part of the tradition. 

thanks, grandpa! :)

landscapers to the rescue!

ever notice how i don't post ANY pictures of our yard?

we have a really nice property, that at one point i'm sure was very beautiful.
it can technically boast a swimming pool and tennis courts, but they are in such disrepair right now that it's best not to speak of them.
the property was very overgrown when we moved in, after years and years of neglect.
it really is a hard yard to keep up with, and we've been having a hard time getting our hands around it.

the winter did not treat our yard too kindly... all of the crazy snow and windstorms knocked down dozens of branches and trees and left our already injured yard looking like major ish.

billy and i have been trying to get out there a little bit every weekend, but there's not much that i can do with little finnster to tend to, and there's so much to do out there that billy can't put much of a dent in it on his own.

luckily, today we had some fabulous landscapers rescue us!

.... landscapers?
okay let's be honest, we can't really afford landscapers.
but billy's parents are the next best thing!
they surprised us today in their gardening gear complete with pickup truck and heavy machinery!
and thank goodness! cuz we really needed some major help.

billy and his dad (and tuck) worked out front clearing out overgrown stuff with the gravely.  the gravely is a crazy piece of machinery that basically magically makes overgrowth disappear.

while they were doing that, mumpeg and i (and finn) worked in the side yard clearing and burning.

 

ok honestly, mumpeg did all of the work in the side yard.  finn and i were pretty useless.  

especially finn:

there is still SO MUCH to do out there.  but it was so nice to have eager help, and they really did put a big dent in everything today.  it was encouraging to at least get it started!

billy also found this super phenomenal stop sign/amazing piece of hippie art in the yard.

pretty great, huh?

it also helped remind me that there are worse things than having a messy lawn.

and even though i don't have trimmed hedges and a white picket fence, i do have an amazing family. with a whole lotta elbow grease and a whole lotta love.
and our yard, much like our home, and ourselves, is a wonderful work in progress.

sometimes on rainy days...

the best thing to do is read stories naked on your changing table.

and then snuggle a little...

painters block.

for months and months i've been wanting to paint the back of the mantle on our dining room fireplace.

and hang that picture.

as you know, the walls in our dining room and great room are dark wood.
billy refuses to let me paint them, because it's actually really nice, thick, hundreds of years old wood, not like cheap 70's wood paneling.
so i've been making do by painting little things like our doors to make the rooms brighter and more multi-dimensional.

the back of the mantle in the dining room sticks out from the rest of the wall about two inches, but it's impossible to see the depth since it's all just the same dark wood.  i think painting it will really help the room look bigger, brighter, and make that wall and fireplace look more interesting.

the problem is, i can't decide on what color to paint it.
i've had these paint samples laying in the dining room for.ev.er.

i was originally thinking of doing a warm golden tone.
but i haven't been able to commit because
1) the picture on the mantle is a warm golden tone, and i feel like it might get lost up against the same color, and
2) there are a lot of warm golden tones going on in the dining room already.
like the rug, the curtains...

 

i know i don't want to paint it the antique white of the table legs... i think that would be too much.

and i haven't completely ruled out one of the more golden paint colors...

but lately i've been wondering if i shouldn't use one of the cooler colors in the stone of the fireplace... like a gray or a taupey color instead.

should i go for a gray tone like the stones, even though there isn't any gray in the room?
or maybe something more taupey like the mortar inbetween the stones?
help me!
seriously, i have painters block.  i will take any and all opinions/ advice.

on another painting note, i was recently inspired by this picture:

 

don't you think our stairs would look better with a little paint? (they used to have really disgusting pea green carpeting on them, so they're looking pretty rough still)

but again, the color...

bring on the comments, please!

the church of the holy coffee cup.

willie and i haven't made it to church since little finner has been born.
we love our church, and it was right around the corner from our barn when were living at macleod's.
but now it's a little bit of a hike.

luckily, it is not a hike to get to the coffee cup.
our favorite diner just a couple of miles from the crib.
today we decided, it being finn's one month birthday and all, that we'd go get ourselves some breakfast.

 the coffee cup is one of those great classic diners that only serves the basics, is dirt cheap, and after you eat there you smell like bacon grease for the rest of the day.  seriously. it gets in your pores.
worth it.

finn has eaten at the coffee cup many, many times.  but today was his first day there on the outside.  it didn't seem to make much of a difference to him.  i didn't really think ahead, and he was dressed super gender-neutral, so lots of people told us how pretty our little girl was.  sorry, finny pie.

we love the coffee cup because they have coffee news, and billy is the coffee news trivia master.  and we like to look for the coffee news man.  billy always finds him first, but today i did! win.

the coffee cup is also the only place i've come across in pennsylvania that has texas pete as their house hot sauce instead of tabasco.  this is huge.

we always get the same thing when we go for breakfast, so we never look at the menu.  but we do appreciate its very cutting-edge homemade clipart graphics and lamination.

it was a lovely breakfast, and finn was very well behaved.  here he is showing off his "fake smile".

this week, the church of the holy coffee cup was a success.  next week, we're going to make it to real church!  (although it's hard to convince billy that there's anything holier than a belly full of scrapple and an afternoon with the masters) ;)