the christmas mantle.

one of the most exciting things to me about christmas this year is our plethora of (albeit deemed unsafe) fireplaces, and the mantles that adorn them.  finally i can hang my stockings by the chimney with care!

but they have to be the perfect stockings. and after weeks of searching and successfully pissing off an etsy seller whose stockings we didn't end up choosing, we settled on these beauties from pottery barn:

gasp! they're perfect.

they only came in three styles, which is poopy, but i figured we've got the important people covered (billy, me, and the fetus... sorry tuck).  and i'm planning on stalking pottery barn's after christmas sales to maybe score duplicate styles on clearance to ensure any future bambinos (fine, and you too, tuck) have matching stockings as well.  yes i'm thinking that far ahead. yes matching is that important.  yay! christmas!

how cute are these?!

i found these chalkboard placemats in real simple's email on ways to "dress up" your table.  i don't know how dressed up this table looks, but umm...
chalkboard placemats=acceptable coloring pages for grown ups=i'm in! 
how much fun is that?  here's the link:

http://www.realsimple.com/holidays-entertaining/entertaining/decorations/alternative-ways-dress-table-10000001124613/page2.html

childbirth classes part one- can i change my mind?

last night was our first childbirth class. 
predictably, billy was hilarious. 
unpredictably, i was totally freaked out.

i feel like i've kind of had this laissez-faire approach to childbirth because of my little stint as a CNA in labor and delivery, and from being steph's labor coach.  i've seen the videos before, been to the classes before, taken the labor and delivery tests before, heck i've seen it up close and personal a hundred times (okay more like twenty).  i've seen it with drugs, i've seen it without drugs, and i'm fully aware of what goes on.

but last night i think it hit me for the first time that it's actually going to happen to ME. 
all i could think was "oh no! not my vagina!"

billy took the videos surprisingly better then expected. 
the first video was an upscale version of an 80's powerpoint presentation on the stages of labor.  billy's description after the fact went something like this "there were cartoons, and then people talking, and then there were cartoons, and then people talking and then WHAM! RIGHT IN YOUR FACE! I HAD NO TIME TO PREPARE! IT WAS JUST THERE!" he recovered pretty quickly after that.  i think i covered my face through some of it.
the second video was a video of an actual birth at the birth center, and our instructor (who was great) introduced it saying "this is a video of trish.  i feel like i should introduce her because the video basically just starts with her completely naked pushing out a baby."  she hits play.  trish is indeed completely naked pushing out a baby.  i hear billy whisper behind me "hi trish..."

then we practiced some relaxed breathing.  it was really comfy sitting with billy behind me and his hands on my belly.  he took the relaxed breathing really seriously. like so seriously i thought he was going to fall asleep and start drooling on me.  i was laughing so hard i could hardly breathe at all. 

i'm hoping that in our next three classes i'll be able to stop being mortified and really focus on learning the relaxation techniques.  luckily i have a lot of prenatal yoga moves under my belt to refer to.  my favorite part of the class was definitely how awesome billy was though... i know he's going to be the best labor coach ever.  he really stepped it up.  oh, and there was this quote on the chalkboard through the whole class that i thought was really empowering:

"we have a secret in our culture, and it's not that birth is painful. it's that women are strong."

-laura stavoe harm

yes!

so the baby nursery is so not nursery like, and everyone always asks me what our "theme" is.

i don't know what the theme is, i mean there's a really cool vintage world map in there, and big bookshelves i scored off craigs list, and those awesome gustav klimt paintings i framed.  it looks really cool and old worldy. like a yummy vintage study. and that's what we were going for.  but i don't think yummy vintage study is widely accepted in the world of baby nursery themes.

we have plans to put heavy curtains in front of the bookcases and mom is going to make a matching crib bumper and skirt, but it's guaranteed to be a cool fabric i find at the outlet fabric store and not anything babyish.  and we're excited about that and we don't want babyish.  but i have run into a problem with one particular area.

crib mobiles.

i thought it would be cool to maybe make something, because the crib mobiles you see in the store are either super babyish (like  or part of a matchy matchy nursery set.  it's been hard to find anything that would work in our little guy's room.  and then i found this:

woodland creatures?! YES! YES!

the etsy artist custom makes them to order!  i think these little dudes would be perfect for our little dude.  and it's super gender neutral so we can use it over again for sure!

this is on baby's christmas list.  he told me.